From the Occult & The Hermetic Order to Jesus | Jac Marino | God Stories

well hello everyone my name is curtis field and i'm one of the pastors here at redeemer bible church and it is my blessing today i'm really excited about this to be here with jack moreno she is the social media coordinator at redeemer bible church and we are going to be blessed to hear her testimony and so it's going to be a really special time i know her story so i'm i'm really really excited for her to be able to share it with all of you and i want to start first by letting her explain what her role is here at the church like what is a social media coordinator what do you do oh wow well i get to do basically most of the things that you'll see online for redeemer bible church whether it's our twitter or instagram youtube or facebook and the graphics on those and i get to sit in for the videos that are filmed for youtube and it's it's a blessing i love it here so do i awesome and so now you're on this side of the camera yes sharing this amazing story of what god has done in your life well as we begin um i want to touch on a couple of verses so as i talked with jack a little bit um i just i so love her heart for this moment like her greatest desire is that jesus would be glorified and and this is this loving obedient response to god to share and proclaim his goodness and there's a couple of verses that i think really get to the heart of our time and really express and in my view jack's heart for what we're doing here today so the first one is in acts 1 8 and this is where jesus has resurrected but he hasn't ascended yet and so he is with his people in this interim period of time and he says but you will receive power when the holy spirit has come upon you and you will be my witness and i want to uh key on that in jerusalem and in all judea and samaria to the end of the earth and so um these two verses that i'm going to key on to begin our time were both in john's sermon that he did last saturday and sunday called pointing to jesus and that is jack's greatest desire right now is to point to jesus and so we are called to be witnesses for christ and that's what she's doing she's being his witness and she's going to be able to point us to jesus and what he did in her life and who he is um the other one is first peter 2 9. and um this is an incredible verse about our identity who we really are and what jesus has done for us and it really i think gives a vivid explanation of what our testimony is all about and so peter writes he says but you are a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light and so our testimonies are stories of being called out of darkness and into his marvelous light and jax i think does a beautiful job her testimony the story that god is writing in her life really does a beautiful job of illustrating um from darkness to light and that's her heart she wants to proclaim his excellencies and so i'm excited about our time together when we talked about uh when we talk about testimonies i think it's helpful to think of them in terms of who we were before god saved us how he saved us and then what has he done in our life how has he worked in our life how has he begun to change our thinking our behavior our desires our attitudes and so jack's story will follow along with that a little bit from who she was to how how god saved her and then kind of thinking through what has he done in her life since and and being on staff with jack um is a huge blessing i get to see every day the reality of who god is shaping her to be her love for jesus her love for her neighbor the excellence with what she does for her work here and she just has such a wonderful amazing heart that he has given her and we get to hear a little bit about it today so um all that being said oh and one other thing um jack one of her hesitancies is thinking through okay what do i share in my past was sort of born out of this concern i don't want it to be about my past i want this to be about jesus and and and yet i want to share my past because when i share my past it actually more vividly shows the grace and goodness and light of christ and so she's going to be really sharing both of those all right so that being said really i want to turn this over to jack and give her a chance to share about this amazing god story in her life yay well thank you and i'm so glad that you read the first peter 2 9 verse that's the first thing on my notes in bold just because i praise god yes so thank you um so i was born and i went to a methodist church with my family i went to a methodist preschool and my dad played drums in the worship band there and so i had a very small idea of who jesus was when i watched my dad play the drums there was something just about the maybe peace that he had or i just realized that there was something real about the christian god um but also when i was really young i was sexually abused by someone um in my life and i just had a lot of confusion about it it happened before i was two so my memories when i finally did start having memories at five of it i was i already had developed a fascination for this person and so there was just a lot of confusion around that and when i was five also my mom left my dad because of he had an alcohol and a drug problem but my dad and i were very close he was in my view a healthy relationship that i had um the abuse wasn't in my immediate family and so i still remember very clearly the day when my mom took me to another apartment and said like you know dad isn't coming home and just how hard that was to me because i knew that the abuse that was going on was wrong but i also was choosing to do it so i had a lot of shame and i know that's not how it is for so many people um but for me at a certain age it was something that i was choosing to partake in so it was more of like a sinful thing yeah and i know you you had expressed some concern about sharing that because that was that was true for you for many like you say that's not the case right um but but you have a pretty deep conviction that for you there was sin at that point at some point for you in that in that relationship and i just appreciated your your um tenderness toward other women or men who might say well no no i've come to realize that i was a victim i wasn't choosing it it wasn't my choice i didn't want it but that doesn't mean that's true for every single person right yeah and so i was very upset um and my dad told me that i was his life and his reason for living and that he had to get sober um because he would die if he lost me and i took that very seriously at the age of five that that that he literally would die without me and so that he i had to make sure that he stayed sober or else that would be terrible and that really became my identity of my dad and i like that's and that's also what love is is when you love someone their their whole identity they're your reason for living but my dad was continually either in [Music] the hospital from an overdose or in rehab or in a way back home or sober but on the verge of relapse and it was a cycle throughout my life and so there were just a lot of times of me um feeling like if i had just answered or if he had just answered my call if i just tried calling more if i just stayed on the phone longer it