|yx Éy j|ÄÄ|tÅ j|ÄuxÜyÉÜvx · slave trade: “after may 1, the african slave trade and all...

_|yx Éy j|ÄÄ|tÅ j|ÄuxÜyÉÜvxPart 5: A Long Endurance

Job’s Weariness

by William Blake

“What strength do I have, that I should still hope?What prospects, that I should be patient?”

Job 6:11

Propensity to Weariness

• The author of Hebrews writes: “For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart” (12:3).

• Paul exhorts the Galatians: “And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary” (6:9).

Words of Weariness

• “I don’t have any energy left.”• “I am exhausted!”• “I don’t think I can do this any longer.”• “I am so fatigued.”• “I am completely worn out.”• “I am burned out.”• “I don’t have it in me any more.”• “It’s no use; I give up!”

The Source of Endurance

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

Isaiah 40:31 (KJV)

The Source of Endurance

• The one who endures is not capable of drawing the power of resistance from within himself

• Christians are to look to God for their strength and endurance: “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God. Do not let my enemies triumph over me” (Ps. 25:1-2).

• “The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion” (Prov. 28:1).

Etymology of Endurance

• Endurance comes from a Greek word which means to “to remain firm,” “to stay or persevere with something,” “to be steadfast”

• Unlike patience, this word has an active content; it includes active and energetic resistance to hostile power – with no assertion of success

• It refers to the steadfast endurance of the Christian under the difficulties and tests of the present evil age

Etymology of Endurance

• The endurance of a Christian will not be accompanied with complaining, despondency or grumbling. It is inspired by a godly and heroic will to hold firm (“Consider it all joy” - James 1:2)

• The word calls us to perseverance when we experience the attacks of the world

• Perseverance to victory is necessary if the prize is to be won (“I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”)

Endurance in God’s Word

• “By faith, he (Moses) left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen” (Heb. 11:27).

• “Rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer” (Rom. 12:12).

• “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of the chosen, that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory”(II Tim. 2:10).


• “If we endure, we shall also reign with Him” (II Tim. 2:12).

• “But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly, by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated” (Heb. 10:32-33).

• “(Love) bears all things…endures all things (I Cor. 13:7).


“God…will render to every man according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life” (Rom. 2:6-7).

Nelson Against Wilberforce

“I was bred in the good old school and taught to appreciate the value of our West Indian possessions, and neither in the field nor in the Senate shall their just rights be infringed, while I have an arm to fight in their defense or a tongue to launch my voice against the damnable doctrine of Wilberforce and his hypocritical allies.”

Admiral Lord Nelson

Justice

“Evil men do not understand justice,but those who seek the Lord understand it fully.”

Proverbs 28:5

Blaise Pascal

“Man without faith can know neither true good nor justice.”

Penseés

Gisborne to Wilberforce

“I shall expect to read of your being carbonadoed by West Indian planters, barbecued by African merchants and eaten by Guinea captains, but do not be daunted, for – I will write your epitaph!”

[Carbonado, “to score across and broil or grill”]

Background Information

• William Wilberforce and William Pitt were born in the same year, 1759

• John Wesley was 56 years old when Wilberforce was born

• John Newton was 34 years old when Wilberforce was born

• Wilberforce was 18 years older than his wife, Barbara Spooner Wilberforce (he was 38 and she, 20, when they married on April 30, 1797)

Journey of Endurance

• October, 1780 - Wilberforce became an MP for Hull (Age 21)

• December 18, 1783 – William Pitt became Prime Minister at the age of 24

• March 26, 1784 – Wilberforce became MP for Yorkshire, the largest and most important of the counties (Age 24)

• February 22, 1785 – Wilberforce’s intellectual assent to biblical Christianity (Age 25)


• November 30, 1785 – Wilberforce decided to visit with John Newton (Age 26)

• December 7, 1785 – Wilberforce went to see John Newton in his home; he became a Christian (Age 26)

• 1786 – Wilberforce sought for the distinctive part he was to play in public life (Age 27)

• Winter, 1787 – Lady Middleton challenged Wilberforce to take up Abolition in Parliament


• Early, 1787 – Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson met at 4 Old Palace Yard; the discussion became a focal point in the Abolition movement

• May 12, 1787 – William Pitt encouraged Wilberforce to take up the cause of Abolition while they were with William Grenville (Prime Minister after Pitt) at Pitt’s Holwood estate sitting under an oak tree (Age 27)

“Wilberforce Oak”

“Wilberforce, why don’t you give notice of a motion on the subject of the Slave Trade? You have already taken great pains to collect evidence, and are therefore fully entitled to the credit which doing so will ensure you. Do not lose time, or the ground may be occupied by another.”

- William Pitt


• October 28, 1787 – Wilberforce recorded: “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the reformation of manners” (Age 28)

• Soon after Christmas, 1787 – Wilberforce gave notice that he would introduce a motion in the new session to abolish the Slave Trade

• January 18, 1788 – “Assure yourself that there is no doubt of our success” (Wilberforce).


