Well, good evening, everyone. Hopefully, this is working out OK. Yeah. It's lovely to be here with all of you. And it's nice to be here in a place with so many accents. As someone who doesn't have an accent, it's really nice to be amongst so many people, all different ones, and learning how to speak proper English. I'm going to read a short passage of scripture this evening just before I begin in John's gospel. And after it, I'm meant to be Is this the right way to do it? Yes, that's a picture of me. And then John's Gospel, chapter 8, verse 31 to verse 36. If you have a church Bible that someone gave you, then those are the page numbers that you can find. So John chapter 8, verse 31 to 36. And then I'll share a little bit about this and my story as well. It says, to the Jews who had believed him, this is Jesus Christ, Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching, then you're really my disciples, or you're really my followers. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Okay, so the truth is going to be the thing that sets people free, and really that's still the truth today, is whatever is true is true freedom. But it's interesting because the Jews reply in an interesting way. In verse 33, They answered him, we're Abraham's descendants and we've never been slaves of anybody. Okay, so if anyone who's been brought up in Sunday school or knows anything about the nation of Israel, this is completely rubbish. This is the nation of Israel who in the Bible times were slaves for 400 years to the Egyptians in the book of Exodus. You can read about it in Exodus, 400 years. And if they look at Jesus and say, Slaves? We've never been slaves? And after that, they got back to the land of Israel, they lived there for a little while, but then as you read through the book of Judges, they were always in bondage to the Midianites, and to the Philistines, and different tribes of people had brought these people into slavery, and yet they say, we were never slaves. And then again, we have them being brought into exile. The whole nation of Israel were removed from their country and went and lived in Babylon, slaves to Babylon. And then the Persians, slave to the Persians. And then they move back to the land of Israel, and the Greeks come, and the Greeks say, hey, by the way, you're our slaves now. And while they're talking to Jesus Christ, I mean, literally at this moment, when they say, we've never been in bondage to anybody, the Romans are oppressing them. I mean, how fit can you be to not understand that you're sleeves right now?" And Jesus replies, I tell you this, so instead of going at it like I do, I'm a bit Northern Irish, so we just go for the juggler, but Jesus has a different way to say it. He doesn't say all that. Instead, Jesus Christ gets down to real slavery. Verse 34, truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave of sin. And we're going to get into that a little bit tonight. And verse 36, but if the Son sets you free, then you'll be free indeed, or you'll be truly free. I want to share about that this evening and offer how I was set free from sin, from God's wrath, and from death. I was brought up in a house and estate in Northern Ireland called Rathcool, same as Willie here. Now, this is the Rathcool that Willie probably remembers. He left in 1966, I believe. So, it's nice green, a little bit of land here. This is a beautiful scene. There's Belfast over there. So, if you've ever been to Northern Ireland, you've probably been to Belfast, or you should have been. And then, this is the Northern Ireland that I knew. This is my Rathcool. This is where I was being brought up. When I was three years old, through paramilitary activity, some people decided it would be a very good idea to throw a petrol bomb into my living room. And I was playing in the living room at the time, and so the petrol bomb explodes in the room that I was in at the time. And this was my life. This was normal for me. I mean, if it wasn't like this, everyone was like, what's wrong? There's nothing on fire. Is everybody OK today? This was normal. This is what we did for recreation. This is our summer holidays, burning stuff for fun. But we did this, and we got caught up in all of these different things. And there was a house in the estate that was full of guns. You didn't want to get in trouble with the wrong people. I remember getting in trouble once when I was physically aggressive towards someone at one point. We shouldn't have done that, but I did. And his father came along, and his father came to my door. And he came to my door, and he told my mom that if I ever did anything like that again, then there would be an iron bar wrapped around my neck. And that wasn't like, we're going to slowly wrap it. The idea is, we're going to hit you so hard around the neck that it's going to bend. So this was the threat. So naturally, as all moms who receive such threats should do, she phoned the police. Quite normal. The policeman comes. Two policemen come. My mom's crying, I'm crying, because I don't want a necklace of iron bar, you know? And we're telling the story, we're explaining the situation, and the policeman asked, could you tell us the name of the person who threatened you? We give the person's name, the policeman shut the book, put his pencil in his pocket and said, sorry, there's nothing we can do to help. because of his connections, you see, in paramilitary activity. Rathkill was full of