wouldn't have happened and there was a lot of just unhappiness with that and then as i was growing up um when i was around seven um my i got a call from my mom that she was hysterical that the person who had um the sexual abuse that happened with when i was younger was caught abusing um a child like a baby and she was very concerned and was like she always kind of had a feeling that something was going on but i completely denied it and she was just like did anything ever happen and i was so afraid at that point that i was going to be found out and that everything that had happened was going to be found out and before even then i'd started lying and just the secrecy of the abuse and acting out with other people and just there was so much shame and secrets that i was terrified that that i was going to be found out and so um i told myself if i just never think about this again i can create my own i can start over because it just seemed too heavy for this to be my life and so um i just thought if i never thought about it again and just forgot it then i could live you know a new life and you sure that you felt like you sort of did that is that is that a fair representation that on some level you were able to kind of just push it away and kind of try to move forward and and functionally had sort of done that i think so mentally yeah i really didn't like i refused to think about it and and i don't think it ever went away in how i felt and just the turmoil but um mentally it complete like it went away and yet all of that was still in there right and that's going to come out one way or the other right but mentally you were sort of focused on i'm just moving forward i'm leaving it behind and yes and throughout that time also um i was having experiences and this is where i want to say um i don't want my concern for it it's sounding weird but i share this to contrast the deception and the darkness of house the spiritual realm with the matchless power and truth of jesus um but when i was young um i started seeing these things in the sky that i thought were angels because i didn't have any real conception of what else it could be and my two of my dad's friends who'd passed away i just kind of put them together oh this must be the angels of my dad's friends that died but i felt this familia this deep familiarity with them and this comfort that they they saw me for who i was and they accepted me and and so i became really kind of obsessed with this with these entities and and later i learned not that much later that about aliens and so we're about ufos and how old were you at this point i was probably around seven seven seven or eight and it probably started a little before that maybe six um but i had this fascination and just this i became really isolated because no one i felt like no one really knew me and i didn't even really know me but i had this connection with these aliens and that went on um i would you know weird out my mom i'd say they'd be outside and it wasn't that i could physically see them it was just more of a sensory awareness of a presence of these entities that i thought were my friends around that time too i remember being at a birthday party and i there was just so much going on in my life but i remember specifically that there was this entity that i associated with the devil um i don't believe it was the devil but a demonic thing right and calling me to go down that path and i knew it was wrong just like so many of the other the lying and the things that were going on my life i knew it was wrong but i decided i'll follow you for now i'll go back to you know the small amount i know about jesus later but for now i want to do what sounds fun and it promised you know joy and pleasure and so i'm gonna go down this road and and that just always stuck with me um when my parents separated i stopped going we stopped going to church except for on christmas and easter so i had a very i believed that jesus was lord but i didn't know what that meant really and i didn't really know what faith was lived out um so it was just a mess and that that line of thinking that you had for like i'll follow this for now um i'll go this path for now later i'll come back to god right that really is going to be a theme that runs throughout your whole story until finally the king does enter into that story um but certainly i think you'd mentioned before like it's a trajectory that your life sort of went on when you made that decision in a particular direction that sort of plays itself out throughout your story yes so i always said i would never drink or do drugs um but i was just deeply unhappy and i turned to you know just acting out in a bunch of different ways in middle school i started cutting myself and i developed an eating disorder i was bulimic and anorexic i just in some way wanted to control my life and that's the only way i could see uh that i could get control yeah and not to oversimplify those things um because there's a lot that we could say but often people will say well i'm cutting myself because i have so much internal pain that cutting helps to temporarily sort of relieve that pain but it never works right there's only one that's going to bring peace and that's christ exactly or you know with eating disorders is often about i can't things are out of control but i'm going to control this now those things ultimately harm us deeply but um as i as i've heard you share your story before i think those you know the pain and the control were sort of themes in there as well so yes and that's 100 true that is exactly what i was seeking and never found and it just was this added to my secret life and added to my shame and it it's crazy how the enemy lures you and then accuses you but um there was a lot of just shame and so i always again said i was never gonna drink or anything because of my dad just watching close hand how he his life was just continually being ruined but my friendships were really my escape i found my identity in people instead of in god and um when i got to high school and my friends started drinking and going to parties i stopped being invited around and so to me that was such a that was the only thing i saw myself as having and so i didn't want to lose those friendships and so it first was the weed and you know pills and then it progressed until i realized i had to drink or else i wasn't going to fit in and so i did and when i drank i for the first time forgot actually forgot and the pain actually was numbed um with the other things drugs and stuff like that yeah it it was a part maybe i'm this but with drinking i was clearly drunk so right um that was a big relief and i knew though it was a terrifying relief because i knew i didn't want to feel any other way but that and that i wanted to be that way for the rest of my life yeah yeah it's interesting because um many people will drink almost like medicine you know and and maybe initially there's some fun in it but over time it becomes miserable um and it's sort of this self-medicating um approach to life and and if the pain is great enough or the escape the desire to escape is enough we can just say okay and that was a bit of my story but we can say yeah that's where i'm gonna kind of live as much as i can right yeah exactly and so that's what i did that