Great Christian Biographies with John Piper: John Newton 2

The next one is Henry Martin, the missionary. Henry Martin had an awful experience one day by going to Richard Cecil and asking for his counsel.

Cecil had heard him preach and criticized him for, quote, the insipid and inanimate manner in the pulpit.

Now this devastated Henry Martin, and so where did he go? He went to Newton and asked his help.

And Newton heard three reasons why

Martin should be discouraged, and he blocked every one of them with hope.

I'll skip the first and just mention the second two. This is a quote from Martin's journal.

On my saying that perhaps I should never live to see much fruit, he answered,

I should have the bird's -eye view of it, which would be much better. And when

I spoke of the opposition that I should be likely to meet with, he said, he supposed

Satan would not love me for what I was about to do. And then the old man prayed afterwards with sweet simplicity.

So you've got this Richard Cecil who just decimated the guy, and then you've got

Newton who got him to Persia. Don't you want to be one of those people who get your people to Persia?

I'd like half my people to go to Persia. And then there's

Thomas Scott. Some of you've heard of Thomas Scott. He wrote the book, Force of Truth. Thomas Scott was a liberal, almost

Sassanian, Newton said, parish minister, one parish over.

Just a rotten guy, didn't visit anybody when they were sick, didn't care for his people, preached liberal gibberish, and heard

Evangelical was in the local parish and just mocked his doctrine. And Newton, through a long series of experiences of doing some pastoral care for dying people in Scott's own parish, and then meeting with him and refusing to be controversial and loving this guy, and then writing him letters over a 10 -month period, broke him, changed him, won him, and he became the next

Evangelical pastor at Olney. Triumphed over his liberalism, his Sassanianism, through his remarkable, theologically acute, but loving, tender demeanor.

So those are some examples of persons. Now let me shift over to patterns of tenderness in the life of Newton.

I see a pattern of patience and perceptiveness.

Take those two words and give you a quote from where I'm getting those two words. Patient, he was a patient man and a perceptive man.

He wrote this. Apollos, talking about the man in Acts 19,

Apollos met with two candid people. He's talking there about Aquila and Priscilla.

Apollos met with two candid people in the church. They neither ran away because he was legal, nor were carried away because he was eloquent.

That's good. You see what he's saying there? He's talking about the way he wants to be and the way he wants us to be.

Don't run away from the error and ugliness in the heads, hearts, or bodies of the people you're meeting because it turns you off, and don't be swept away by all their power or beauty or whatever.

If the surface thing is repelling, don't be repelled.

And if the surface thing is attractive, don't be attracted. Be patient with the first, be penetrating and perceptive with the second.

That's the liberty of the pastoral tenderness and toughness. You're going to be tender and patient with what repels, and you're going to be tough and through -seeing with any kind of eloquence that might attract you for fleshly reasons.

So there was a patience and there was a perception in this man, and he wasn't overly impressed with anybody's gifts, and he wasn't driven away by their faults and their ugliness.

He said in another place, and this is really Puritan, vintage Puritan, beware my friend of mistaking the ready exercise of gifts for the exercise of grace.

The Puritans had a profound grasp of the difference between gifts and graces.

Gifts can be there without grace. Many of our people do not know that distinction exists.

They think if a guy can really preach, he must be godly. Not true.

Not true. Now maybe the most illuminating way to get at this man's pattern of tenderness is to talk about the way he handled his

Calvinism and his doctrine and controversies of his day and so on. This is something

I'm very, very interested in for us and for myself in particular. At this point, we're going to see the root bearing fruit in tenderness.

The root of truth bearing fruit in tenderness called love. I think his patience and his perception guided him between a doctrinaire intellectualism over here and a doctrinal indifference and carelessness over here.

So let's talk for a minute about his patience, tenderness as it relates to his doctrine.

Here's what he says first. A lot of people ask me. I've been here 20 years now, so I'm starting to feel old and people are starting to treat me that way.

And so I get asked a lot about what did you do at this point, at this point, at this point to get this, this, this.

He said, I have been 30 years forming my own views.

And in the course of this time, some of my hills have sunk and some of my valleys have risen.

