Last night, a group of 20 were able to go to Port Sunlight to hear Roger Carswell interview David Hamilton at a Wirral Gospel Partnership event. It was a great evening, and David’s testimony was certainly very challenging! Despite the things that he has done in the past, as a member of the UVF in Northern Ireland, David said he is now completely confident that he will go to heaven when he dies. He said that it is not good people that go to heaven, but saved people – referring to those that have put their trust in Jesus and been saved by God’s grace.
We are all tempted to think of ourselves as better than other people, as good people; even David said that before he was a christian he used to think of himself as a ‘good terrorist’. The reality is though that we are seperated from God, cut off from him because of our sin. That is why he sent Jesus to die in our place, to take the punishment that we deserve so that we can be right with God, no longer seperated but in his family, so much so that we can call him Father. Was David just forgiven by God for all that awful stuff he did? No. Jesus was punished on the cross for all that awful stuff that David did.
That is why David was so confident that he is going to heaven. Going to heaven is not about being a good person. It is about putting your faith in Jesus, in the fact that all our sins were put on him by God and that there is nothing left for us to pay. Christians like David are not arrogant about going to heaven – they haven’t done anything to earn their place – but they can nonetheless be confident that they are going to heaven because of what Jesus has done.
If you want to know more, come and find out at church or get in touch with Tim.
Beechwood Chapel 