became my new escape even though i started drinking and doing drugs to keep my friends i quickly realized they were doing it for fun and i was doing it because i believed i needed to to just be okay in my skin yeah and so i pursued that i was extremely selfish and terrible and did many things i'm ashamed of and i went down that path until i traded those friends for friends who went to bigger parties and did harder drugs and that was my high school life although i kept a good image and grades the shame was unbearable and it just was this snowballing of shame and sin and guilt and not even knowing who i really was but wanting to have control over my life and it was also in high school when the book the secret came out and it was about manifesting your own reality and that the universe is a force basically that we can manipulate and that was so alluring to me because it also tied in my alien thing because that was a thing throughout my life and if the universe is really the basically god then it just all kind of tied together and it also gave me what i was longing for which was the promise of peace by having a good life and and you know when you mentioned the entities at seven ish maybe a little bit before had that continued through high school or was there um it was it just more of that little period of time what was that for you i think when i was young it was stronger and then when i really started using drugs and alcohol as my escape it was always part of my identity like i felt like i had this special connection yeah but the supernatural things as far as i can remember really went down because my soul focus was on right yeah so okay that went on um but the actually but my fascination with aliens got worse especially with the secret and manifesting in the universe and my the small amount that i knew about the truth about jesus i was trading in more and more for okay well maybe jesus is the universe and just really getting convoluted and deceived into different doctrine and different philosophies so then i started dating someone who lived on a native american reservation he was native american and going to bigger parties with him but he started talking to me about new not new age but native american spirituality and a lot about aliens and i was like oh wow we're really connected it made me feel a deep connection with him that someone understood not just in oh i believe in aliens but that there's a profound deep spiritual connection with our ancestors and and so the small amount of christianity that i still had i was giving more and more away thinking that i'm gaining more wisdom that i'm getting this deeper understanding of reality when really i was just buying into more and more lies and trading the truth out for them that relationship was very um physically abusive and emotionally and spiritually and it was just terrible but he was my whole life and he was my whole identity so i really i didn't even know who i was apart from him and so that continued on at this point i'd gone to college i just chose a college it happened to be in pomona because it was far enough from my mom in san diego but close enough to my boyfriend i really had no thought about my future ever it was just the next time i'm gonna get high living for the instant gratification trying to find some kind of peace or relief from from just this overwhelming weight of my sin and shame and that went on for a few years and we broke up in a really scary way and i totally lost it i didn't know at all who i was i didn't want to break up with him but i just was a mess because my whole identity seemed gone so my eating disorder lasted for a very long time but at that point it got worse i was extremely thin i was trying the hardest drugs and just doing shameful things and i met a guy who was a drug dealer but he was very nice though so that's good a nice struggle great in my mind and and he the second that we met wanted to he there was something that that same deep familiarity that i'd felt in my childhood i felt the moment that i saw him and it was just this weird thing and so he wanted to take me to get a burrito or something and we he immediately started talking about aliens and the universe and how it goes into spirituality and it was just this connection like oh this is who this we're meant to be like i have that same feeling i'm being guided here and this makes sense and even though i didn't like him like that i immediately clung to him and he became my new identity he wanted me to quit my job he had a fake id and he could give me everything that i wanted so i became very dependent on him and again at this point i still would have called myself a christian god was so faithful throughout my life to send people who testified of the truth i went to a wanna once because of a friend but i loved my sin i didn't i didn't want to turn and i kept telling myself i'll go back to being who i really am or who i'm supposed to be later but right now i just don't want to deal with my past i don't want to deal with any of it i want to live and have fun and so that relation we got into a relationship and he started introducing me to new age ideology i didn't know at the time that's what it was but i glorified him he became effectually a god to me and he really did not believe in jesus and i felt bad for him at first thought i was strong enough to keep my small amount of faith but my idea of who jesus was was very convoluted and i just started buying into his more spiritual new age beliefs that christianity is all these bad things until i really denied jesus while still calling myself a christian still wanting to cling on to that little bit of of i'm deep down i think i knew the truth at at least a small amount but i just wanted to be loved and i wanted to have that escape yeah and you know as as i hear you share i sort of hear this path right there is this decision you make at seven i'm gonna pursue this way i'll come back over here later but you you haven't come back right so it's building on itself the relationships the ideology the way you're thinking just continues to move in a direction and build on itself farther and farther from christ until at this moment it's sort of the end of whatever your little bit you are clinging to you know of jesus and so what was the impact at you know at that point on your life of kind of finally going all right no more jesus um even though maybe somewhere deep down you kind of you still thought that was true but you know there functionally there was this decision like okay yeah nope he's not real um what sort of happened at that point things got really dark i feel like before my life was it was dark but there was a real shift in my reality i also got into psychedelic drugs and just really buying into that the new age beliefs um it went from i was going to a lot of clubs and that turned into these new age burning man-esque festivals and when i really got rid of whatever small belief i had it things just got dark it was like a dark shadow or a dark veil came over my reality but i just wanted the power i wanted the control of my life that was such a big thing is wanting control over my reality and so i i really clung i clung to the relationship i boldly just kept going i was really believed that fear was the enemy and that i