After he became a Christian, Newton returned to what he knew best - the slave trade, and worked on slave ships for 3 years. During this time, he records that for the space of a month, he went below decks every night to to rape one of the slave women being held captive on the ship. This was a man who was a professing Christian!
Trevor pointed out that Newton's amazement at grace sprang from his realisation that he had so wounded the love of God in how he lived, both before and after he became a Christian. Our Christian lives are far from neat. I know that my experience has been very up and down as a believer, and that I have betrayed my Lord many times in a deliberate and wilful way since I was "converted".
Although he was converted, Newton also needed to be humbled before God. This is often a separate experience in our lives. Praying that the Lord would use this conference to humble me again, and also to show many others here how we need to humble ourselves before God.
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