drugs. Basically, there was a lot of aggression and violence, and whoever owned the estate had the rights to sell the drugs into that estate. And it was full of protection money as well, kind of like the mafia. If you built a new shop, in that area or a new business was started in that area, the paramilitaries would come and visit and say, this is a very nice business that you're starting up here. It would be a real shame if someone was to damage it in any way. But if you offer us some money, then we're going to make sure that doesn't happen. A certain percentage of your job, of your income, your profits, and we'll make sure that doesn't happen. And of course, if you didn't pay up, then somehow it would happen, okay? This is the lifestyle that I was brought up in. When I was 15 years old, everyone was setting things on fire one day. They decided to set up on fire. There's the hospital and then there's a roundabout. And at the roundabout, there's the ExtraVision, if anyone remembers ExtraVision, blockbusters type of thing. You can buy your DVDs. Everyone's like, what? It's kind of like a Netflix, but you've got to go there to get the DVD, okay? So, you have like the past Netflix. You had the local Chinese to take away. You had the local DUP, which is what the paramilitaries were apparently representing. And you had all these different things, right? You had the bank and the shop and everything. And these young guys, about 100 guys, decided it would be a good idea to set this thing on fire. So they did. They set the whole thing on fire. Then any lorries or cars that were coming across the roundabout, they would set them on fire as well. So they would stop the car. They would get you out of it. And then they would set your car on fire. And we were driving towards it at the time. We decided it would be a good idea to keep driving that direction. Because, again, it's just normal to see this. So we thought, right, we'll get through. We'll be OK. And they stopped us. So you can imagine there are ski masks now. All you can see is a mouth and eyes. And they're running at the car. About five or six guys running at the car. Stopped the car. Car got stopped. And the doors are open, and one of them's got me by the jumper, and he's pulling me. And he says, all right, Alvin? And I'm like, all right? You're a nice man. And he's like, oh, what are you up to today? And I'm like. just driving home, man, we're just trying to get home. What are you doing today? And he goes, oh, we're just burning everything. I'm like, yeah, yeah, well, yep. And he says, here, we'll let these guys go. And he closed the door, and off we went. Thankfully, we were OK at that point. And the next day, everyone decided they wanted to go to It's like the Chinese and, oh, yeah, we burnt it last night. We can't go there. So it's just ridiculous stuff that was happening there. Now, the problem with all this was all of this stuff. Now, I'm telling you all this is a bit of background, but it's on purpose. The problem with this is this is all done in the name of God and religion. So again, this is a mural. Very common to see these in my state and many other states in Northern Ireland. This is very normal. Most side gable walls have these across my estate where I'm from, and you can see that it's quite welcoming, isn't it? Three men with bag covers and guns. Welcome to Rathcool, okay? But this was normal, and the problem was that this was all being done in the name of God and religion. All of it was being done in the name of God and religion. The drugs, the protection money, the marching, the shooting. If you were bad, if you were really bad, they would kneecap you, so they'd take a bullet to your kneecap, or a gun to your kneecap, and they would shoot it, and they would take you to the hospital, and you would get your knee fixed. That was what was happening in the name of God. When I was eight years old, my dad and I were marching along with the bands, so Northern Ireland, every 12th of July, there's the bands and they march down streets and they talk about how wonderful everything is and yes, God and Ulster, God and Ulster. And I was walking along beside them with my dad and I said to my dad, I hate Catholics. I hate them, right? Any other son who said that in my house and estate, their dad would have got on his knees, ruffled his head, and said, good boy. And that's where I'm from. My dad got on his knees and said, why? And I said, I don't really know. And he says, do you know any Catholics? I said, no, I don't know any Catholics. He said, do you know that Ian Wright, who is a football player for Arsenal, he's a Catholic? I'm like, is he? He's like, he's your favorite player? I'm like, yeah. He says, if you hit someone and you don't know why, then you're a fool. And he stood up and he walked away, and it totally changed everything for me. I'm like, this is so stupid. All this stuff is so ridiculous. All this hatred. I turned to atheism. My dad was an atheist, and I turned to atheism. If this is God, if this is religion, if this is Christianity, if this is what the Bible teaches, I don't want anything to do with this. Why would I want to do this? I don't want it. And so I rejected it completely. I threw the baby in the bathwater away, and I reached into atheism. And with atheism, pretty much the whole mindset, if we break a dine, is that I want to do whatever makes me happy. hedonism, right? I just want to do whatever makes me