Sermon Tone Analysis

! John Newton: The Tough Roots of His Habitual Tenderness

2001 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors

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By John Piper January 30, 2001

 

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!!!! Introduction

John Newton was born July 24, 1725 in London to a godly mother and an irreligious, sea-faring father.

His mother died when he was six.

Left mainly to himself, Newton became a debauched sailor—a miserable outcast on the coast of West Africa for two years; a slave-trading sea-captain until an epileptic seizure ended his career; a well-paid "surveyor of tides" in Liverpool; a loved pastor of two congregations in Olney and London for 43 years; a devoted husband to Mary for 40 years until she died in 1790; a personal friend to William Wilberforce, Charles Simeon, Henry Martyn, William Carey, John Wesley, George Whitefield; and, finally, the author of the most famous hymn in the English language, Amazing Grace.[1]

He died on December 21, 1807 at the age of 82.

So why am I interested in this man?

Because one of my great desires is to see Christian pastors be as strong and durable as redwood trees, and as tender and fragrant as a field of clover—unshakably rugged in the "defense and confirmation" of the truth (Philippians 1:7), and relentlessly humble and patient and merciful in dealing with people.

Ever since I came to Bethlehem in 1980 this vision of ministry has beckoned me because, soon after I came, I read through Matthew and Mark and put in the margin of my Greek New Testament a "to" (for tough) and a "te" (for tender) beside all of Jesus' words and deeds that fit one category or the other.

What a mixture he was!

No one ever spoke like this man.

It seems to me that we are always falling off the horse on one side or the other in this matter of being tough and tender—wimping out on truth when we ought to be lion-hearted, or wrangling with anger when we ought to be weeping.

I know it's a risk to take up this topic and John Newton in a setting like this, where some of you need a good (tender!) kick in the pants to be more courageous, and others of you confuse courage with what William Cowper called "a furious and abusive zeal."[2]

Oh how rare are the pastors who speak with a tender heart and have a theological backbone of steel.

I dream of such pastors.

I would like to be one someday.

A pastor whose might in the truth is matched by his meekness.

Whose theological acumen is matched by his manifest contrition.

Whose heights of intellect are matched by his depths of humility.

Yes, and the other way around!

A pastor whose relational warmth is matched by his rigor of study, whose bent toward mercy is matched by the vigilance of his biblical discernment, and whose sense of humor is exceeded by the seriousness of his calling.

I dream of great defenders of true doctrine who are mainly known for the delight they have in God and the joy in God that they bring to the people of God—who enter controversy, when necessary, not because they love ideas and arguments, but because they love Christ and the church.

There's a picture of this in Acts 15.

Have you ever noticed the amazing unity of things here that we tend to tear apart?

A false doctrine arises in Antioch: some begin to teach, "Unless you are circumcised . . .

you cannot be saved" (v. 1).

Paul and Barnabas weigh in with what Luke calls a "not a little dissension and debate" (sta,sewj kai.

zhth,sewj ouvk ovli,ghj, v. 2).

So the church decides to send them off to Jerusalem to get the matter settled.

And amazingly, verse 3 says that on their way to the great debate they were "describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to all the brethren" (v.

3).

This is my vision: The great debaters on their way to a life-and-death show down of doctrinal controversy, so thrilled by the mercy and power of God in the gospel, that they are spreading joy everywhere they go.

Oh how many there are today who tell us that controversy only kills joy and ruins the church; and oh how many others there are who, on their way to the controversy, feel no joy and spread no joy in the preciousness of Christ and his salvation.

One of the aims of this conference since 1988 has been to say over and over again: it is possible and necessary to be as strong and rugged for truth as a redwood and as tender and fragrant for Christ as a field of clover.

So now, with the help of the life of John Newton, I want to say it again.

And make no mistake: our heroes have feet of clay.

There are no perfect pastors.

Newton himself warns us:

In my imagination, I sometimes fancy I could [create] a perfect minister.

I take the eloquence of –, the knowledge of –, the zeal of –, and the pastoral meekness, tenderness, and piety of –: Then, putting them all together into one man, I say to myself, "This would be a perfect minister."

Now there is One, who, if he chose to, could actually do this; but he never did it.

He has seen fit to do otherwise, and to divide these gifts to every man severally as he will.[3]

So neither we nor Newton will ever be all that we should be.

