I’ve been learning about John Newton, the man who wrote “Amazing Grace.”
Perhaps you know John Newton’s story. He lived in England in the 1700s and as a young man made a living as an African slave trader. After his conversion, he became a pastor, prolific hymn writer, and best-selling author. He was also an articulate spokesman for the movement to abolish the slave trade in England, befriending and mentoring William Wilberforce. Newton’s life is truly a remarkable story of God’s amazing grace.
John Newton was also a gifted Bible teacher. He communicates God’s wisdom in the following excerpt from his autobiography:
“For us, however, there is a time coming when our spiritual warfare will be finished, our perspective enlarged, and our understanding increased. Then we will look back upon the experiences through which the Lord led us and be overwhelmed by adoration and love for Him! We will then see and acknowledge that mercy and goodness directed every step. We shall see that what we once mistakenly called afflictions and misfortune were in reality blessings without which we would not have grown in faith. Nothing happened to us without a reason. No problem came upon us sooner, pressed on us more heavily, or continued longer than our situation required. God, in divine grace and wisdom, used our many afflictions, each as needed, that we might ultimately possess an exceeding and eternal weight of glory, prepared by the Lord for His people.
“We very often fail to see our present circumstances in right perspective. Look back over the past, however, and compare what you have been through with your frame of mind during each successive period. Consider how wonderfully one thing has been connected with another so that what we now count as our greatest benefits are rooted in incidents that at the time seemed insignificant. We have sometimes escaped from grave dangers not by any wisdom or foresight of our own, but by the intervention of unforeseen circumstances. So both the revelation of Scripture and our own individual experiences confirm the wisdom and good providence of God. He watches over His people from the earliest moment of their lives. He overrules and guards them through all their blind wanderings and leads them in a way they know not. I am persuaded that every believer will see enough in his or her own life to confirm this, but not all in the same degree.”
This is one of the best descriptions of the sovereignty of God (“the good providence of God”) I have ever read.
Here we have the truth of 1 Corinthians 13:12 unpacked: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
And here we have the comforting words of Romans 8:28 explained in all their glory: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
Newton’s autobiography Out of the Depths is available here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001YQEZFK/
For a more detailed biography, I recommend:
John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace
by Jonathan Aitken
https://www.amazon.com/John-Newton-Foreword-Philip-Yancey-ebook/dp/B0017JWL6E
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