God, I say it's a real joy for me tonight to welcome to this pulpit our brother Mr. Chris Killen. Our brother is going to testify. It's a tremendous testimony to the saving power of the Lord, how the Lord delivered him from a life of drug abuse. And not only did the Lord save him, but saving him, our brother had a desire to serve and to serve the Lord amongst those who are addicted to drugs. Of course, sometimes we think about drugs, we just think about tablets, but addiction is much, much wider than that. Many in our society are addicted to alcohol and to other things. And the Lord has been using our brother. He's had many great opportunities and has spent many, many hours with those whose lives have been ruined and destroyed. It's a hard ministry. You must spend hours and days and weeks just dealing with individuals. And we thank God for our brother and for the way the Lord has used him. And I would like to thank him tonight for taking time to be here. And we're looking forward to hear of what God has done for him in his life. And what God can do for you if you're not saved tonight. He can change your life and make your life worth living as well. I want to ask our brother to come and just to tell what God has done for him. Let me thank you, Minister, the Rev. Murray, for his very kind and warm words of welcome. It certainly is a great privilege to be here with you tonight and to share with you. I never tire of telling what the Lord Jesus has done for me, the difference that he has made in my life. Christ makes a difference. He is a difference. And tonight you'll hear that. I pray that above all that we'll think this evening of the love, the mercy, the grace of God, Tonight you'll hear about the long-suffering of God, His patience, and thank the Lord for His mercy towards sinful men. I want you to turn, if you have a Bible, please turn to Psalm 107. And here in Psalm 107, we're just going to read some verses together, just while you're turning up the portion. I work as a missionary under our church, just like our brother Robert here. It's good to see Robert. I work under the board. I work as a missionary to people who have very chronic and serious addictions, mainly drug addictions. As your minister said, I spend a lot of time with people who are at a point where their lives are wrecked, ruined, they're under the influence of drugs, they're, you know, really in a mess. And I suppose that for most of those people that I work with and spend my time with, most people would think, why would you even bother? I mean, surely they are beyond reach. Surely there's no hope for them. Well, tonight, you'll hear of the transformation that took place in my life, what encourages me to keep going, to persevere with others, And there are times, I must admit, when I meet a particular individual, and it just seems, is this really worth the effort? They seem to be so far gone, and then the Lord reminds me, well, I'm glad that others didn't give up on me, and I'm glad that the Lord reminds me of that very fact. And tonight, the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the remedy, He's the answer. Psalm 107 here, and in the poor... I'm just going to read here just some verses. I'm going to read... Let me just see here. from verse 23. So we're breaking into the psalm here, Psalm 107, reading from verse 103, or Psalm 23, Psalm 107, verse 23. And here there are four pictures of life without God, and the psalmist here is basically saying that we are to praise the Lord for His goodness because of a number of pictures of life. And here we have a picture of life, and life is depicted as being on the sea of life. and our life is like a vessel. Let's read from verse 23. They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths. Their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and a rat. their wit's end. Are you at wit's end corner tonight? Do you know somebody who's at their wit's end? It's a very common phrase that we use in everyday life. I get so many calls and I deal with families and especially a mother who's broken hearted, for instance, over a son taking drugs and abusing the body. And oftentimes I think of a woman just lately who said to me very recently, I'm at my wit's end. There are phrases that we use in everyday life that are direct quotations from God's Word. Someone being at their wit's end. Tonight I'm going to speak and tell you how God brought me to my wit's end. You think of the various expressions that there are, and there are lots of them. Maybe someone hasn't been so ill, they'll say, I'm as weak as water. A direct quotation from the book of Ezekiel. It's just like a drop in the bucket, it's so insignificant. Once again, taken from God's Word. Can the leopard change its spots? Taken from God's Word. Here, we read about someone coming to their wit's end. Someone once said to me, I wasn't long saved. And they said, you only became a Christian because your life was in a