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To
Everything There is a Season: . A Time to Weep, A Time to
Laugh.
Ecclesiastes 3
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Who Am I
Who Am I? ... I was born in
1725, and I died 1807.
The only godly influence in my life, as far back as I can remember, was
my mother, whom I had for only seven years. When she left my life
through death, I was virtually an orphan.
My father remarried, sent me to a strict military school, where the
severity of discipline almost broke my back. I couldn’t stand it any
longer, and I left in rebellion at the age of ten.
One year later, deciding that I would never enter formal education
again, I became a seaman apprentice, hoping somehow to step into my
father’s trade and learn at least the ability to skillfully navigate a
ship.
By and by, through a process of time, I slowly gave myself over to the
devil. And I determined that I would sin to my fill without restraint,
now that the righteous lamp of my life had gone out.
I did that until my days in the military service, where again
discipline worked hard against me, but I further rebelled. My spirit
would not break, and I became increasingly more and more a rebel.
Because of a number of things that I disagreed with in the military, I
finally deserted, only to be captured like a common criminal and beaten
publicly several times.
After enduring the punishment, I again fled. I entertained thoughts of
suicide on my way to Africa, deciding that would be the place I could
get farthest from anyone that knew me. And again I made a pact with the
devil to live for him.
Somehow, through a process of events, I got in touch with a Portuguese
slave trader, and I lived in his home. His wife, who was brimming with
hostility, took a lot out on me. She beat me, and I ate like a dog on
the floor of the home. If I refused to do that, she would whip me with
a lash.
I fled penniless, owning only the clothes on my back, to the shoreline
of Africa where I built a fire, hoping to attract a ship that was
passing by. The skipper thought that I had gold or slaves or ivory to
sell and was surprised because I was a skilled navigator. And it was
there that I virtually lived for a long period of time. It was a slave
ship.
I went through all sorts of narrow escapes with death only a
hairbreadth away on a number of occasions. One time I opened some
crates of rum and got everybody on the crew drunk. The skipper,
incensed with my actions, beat me, threw me down below, and I lived on
stale bread and sour vegetables for an unendurable amount of time.
He brought me above to beat me again, and I fell overboard. Because I
couldn’t swim, he harpooned me to get me back on the ship. And I lived
with the scar in my side, big enough for me to put my fist into, until
the day of my death.
On board, I was inflamed with fever. I was enraged with the
humiliation. A storm broke out, and I wound up again in the hold of the
ship, down among the pumps. To keep the ship afloat, I worked along as
a servant of the slaves.
There, bruised and confused, bleeding, diseased, I was the epitome of
the degenerate man. I remembered the words of my mother. I cried out to
God, the only way I knew, calling upon His grace and His mercy to
deliver me, and upon His son to save me.
The only glimmer of light I would find was in a crack in the ship in
the floor above me, and I looked up to it and screamed for help.
God heard me.
Thirty-one years passed, I married a childhood sweetheart. I entered
the ministry. In every place that I served, rooms had to be added to
the building to handle the crowds that came to hear the gospel that was
presented and the story of God’s grace in my life.
My tombstone above my head reads,
Born 1725. Died 1807.
A clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa,
was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, preserved,
restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he once
long labored to destroy.
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I decided before my death to put my life’s story in verse. And that
verse has become a hymn.
My name? John Newton.
The hymn? “Amazing Grace.”
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Return HOME from Who Am I
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