But how unreasonable within me to expect all this should take place in another person and that in a course of a year or two.

I mean, some of you have been on your way theologically for 20, 30, 40 years, and you might have a thing or two figured out.

And you start preaching and teaching as though this class should have fixed the atonement for these people.

Predestination. We got this now. You've been to my classes and it took you 20 years to settle in on where you are.

So he's calling for us with tenderness and patience to realize that that's the case.

It's not going to happen for our people any faster than it did for us and for some slower.

Yes, he had a passion for propagating the truth, the whole reformed vision of God as he saw it.

But he did not believe controversy served the purpose.

Here's what he said. I see the unprofitableness of controversy in the case of Job and his friends.

For if God had not interposed, had they lived to this day, they would be still disputing.

So he labored to avoid controversy and replace it with positive demonstrations of truth.

Here's what he said. My principal method of defeating heresy is by the establishing of truth.

One proposes to fill a bushel with tears. Now, if I can fill it first with wheat,

I shall defy his attempts. Should ponder at that point.

We'll come back to that. See if that's adequate. He knew, given his

Calvinism, that the embrace of many glorious, precious truths required supernatural spiritual illumination from God on the inside.

And therefore, he made his approach patient and unobtrusive.

I am a friend of peace and being deeply convinced that no one can profitably understand the great truths and doctrines of the gospel any farther than he is taught of God.

I have not a wish to obtrude my own tenants upon others in a way of controversy.

Yet I do not think myself bound to conceal them. He said in the introduction of the old hymns, the views

I have received of the doctrines of grace, codenamed Calvinism, are essential to my peace.

I could not live comfortably a day or an hour without them. I likewise believe them to be friendly to holiness and to have a direct influence in producing and maintaining a gospel conversation.

And therefore, I must not be ashamed of them. But then he adds this.

The cause of truth itself may be discredited by an improper management.

The scripture which teaches us what we are to say is equally explicit in the temper and spirit in which we are to speak.

Though I had knowledge of all mysteries and the tongue of an angel to declare them,

I should, I could hope for little acceptance or usefulness unless I was to speak in love.

Listen to this. He says, amazing. Of all people who engage in controversy, we who are called

Calvinists are most expressly bound by our own principles to exercise gentleness and moderation.

The scriptural maxim, the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God, is verified daily in our observation.

If our zeal is embittered by expressions of anger, invective or scorn, we may think we are doing service to the cause of truth when in reality we shall only bring it into discredit.

He noticed one of the most Calvinistic texts in the New Testament calls for patient tenderness.

You know which one I'm thinking about? One of the most Calvinistic texts in the New Testament. It's 2

Timothy 22, 24 to 26. I'll read it. Notice what

Paul brings together here. Newton noticed it, had a huge impact on him. The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, forbearing, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

Then comes the Calvinistic part. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth and escape from the snare of the devil after having been captured by him to do his will.

I think David Powlison built his whole book on power encounters around that text.

I think very powerful text. God grants repentance. God brings people to know the truth.

So what's our part? Not quarrelsome, kindly to everyone, apt teacher, forbearing, correcting in gentleness.

There's the Calvinistic agenda. Isn't it amazing what he puts together there? Newton saw it.

Have you seen it? Do you do it? And given that Calvinistic truth, that God's the one who grants repentance.

God's the one who opens the eyes of the blind to see the truth. Prayer became utterly crucial for him.

Prayer is asking God to do what only God can do. Man can't do it. God has to do it. You preach to people on Sunday.

You're not going to change anybody in an evangelical, deep, heartfelt way. God's got to do that.

You have your role. It's described right there. But God's going to do it. So if you don't obey that thing in prayer, you're missing one of the great means of grace that God has appointed for you.

And this is what he said about prayer and controversy. He writes to a friend. As to your opponent,

I wish that before you set pen to paper against him. And during the whole time you are preparing your answer.

You may commend him by earnest prayer to the Lord's teaching and blessing.

This practice will have a direct tendency to conciliate your heart to love and pity him.

And such a disposition will have a good influence upon every page you write.

If he is a believer, in a little while you will meet him in heaven. He will then be dearer to you than the nearest friend you have on earth.