just had to keep going into this darkness i knew it was dark i just found ways to convince myself that it wasn't and so i'm was getting into meditation and aliens and astral projection just all of these out of body kind of forcing out of body opening the third eye welcoming these kind of experiences begging for them basically these supernatural experiences which i now believe was genuinely asking for the demonic to be a part of my life but at that time i think i deep down knew that's what i was doing also but i didn't want to believe it and so i became really just addicted to drugs and still alcohol and as we continued down this path there were some things that i just couldn't do the lord was so faithful even throughout my life to just have some restraint it amazes me how at a lot of those festivals that i went to there was things that are so similar to to the old testament and the and the pagan uh sexually immoral rituals and it was just um but i felt like it was because of my christian dogma that was holding me back from being a free spirit and so it was just this struggle of i really if i go into this darkness i'll gain the power that i want but i i knew it was wrong and i continued down this path until we broke up and it was just the worst and i believed he still loved me and we were so connected that we lived hundreds of lives and um and he had been telling you these things right so you were buying into more and more his lies um to the point where now you're you're believing you're you've been connected hundreds of lives and it'll circle back around right exactly um even to the point where i believed that if i were to die like we would be together it was just so demonic all of my beliefs but when we broke up i clung to that at that deception i didn't want to let it go now because i really didn't know who i was throughout my life i didn't but now i didn't this was my religion and i again wanted to control when i'd gone to college my dad really went downhill um because i wasn't there i'm an only child and it was just terrible to see um him just be homeless and it was it was just really really ugly and i had tried to move him up to la when i was in la so i also dropped out of school when i was in this relationship and moved to hollywood to be closer to him and so that's where i was and it was just a mess and my dad i tried to move him up to la and he basically ran away and was on the street and so i just was torn in a million ways um and i got to a point where i just thought you know these people didn't didn't accept me because i wouldn't go into the darkness but i had so much pride also i just kind of snapped and was like if this is if this is what i need to do then i'm just gonna go for it and that was a huge snap turning point in my life where i really forsook the truth knowingly and started obsessively looking into then there was a lot more of the alien influence and i believe that i was being led by this entity that led me to egyptian mythology and the ancient mystery schools and that led me to sacred geometry and just all of these ideals and when you say more of the alien influence um at this point what do you mean by that i was obsessed with the stars and astrology and i had this strong connection with orion the constellation i felt this familiarity and so i was just everything was a sign so every number i saw every like literally it was like it was terrible but everything was the universe talking to me so i couldn't hold a conversation with a human because i was just completely out of it and ev i was i was led by seeing everything as a sign and everything directing me so i was allowing this influence in my life take not at all taking my thoughts captive but just going and it led me to um this this ancient egyptian deity named thoth some people say toth but i always said thoth and i felt that same familiarity i found out orion's deeply connected with egypt so everything was linking up oh this is what i've believed since i was a child and it was really this deep affection um that kept drawing me into the darkness i believe that that thoth entity was leading me through signs and through feelings and through awareness of presences to these tarot cards that happened to have the name of an order called the hermetic order of the golden dawn on it but i knew that the tarot cards were made by a man named alistair crowley who's known as one of the most wicked men to have ever lived and i still the lord was so faithful that i knew that what i was doing was wrong and i knew that i needed jesus somehow like i i wanted everything that i was doing and jesus too i wanted to somehow cling to that and so i just knew okay well this is too dark even for me i i'll you know i'll come back around to this and so i was spent years alone in a studio apartment you know altars to this this egyptian deity and just obsessed with magic started practicing alchemy and just all this stuff that i believed would ultimately give me control and give me power right and that continued for years of darkness until i finally was like one day i was walking down the street and this freemason lodge glowed to me like glowed yeah and so i sat in front of it and i um i believe that this was my next thing and so i reached out to them and they told me i couldn't join because i'm a woman and i was like oh that makes sense okay so they said i could join this other order but that order symbol was a pentagram and i was like well that's bad and so just these little things of trying to always trying to justify what i was doing oh i'm doing white magic not black magic oh i'm doing just the ways that we can deceive ourselves into making excuses for doing the wrong things well the bible talks about satan being the father of lies and he but he comes as an angel of light and so he he twists even in the we see in the garden this idea of you know when god says don't eat of the tree satan's like did he really say that and so there's maybe some truth mixed in there and but really he means this you know and and so just to see that growing deception um that happens in all of our lives before we're saved in different ways and it looks differently maybe for different people but that growing deeper deception and that demonic influence um and the bible talks about doctrines of demons and you know and that's all around us that there's one christ there's one faith and there's one way to come to god through jesus christ and christ alone acts 4 12 and so so at this point it just continues this is just my perception as i've as i've learned about your story over time is is there's this growing demonic deception manifesting itself in how you live how you think how you act um farther and farther from that sort of initial point of hearing about jesus and there was something clearly beautiful about that to you at that time that you kind of hung on to in some way but now it's getting even deeper yes yeah i'm so glad that you said that because throughout my life throughout this i really was clinging to this idea of christ consciousness that instead of it just there's so many ways that they i tried to fit christ in by these lies oh everyone can be we're all christ like you just have to become aware or your sin isn't really sin it's shame and you have to love yourself and you have