Sermon Cloud

John Newton: A Life of Amazing Providences

Hebrews 13:7-8

Reformation Sunday 2009

Grace Fellowship Church

November 1, 2009

We often live our lives unaware of the great providences that our Lord allows.  Small things in our minds often are God’s ways of leading us in the right directions.  How many times have you left your house late on your way somewhere and came upon an accident?  Heaven will bear out many of the providences in our lives that we are utterly unaware of.  As Christians we should look at every event in our lives as God’s providential hand upon us guiding us every step of our journey.  Proverbs 3:5-6 says:

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

If you took thirty minutes to sit down and think over the decisions that you have had to make up to this point and you see the results that have come out of those decisions you will see God’s hand moving you along.  For you married adults, think about where you met your spouse.  How did God’s hand guide you to be at the right place at the right time to meet him or her?  How did God prepare your heart to find them more than just attractive but marriage worthy?  Men when you chose that job that brought you to this area so you could know these people and live in your neighborhood and come to this church and even hear this biographical sermon today all of that was not in your mind at all.  Our decisions, our choices in life will reap all kinds of events that you had no idea of. 

One day as you are an older person you will slow down enough to recount all of the divine providences that you have experienced in your life.  Let me share with you a great quote that I heard this weekend at the conference.  Dr. Joel Beeke quoted Puritan John Flavel about providence.  “Providence is like Hebrew.  It is best read backwards.”  And what we must as Christians who stand in the reformed stream of Christianity is take the long view of things in our lives and in our church.  What we do today and tomorrow and what we did yesterday will matter 100 or 200 or 500 years from now.  God will accomplish His purposes on this earth in His time and He will use His people as the means to that end.  What we must do is come to a realization and an appreciation for the divine providences in our lives.  God is at work. 

John Newton was a man who was aware of a great many providences in his life.  Big events and small events shaped John Newton into the man that God had ordained him to become.  Too many times we allow the pagan idea of luck to cloud our minds when it has been God’s hand at work to extend our lives for His purpose.  I am sure if I were to ask you to give examples of God’s hand in your life many of you could do just that. 

So why spend Reformation Sunday learning about John Newton?  Although he is not as well known as some of his contemporaries the man was influenced by great men of God and in turn God used him to influence a younger generation of great men of God.  As a young Christian, John Newton came under the influence of the company and the preaching of George Whitfield. He attended so many Whitfield sermons and was with him so much that people started calling him little Whitfield.  I want to rub shoulders with men like that.  And let me say a word about biographies.  Don’t waste your money or your time on biographies that you find on the shelf at your local Christian book store.  Find biographies of great men and women of the faith written by solid writers.  When you take the time to read Christian biographies, and you should do that, you want to soar with the eagles of our faith not buzz around with the gnats of modern Christianity that know very little of the faith and have only been successful on television or in the sports arena. 

I want to hear and read about people of the faith who risked life and limb and gave up fortunes and reputations for the Gospel’s sake and who took up their cross and followed the Lord Jesus.  I don’t want to hear about some spoiled pampered super wealthy athlete or modern mega church pastor who tells us about how hard it is to be a Christian in their field. They are wimps compared to the likes of Newton and Whitfield and Edwards and Calvin and Luther and the list goes on and on.  In my reading and I pray in your reading that you will want to rub shoulders with men and women of whom the world was not worthy.  I want to learn from Hebrews 11 kind of Christians, the redwoods of the faith, not the spiritual scrub oaks that occupy prominence in our day for the most part.   

George Whitfield influenced Newton.  In turn John Newton influenced William Cowper who wrote many hymns but probably the most famous is “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stain.”  If it were not for the providence of God in bringing William Cowper with all of his mental problems under the care and influence of John Newton we would not have that great hymn today.  Plus the work that he and Cowper did together is still an influence on us in our singing of hymns today. 

John Newton greatly influenced the modern missionary movement in England as well.  A couple of names you will not be familiar with and one you will be very familiar with met with Newton for breakfast regularly when Newton was old and they were very young.  One was William Jay who would become famous as pastor of a church for his evangelism.  He pastored that church for sixty two years.  Another name you will not be familiar with is Claudius Buchanan who went to India as a pioneering missionary.  But a name you will be very familiar with is the father of modern day missions who has a university named after him right here on the coast and that is William Carey. 