happy, whatever fulfills me, whatever satisfies me, whatever brings me pleasure, I'm going to do that. That's going to be my life from now on. And for my life, I don't want to get into all the details and all the sordidness of it, but that involved a lot of money and drugs and girls and drinks and fights and music and just got right into all the stuff that happens in that estate, but without all the shooting people. that went on. At this point in my life I was arguing with Christians and I would argue about how stupid they were because they believed in Noah and the ark. I thought you just were ridiculous that you really believe that God created the heavens and the earth. I thought it was such a foolish idea that Jesus walked on water and I would argue with Christians until they cried. Literally saw Christians cry with frustration because I would just be so against Christianity, so against the Bible, so against what was going on in all of this, and instead it was drugs and girls and drink and all the different stuff that happened. So this was my life. But at the same time, I was doing pretty well in school. So I was going to a high school at the time, and I was doing quite well. I was getting the right grades to get into university. I was going to be the first kid in my family of generations to go to university. So it was like, oh, he's going to do something with his life. It's wonderful to see this. I was doing well in the sports teams. I was in the football team. I managed to get in the rugby team. And they crushed me every time because I'm not that muscly, but I tried really hard. But I was in the teams, and that made me popular, of course, being in the teams. Even if you're not brilliant, you were in the team. You got to wear the jacket. So I was getting the good grades. I was in the sports teams. Everything was going quite well on that side of things. Everything was quite successful looking when it comes to all of that. And there was a good future ahead. And again, on the other side of it all, I was enjoying doing whatever I wanted to do. I was, what I believed, free to do what I wanted to do. No one could tell me what to do. I mean, the headmaster could try, and the teachers could try, and I would kind of behave, but behind the scenes, no one needed to tell me what to do. No one could tell me. I'm my own master, right? And I want to do what I want to do. Now, amazingly, Jim Carrey, you know Jim Carrey, the comedian? Jim Carrey stopped all of that. Jim Carrey stopped me in my tracks. How can Jim Carrey stop someone in their tracks? That guy's crazy, right? Jim Carrey said this, and it shook me, and I hope it will shake you a little bit as well, but this is what he said. He said, I wish that everyone could be wealthy, could be famous and could be successful like I am. This is not me, Jim Carrey, right? He said that. So that they would realize how empty it is. And I was like, what? I mean, that's what I was going for. I was going to get into university. I was going to get the good job. I was going to buy the big car. I was going to get the nice house. I was going to marry the beautiful woman. I was going to have 15 lovely children. I was going to get a nice dog. And it was all going to go great. And Jim Carrey said, it's not going to do it. It's not going to be enough. Or I was saying, I want to get into all this stuff, all this hedonism, all this stuff that I love to do, all this pleasure. And Jim Carrey, who's had it all, says it's not enough. Now, if I had been some poor man saying this, some guy who doesn't own anything, and he had said, I wish that everyone could have it so they would realize it was empty, but this is Jim Carrey, right? This is a guy who had a beautiful wife, he had nice cars, he had nice homes, he could travel anywhere he wanted to go at any time, he was famous, he was popular, he was funny, and he says, it's all empty. It's all meaningless. So, I heard that on New Year's Eve. In a New Year's Eve night, I am walking to a party thinking, what is this all about? What on earth is this whole thing about? Why am I here on this earth? Why am I spinning through this universe on a tiny little ball that's just spinning around the sun and I'm just here, just existing? And I can get the car, I can get the woman, I can get the house, and I can go on the holidays and get the nice job and die and have a grave at the end of it all. For what? Oh, I can chase the drugs, and chase the girls, and chase the money, and chase all this stuff, and have all this pleasure, and at the end, end up in a grave. For what? What is this all about? And it shook me. And I wasn't much fun at the party, by the way. I was really not a lot of fun to be around at that point. But two massive questions began to just really go around my head at this point. And they're questions that if you're honest with yourself, whether you're a Christian in the room or you're not a Christian in the room, you're always asking yourself these questions. And here they are. Number one, what is my purpose? What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? What is this all about? And number two, who am I? Who am I as Alan Campbell? Am I just an evolved piece of bacteria and therefore I have no value and no worth? Or do I actually have meaning in all of this? And those questions began to go round. Now I know you all ask them. Some of us like to shut them off by just going through Facebook or going through Instagram or watching movies or just entertaining our lives away so we don't have to think about these questions. But we're always asking the questions. Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going at the end of all of this? And so it hit 12 o'clock midnight. And I'm thinking to myself, another year, another year. I'm 18 at the time, so I'm not like full of life, right? Full of life experiences. But I'm 18. I've gone through quite a lot of horrible things at this point in my life. I don't want to get into a lot of details. But I was asking a lot of questions like, this year that's gone by was a lot like the year that went by before. And it's going to be a lot like the year that's coming. And it's just going to be a circle of years until death. So I went home after midnight. Everyone was surprising and kissing and hugging and celebrating and drinking and all this stuff. And I go home shortly after. I'm walking home. And I'm walking down. It's about a 20-minute walk. And I prayed. For the first time since I was a little child, I just asked God, God, if you're real, would you just show me that you're real? I mean, if you're real, you can do that. If you're real, you can show me that you're real. Because if you're real, then you're the one who knows what this is all about, and I don't have a clue. If you're real, then you made all this, and you made me, so you know why. And I have no clue, so show me. Now, nothing happened. There was no vision of Mary, nothing came, just that was it, and I went home that night. About a month or two later then, a friend invited me to a church meeting. Church? Are you serious? Church. So, she kept asking me, and I liked her, so I thought, well, she goes to church, she wants me to go to church, she'll be there, so I'll go. And I did. I went there with long hair, longish hair, holes in my jeans, and a bit of the worst to wear from the night before, let's just say. So, it's Wednesday evening at the church in 2007. And there I am. Now, everyone was really lovely and welcoming, which I hope you find that tonight as well. I didn't know what to expect. When you walk through the church door for the first time, what are these people going to be like? I mean, what do they—they believe in some invisible person. They're praying to him. They're singing to him. What's going on here? Right? Walking through the doors, everyone's got a suit and tie on except me. And I'm like, oh, no. but they're all really lovely. And they welcomed me in, and they introduced themselves to me, and we had a bit of, they were laughing and carrying on. I'm like, okay, they're all right. I sat down, everything was okay. She sits beside me, and I'm like, this is a breeze, just get through this hour, and everything's gonna be all right. Yeah, that's where I'm at at this point in time. Some of you are probably in the same thing right now, once it's finished. So, the preacher gets up to preach. and he preaches a sermon on sin. of sin for 30 minutes. He talks about sin. And I promise you this, right? There was more people in the room than this. And I felt like I was the only person in the room. I thought, it felt to me like all the lights had been shut off and there was this spotlight aimed at me. And I felt like everyone was looking. Because that man preached. And I tell you, he touched right into my soul and told me exactly who I was. And I was like, how does he know? And I actually turned to the girl. And I said, did you tell him about me? Before I came in. And she's like, no I didn't. I'm like, you did, you told him about me. Did you tell him I was coming? Did you tell him my story? And she's like, I told him nothing, I promise you. I don't even know him. Okay. So he talks about sin, how I have offended a holy God. How even telling a lie, and stealing, and looking with lust, and having anger towards someone hidden in your heart, and blaspheming in the name of God means that you've trespassed. In other words, you've crossed the boundary. You've broken God's law. And I'm thinking, man, I can't even count how many times I've done that. And you're guilty. So here's what happened. This is what began to happen. I promise this happened. I said to myself, well, I've done these things, so from this point forward, I'm going to have to clean up my life and stop doing those things and then I'll be alright. And the preacher turned around and said, maybe there's someone in this room tonight who thinks they can just stop doing these things and they'll be alright. What? He says, let me tell you. That's not going to do it because you still have to pay for all the stuff you've already done. What about all the guilt you've already done? He used a simple illustration that if someone begins a life of crime and then stops that life of crime after 10 years, and then the police catch up with him after 10 years, and he says, oh, I stopped all that. Well, that doesn't matter because you still have to be punished for all the stuff you've already done, right? I thought, OK. Well, maybe I can just talk to God and explain myself to Him, and I'll explain why I did those things. Maybe there's some people in this room tonight who think they can just explain themselves away! Oh, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? He says, let me tell you, God knows your heart of hearts, and He knows what really went on, and He knows that you loved sin, and you hated Him. You know, this is it. This is it. And then one more, I