to embrace the shadow and just these things that i believed that nev i knew they didn't have any power nothing ever changed i was still unhappy i can't even put in words how deeply tormented and miserable i was so that just it just amazed me but i knew i was missing something and as i was also looking into all of these other religious texts reading other um like the bhagavad gita and other religious texts i something was missing it it wasn't saving me and i knew i thought i could be my own savior but i hated myself i loved myself and i hated myself it was this weird thing but i knew i couldn't save myself as much as i wanted to so i didn't want to join that order because of the pentagram and the order on these aleister crowley tarot cards um i finally was like you know what this is where i'm being led it's like i kept circling around i tried the rosicrucians it just all made sense the signs there it was just weird but when i got to the point of joining it i joined it made sense there was a cross on the logo so it must be fine yeah and i called them and someone higher up in the order met with me at a coffee shop in silver lake and i was probably 21 22 at this time and he everything is talking about from aliens to um both to literally everything was what i had been being led to and so i was like oh my goodness this is what i've been being trained for since a child this makes so much sense this is my destiny like this this is what i need to do even though when i was there it was like there's this dark cloud or something it was just so dark and heavy um but i knew that that's what i wanted to do there was other times in my life where that where i made decisions and that just this feeling of just darkness and then dark it was just this uh building on itself of darkness but i i wholeheartedly agreed to joining this order on my way there i was so excited to join he told me to meet him at a freemason lodge and so i went and i wasn't scared i was excited because again i believed i'd been trained for this since my childhood it made so much sense to me and i went in and it was dark and they there was a lady in like a black robe waiting for me at the top of the stairs and it was just very ominous but it was i thought it was powerful there were multiple times throughout my journey where there was this scary power physical manifestations on me and just things that were happening out of my control that i was aware of the power but i knew it was terrible power it wasn't good um and that was the kind of feeling that i felt when i walked in they put me in a black robe and put me in a room and had me meditate they were all images of of isis and the other egyptian gods mainly isis though and we as i'm in that room meditating they i can hear them in the ritual room yelling and making all this commotion but i wasn't i was just excited and i had so much pride that i'm going into this and and i almost at that point the lord was so faithful i can't say that enough because i was never content like i knew it was wrong and it hounded me it didn't let it go and so they put a um a hood wink i think it's called on me and bound my hands and did the ritual and i was excited but it was very dark and i continued going back and practicing magic and invoking both and these entities that was was what i was doing but it was so much more intense and i felt like i was learning so much and the bible tells us that behind idols like even physical idols are demons and so behind all of this are demons masquerading as whatever and so when you're invoking what you think is thoth it really is now we're treading on really serious dark dangerous ground yes and it was and it was thank you for saying that um it was bad and as i'm in this i had so much pride i was told you're moving up so fast we've never seen this and so just really feeding into my i felt like i had power i still just was i i was just confused in general but i i still believe there was a connection between me and that the person and so i was i just felt like i was gaining so much power and it blew my mind though that i was getting more and more depraved and more and more wicked and less and less self-control which is what i i did not want to be addicted i didn't want to be an addict anymore i had so much shame i i just had no control over my life and and it just blew my mind that i'm supposed to be gaining the power of the universe and i can't even quit smoking cigarettes right um yeah so that continued and during that time the alien thing really crescendoed to where i was asking i was i was alone all the time in my apartment and they but they were always with me i have very creepy just recordings from that time where i genuinely believe i was possessed but i was asking for it i wanted them to see through my eyes i believe they were my friends that they understood me and it was just such a deep part of my life an obsessive part of my life and correct me if i'm wrong but i think you've shared with me that um in terms of seeing through your eyes and and that they accepted you there was um and so correct however i mistake this but there was a sense of there had been two lives in a way for a long time and and maybe people didn't always know the real you but but you felt okay with them knowing the real you like wanted to be known in that way and wanted them to see through your eyes yes this is that i'm trying to remember how you've shared that with me in the past but how would you explain that i really felt like no one knew who i really was um since i was young and i didn't even really know who i was but there was that you know that shame and that heaviness and i just felt like these entities understood me and that they knew me and that they saw me and i think i thought that they loved me although i i don't know if i really thought that i was terrified of them but i wanted i believe that i was special to them honestly that was the big thing and so i wanted that connection and i also believe that i was special because of them so it was this whole thing throughout my life and when you say wanting them to see through your eyes what do you mean by that i wanted them to use my body like i just i was like i just wanted i i don't even know how to word it i wanted them to be i don't even know but yeah i wanted them to be like to take over and do whatever they wanted i i believe that's what they wanted to do and so i was like i would be you know happy to do that and i just was having terrible lucid dreams which is basically means you're you wake you train yourself to to wake up in your dream but you're dreaming but then you have control of your dream um which is just i i think it's demonic um and at least the way i was doing it and i was just waking up from my dream though to where i really thought i was awake but then there would i would see aliens in my room and it was just yeah so many things and um physical things happening um scary things and so i i was i was really really scared it was it was terrifying but i still was pursuing it and i wanted to understand i thought that they were demons like i was almost certain but i kept going because i that but did god really say that they are like the really though maybe i should find out for sure but i knew it was wrong that continued and just got terrible