And of course his most famous person that he mentored was William Wilberforce.  It was through the work of William Wilberforce in the English House of Commons spurred on and supported by John Newton that the slave trade in England was abolished.  This spilled over to the United States later and slavery was abolished here. 

Newton wrote the most famous of all hymns in world history and it is the most recorded song in history and that is Amazing Grace.  It took the Gospel Music Association until 1982 to induct Newton into the Hall of Fame.  This song has been translated into many languages and will be sung millions of times this very day all over the world.  A personal story about Amazing Grace; in 1997 I was in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives in what is believed to be the Garden of Gethsemane.  There was a group of Asian Christians touring the site at the same time and guess what they were singing in their own language?  Amazing Grace.  I recognized it by the tune which by the way Newton did not give it.  

Probably the ancestors of some of the slaves that he personally delivered to the American Colonies applied that tune and the last verse to Newton’s hymn.  When you think about the spiritual irony and providence there it is overwhelming.  The people whom Newton helped enslave contributed greatly to the hymn that made Newton famous. 

Newton was a man with many warts.  He was not perfect he was like us, a sinner saved by God’s amazing grace.  When he wrote “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me” he owned those words.  They were his life’s testimony. 

John Newton was born July 24, 1725 and he died December 21, 1807 at the ripe old age of 82 when the average life span was 45 years.  The first six years of Newton’s life were foundational to the rest of his life.  His mother died when he was only six years old of tuberculosis.  Newton’s mother made an indelible mark on the life of her only son.  Tuberculosis in that day was more feared than cancer in our day.  It was a death sentence and usually the death was slow and painful.  Newton’s father was a sea captain and spent great deals of time away from home on months long sea journeys.  He was not affectionate with his son at all but cared deeply about him.  Newton could only speak in his father’s presence when spoken to and did not refer to him as father, dad, or daddy but simply as “Sir.” 

Newton’s mother knew that her time with her son was short and like Hannah in the Old Testament she dedicated him to the service of the Lord.  She and the boy spent lots of time in the Old Gravel Lane Meeting House under the expository preaching of Dr. David Jennings.  An occasional guest preacher was none other than the famous hymn writer Isaac Watts.  I want you to hear this, parents.  Newton and his mother would sit under hour long expositions of Scripture from Pastor Jennings week after week.  They were both trained up in Reformed Theology.  This preaching prepared Newton’s mother for an early entrance into Heaven and prepared Newton for a long life of service to the Lord Jesus Christ.  I get so tired of explaining to foolish adults that indeed small children can sit under hour long sermons and not only can they sit under them but they also benefit from them.  And these are Christians that I have to explain this to and often other pastors.  It’s like they really don’t believe that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ. But I believe it and so do you or those of you with small children whom you wrestle with some Sundays would have left and found a church with children’s church.

Newton’s mother taught him by age six the Westminster Shorter Catechism and Isaac Watts Catechism.  Instead of playing outside with the other boys in his neighborhood he spent time learning Scripture and hymns along with these catechisms. 

Folks, learning a catechism and hymns and memorizing Scripture will not save you.  Only God saves.  But it is definitely grist for the mill that will come back later in life when a Sovereign God orchestrates His divine providences to bring to faith His elect.  Newton’s mother died and that is when the life of the boy changed for the worse.

Mothers let me talk to you for a moment.  I know that sometimes you feel like you just have not done enough spiritually for your children. They don’t know enough Scripture and you don’t know enough Scripture and they don’t get the catechism right all the time and they can’t remember section one and you worry about them spiritually.  Some of you have health problems that limit your physical ability to disciple your children the way that you think they should be. Newton’s mother only had six years with her son and she was sick almost the entire time.  She did her best and she did what she could and she put her son into the hands of a loving sovereign God who will accomplish His purposes and plans on this earth.  So mothers and grandmothers, all you can do spiritually for your children is all you can do.  And God is good to make up for all our shortcomings.  Providence.  Dads, don’t just teach your children, be affectionate to them.  Hug them and kiss them and show them that you love them.  Even you big old stinky teenage boys.  Bear hug them and show them that you love them.  They need that right along side their spiritual instructions. 