mess and it was chaos. That's why you turned to God. God brought me to my wit's end. If you're at your wit's end, let's just read on a little further. Someone at their wit's end, verse 28, then, then when they're at their wit's end, then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet, so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. O, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. Amen. We trust indeed that the Lord will bless that public reading to all of our hearts. Let's just bow very briefly momentarily in prayer, please. Just asking the Lord for peace and help. Lord, what a wonderful privilege it is to be able to stand and to tell men and women of Thy great salvation. What a blessing it is to be a recipient of Thy grace. Lord, tonight I pray that above all Thy name will be glorified. Make much of Thy Son. We pray, Lord, that Thou will touch cords within our hearts Thou wilt speak afresh to us, help us as thy people just to remember the pit from which we have been dug. Help us, Lord, never, ever to forget just what the Lord Jesus has done for us and what he means to us. Lord, we love thee because thou hast first loved us. Hear and answer our prayer, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. I was born and brought up in Lisbon, that's where I've lived all of my life, well, most of my life anyway, right from a very young age, being faithfully sent to Sunday school where I heard God's Word. The more I work in the area of the field of addiction and people who have very chronic addictions, the more convinced I am the need to reach children and to pray for our children's workers or children's work here. A young life saved is also a life saved from the misery and pain of sin. I was sent very faithfully to a Sunday school in Belfast where I first heard the gospel. I later heard the gospel when I was around about the age of eight, and that was whenever my mum had been attending a gospel campaign, and she came home each night after the meetings and to talk to myself and to my dad. Now, at that stage, my two older brothers had left home. There's quite an age difference between us. They had both good jobs, professional jobs. I suppose, in many respects, my parents expected me just to naturally follow in their footsteps. My mum and dad were certainly very good people, but they weren't safe. Now, most people in the street that I grew up in, Palmer Avenue in Lisbon, would have thought of my parents as being Christians. After all, they didn't smoke, drink, swear. They read their Bible, they went to church, they said their prayers. As the word would put it, they were good living. But let me say, there's all the difference in the world between someone who is good living and someone who is born again of God's Spirit and received. Now, when you're saved, that always produces good living. But it's not by what we do or by what we don't do that makes us right with God. My mum had been attending the meeting and one night she came back and I could tell she was different. And I want to say this, thank the Lord for a mother who could pray. Because that night she was transformed. She got converted. She told my father and myself how that night she realised that she was a sinner, that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, that although she wasn't living a wild, reckless life, she needed the Lord and she needed His forgiveness. And my mother began praying for her family. Do you know the most valuable thing that you have to give your children as a mother, our grandmother, is your prayer? And I'm glad that my mother was able to pray for me. Now, I learnt many things about my mother. You know, I learnt that she was certainly very... She had a lovely, soft nature. She was a very sweet woman. I also learnt that she had a built-in lie detector. You know, most mothers, they have that. You know, she was able to tell whenever I was telling fibs, telling lies. Of course, I would have done that too, wouldn't I? My mum was able to catch me out. And I suppose, in many respects, they had really big hopes and dreams for me. He'll make it in life. I was... I have an older brother who, at that time, was playing music for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, so he was very talented musically. And right from a very young age, I started to play the flute, the concert flute, and I was really advancing through my grades very quickly at a very young age. And without a doubt, they thought, well, he's going to end up in the same sort of profession. But they began to watch as all their dreams and their hopes, their aspirations, all came tumbling down. By the age of 11, I'd only changed schools, I was going to a grammar school in Lisbon, but my whole attitude had changed, my outlook on life. To me, life was all about enjoyment. Life's what you make it. My philosophy was like so many people, eat, drink and be merry. And that's the way I lived life. Right from that very