to the point where i did not recognize whatever was behind my eyes um it made my blood run cold like that feeling when you run a red light or something and it's just like terror like it was just terrifying to see myself you say recognize what's behind your eyes um i think you had shared looking in the mirror so it happened twice that i can remember very distinctly where i looked in the mirror and it was just this terror that whatever soul maybe not soul but whatever was behind my eyes like i don't even know what that was and it was terrifying um i just really felt more out of control than ever and my addictions were worse than ever and my life was just a mess and so i continued in this order but even when i was in that order i i there were some things i couldn't do and i would i still thought i was a christian i went back to okay i am a chris like i got so scared that i'm like okay wait never mind there is something special about jesus but i still want to do this and it was this whole thing and then i i i just i got to the point where the this order used kabbalah and which is basically like jewish mysticism it takes the bible out of context and allegorizes it i guess i'm not very wise but i think that's how i put it um and it just i thought okay well i'll read the bible some of the bible too and and the lord was so faithful to use that and those few things that i read i just hit me like this is the truth all these other things that i've read they left me more hungry but this small this just this pat like this is true and the lord was so faithful to send people in my life who testified to the truth who shared that jesus is the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except through him and i was so mad and shaking but i could not let that go and so when i read that let me see here basically that you can tell a tree by its fruit um you'll recognize them by their fruits i didn't even know what that meant in context but i knew that at this order i loved the people there but they were just as depraved as me and that i couldn't shake that that okay this is bad fruit um if they're they have addictions just like me and and this is bad and then i read that satan masquerades himself as an angel of light and that was news to me and that was kind of my whole thing is how can this be bad when it's it's a lightbearer these entities are light bearers i didn't know that's like what lucifer means but i just kept trying to justify it by that so when i read that god's word i just knew it was true and i knew it was satan behind it which i knew i knew deep down but this was in my face but i was still so prideful that i didn't um want to turn yeah and so as you're um it's so interesting because as you're reading the bible in the context of something so pagan on so many levels um you begin to explore the bible and the spirit begins to help you to see the truth of some of these scriptures and is maybe beginning to open your eyes you know god draws us to himself and so it sounds at this point like he is probably drawing you to him um and so so now there's this uh beginning shift in your thinking so so where does it go from there then so yeah it was like that pebble or however they put it i just it really i couldn't forget it and then one day i was in my apartment and i remembered that the first lie that satan ever told like that he said in the garden is that if you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you'll become like god knowing good and evil and that was the whole premise of the occult is that if you just will eat of the knowledge of evil like if you'll just go into the darkness and shine the light on it then you'll become like god and i thought i knew i was like i didn't even fall for some new lie you know this is the original lie that led to the fall and that's what it's leading to in my life this is never throughout my life this has not brought me peace this has not given me anything that it promised it has just brought accusation and shame and guilt and but still at that point i genuinely i cannot it was so dark the it felt like there was a pit beneath me just so deep all the time always trying to escape myself to not think about it but i didn't i believed i was too far gone for jesus to save me i genuinely was like i'm just gonna die like it was very bad but god was faithful and um i was still in the order yeah i was still in the order but i one day i was walking across my apartment and it was it was actually a night and it was a night like any other night of my life but out of nowhere i collapsed to my knees and it felt like my soul was being sucked out into complete darkness and i heard myself scream jesus christ save me and it it it almost shocked me to hear myself say that but i meant it and in that moment i knew that i had been saved and that i'd been saved from whatever that attack demonic attack was i'd been saved by the god of the bible that it that the father the son and the holy spirit is the only true god it's the god of the bible there is no other whatever i've been praying to whatever i've been doing in that order is sin every thing that like because i would just open the bible and just oh i'll read it and it would open to things condemning sorcery and i'd be like oh no that can't be true and i knew in that moment oh that was true this is the truth and i was shaking like this totally freaked out but mainly because i was aware of of my sin like completely not completely but i was aware of it and so i got the bible that i'd been keeping under my bed because of the terrifying things that had been happening and i started reading it and at first i i thought i was you know so much more enlightened and there was a pride but that quickly i realized as i was reading it that that everything else had left me more hungry all the other things but this was actually feeding me and and it was so good and it was so soothing and i kept reading and as i was reading the lord had sermons just randomly on the radio that came on and and testified and just people and i was just amazed that what what have i been doing this is the truth this is amazing there's no power like this all i all that secret power was literally nothing compared to just this and by the time i finished reading the bible i realized that i totally changed before that i'd done so many rituals and so many works and hours and hours of things to try to gain some kind of relief or some kind of change or some kind of just being different and nothing really worked it was like this illusion that like it was like fog it wasn't real deception yes yes 100 totally deceived yes but this had changed me and i knew for the first time in my life that i could get sober and that was stunning to me because i genuinely was like i will never ever be able to get sober or quit smoking cigarettes or anything like i've ruined my life and i knew for the first time no i haven't like jesus is god like he is the lord and he died for the sins that i committed and he has given i'm a new creation and it was just it was so cool i was amazed it's like with the apostle paul the scales you know and you saw your sin you gave your life and you were just new life in that moment new eyes new heart new life yes it was it was so exciting and so i just locked myself in that same