Wilberforce and the Sermon That Demanded Action

In 1785, William Wilberforce was a twenty-five-year-old member of British Parliament — charming, wealthy, and politically ambitious. After his conversion to Christianity, he sought counsel from John Newton, the former slave trader turned pastor who wrote "Amazing Grace." Newton didn't just offer Wilberforce theological comfort. He pointed him toward Scripture's unrelenting call to act on behalf of the oppressed.

Wilberforce could have become the most devout man in Parliament's pews — attending services, nodding at sermons, underlining verses in his Bible. Instead, he carried what he heard on Sunday into Monday's legislative chambers. For forty-six years, he introduced bill after bill to abolish the slave trade, enduring mockery, death threats, and repeated defeat. He didn't merely agree that every person bore the image of God. He staked his career on it.

Three days before his death in 1833, Parliament finally passed the Slavery Abolition Act, freeing eight hundred thousand enslaved people across the British Empire.

James 1:22 warns us that hearing the Word without acting on it is a kind of self-deception — a comfortable religion that changes nothing. Wilberforce understood that the gospel is not a lullaby for the conscience but a commission for the hands and feet. Every Sunday, the Word goes out. The question the Almighty puts before each of us is the same one Wilberforce answered: Will you be a hearer only, or will you do what it says?