His father was incapable of caring for young John so he sent him to boarding school.  By age 11 he was accompanying his father on ocean voyages and learning the ways of debauched sailors.  He was a quick study.  When he wrote how amazing grace had saved a wretch like him he was not using hyperbole. 

After five years of seafaring with his father, at age 16 Newton met Polly who would be the love of his life. What he did not know is that his mother and Polly’s mother had talked about the two marrying before Newton’s mother died.  Polly was 13 years old and had no interest in Newton at all it seemed.  But Newton was smitten with her.  Before John went to visit Polly’s family his father had secured a job for him in Jamaica where he would be trained to manage a sugar cane plantation.  But his hours long visit with Polly’s family became three weeks.  On purpose he missed the date that he was to sail from Liverpool to Jamaica.  How could he spend four or five years in Jamaica away from Polly?  With great disappointment John’s father was able to secure another job aboard a ship heading to sea.  It was on this ship that his father did not captain that John turned more fully to depravity and debauchery. 

At age 19 his father secured him a position on board a merchant ship and due to another extended visit with Polly’s family he missed that appointment.  He stayed and he would go on long walks around the town.  In the 1700’s the Royal Navy did not have recruiters like our Navy does today.  Instead they would find able bodied young men and press them into service.  It was like the draft only a little more informal.  On one of these walks at age 19 Newton walked up on a press gang who enlisted him in the service of the Royal Navy.  In 1744 England was in need of sailors since growing hostility with France seemed to be leading to war. 

Let me just run through the list of things that happened to Newton because of his sinfulness.  Because of his experience at sea Newton was made an officer in the Royal Navy.  But because of his stubbornness he deserted the Navy and was captured.  He could have been hanged but the Lord and the ship’s captain was merciful and his rank was reduced and he was given 96 lashes on his back.  He was such a miserable wretch on the ship that the captain exchanged him with another ship which happened to be a slave trading vessel.  As a result of this he ended up as a slave in Africa himself where he was almost starved to death and treated very badly.  His father was able to have him rescued by another captain of a merchant ship bound for West Africa who providentially spotted the smoke from a fire that Newton was near and came up looking for him.  Newton at first turned down the offer of rescue but the captain lied to him and told him he had inherited a substantial fortune back in England. 

Newton boarded the Greyhound and sailed for England with a dollar sign in one eye and Polly in the other.  The ship encountered a storm off the coast of Ireland and nearly sank.  Newton and the crew thought this was their end as they awoke to the vessel filling up with water. They were pumping water furiously but more water was coming in the broken vessel than came out.  Newton joked with another sailor that later they would look back on this and laugh.  The other sailor told him they would not laugh because the ship was going to sink.  Newton shocked himself by his reply.  Normally he would have cursed or blasphemed or made some sinful oath.  But his reply was for God to have mercy on him and the ship.  Newton saw this as the beginning of his conversion to Christ.  Newton marked May 10, 1748 as his turning point.  He started reading the Bible and other Christian literature and gave up much of his debauchery.  He continued on in the slave trade for several years before giving that up completely. 

Now before we come down too hard on John Newton for his time after conversion in the slave trade we must be aware of the day in which he lived.  The abolition movement had not started and often history makes us aware of men and women’s blind spots.  It was not until 1754 after three more voyages as a captain of a slave ship that he gave it up.  And it was a forced retirement then.

Newton was forced into retirement by the hand of providence.  He suffered what some have called a seizure or a severe stroke at the age of 29.  Because of this he could no longer captain any sailing vessel.  Because of his reputation on these slave ship voyages Newton was able to secure the job of surveyor of tides in Liverpool in 1755 which was a very lucrative job.  This afforded him much spare time.  He and Polly, the love of his life, had already been married over four years at this point.  In his spare time, after his seizure or stroke, Newton studied Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac and became a well known lay minister in Liverpool. 