apartment and i just got sober and i was listening to these sermons and just it was so exciting because seriously i can't stress enough all of these secret knowledge that's supposed to be so great left me hungrier and that's what it does and this was the truth and and like the bread of life and it was so exciting to me and so i found a church um the one this the pastor that i'd randomly heard on the radio i just looked him up and and i found out that there was a church related to that church near me and so i started going and that pastor was so faithful to go through the word of god verse by verse chapter by chapter but also to sit with me and i would be i still thought that i had this secret knowledge that's kind of how they got me is like oh well now i know the secret and just pride honestly and just really the word and god's spirit just humbling me and revealing to me no actually like the god's word is true what you learned was a lie and and it was just this patience that that pastor and his wife showed me and the bearing with me and just going through it and i got to a point where i was at that point it sanctification was truly the progressive thing for me that that sanctification being that once we become a christian this lifelong process of of god making us more like jesus yes and so that was beginning yes in your life so for a while i still thought i still thought i could have you know i could be in the order and go to church or i could do astrology and go to and go to church but the more that i read of god's word and the more being in fellowship i just i knew i knew it was wrong and so i was convicted of it and i one day during an altar call i went up i felt this i have to go but i didn't want to because i thought i'd i was already christian which i was i believe i was saved in that moment in my apartment but i went up and that was kind of my public you know what i'm i'm all in i'm tired of being lukewarm or any anything but all out for jesus and so i got baptized well before i got baptized i told the order you know i'm i'm leaving i i can't you know i i can't be a part of this like i'm a christian now and they you're not like you're not allowed to leave um but i was like okay well i'm not coming back yeah well that's awkward i'm not coming back so yes yeah um and so that was good um and i and i just think it's so important for me to remember like with all the the promises or all of the the curses kind of if you ever tell any of these secrets or if you ever do this really held me and i never want to revile angelic majesties or anything like that but just knowing that god is sovereign like the doctrine of the sovereignty of god has changed my life because i'm like wow that's awesome yeah charles spurgeon says that um there's no in his view there's no attribute of god more comforting than his sovereignty it's truly comforting yeah um so just just knowing that truly jesus is is lord like overall including that and so that was even when walking away that was comforting and so i was baptized and i slowly after time at the church started serving um in worship and then i was their worship person and it was just such a blessing the lord opened up a door for me to go to the musicians institute in hollywood where i got to share what god had done in my life and just scream it out wherever i could like the lord has truly brought me out of darkness into his marvelous light and he there is no other savior like there is no other savior um yes and then he led me here and it's just been truly amazing to be just to see what god has done even before we were filming this i was like this is so cool i can't believe i'm saved and this is and you get to talk about it and share about what god's done yes yeah so i'm just so happy and the lord again and always will be and always has been so faithful to put me around pastors who i'm around all day and can just pour into me the truth and just weed out you've been so faithful and so of other pastors here to just walk with me and when those lies come up if they're any lies that that are still in there just to walk with me through the scriptures and i'm just i'm so happy yeah yeah is it can you imagine if you go back several years to today i mean it is it is truly two different lives completely different lives and a in a whole new trajectory that you're on so there was one at seven you know maybe that sort of sent you in a direction but that was nothing compared to the direction that god now has for your life and and i see that in you jack i mean i i see the light you shine for him you love him we are all imperfect we all still struggle with sin until he calls us home to glory um but but i see such beautiful evidence of his grace upon you to make you his daughter and also to continue to help you to grow in your love for him and i was thinking about as you were talking that verse that says that greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world right so satan is in the world but when we become a christian he places his holy spirit within us and so the power of satan is nothing compared to the power of god amen and and he was victorious in your life um and so you've already shared some things but um what are a few other things that you would think of like here's who i was here's who i'm now or here's how i used to think or have desires hear hear how he is renewing me and changing me and sanctifying me yes and the most relevant to what we were just saying just the desire to you know any of the stuff that i was partaking in is like the fact that i don't think about drinking like i never thought i would never think about that and and i have to remember oh yeah that was a problem for like it just blows my mind the true deliverance of the lord that doesn't mean i'm not ever going to be tempted but just that i've been delivered from these things that were so terrible and i never thought i would be and i'm totally free um it's amazing that is miraculous yes i mean it's totally miraculous it is i mean us being saved right from darkness to light is a miracle and then for him to intervene in that way and and take those away from you is um certainly evidence of his grace and and his mighty power yeah it's incredible and you talked before um when we've talked about this um you know outside of this time that there was um that you had lied a lot you know that that was a part of how you lived your life and how much that's changed yes as well i i think about um i think it's proverbs 12 22 but lying lips are an abomination to the lord but those who deal truthfully are his delight and i just that's always in my head because it's it just amazes me that even if i tell like a tiny like half truth it'll be so convicting i'll be like oh wait i'm so sorry i said that and so yeah obviously again i'm not perfect but just the the true desire to be obedient to the lord and to tell the truth not out under like comp like i have to it's i truly desire to obey god's word and to obey god because i when i was in that i was it's so pressed that the bible is you know it's all to hold you back it's all to keep you in the dark and i think that's such a lie that the enemies tells us oh i'm i'm the lightbearer i'm gonna enlighten when really it's the darkness it's just this whole sw like flip it's just deception