From Satanist to Christian (Wyatt)

One night we were out late. There was this young person's club, it was no alcohol, so anybody could go in. It was a midnight cafe, but they played heavy metal music. We were there, on our way there as we pulled into the garage, all of a sudden cop lights start flashing. All of us are high, drugs all over the car. Paraphernalia, pipes, rolling papers, all these are in the car. We jumped out, we ran, we ran as fast as we could to get away from them. I ran into the club and try to mingle with everybody. My heart is pounding-- to me I'm afraid I am going to get caught. I've been arrested so many times. I don't know what they're going to do this time. I sit down across from this man, he's dressed in a long black trench coat. He doesn't seem to be interested in first.

Then he begins to engage me in conversation. He says, "What's going on, what's wrong?" I just dismiss it, but then he insists, "No, I can see something's going on, what's going on with you? I could tell the guy is not an Insider or a cop. I started telling them him my story a little bit. He just nonchalantly asked to me, "Have you ever heard of satanism?" I said, "Yes." he said, "Well, have you ever looked into it, what it's about?" I said, "Well, not really." He started asking me a few questions about it and which prompted me to ask him some questions, and so we get in this conversation. He starts describing what Satanism is.

One of the first things I did as I went out to the bookstore, I bought my own Satanic Bible, and I began to read the Satanic Bible and study with it with a friend and get to know it, and starting to understand the philosophies behind it. We pursue that hardly, my friend and I, we went out and we gave each other a satanic tattoo to just give us a sign of Satan. Well, even with the power of Satan in my life now and just weird things happening all around. I kept getting arrested. I got arrested for running away from home, not once, not twice, three times, maybe even a fourth time. They always brought me back home. I had a dirty urine. That's what they called it. I tested positive for marijuana.

You know what happened? They had I think it was the third or fourth time, I think it was the fourth time I got arrested for habitual absence they called it. They said, "We're done. You obviously have a drug problem, and we have a way to help. We're going to send you to a drug treatment center." That's where they sent me. They sent me off to drug treatment. One night I get caught smoking a cigarette. The man who catches me is the drug counselor and he in my eyes is the worst person in the whole world. They took my Satanic Bible from me. They wouldn't let me have it there. In fact, it was him that did that. All this animosity, all this hatred, all this wrath that I had built up, I took out on him. I attacked the man with a knife.

They locked me up and put me in juvenile. Here I am sitting in this lonely cell. All I can think about his death. I want to die. I hate everybody. I hate the world, I hate God, I just want to die. My mom was going to call me later that week. I just look forward to that. Finally, she did call, and during that 15-minute conversation she's put this thought in my head, do you have a Bible in there? My mind starts to work and I start to think to myself, this cell is really boring. I could do to read some stuff. I was getting a few books here and there to read, but this Bible is different. Finally, it came to me. I said, "You know what I'm going to do? I am going to grab that Bible. I'm going to take it back to my cell. I'm going to begin to read it and I'm going to prove all those Christians wrong."

I'm reading the story of King David. I realized for the first time that there's a God out there, but this is a God of love, and from that point forward I just kept reading through the Bible and I finally come to the New Testament and I get to read about this man named Jesus. I've heard of Jesus. I've used His name in swear words so many times, I didn't know who He was, but now I read in the book of Matthew this incredible person named Jesus. He lived this perfect life, His compassion, His love, His mercy that He showed to people was incredible, and in complete desperation I said, "God, I don't know why you want me, but here I am, you have my heart," and I gave my life to God.

Providential my dad, he sent me a Walkman radio. My Mom's gift was a new Bible and a strong exhaustive concordance, and together with those I was able to hear the most profound truths I've ever heard before, testing them by the Bible and seeing whether or not for myself if they are true. In a miraculous way for 14 years while I was incarcerated, God turned the penitentiary into a seminary. I studied and I studied. I had an insatiable desire to learn and grow and get to know this God of the universe. So week after week I'd have this little radio up in the corner of the window cell in my small cell listening to Bible Answers Live, listening to a message that was really transformational for me.

I began to grow and learn and study more and more. I began to do Bible studies with people. In fact, there comes Amazing Facts again because I get these Bible study guides through the mail, and as I've done them and completed and sending them back, getting the new ones. Now, I have all these lessons. What am I going to do with them? Well, I sit down on the yard, in the prison yard with fellow inmates, fellow convicts, and we opened the Bible together and we study. We study God's word together using these Bible study guides as a way to go through the Bible. They let me out six years early for good behavior, and as I walked out to a free world, I didn't know what to do. Everything changed.

Praise God for those in prison ministry that adopted me, took me in, helped me to get established. Many people began to encourage me and said, "Wyatt, you really need to go to Amazing Facts Center of Evangelism, AFCOE. Amazing Facts Center of Evangelism has been life changing for me, and not just for me, but for many people who have come. Its been more than a decade and a half ago I was sitting in a cell listening to Doug Batchelor on the radio with my Walkman way up in the corner of this window. Now I'm sitting in the audience listening to Doug Batchelor live at the Amazing Facts Landmarks of Prophecy Series, working with many of those in the audience and bringing people to the meetings. What a contrast. God has led me so far. God has brought me to where I'm at today, and I know that God is continuing to lead me into my future.