• February 19, 1788 – Wilberforce was exhausted, had a fever and loss of appetite; went to Clapham for rest

• May 9, 1788 – Pitt moved the House to investigate the Trade (Wilberforce was recuperating at Bath and Cambridge)

• May 11, 1789 – Wilberforce spoke for 3½ hours before the House

Wilberforce’s Speech

“Sir, the nature and all the circumstances of this Trade are now laid open to us. We can no longer plead ignorance, we cannot evade it, it is now an object placed before us, we cannot pass it. We may spurn it, we may kick it out of our way, but we cannot turn aside so as to avoid seeing it. For it is brought now so directly before our eyes that this House must decide, and must justify to all the world, and to their own consciences, the rectitudes of their grounds and of the principles of their decision.


“Let not Parliament be the only body that is insensible to national justice. Let us make reparation to Africa, so far as we can, by establishing a trade upon true commercial principles, and we shall soon find the rectitude of our conduct rewarded by the benefits of a regular and growing commerce.”


“I confess to you, so enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did its wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for Abolition. Let the consequences be what they would, I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its Abolition.”

- Wilberforce’s Speech of May 11, 1787

John Wesley’s Last Letter

My dear sir,Unless the Divine Power has raised you up to be an Athanasius contra mundum I see not how you can go through with your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal of religion, of England and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils;

John Wesley’s Last Letter

But if God is with you, who can be against you? Are all of them stronger than God? Oh, be not weary in well-doing. Go on, in the name of God and in the power of His might, till even American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall vanish away before it…That he who has guided you from your youth up, may continue to strengthen you in this and in all things, is the prayer ofDear Sir, your affectionate servant,

John Wesley

Letter dated February 24, 1791Wesley died 6 days later on March 2, 1791


• April 18, 1791 – Wilberforce spoke for 4 hours in the House; motion defeated, 163 to 88. After defeat, he vowed that he would raise the issue every year until the Trade was utterly abolished (Age 31)

• 1792 – House carried motion (230 to 85), but it failed to pass in the House of Lords (Age 32)

• March, 1793 – Wilberforce introduced the Foreign Slave Bill; lost by 2 votes (Age 33)

• 1794 – Won in the House, but defeated in the Lords(Age 34)


• 1804 – won in House of Commons, 124 to 49; defeated in the House of Lords (Age 44)

• January 2, 1807 – A Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade: “After May 1, the African Slave Trade and all manner of dealing and Trading in the purchase of slaves or their transport from Africa to the West Indies or any other territory is utterly abolished, prohibited and declared to be unlawful.” Won 283 to 16 (Age 47)

Abolition – at Last

• On Friday, July 26, 1833, the Abolition of Slavery passed in the House of Commons; passage in the Lords was not in doubt (Age 73)

• “Thank God that I have lived to witness a day in which England is willing to give twenty millions sterling for the Abolition of Slavery.”

• Saturday, Wilberforce tired; Sunday he sank rapidly; early on July 29, at 3:00 a.m., he went to be with his Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ

• Buried in Westminster Abbey on August 3

How Did They Do It?

“An important part of their social strategy was to communicate biblical standards of justice and truth so that every individual would become a powerful agent of social change and that this would develop into a transforming movement, changing the mindset of the nation and promoting the well-being of others.”

Westminster Abbey

William Wilberforce(From the inscription on his statue by Samuel Joseph

placed in the North Choir Isle ofWestminster Abbey in 1840)

To the memory of William Wilberforce(Born in Hull August 24th, 1759,Died in London July 29, 1833;)

For nearly half a century, a member of the House of Commons,

and, for six Parliaments during that period,one of the two representatives for Yorkshire.

In an age and country fertile in great and good men,he was among the foremost of those who fixed the character

of their times;because to high and various talents,

to warm benevolence, and to universal candour,he added the abiding eloquence of a Christian life.

Eminent as he was in every department of public labour,and a leader in every work of charity,

whether to relieve the temporal or the spiritual wants of his fellow-men,

his name will ever be specially identifiedwith those exertions

which, by the blessing of God, removed from Englandthe guilt of the African slave trade,

and prepared the way for the abolition of slaveryin every colony of the empire:

In the prosecution of these objects, he relied, not in vain, on God;but in the progress, he was called to endure

great obloquy and great opposition:he outlived, however, all enmity;and, in the evening of his days,

withdrew from public life and public observationto the bosom of his family.

Yet he died not unnoticed or forgotten by his country:The peers and commons of England,

with the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker at their head,in solemn procession from their respective houses,

carried him to this fitting placeamong the mighty dead around,

here to repose: till, through the merits of JESUS CHRIST,His only redeemer and Saviour,

(whom, in his life and in his writings he had desired to glorify,)He shall rise in the resurrection of the just.

William Cowper’s Sonnet

Thy country, Wilberforce, with just disdain,Hears thee, by cruel men and impious, call’dFanatic, for thy zeal to loose th’ enthrall’dFrom exile, public sale, and slav’ry’s chain.Friend of the poor, the wrong’d, the fetter-gall’d,Fear not lest labour such as thine be vain!Thou hast achiev’d a part; hast gain’d the earOf Britain’s senate to thy glorious cause;

Sonnet to Wilberforce

Hope smiles, joy springs, and tho’ cold caution pauseAnd weave delay, the better hour is near,That shall remunerate thy toils severeBy peace for Afric, fenc’d with British laws.Enjoy what thou hast won, esteem and loveFrom all the just on earth, and all the blest above!

“Never Give In”

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Winston Churchill

1759-1833

|yx Éy j|ÄÄ|tÅ j|ÄuxÜyÉÜvx · slave trade: “after may 1, the african slave trade and all...

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