but it amazes me how just the desire to obey god's word knowing that it's inerrant knowing that it's sufficient but like those are big words but just knowing oh this is the truth and this is what i can follow and and and god yeah is what he wants me to do is what's best for me it's not holding me back it's actually so freeing to obey god yeah i love that that's so good and so when he saved you the bible says he takes out a heart of stone puts in a heart of flesh and that heart now beats for him desires to honor him we don't always do that because we still have this remnant of sin in this life you know that's it's in our flesh um but that is all evidence of that new heart new creature born again daughter of the king um and now all of our desires change um you also had mentioned before when we've talked about um philippians um and how how much that's changed for you um you just mentioned that i just was so selfish my whole as much as i can remember of my life i was self-serving i was seeking my own i was looking out for myself and that was so ingrained in me but reading um in philippians when it says let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit but in loneliness of mine let each esteem others as more important than himself and look out not only to your own interests but also the interests of others like that blew my mind but i was like oh yeah this makes so much sense just the desire to really like look out for other people over yourself and consider them even more important than yourself which is it's it's so backwards from what the world and what the enemy and what our flesh would want to do but it's just amazing how it there's so much joy in it because it's god's plan for us it's his what he wants and it's a very christ-like quality because we see that vividly on the cross where he was asking his father before he went to the cross if there's any other way right but there wasn't so he said take this cup from me it's the old testament cup of wrath and he because he loved his father he loved the people that his people he went to the cross in a very selfless way and so he for him to be giving you that new heart and cultivating it cultivating that in you um is another thing that just brings glory to his name yay yeah that's so great um well i i'm so thankful for everything that you shared and and i am thankful for the courage that um you've showed to talk about who you were and the bible says when it lists all these sins it says and such were some of you and so you talked about who you were literally that person is dead yes right it died with christ you've been raised up as new life and you've been born again um but but to have that courage to share um that part of your story i really appreciate that and then just the joy of hearing how he saved you and what he's doing in your life and as far as you know our growth the longer we're a christian the more we see our sin for what it really is the more we're grieved by it the more holy we realize god is and so we're works in progress in this life you and me both um but the more we see that the more we see that his grace covers all of it um so that's great anything else you want to share before we close our time um i just i was thinking like when you're saying the courage it just amazes me that i have any courage because i'm so cowardly so i know it's i know it's the lord and i'm just really thankful would you be willing to share quickly the gospel yeah so that was my plan see the spirits at work you know sharing that in both of us um so as we close our time there's two things i wanted to say as i think about jack's story um i think about how it there's so many points of who she was before christ that could potentially connect with other people whether it's sexual abuse or whether it's drugs and alcohol or whether it's a divorce or whether it's the occult or astrology or any of those things that she's mentioned i i think that there's so many of those touch points that somebody might go gosh that that right there that that's me that's my story and so as as believers i hope that this has been super encouraging to you my prayer is that um this builds up your faith and it encourages your faith and it helps you to love jesus even more to be even more in awe of him and pursue him even more fully but if you're watching this and you would say you're not a christian my prayer is that god might use this story what jax just shared to open your eyes as well and to save you and to rescue you and so there's a couple of passages that i want to read because i think they connect with this idea of sharing our testimony and my prayer is that if you're watching this and you don't know christ he might use the truths that she shared and the truth from his word as well that you might that this might be the moment that you would give your life to christ that you would put your faith and your trust completely in jesus and jesus alone for your salvation but there's a couple that i wanted to read here and we're going to start in ephesians 1 and verse 4. and so this talks about god's hand on you can even hear that in your story how god's hand was on your story on your life he knew he was going to save you that whole time and so everything was going to culminate in that moment when he rescued you and so in ephesians 1 verse 4 it says even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love he predestined us for adoption so we when we're saved we become his children adoption to himself as sons through jesus christ according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved in him in jesus we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our sins according to the riches of his grace which he has lavished on us and so we our problem is our sin and a holy god that it separates us from and his wrath is on that sin and yet through jesus we have redemption for our sins and so romans 10 9 says that if we confess jesus his lord and believe that god raised him from the dead we will be saved and so that's my hope for you that you would put your faith and your trust in jesus and jesus alone and and if you have questions reach out if you if you don't know anybody reach out to redeemer bible church if you know a christian in your life reach out to them um to to begin having that conversation but we pray for everybody that this was a huge blessing for you i know it was for me i i could probably hear your story you know maybe once a week just to kind of remind me of god's grace and his goodness and his power and who he is um and so i really appreciate all that you shared thanks so much jack all right everybody god bless

Channel: Redeemer Bible Church AZ

Views: 181,791

Keywords: From the Occult & The Hermetic Order to Jesus, Jesus, Bible, Redeemer Bible Church, Arizona, Gilbert, Bible Church, Truth, God, Sound Doctrine, Gilbert Arizona, Church, local church, biblical preaching, gospel centered, the golden dawn, aliens, new age, the secret, manifesting, thoth, tarot, astrology, can christians do astrology, hermes trismegistus, addiction, alcoholism, alcohol, psychedelics, from occult to Jesus, from new age to Jesus, wicca, magic, aleister crowley, mystic, abuse, jac marino

Id: S7h9gjjEBEY

Length: 67min 4sec (4024 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 22 2021