In His Name Devotionals
AMAZING GRACE
In His Name Devotionals
AMAZING GRACE
“Unto Him who loves us, and has loosed us from our sins in His own blood.” (Rev. 1:5)
An old windjammer tied up to Southampton, England. The young, silver-haired captain staggered down the gangplank, paused, looking back at his ship. Then he disappeared up the ancient cobblestone street.
Capt. John Newton was only 23 years old but he had been to sea ever since his mother died when he was 7. He had sailed with his sea-captain father; had done a trick in the British navy; deserted; been caught; put in irons and whipped in public. Defiant, he signed on the lowest of all craft—a slave ship. He hardly knew how to read, but he knew the sea and it wasn’t long until he walked the bridge as a master of his own slaver—a whip in one hand; a gun in the other.
John Newton wasn’t drunk that day in 1748 when he staggered down the plank, but he was sick—physically, spiritually and morally. Most of all he was sick of the slave business. On a long voyage from Brazil he encountered a vicious storm, threatening for days to send the ship to the bottom. To save the crew and ship, he ordered all slaves, in their chains, thrown overboard. The storm continued and, the dark-haired John Newton, sick at heart for his order, closed himself in his cabin, remaining there, reading his Bible, the rest of the voyage. At Southampton, when he finally showed himself, his hair had changed from dark to silver and he appeared older.
Not an Englishman in His Majesty’s Empire would have dreamed that Capt. John Newton would quit the sea, but as he paused for a last look at his ship, that was exactly what the young, hard-boiled skipper had in mind. After 16 years at sea, John Newton began preaching in Olney, England. He never gave up his sea garb and the last time he appeared in the pulpit he was dressed in his old captain’s uniform, now too small, a cane in one hand, a Bible in the other and he simply quoted the verses he had written in the little town of Olney.
“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.
Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that appear
The hour I first believed.
Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
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’ve first begun.”