said, OK, I'm going to start coming to this church. I'm going to do whatever they want me to do if I don't go to hell. Maybe there's some people in this room tonight who think they can just start coming here. And he says, that'll not do it, because you can't come to church. Coming to church is not going to do anything for you. So being brought up in this, I walked past this stuff. People would threaten me. I was dragged out of cars. At that church meeting, I was trembling. My knees were numb. I'm like, oh God, I am guilty. I have broken your law, and I deserve your punishment for this. And there's nothing I can do. So I basically practically held out my hands and said, I'm going to hell. And I thought that was it. I honestly thought that was it, because it sounded like the preacher was done. And he finished with, that'll never do it. And if you've committed God's, if you've broken God's law, there's punishment for that, a just and righteous and good punishment for that, and that punishment's hell. And some of us don't like that idea, but we want murderers to be punished, don't we? We want rapists to be punished. We want justice to be done. And God is so just that he will exercise justice on all of us. And then he finished. I won. I won to hell. What a great meeting to come to. So glad I came along. And then he stopped for a while and he said, now I have some good news if anyone wants to hear it. Please tell me something better than this. And he told me, very short, just a few moments, very brief, that Christ Jesus had come as God becoming man. God stepped down as man and lived the perfect life for me, because I couldn't live it, lived it for me, lived it on my behalf. Righteously, perfectly, no commandments were broken by Him. And on His last day on this earth, He suffered torture at the hands of man in all sorts of horrendous ways. Even before He went to the cross, He was brutalized. A whole barracks of men punched Him in the face and whipped Him and pierced Him in so many different ways. A crown of thorns. Then his back was beaten so much. The Bible talks about that he was beaten so much across the back that it was like one wound. It was just an open wound. Bone and sinew and muscle all showing. And then they throw a purple robe around that and then rip it off again. I mean, I've had plasters and that hurts. This is a robe. And then they forced him to, after this, I mean, people die at this stage. And then after this, they placed the cross on his shoulders and forced him to march up a hill with it, and then they pierced him, and then crucified him, and then they mock him while he's dying. And I'm thinking, sitting there in that meeting 10 years ago, 11 years ago, thinking, but what does that mean for me today? What does that mean for me 2,000 years later, though, that this person died? And this is what was explained that night. That Christ, when he was on the cross, as the perfect one, took every sin that I had ever committed and placed it upon himself, as if he was the one who did it. As if he was the guilty one, as if he was me. And then God the Father poured out his holy, good justice, his wrath and his anger upon Christ instead of pouring upon me." And the last three words that Jesus spoke as he died was, it is finished. It is paid for. The debt's been paid. He dies and three days later he comes to life again to show that what he did was enough and he goes up to heaven And this is the message, that if I believe in that, if I put my trust in that, if I accept that to be true and lean in on that message, then God will come and remove my sin from me. And he will replace my sinfulness with the perfect goodness of Jesus Christ. So when God looks at me, Alan Campbell, who did all this, He no longer sees my sin. He sees as if I lived the life that Jesus lived. What? But I didn't. But that's how God chooses the operative. And so when I stand before God one day, I stand before Him clean. and righteous because of what someone else did for me. So I went home that night. I got on my knees. I said, God, I know that I deserve hell. There's nothing that I can do. You're good to give me hell because I've broken your holy law. But I pray that you would cleanse me through what Christ did. And he did. That night Christ set me free from sin. See, a lot of us in this room, and what I used to believe is that sin, doing whatever I wanted was great, I'm free to do what I want. But the Bible makes it clear, and Jesus said this in John 8, that whoever sins is the slave of sin. You have to obey sin. Now your sin is going to be different than my sin, but it's still the same master. And you know what the Bible says? It says the payment for serving that master is death. I mean, imagine you went to your job interview here in Bath, and he's talking, asking you all these questions, and you're doing very well, and he looks very happy with you, and then he says, do you have any questions? And you said, yeah, I'd be interested in knowing how much it is you're going to pay me, which I know you shouldn't ask that in an interview, but hypothetically. And he says, oh, yes, about that, yes, let me check, yep. Yes, here we go. Death. We're going to kill you. Would you sign up for the job? And yet that's what your master is going to pay you with, death. And Christ actually sets us free from sin, from death, from God's wrath, and makes us his children instead. Now, I was totally new as a Christian. I didn't have a clue what