In 1757 John Newton applied for ordination in the Church of England and was flatly turned down.  Although he had no formal education he could easily pass the ordination exam because of his personal studies and his proficiency in the biblical languages.  During this time Newton really struggled with the direction of his life. 

Let me place Newton in his time for you.  I told you earlier that Newton came under the influence of George Whitfield.  He also was influenced by the writings of John Wesley who was the founder of Methodism.  The Methodist churches of today are the descendants of John and Charles Wesley.  To be a Methodist today is far different than it was to be a Methodist in Newton’s day.  Methodism came out of the Church of England. What made a person a Methodist was their zeal in preaching the Gospel.  A passionate style of preaching the Gospel marked Methodism in its early stages.  Today Methodism is marked out by its liberalism.  But so is much of the Church of England.  You had two different strands of Methodism.  There were the Arminian Methodists like John and Charles Wesley that became the Methodist churches in America.  Then you had the Calvinistic Methodists that came from the line of George Whitfield.  To give you some context Martin Lloyd Jones was a Calvinistic Methodist. 

Let me say a word here about the difference between Arminianism and Calvinism.  If you study church history what you will find is that almost without exception, those who held to Arminianism or even a form of Pelagianism that focused on the free will of man their descendents usually ended up as liberals and often blatant heretics.  One example from the 1700’s and 1800’s were the Baptist churches in England.  You had General Baptists who believed in man’s ability to accept the Gospel by an act of his or her own will.  And you had the Particular Baptists who were Calvinistic and held to the sovereignty of God in the salvation of men.  By the 1800’s many of the General Baptists had gone off into terrible heretical teachings and no longer believed the Bible nor the Gospel.  The Particular Baptists were still holding the torch for the Gospel and for the Bible and from that seed bed sprang Charles Spurgeon and many other faithful evangelistic Calvinists whom God used greatly.  The doctrines of grace will center a pastor and a church and will keep them all focused on Scripture and the God of Scripture.  It is what 1 Timothy 4:10 says.

10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

John Newton came from the more Calvinistic Methodism.  He was by his own admission a five point Calvinist.  But he had a dilemma.  After he submitted himself for ordination he received many offers to pastor dissenting chapels.  He would preach in these places and people would flock to hear the slave trader turned evangelical preacher.  But after much prayer and providence Newton turned down offer after offer because he believed that his calling was to the established church. 

His passion for the Gospel and his familiarity with Methodism created a lot of problems for him in getting ordained.  But finally after seven long years of waiting, as a favor from Lord Dartmouth, which Dartmouth College here in the states is named after, Newton was ordained and sent as curate or pastor of the church at Olney.

What I would like to point out to you at this point is something that you should be constantly aware of as Newton was.  What we all need to be aware of is the providence of God in our lives.  And in our day we really need to get our theological caps on straight in this very important Christian doctrine.  Often we think of the great lives of Christian history and we get this romantic idea that all was good and easy for them.  That is just not true.  Martin Luther battled serious bouts of depression and other health problems just as Charles Spurgeon did.  John Calvin was not a healthy man and was kicked out of Geneva after he had been there just a short while. He was exiled from France because of his reformational views and left for fear of his life.  The lives of many great Christians have been marked by great suffering.  Missionaries have buried children and wives and labored with relatively few converts.  Many of these great men and women saw very little fruit in their lives and ministry but they persevered because they set their hope on the living God. 

Don’t be a prisoner of the false theology of the modern American church.  Not being healthy and not being wealthy is not a sign of God’s judgment.  It may be the sign that the glory of God in His hand of providence is resting on you.  Think about what you know of John Newton thus far. 

His mother died when he was six years old.  If she had lived he probably would have been a Scottish Presbyterian and no one would have ever heard his name outside of the places that he pastored. But the Lord took his mother from him because God had bigger plans.  God allowed Newton to live in debauchery so long that he became sick of it and through the hand of God in a storm at sea Newton was rescued from the kingdom of darkness and transferred into the Kingdom of God’s Son.  God allowed Newton to come face to face with what was one of the most horrid professions of his day and all of his life he could not stop smelling the stench of dead slaves aboard these vessels.  He would awake at night because in his dreams he could hear the screams and cries of Africans in chains aboard the slave ships.  He saw the mistreatment first hand so he would learn to hate this horrible atrocity. 

