Let me take you back in time some 250 years to the story of a young lad in England who was raised by a godly mother until she died when he was seven. The boy went to sea with his sailor father and as the years passed by he became hardened to life. So much so that he was widely known as a wicked slave trader, a notorious leacher, and a crude blasphemer. He despised Christians and loved to try to destroy the faith of sailors who came aboard his ships. But on one particular passage across the Atlantic, facing death from a particularly violent storm, he cried out to God for mercy even though he knew that he all people deserved no mercy; in the midst of the raging storm and his own crushing despair, the God whom he despised and defamed reached into his life and saved him from both depair and death. Freed from slavery to his own sin nature and encouraged by John and Charles Wesley, the new convert studied for the ministry and at the age of 39 he became an ordained clergyman.
Utterly ashamed of his wicked past as a slave trader, he counseled a boyhood friend, William Wilberforce, one of the very few Christians in the British Parliament at that time, to stay in office and work to stop slave trading in England. At that time, Wilberforce was about to get out of politics and make his fortune in business. The clergyman urged Wilberforce to follow Christ saying; "the Lord has raised you up for the good of the church and for the good of the nation."
William Wilberforce heeded the advice and for the next twenty years led the fight to outlaw slave trading in England. Wilberforce1s successful abolition movement soon spread to this side of the Atlantic where an even greater struggle ensued over the issue of slavery itself. It brought about a bloody civil war that ended slavery and changed America1s notion of human freedom and dignity forever. God, in His divine providence, used this man, William Wilberforce, in a mighty cause and revealed once again that the way of the cross is mightier that the way of the world.
In more recent times, God's hand was upon another Christian imprisoned in a Siberian slave camp. Sick, tired and depressed from the camp1s intolerable conditions, this man finally came to the end of his rope. He couldn't take it anymore. He was ready to give up. One day he dropped his shovel and sat down knowing that in doing so a camp guard would come over to him and shot him as a malingerer. It would all end swiftly with a bullet to his brain. As he sat there waiting head down, he saw the feet of an old man with a walking stick appear in front of him.
And with the stick, the old man drew the sign of the cross in the hard dirt in front of him. Because he had believed in that cross, he got up and went back to work, but never again would he see the old man. But this believer would go years later he would to tell the world about the horrors of the Soviet gulag and give hope and encouragement to millions of people under communist slavery. It was his books, his courage and his testimony to the truth that helped to awaken the world to the cry of freedom and justice in Russia and give hope to the Russian people that their cry would be heard. And indeed it has been in a truly remarkable and magnificent way.
God used the simple witness of an unknown old man to raise up Alexander Solzenitzyn as one of the twentieth century1s greatest writers and one of the great modern Christian prophets. Solzenitzyn, like Wilberforce, would help turn the world right side up and show that the way of the cross is mightier than the power and ways of the world.
What about that young lad in England - the wicked slave trader turned clergyman, who1s faithful witness helped changed William Wilberforce's life. Let me tell you the rest of that story.
It seems Wilberforce's clergyman friend couldn't find enough hymns for his church services. So he began to write his own, simple heartfelt hymns. And one of those he wrote told of the hour he first believed in Christ - a beloved and powerful hymn God has used to touch the hearts and transform the lives of millions around the world for over two hundred years - Amazing Grace.
Until his death at the age of 82, John Newton - that eleven year boy who went to sea - never ceased to marvel how God's grace that so completely changed from wicked slave trader and God hater to a humble, obedient servant of Jesus Christ. Newton once wrote, "My life was one of continual godlessness and profanity. I do not know that I ever met a man with a mouth more vile than my own...not only did I sin, but I got others to sin with me." God's amazing grace led him to godly sorrow over his sin, to repentance, to belief, to a transformed life and to a changed world. Shortly before his death, John Newton proclaimed, "My memory is nearly gone but I remember two things; that I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior."
The Bible teaches that all have sinned and fall short of God's perfect standard of holiness. Not only are we slaves to our fallen sin nature, we are unable to change our nature or cleanse ourselves from sin1s pollution of our lives. In fact, Scripture emphatically says we are spiritually dead in our sins - alienated, estranged from a Holy God. We are rebels in cosmic treason against His authority. Yet God does not abandon us to bear the just punishment our rebellion rightfully deserves. God made us right with Himself by sending His Son to live the righteous life of obedience for us and to hang on the cross to bear the full penalty for our sins.
God freely and lovingly chooses to bestow unmerited favor on those He saves. That is God1s grace - God1s Righteousness At Christ1s Expense. God offered Himself for us - standing in the dock to be utterly forsaken for us. We don1t deserve grace. We can not earn it. We can never repay it. It is God's love gift to us through faith in the atoning blood of Christ at Calvary. And in the life of Christ and in His cross God the Father is glorified.
God's grace not only saves but it transforms lives. When the Holy Spirit regenerates us, we are brought out of spiritual death to a new life in union with Christ. We are like Lazarus who Jesus cried out to, "Lazarus, come forth" and he like we are quickened by Christ1s effectual call. Because He calls our name and enables us to hear His voice, and only because of that, do we begin to desire God and the things of God. And for the first time, we also see with new eyes, spiritual eyes. God enables us to see Him as He really is. For the first time we truly seek after him, to know Him more deeply and to please him who we are in love with.
Bob Edens was blind - physically blind - for fifty one years. He lived in a world of total darkness, that is, until a skilled surgeon through a complicated operation restored his sight. Bob Eden1s new world overwhelmed him. Listen to his words: "I never would have dreamed yellow is so...yellow. I don1t have the words. I am amazed by yellow. But red is my favorite. I just can1t believe red. I can see the shape of the moon - and I like nothing better that seeing a jet plane flying across the sky leaving a vapor trail. And of course, the sunrise and sunsets. And at night I look at the stars in the sky and the flashing light. You could never know how wonderful everything is."
Our spiritual blindness - the darkness of sin - is like physical blindness. We live next to something a lifetime and never really know what it is like. Unless that spiritual blindness is taken away and we are graciously, sovereignly given new eyes to see by the Great Physician, our world too remains but a black cave. And we can not see, we can not know, we can not experience the glory, the wonder, the truth, the goodness and the beauty of the kingdom of God in our very midst.
Max Lucado, a gifted contemporary Christian writer, puts it this way: "Christianity, in its purest for, is nothing more than seeing Jesus. Christian service, in its purest form, is nothing more than imitating Him who we see. To see His majesty and to imitate Him, that is the sum of Christianity." Think about those who first saw our Risen Lord. They were never the same:
Those born of God see Him and are transformed by His grace. And as John Newton wrote: "I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see." And that my friends is why they call it amazing. To Him who rules and reigns and in whom we live and move and have our being, be glory and honor now and forevermore. Amen.