Christianity was. I wasn't brought up in a Christian home. I didn't go to Christian churches. I had no idea about Christianity. When I got baptized, baptism about a year later, or about eight months later, was simply to show people I'm a Christian now. Like, it wasn't going to make me a Christian, it was a way to show people I am a Christian, okay? Now, about baptism, baptism is where you go underwater, right? Now, I didn't know that. No one told me that. So, I rock up to the church with one pair of clothes. And everyone's like, where's your chains of clothes? I said, why would I need a chain of clothes? You're about to get baptized, and I'm like, yeah? Do you know what that involves on? I'm like, no, no idea. You're going to get so baptized. And I'm like, with my clothes on? Yeah, you're going to go in with your clothes? Right, clueless, totally clueless. I was invited to someone's house about three weeks after becoming a Christian, probably about a few months after becoming a Christian, and the father of the house said to me, Alan, would you like to say grace? Which is Christianese language for, would you like to say thank you to God for the food? I didn't know that. So he says, would you like to say grace? And I looked at him and went, grace? His wife is like this. Clueless, totally clueless. I hadn't got a clue, but I was growing in the Lord. It was so wonderful. Now, I still sin as a Christian. You've probably said things like this before, that all Christians are hypocrites. Right? Why? Because they sin? No. That's why we're Christians. We're Christians because we do sin. We're Christians because we know that we're sinners. And we know we need someone else to save us because we can't save ourselves. So yes, Christians sin. We all do. And that's why we need Christ to rescue us from the punishment and to continue to rescue us from the power of sin. Now I want to explain to you what the change was like becoming a Christian. I'm coming towards the end of the message. the day after I became a Christian, the message that night was that God will forgive you of your sins, right? The other part of Christianity, which I've tried to be getting at through this, is that he doesn't just forgive you of your sin, he changes you and rescues you from the slave of sin, right? I didn't know that part, right? So the next day I'm in school, this is the next day, I've just become a Christian that night. I go for my breakfast, I go off to school, I tell the gang that I'm in, that I'm a Christian now. And they're like, oh brilliant, very good. They don't know what that means either, but they're happy for me. We're all good. There's another gang in the school. A few weeks previous and months before that in advance, me and our gang and that gang fought each other. Good times, loved it, right? Fought each other now and then. So the gang comes and they want to fight. Three days before, I'd be like, happy days, get a little fighting, right? A little bit of recreation for lunchtime, okay? Way to whet the appetite. The gang leader comes, and I said, listen, I don't know what it is, but I honestly don't want to fight you. I don't know what happened, but I don't want to fight. He said, what? What are you talking about? I'm like, I don't know, but I became a Christian last night, and for some reason, I don't want to fight you. He's like, all right. Well, I want to fight you. And he pushed me. I'm like, no, honestly. And I've told all my friends. I'm like, please just stay away because this will get pretty crazy if we're all like, you know, the way guys get. So I explained to him, please, let's not do this. And he swung to punch me. And I've been trained in martial arts. And anyone who's done martial arts three times a week, the first half an hour is block, punch, block, punch, block, punch, block, punch, block, punch. So he swings the dick for me, I blocked, and I punched. Just reaction, I punched him in the face, and I felt so bad. And a few weeks before, that would have been a great punch, and then we would have got going, all my gang, everyone would have been great. I felt so bad. And he kept trying to punch me, and I kept walking. I said, listen, I don't want to do this. I don't know why, but I needed to stop. At this point, there was a few hundred people and I ganging around to watch the fight happening. And I stopped. I said, listen, stop. I said, everyone, I don't know what's wrong. I'm a Christian, and I turned around, and I walked away. I phoned the girl, invited me to church. I said, what have you done? She says, what? I'm like, what's happening to me? She says, what? I told her the story. I didn't want to fight this guy. She goes, did you become a Christian? I'm like, yeah, I became a Christian last night. She goes, well, Christ is changing you. I'm like, well, no one told me that part of it. No one told me there's going to be a change. Because, yeah, the Christ changes. And so, I was clueless. And so, friend, if you're not a Christian, please understand, we Christians don't think we're better. We are certainly not better. We're better off because Christ has rescued us. And it's the same for you as well. We want that to be the same for you as well. We're not better. We're better off. But it's not that you can't be better off with us. Now, becoming a Christian didn't make everything wonderful. There was no skipping down the street with rainbows and music. These things didn't happen. Birds didn't suddenly