Let’s think about God’s providence.  I think there are people right now who God is allowing to work in abortion clinics who will some day soon be called out of those places at the right time to end the greatest atrocity of our day.  That is why we don’t just blow up abortion clinics and kill abortion doctors.  God is at work and when you stop believing that God’s ways are higher than our ways then you will take up your own weapons to try to end something that God can end when He decides to do it.  And when He does it will be glorious.    

What about Newton’s health?  God let him have a health scare that was either a stroke or a seizure that ended his slave trading career.  Christians in our day are so upside down theologically that they would have said that Newton was not living right is why he got so sick so young.  Polly, his wife, was a sickly woman.  They never had children of their own.  She spent lots of her life ill and preceded Newton in death. 

And then Newton went through a period of about two years of being unemployed.  Most of us would cry out to heaven and ask why God had forsaken us.  Newton had the right view.  He knew that he served a sovereign and good God and that all things were working out for his good and God’s glory. 

Let me tell you what a right understanding of the providence of God will give you.  It will give you great patience. You will not be easily moved.  When something happens in your life that the world would consider a curse or the modern church would consider a sign of God’s disfavor or your lack of faith you will know that God has done this for your good and His glory. 

Why is one of your children more stubborn and self willed than the others?  Why do you suffer from health problems?  Why does a person at work get the promotion over you when they don’t deserve it?  Why does your bank account always seem to be empty?  Why do you battle depression and anxiety? 

Let me give you two things that God’s providence will do for us.  It will teach us to trust in God.  Job said in Job 13:15, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”  His providences are always good but sometimes we see them as bad and difficult.  What of those difficult providences?  What do they do for us?  They teach us to long for Heaven.  Paul said in Philippians 1:21 “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” 

But for some reason as Christians we still view death as the enemy.  When it is the gait through which we walk into eternal glory in the presence of Christ for eternity.  Now we see through a glass dimly but there we will behold Him who died for us.  Paul said in verse 23 of that same chapter, ²³ For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:

Second, God’s providences prepare us for service and prepare us for Heaven.  Don’t be a prisoner of the century in which we live.  Don’t let the modern misconception of health and wealth rob you of the joy of living under good and difficult providences. 

God opened the door for Newton to pastor and he spent 16 years as pastor at Olney.  Difficult providences had softened this rough man of the sea into a caring and loving pastor.  He had no children of his own but cared deeply for the children of his community.  He cared deeply for the congregation and visited with them regularly.  He introduced hymn singing in the congregational life and even wrote many hymns in the process. While he was at Olney the poet and hymn writer William Cowper moved there to sit under the ministry of John Newton.  Newton was becoming a very well known evangelical Anglican minister. 

William Cowper was plagued by mental problems and spent several years in an insane asylum.   He would go down into the deep darkness of depression and once he even tried to take his own life.  It was through the loving care of Newton and his challenge to Cowper to write one hymn per week each.  It was in that time that Newton wrote Amazing Grace.  Cowper was a much better poet than Newton.  From Cowper’s pen at Olney under the care of Newton we get these words.

GOD moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

And:

There is a fountain fill'd with blood
Drawn from EMMANUEL's veins;
And sinners, plung'd beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.

Cowper’s mental illness would get so bad that at times he would have to live with John and Polly.  And even though Polly was ill they opened their home to many people over the 16 years they were in Olney before the hand of Providence would move them again.  Because of Newton’s reputation he received offers from all over to go and pastor larger congregations.  But he simply would pray about them and when he thought he knew that the Lord was saying no he would decline them. 

Let me give you a story that shows how providence shaped Newton.  It had softened him not in a bad way but in a tender way.  There was another Anglican pastor nearby who was a liberal.  He would not even visit the sick among his congregation.  So Newton visited them and ministered to them.  He spoke with the pastor and before long Newton had converted him to evangelical Christianity and later he would succeed Newton at Olney when Providence would move this tender pastor to London where he would have his greatest influence.