tender age, most people would perhaps think, well, didn't your parents try to restrain you? Didn't they try to change you or help you? Of course they did. I was just thinking, coming up in the choir tonight, of a number of instances and how when I didn't get my own way because of the rebellion, the things that I did and the shame that I brought to the home, etc. Absolute madness. By 13, 14 years of age, I'd not only started to smoke, drink, to sniff solvents, but I was going further and further down that road. Now, the drugs landscape today is very, very different from when I was in my early teens. Well, I suppose I think, which it wasn't the way it was today. But certainly, In those days, there wasn't any ecstasy, there was no accessibility to the likes of heroin, and I suppose I'm really glad because, you know, I no doubt would have went down that road, because I would literally have taken anything that would make me high, and I mean anything. I'm not going to tell you of all the crazy notions and the things that I did with some friends, just looking for life, but looking in the wrong place. Now, can I say especially to the young people here, your friends are really important. Your friends will make or break you. If your friends start smoking, drinking alcohol, smoking dope, I'm going to tell you for a fact, you will do the same. You see, we all want to fit in, and there's that peer pressure. I had a friend who was much older, I remember him encouraging me to take my first cigarette, then encouraging me to start drinking. It wasn't long before I was coming home drunk and life was just spiralling very, very quickly out of control. Now, I can't blame him. We're all responsible for our own actions. But do you know that at this very day, we are all, all of us, are like our friends, the company we keep. I began to go down a pathway that was not good. Young person, be really careful who your friends are. Don't think it's only a cigarette. Don't think to yourself, well, it's just a sip of beer. You know, it's not going to do any harm. Many of you know a very good friend of mine who helps me, a colleague, Ran from Ballymena. Ran, who was an alcoholic. And just lately, we had a drugs awareness meeting in Ballymena. A young lady, a woman, attended that meeting, and very tragically and sadly, she died during the week due to alcoholism, and no one was terribly upset about it. We need to have the right company, the right friends. My life really became chaotic. By 15 years of age, I didn't want to be at home anymore. I was causing so much heartache, pain, Nothing to be proud of to stand before people and say, you know what, I broke my mum's heart. I'm ashamed of that. I'm really ashamed. Some of you are breaking your mum's heart? Young lady? Breaking your daddy's heart? You'll regret it. I didn't listen. You know, all I could think about at that time was, why are you keeping on nagging me? Why are you keeping going on? It was so different when you were younger now. This is the end thing. Not realising it all the while, why they kept going on to me was because they knew the path where I was going down. They knew it was going to lead to a heartache and to ruin. And it was out of love that they sought to correct me. Now, isn't this strange? that of all the things that my dad said to me in my teenage years, and he said a lot, of all the things that he ever said to me are the things that really hurt me. And there's a lesson there for us as fathers and as parents. Be very careful with your words. The Bible says that death and life are in the power of the tongue, and we need to speak forth words of life. You know, my dad, and really, in a sense, I can't blame him for what he said, but he shouldn't have said it. He used to say things like, you should never have been born. You're a mistake. I should have drowned you at birth. They're the things I remember. Don't ever say that to your children. Don't ever. I broke my mum's heart. Because of the way I was living, I virtually put her into mental health problems, into psychiatric care. She was in bits. I left home at 15, thinking, this is great, I've arrived now, out in the world, eat, drink and be merry, just live life to the full. Be my own boss now. Be master of my own destiny. Nobody telling me what time I'm going to come in. I can do my own thing. I can drink as much as I want. I can take whatever drugs." I was soon to find out that sin is a very heavy task, Master, and sin has consequences. I went for a time to live in Belfast, and then from Belfast I went over to live in London. all the time looking, searching for life. Young person, it's not in a hand. It's not in some feeling, some buzz you get from a tablet, some experience you have from a drug. Life is in a person. Life is in Jesus Christ. That time, my mum even Although I had wandered far away and it was breaking her heart, she still loved me. Now, I'm not going to go into the details, but I can