Revive a Hymn: I asked the Lord that I should Grow

The great preacher, Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones said about John Newton, ”he says it all perfectly” before quoting one of Newton’s less well-known hymns. These words are surely the perfect explanation of how faith grows in the human heart.  I have updated the hymn very lightly to modern English: 

I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith and love and every grace
Might more of His salvation know
And seek more earnestly His face

’Twas He who taught me how to pray
And He, I trust, has answered prayer
But it has been in such a way
As almost drove me to despair

I hoped that in some favored hour
At once He’d answer my request
And by His love’s constraining power
Subdue my sins and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart,
And let the angry powers of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

Yes more, with His own hand He seem’d
Intent to aggravate my woe
Cross’d all the great designs I schemed,
Blasted my hopes and laid me low.

Lord, why is this, I trembling cried,
Will You pursue your worm to death?
It is in this way, the Lord replied,
I answer prayer for grace and faith,

These inward trials I employ,
From self and pride to set you free;
And brake your schemes of earthly joy,
That you may seek you all in Me.

This hymn is not well known today, but has been recorded live at the Together for the Gospel conference. You can listen to it right here:

It has also been recorded to a different tune by Indelible Grace.

I think it is a hymn that we should seek to revive and start to use again.  Have any of you heard it sung recently?

Lloyd-Jones goes on to explain this hymn and it’s relationship to the life of John Newton: 

“You see what he is saying? John Newton, having been converted from the terrible life he once lived, was now concerned about his sanctification, and he prayed to God that in one stroke he would cleanse his heart and deliver him from all sin, that he might enjoy peace and rest for ever afterwards. He asked the Lord to sanctify him, but what in fact happened to him was that he was given a view of himself and of the blackness and foulness of his own heart.

Then hell was let loose upon him and he could not understand it. So he asked God why he was doing it, and that was the answer—God said that that was his way of sanctifying people. You have to have self crushed out and it is the only way. The ‘positive’ gospel will not do it and so you have to have hell let loose and you will be crushed to the ground. 

You will cry to me, says God, and then I will tell you that I have to smash you before I can reveal myself to you. Yes, God sometimes allows the devil to do as he did in the cases of Job and John Newton. Do you know anything of that sort of experience? If you read the lives of the greatest saints, you will find they all knew something about it. They never knew short cuts to sanctification, but they knew something about this. This is God’s way. Thusit is clear that God permits this and uses it to produce and promote our sanctification.”

Lloyd-Jones, D.M. (2000) The assurance of our salvation: exploring the depth of Jesus’ prayer for His own: studies in John 17. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, pp. 629–630.

As we are journeying together with John Newton 300 years since he was born, and 253 years since he first released his much more famous hymn, Amazing Grace, I am sure that we are learning more about the sometimes painful journey he describes here, which all true Christians will also experience to at least some degree.