But oh how much more like the Great Shepherd we should long to be.

Newton had his strengths, and I want us to learn from them.

At times his strengths were his weakness, but that too will be instructive.

Our theme is "the tough roots of John Newton's habitual tenderness."

His great strength was "speaking the truth in love."

As you listen, listen for what you need, not for what the pastor across town needs.

On which side of the horse are you falling off?

I begin with a brief telling of his life, because for Newton, his life was the clearest testimony to the heart-breaking mercy of God he ever saw.

Even at the end of his life he is still marveling that he was saved and called to preach the gospel of grace.

From his last will and testament we read:

I commit my soul to my gracious God and Savior, who mercifully spared and preserved me, when I was an apostate, a blasphemer, and an infidel, and delivered me from the state of misery on the coast of Africa into which my obstinate wickedness had plunged me; and who has been pleased to admit me (though most unworthy) to preach his glorious gospel.[4]

This one of the deepest roots of his habitual tenderness.

He could not get over the wonder of his own rescue by sheer, triumphant grace.

!!!! Newton's Life

Newton's mother was a devout Congregationalist and taught her only child, John, the Westminster Catechism and the hymns of Isaac Watts.

But she died in 1732 when John was six, and his father's second wife had no spiritual interest.

Newton wrote in his Narrative that he was in school only two of all his growing-up years, from ages 8 to 10, at a boarding school in Stratford.

So he was mainly self-taught, and that remained true all his life.

He never had any formal theological education.

At the age of 11 he began to sail with his father and made five voyages to the Mediterranean until he was 18.

He wrote about their relationship: "I am persuaded he loved me, but he seemed not willing that I should know it.

I was with him in a state of fear and bondage.

His sternness . . .

broke and overawed my spirit."[5]

When he was 17 he met Mary Catlett and fell in love with her.

She was 13.

For the next seven years of traveling and misery he dreamed about her. "None of the scenes of misery and wickedness I afterwards experienced ever banished her a single hour together from my waking thoughts for the seven following years."[6]

They did eventually marry when he was 24 and were married for 40 years till she died in 1790.

His love for her was extraordinary before and after the marriage.

Three years after she died he published a collection of letters he had written to her on three voyages to Africa after they were married.

He was pressed into naval service against his will when he was 18 and sailed away bitterly on the Harwich as a midshipman.

His friend and biographer, Richard Cecil, says, "The companions he met with here completed the ruin of his principles."[7]

Of himself he wrote, "I was capable of anything; I had not the least fear of God before my eyes, nor (so far as I remember) the least sensibility of conscience. . . .

My love to [Mary] was now the only restraint I had left."[8]

On one of his visits home he deserted the ship and was caught, "confined two days in the guard-house; . . .

kept a while in irons . . .

publicly stripped and whipt, degraded from his office."[9]

When he was 20 years old he was put off his ship on some small islands just southeast of Sierra Leone, West Africa, and for about a year and a half he lived as a virtual slave in almost destitute circumstances.

The wife of his master despised him and treated him cruelly.

He wrote that even the African slaves would try to smuggle him food from their own slim rations.[10]

Later in life he marveled at the seemingly accidental way a ship put anchor on his island after seeing some smoke, and just happened to be the ship with a captain who know Newton's father and managed to free him from his bondage.[11]

That was February, 1747.

He was not quite 21, and God was about to close in.

The ship had business on the seas for over a year.

Then on March 21, 1748, on his way home to England in the North Atlantic, God acted to rescue the "African blasphemer."[12]

On this day 57 years later, in 1805, when Newton was 80 years old, he wrote in his diary, "March 21, 1805.

Not well able to write.

But I endeavor to observe the return of this day with Humiliation, Prayer and Praise."[13]

He had marked the day as sacred and precious for over half a century.

He awoke in the night to a violent storm as his room began to fill with water.

As he ran for the deck, the captain stopped him and had him fetch a knife.

The man who went up in his place was immediately washed overboard.[14]

He was assigned to the pumps and heard himself say, "If this will not do, the Lord have mercy upon us."[15]

It was the first time he had expressed the need for mercy in many years.

He worked the pumps from three in the morning until noon, slept for an hour, and then took the helm and steered the ship till midnight.

At the wheel he had time to think back over his life and his spiritual condition.