picture times coming home when my mother couldn't even lift her head and look at me. And she was so broken that tears just ran down her cheeks. There were many times she got a call, had to go to hospital, pick up the pieces. Many times without, she thought I would be dead and I would die in my life. When I went to London, I can even remember a time yet, when my mum sent me £10. That was a lot of money then, still a lot of money now. Taking it, drinking it. Came home and I was going out with a young girl. We decided we'd get married and we were very young. My wife was here, she'd be really mortified now if I'm going to tell you so many things, but we looked very similar. She would disagree, of course. But we looked similar in our style of our appearance. We had the shaved heads, the braces, the boots, all the things that go with it, the skinhead culture, the lifestyle. We had all that. And I was just 19 when we got married. Linda was even younger. The year after, we had a little girl. When she was born, she was very ill. At that stage, Samantha was less than two weeks old. We were still living in my parents' house with my mum and dad at that time, we hadn't got our own place. We'd come home from visiting our little garden hospital. My brother was out that night, I went into his bedroom and I started to think about life. And all the thoughts were just swamping my mind. You're a nobody. You're a nothing. There's no hope for you. You're a disaster. The cause of everybody's unhappiness. You're the root cause of it. Why don't you do everybody a big favour and just get out of here? Leave them in peace. I genuinely believe that. When I was in jail yesterday visiting with Brian, visiting a man, and he was basically saying that he didn't like himself and what he had done, and I can tell you at that time I did not like myself. The thoughts were just bombarding me. Then the thought came, your child will die. There's no hope for you. Everything you touch just falls apart. I took a massive drugs overdose that night. I determined I'm going to die. I've had enough. Devils are deceiving. Comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. I kept on thinking, well, death has to be better than this. I deceive them. I spend a lot of time working with people who come to that point. I always take them seriously. People say, well, you know that person, they've attempted suicide, oh, so many times, they're just an attention seeker. Is that so? I can give you a list of people who were like that, and the events that did take their life. I couldn't see a way out. My mum told me what happened. She says, we found you lying on the bedroom floor. She said, there you were, drunk, as we thought. So my father, she says, your father and myself, we got you, we carried you downstairs. She says, we were giving it loads. I mean, we were furious. Your little baby's in hospital, seriously ill. You'd think you would start to wise up. And she says, see when he gets sober in the morning, he's going to get it. He led me down the city not knowing it was virtually damned. Mum woke up in the early hours. I think she says we're in about four o'clock in the morning. She turned to my dad and said, I don't know what it is, but we've got to get him to hospital. I should have died, but God had mercy. That wasn't the only time I should have died. I lived so close to the edge for far too many years. The ambulance was called. I was rushed to hospital. It was determined I had a serious overdose. They called for the family. Didn't expect me to live. O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave, thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit of my life's testimony. Psalm 30, verse 3. God kept me alive. Not just on that occasion, but many other occasions. Linda said she'd come up to the hospital ward, and there I was, lying in the bed, wired up on the life support machine, and she said, you know, the whole bottom just dropped out of her world. She said, you know, her little baby was so ill, Possibly going to die? Husband going to die? What was it? The minister, he married us. He takes you up to the ward one day, and there he was, kneeling at my bed. In the middle of the ward, just praying for God to have mercy. God answers prayer. He does the impossible. You know, if you'd have looked into my life at that time, you'd have said, why bother? Why try to help him? After all, he's pressed his self-destruct button. He's ruining everybody's life around about him. He's a cause of all the unhappiness in the home. He brings so much trouble. Why bother? When I came out of the overdose, I think it was probably about five days or so, I was unconscious. I was in after a period of release in hospital. Our little girl was also released. She's now not so little. She's 31 years of age. But a few months later, I became really ill, very seriously ill. Life can change in a moment. If you come in the meeting tonight in the very best of