When Newton was Curate of Olney he got to know the aunt of William Wilberforce.  He met a very young William Wilberforce who he got to know and Wilberforce had a deep love and respect for Newton.  At the tender age of 21 William Wilberforce was elected to the House of Commons.  Five years later he was converted to evangelical Christianity. He came under the influence of a group of slavery abolitionists and took up the fight.  The problem that he confronted was that his new found faith was beckoning him and he had an internal struggle as to whether or not he should pursue ordination in the Anglican Church and be a pastor.  So he went to Newton for counsel.   

Because Newton was in London and he had the reputation of being an evangelical minister and because Wilberforce was in Parliament he had a reputation to keep up.  Evangelicals had a bad name with people of status.  They were enthusiasts and to be acquainted with them could stain one’s reputation.  So Wilberforce went to see Newton.  He made sure the coast was clear before he knocked on the door.  He went in and had the meeting. 

I have thought much of this encounter.  Newton was age 64 at the time of the meeting and he had a lot of experience.  Most pastors would have encouraged Wilberforce to leave public life and pursue ministry.  But Newton was much wiser than that.  He told him that he believed that God was calling him to be a Christian statesman which as you know of politics is a practical impossibility. 

I want you to feel the ripple of that conversation.  Because Newton gave Wilberforce godly counsel and did not send him off for ordination too quickly the slave trade was ended in England in 1807 and then finally completely abolished just three days before Wilberforce’s death in 1833.  And in the United States slavery ended in 1865.  But that providential meeting between Newton and Wilberforce was the stone in the still pond that still ripples today.  The hand of Providence in the life of Newton in regards to Wilberforce was amazing. 

Newton would take up the cause of the abolition of the slave trade with word, deed, and pen.  He wrote a pamphlet on the evils of the slave trade and was even called to testify before the parliament about the atrocities that happened aboard these ships.  He would encourage Wilberforce to keep up the fight even after rejection and failure and not having enough votes.  They kept working and kept fighting because I believe both of them understood that the sovereign and providential hand of God had raised both of them up to wage war against the slave trade.

Newton went so far to say to the government that the American War for Independence was God judging England for the atrocities of the slave trade.  Newton lived just 8 months after the slave trade was abolished in March of 1807.  That did not end slavery but was the key that turned the lock that would end slavery in England and America. 

Newton became feeble and could no longer perform his pastoral duties in London. One of his nieces that he and Polly adopted cared for him until his death December 21, 1807.  Newton was faithful to the Lord from his conversion until the moment that he was carried into the presence of the Lord.  Six years before his death Newton wrote these words.

“What is death to a believer in Jesus! It is simply a ceasing to breathe.  If we personify it, we may welcome it as a messenger sent to tell us that the days of our mourning are ended and to open to us the gate of everlasting life.  The harbingers of death, sickness, pain, and conflicts are frequently formidable to the flesh, but death itself is nothing else but deliverance from them all.” 

He wrote in his diary as he approached his last days these words. 

“Oh, for grace to meet the approach of death with a humble, thankful, resigned spirit becoming my profession.  That I may not stain my character by impatience, jealousy, or any hateful temper but may be prepared and permitted to depart in peace and hope and be enabled, if I can speak, to bear my testimony to Thy faithfulness and goodness with my last breath. Amen.”

William Jay, the evangelistic pastor that Newton mentored, recorded this scene from Newton’s deathbed.  “I saw Mr. Newton near the closing scene.  He was hardly able to talk; and all I find I had noted down upon my leaving him was this:  “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior.” 

On December 23, 1807 the London Times under the headline “DIED” wrote this about Newton.

“At his house in Coleman Street Buildings, aged 82, the Rev. John Newton, Rector of the United Parishes of St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary Woolchurch Haw of which parishes he had been rector for 28 years.  His unblemished life, his amiable character both as a man and as a minister and his able writings are too well known to need any comment.” 

Let’s pray.