appear every time I was near. About a year after becoming a Christian, I was homeless for a year. I've gone through so many hard things. I had an engagement that ended. I had a lot of things I don't really want to get into because there's young ears here and it's on recording and stuff like that. But I've gone through a lot of stuff in the last years of being a Christian. A lot of unbelievers say that you just want Christianity because it's like a crutch to you. I'm like, Christianity? Christ isn't a crutch. Christ is a rock. A crutch means that I have to hold on to it. A crutch depends on me. I'm on the rock. I can just lean. He doesn't move. And he's got me through all those things and brought me through so many wonderful experiences that we don't have time to get into this evening. But I want to finish with this. Please, like me, in 2007, come and experience freedom from sin. I don't know what sin it is. It could be a polite sin, you know, the ones that nobody really minds, a wee white lie and things, but it's still slavery, and there's still judgment for it. It's a polite sin, perhaps, like money laundering and lying on your taxes. But you know what? To God, that's still punishable as that lifestyle as well. It just looks better to everybody else. It's just got a certain tie on it, you know? But it's still rebellion against God. Come and experience freedom from sin. Come and experience what it means to have purpose. Everyone's asking that question. There was a Gillette ad for a few months back that it was, wake up with purpose. I'm like, yeah, but what is the purpose though? I'm going to wake up and shave and then be like, now what? Come and experience purpose. Come and experience what it means to have your identity rooted. This is a confusing time to be alive. It really is. No one knows who they are. I mean, what does it mean to be British? What does it mean to be Northern Irish? What does it mean to be male? What does it mean to be female? What does it mean to be human? Christ tells you that in the Scriptures. You can find your identity. Come and find meaning in Him. Come and experience a relationship with your Creator, who you were created to know. The One who not just created you, but came and died and shed His blood for you. that you might be in relationship with Him. That's what we're offering tonight. And that's what Christ is offering tonight, is relationship with Him, freedom from sin, forgiveness of sin, knowing that when you stand before God one day, He says, welcome home, my child, instead of depart from me, you worker of lawlessness. And that's what we want to freely offer through Christ this evening. John 8, if the Son sets you free, you will be truly free. Thank you so much for your time this evening. Amen. That's brilliant, Alan, thank you for sharing that. I could listen to another hour or so of that. Thank you. Maybe one day we'll do part two, okay? But I just want to say tonight, I'm not going to make a speech, but you know that story I read earlier on, you might be thinking, well, what was the point of that? Well, at the end of that story, the people did one of three things. One group laughed it off, they sneered, they said, that's a load of rubbish. Another group said, we want to hear you again on this, which is like saying, I want to look into this. And the third group believed. Now in this room tonight, we're all going to make those same responses, one or the other. You may just laugh it off and say, that's a load of rubbish, he's just getting carried away. Well, there's nothing we can do if that's how you feel. I hope you'll think twice about that, but there's not really much I can do about it. But if you want to look into it, I want to say, for a start, you can pick up one of these on the way out. This is a book of the Bible called John, Gospel of John. And it's John's account, he was one of the Jesus followers, he was there when it happened, he saw it and he wrote down what happened. And he tells us in here about Jesus. And this is a really good one. It's got little QR codes in there. So if there's something in there you're interested in, scan it with your phone and you get a little, a guy come up on your phone and just tells you about it. It's really easy. And that'll be a way of starting to look into it. And come along to church on Sunday, alright? I'm not as good a preacher as Alan, but you can pick things up, you know? And we can learn together more about what it means. But thirdly, group, is to believe. You know, Alan said he asked the Lord Jesus to save him. Why don't you ask him tonight to save you? He loves you. He died on the cross for you, like Alan said. And it's just a prayer away. Say a prayer. Ask the Lord, Lord, please forgive me my sin. I know I've done stuff wrong. I ask you to forgive me. Thank you for dying on the cross for me. Wash me clean. I put my trust in what you did. Not going to trust in all the other stuff, just in what you did. So I get to heaven. And that's how you become a Christian. and we hope you'll take that one. So think about that. Those are the three responses, and we hope you'll make the third one. But anyway, everyone is welcome to pick up one of those. We've got about 30. If we run out and you would like one, please see me. I will make sure, to the best of my ability, I'll get one to you by the end of the week, all right? Wherever you are. Let's close our time together just with another song, and it's number...