health, never had a day's ill health, and that can all change in a moment of time. I went through one operation, two operations, three operations, I stopped counting at 28. And in the three-year period, I didn't have 28 operations, I had over double that amount. But you see, in mercy, the Lord was bringing me to a point where He was going to break me and bring me to that point where I would come under deep conviction of sin and I would bow the knee and confess Him as Lord and Savior. In the hospital, the consultant who performed most of my surgeries was a Christian. The SHO, the senior house officer, houseman, he was a Christian. Some of the nurses, they were Christian. Unknown to me, one of the auxiliaries, Beth McSorey, Beth was praying, she was meeting at lunchtime, break time with some of the other nurses, and they were praying for me. For me. I've often thought, why me? I mean, I wasn't a nice person at that time. I remember, on one occasion, something happened in the Troubles and a lot of people were injured. They were brought into the ward. They came into the ward with me. They actually asked to get immediately transferred out of it because they were afraid, because of the bitterness. Life was a mess. I completely answered. I was in hospital, my life changed. 26th of August, 1989. The Friday night, just the day before, I'd gone through major surgery, an eight-hour operation just two weeks prior to that. I was ready for discharge, ready to go home, but on that Friday night, I became seriously ill very quickly. Basically, just putting it this way, everything that the surgeons had done had become unstuck, and I had what's called adhesions, where all your organs then basically get entangled, and they were shutting down. Pain? Absolutely excruciating. Surgeon came on a Saturday morning, he was called in, and I knew the hospital procedure, I knew it inside out. I knew, as I would put it, they didn't throw a party for you on a Saturday morning, take you to a theatre, the surgery, unless you were really very, very ill. Dr. Gillidan was a consultant. He's a consultant now over in Newton Orange. He was in the SHO at that time. He came over to the bed. He said to me, he said, Chris, we've got to take you to theatre. We've got to take you right away. We've got to go now. I said to him, I'm really ill, aren't I? I'm going to die, aren't I? He went away to get theatre prep. In those moments, I began to think about life. It was mess. When I look forward in life, it was just blackness. I look forward or backwards, it was just darkness. In my present circumstances, I was just surrounded in absolute darkness. He came over to the bed, back to the... south and he asked me why I was crying because when he came back I was in a flood of tears. And I said to him, you know, I've lived my life for the world, for the devil, but I'm the loser and the fool. I genuinely believed those were the last moments of my life, I was going to die and go and meet God, but here's the thing, I wasn't seen. How did I know that? Because my mother prayed for me. How did I know it? Because when I was just a little boy, I learned all the verses and was taught scriptures. The Lord was bringing them back to me. He told me the greatest, the most sweetest, beautiful love story you will ever hear. He told me how God's perfect Son, the spotless Son of God, left aside the splendour, the majesty of heaven, how He came to this earth, how He lived a perfect life, did no sin, and He went to the cross and there He died and He paid the price for sin. Although I was so very physically ill, I said to him, Robert, you have no idea how far away I am from God. how far I am from knowing God. You see, I'd come to the place where I actually believed and was convinced God could not love me. You might say, well, how did you come to that place? I remember times, you know, this is going to sound really right off the chart. I remember one night in particular, and it wasn't the effect of drugs. One night, standing, and at that stage, I had the head shaved, there were tattoos on the head, etc., to get them removed, but I was standing there, and I had another mirror, and I was trying to find three sixes. I believed I was Antichrist. My life was so dark. At that stage, I'd formed a band called Sinister. Sinister means evil. We only played satanic rock music. We didn't play heavy rock music, we played satanic rock music. And here was this man, and he was standing, telling me, Jesus Christ loved me so much that he shed his precious blood, his royal blood, and he died for me. And then that truth dawned on me, that Jesus loved even me. I hadn't the strength to go to bed. I just simply bowed my head and my heart and I cried to God to save me. I can tell you, friends, I did not know very much about this book, very, very little. But what I did know was this. I was lost. I was hopeless. And only Jesus Christ could change me. That was the morning I asked the Lord to save me, to change me. How do I know it happened? The Bible tells me. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How do I know it happened? I was there when it happened. How do I know it took place? You go home and you ask my wife. You ask her, did you get a new husband? She'll affirm yes. And here's the thing, she needed one. We had very little at that time when we got married. And what we did have? We pawned, sold, drank, destroyed. We had more of our most valuable possessions. I was saved some time and it was a carriage clock and I lifted it up and there was a big dent in the back of it where I'd have been fired one night in a drunken rage. The Lord just reminding, do you remember? Do you remember? Do you see where I've brought you from? After I got out of hospital, I began to tell everybody about the Lord, my friends, those people I used to run around with. Three months later, the Lord saved my wife, then my mother-in-law, father-in-law. He's blessed us with two other children, blessed us above all measure. called us to serve, to work for Him, to labour, to make a difference. That is our prayer. Lord, grant that I will make a difference in the lives of others because I think of those who made a difference in my life. I think of a doctor who made a difference. Why? Because he shared the gospel with me. I think of a woman who made a difference. Why? Because she didn't just serve tea and, you know, tuck me in at night in bed in hospital, but she loved me and she prayed for me. I had a mother who made the difference. One of the greatest joys I had was a number of years ago. My father, 85 years of age, one week left to live, and I pointed him to Christ. One of the greatest joys. Many a person has asked, did your mum ever get to see you save? Yes, she did. She did. And I heard a message one night really struck a chord with him, really struck a chord. Reverend McRae was preaching, preaching on the prodigal son, mentioned the fact that there was no mother there mentioned. Basically what he said was, son, do you tell your mum you love her now? Because if you don't, don't play the hypocrite and put flowers on her grave when she's gone. And ever from that very message, and from that time, early in my conversion, I always remember buying my mother a bunch of flowers and just saying, Mom, I'm so sorry for the past, but I want to tell you now, I love you, and I thank God for you. Cherish your parents, children. Cherish them. The Lord has blessed us above all measure. The work that we do with the addicts, the lives that have been transformed, It's such a blessing to be part of that ministry and that work. So oftentimes I look at a person and I see myself. You know, they say the exact same things that I used to say, I'm no hope, I'm just a junkie, I'm not changing. You know, you think of what they're going through and detox and I remember a time when I had to come off the drugs and once I could see it and break away from that, etc. But God gave grace, God gave help. What does the Lord Jesus Christ mean to me? What has He done for me? Everything. Everything. He means everything. He's done everything. What about you? The Lord brought me to my wet sand, and He took me, my broken, ruined, hopeless life, and by His grace transformed me. The book of Hebrews. With this I close. We have the story of many of the great heroes of faith, but one of those mentioned is Rahab the harlot. Rahab the harlot. And she's mentioned there as a harlot just in case we forgot. And the Lord there is basically saying when you think of Abraham, and you think of Moses, and you think of Noah, and these great heroes of the faith, It's as if the Lord is saying, now just hold on a second. Let me go here into my treasure bag. Let me go into my treasure chest, and I'm just going to lift up this person here. And He brings Rahab's life out, and He sets it up just like a precious jewel, and He turns it round, and He shows to the world. Now here is my grace and my power to transform. Look at a woman who was a harlot. Look at a woman who was deep down in sin. Here is my power to see Him, my grace at work in her life. You see, there's none too hard for the Lord. Don't give up. Maybe you've got a wayward son or daughter, family member far away from God, and you're wondering, will they ever be converted? Will they ever be seen? Some of the most Amazing testimonies I've had the privilege of seeing. I've been with the most unlikely character. You know the sort of person you think, well, that life, I know it's far gone and God is able, but surely, sweet Father, I don't know what's in it. I want to thank you tonight for giving me the privilege of coming along to share Please do pray for the people that I work with. Love them. I want to see them converted for one reason alone. For God's glory. His name will be lifted up. The people will praise the Lord for His wonderful work. To the children of man, may the Lord bless you. Amen.