Anticipate that period in your thoughts. If he is an unconverted person, he's more properly the object of your compassion than your anger.

Alas, he knows not what he does. But you know who has made you to differ.

Namely, not you. You didn't make you to differ. 1 Corinthians 4, 7.

God made you to differ. So, how did he handle his

Calvinism? William J. was having tea with him one day.

And brought this up. And Newton said this. I am more a

Calvinist than anything else. But I use my Calvinism in my writings and my preaching as I use this sugar.

Taking the lump and putting it into his teacup and stirring it.

Added, I don't give it alone and whole, but mixed and diluted.

Now, I stumbled over that word diluted until I thought for a minute. I don't think diluted there means watered down.

In our negative connotation of watered down. You know what it means? Pervasive. In other words,

I don't do what John Piper does and have a weekend seminar on tulip. That's crazy, he says.

So, we should come back at the Q &A time to see whether that's crazy. But he never did such a crazy thing as have a course on tulip.

He stirred tulip into every sermon. Every child talk.

Every counseling. Every family devotion was the flavor of a supreme, glorious, sovereign

God. It made everything sweeter. And it's a good analogy because everybody likes what sugar does.

Nobody except a few six -year -olds eat spoonful of sugar. Or people trying to get rid of hiccups.

I only tried that once. And it didn't work. And so,

I thought it's not a good idea. The point is, and it's a right point.

Flavor everything you do with your most essential doctrinal radicals.

Don't isolate them out, hammer with them. Or stick them in people's mouths like, you know, sticks of clover.

Put clover in the teacup. Put the sugar in the teacup. Serve up tea.

Serve up the whole picture of life. Let people hear life coming from you.

And if you love the supremacy of God and it's flavoring everything you do.

I was talking with some of the brothers about this just last night or this morning.

Saying, how do you get a church so that the tide will rise? So that a milieu can be created in a church where people can embrace an explicit statement.

About election or predestination or irresistible grace or the perseverance of the saints.

Things that Newton said, all my peace is here. And yet, if you give it unpervasive, unattached to life.

It gags people. How do you do that? And then the answer is, you create in a church over 5, 10, 15 years.

An elevated view of the supremacy of God in all things. Is that banner up there?

We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples. Now, most people like that Armenian or Calvinist.

But if you do that long enough and present pervasive in us. What you're doing is creating a milieu.

In which doctrinal distinctives of Calvinism become more readily recognizable as precious and biblical.

If you start without lifting the tide of God -centeredness.

The exaltation of Christ. The saturation of scripture. Real life enjoyment of a supreme and great and holy and wonderful God.

Then, one fellow, I don't think he's here. Sent me a tape years and years ago from another conference that I was at.

Said, would you tell me what you think of this? This is my effort to help my people get on board with reformed theology.

And I listened to it and I just died. Listen to this thing. I just thought, man, get your head together.

Because the first half of the sermon was just the history of the controversy. Who cares, right?

These people don't give a rip about the history of the controversy. Their marriages are falling apart.

Their kids don't come home anymore. They're just, well, who cares about the 16th century, for goodness sakes.

And then he went into something else. And at the end, I think he mentioned a Bible verse. This is just not the way to do it.

And here, I'm very aware as I'm talking right now. Because of one of your brothers telling me about the situation you've just been through.

That John Piper is viewed because of something I wrote on this. As being one of the most devious people in evangelicalism today.

Because I teach pastors how to sneak Calvinism into churches. I went to the website where it lists those 13 suggestions of how to get people on board with Calvinism.

I read, oh, this is awful. I've got to fix this. And I read it and I thought, there's nothing devious about this at all.

It's on the webpage. And it says right up front what I think about everything.

And you say to people, this is what we want to do here. We want to move in a certain direction.

There's nothing to hide anywhere. I hope that's not too widespread.

Did he get it right? Did he get it right? Well, not everybody thinks so.

The balance of how you handle controversy. Here's William Plummer's criticism. The pious and amiable

John Newton made it a rule never to attack error or warn his people against it. He said, the best method of defeating heresy is by establishing truth.

One proposes to fill a bushel with tares. Now, if I can fill it with wheat first, I shall defeat his attempts.

Close quote. Still quoting Plummer now. Surely the truth ought to be abundantly set forth.

But this is not sufficient. The human mind is not like a bushel.

It may learn much truth and yet go after folly. The effect of Mr.

Newton's practice was unhappy. He was hardly dead till many of his people went far astray.

Paul says, preach the word. Be instant, in season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long -suffering and doctrine.

The more subtle, bitter and numerous the foes of the truth are, the more fearless and decided should its friends be.

The life of truth is more important than the life of any man or theories. End quote from Plummer. Plummer didn't think

Newton got it right. Bruce Hinmarsh, who wrote this first biography

I held up, he also thinks there were weakness in the evangelical revival and awakening of which

Newton was a very central and key part. And this was his quote.

While it is no disgrace that Newton was more a pastor than a theologian, it is one of the most serious indictments of the

English evangelical revival that it produced so few theologians of stature.

In other words, if our zeal for peace, conciliation, heartfelt affection for God and for people creates a milieu in which rigorous, critical thinking and theology will not flourish, we may hurt the cause of Christ in generations to come while seeming to make the cause go better now.

Oh, I wish I knew better how to avoid that. But do you need to at least pose that question?

In your denomination, in your church, in your little cluster of pastoral friends, is the music, is the demeanor of the pastor, is the ethos of the people shaping itself in such a way as to be inhospitable to rigorous, critical, intellectual theology?

If so, it is possible and perhaps probable that the milieu is going to hurt the church in 50 years.

Very few people are asking that question today. Has something to do with our worship services and the tone of them?

Has something to do with the very spirit and demeanor of the pastoral life?

Has something to do with the raw, raw slapstick of so much evangelicalism?

Has a lot to do with the charismatic dimension of things?

You see, if your mind doesn't work in such a way that you believe critical, careful, rigorous, intellectual theology that undertakes to pull all of the

Bible together, solve the problems in it, interact with the big cultural movements outside and write significant works that can make an impact on the culture and be there for the young people coming up through the colleges and the seminaries.

If you don't believe that, important, you don't even care about this question. You just want a person saved next Sunday or to have a good feeling after the worship service.

It's bigger, it's bigger. We need to ask longer questions about what's coming of our churches and the whole atmosphere of evangelicalism in our day.

Well, is he guilty as charged? I don't think so.

I don't think so. Yes, John Wesley wrote him, you appear to be designed by divine providence for a healer of breaches, a reconciler of honest but prejudiced men and a uniter happy work of the children of God.

But in 1762, they broke.

Not over predestination, but over perfectionism and the

Pelagian things Newton saw in it. He had a backbone.

It's true that Richard Cecil criticizes his own hero who writes the memoir, quote, that he did not always administer consolation with sufficient discernment.

His talent, Cecil said, did not lie in discerning of spirits.

He gives an example. He said, Newton once said of a man that people were having trouble with.

Well, he certainly is an odd man and has his failings.

But he has great integrity and I hope is going to heaven. Whereas Cecil comments, almost all who knew him thought the man should first go to the pillory.

In other words, here was this Newton who was so wired to be merciful. Cecil thought he couldn't see a rascal if he faced him in the face.

He just couldn't bring himself to say a negative word. So like the prairies,

Nero spoke a discouraging word. Well, yes, there's that, but I put over against it.

It was Newton whose unwavering theological commitments, commitment to holiness, doctrinal fidelity and habitual tenderness broke the back of Thomas Scott's liberalism and Socinianism and brought him to evangelical reform theology and put him into the only pastorate.

And that's no small potatoes. So my response is this.

Pastors simply cannot devote much of their time to blowing the trumpet for rigorous intellectual theology.

They should see its usefulness and its necessity and encourage its proper place.

But they can't be faulted that they mainly have flocks to love and hearts to change.

Defending the truth is a crucial part of that, but not the main part.

Holding the truth and permeating all of ministry with the truth, the greatness, the sweetness of truth for the transformation of people's lives.

That's the main part of ministry. And you can't fault

Newton for being a pastor. And I don't think he belittled intellectual theology more than it should be belittled.