OpenHeaven.com - Ascent out of Darkness-Rob Radosti

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIA5yv-yT00&list=UUpquUUw M86MWxMxYpajgVWg&index=5&feature=plcp - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIA5yv-yT00&list=UUpquUUw M86MWxMxYpajgVWg&index=5&feature=plcp

I was raised in hardcore, legalistic Seventh Day Adventism. Although I was born in New Jersey, my family moved to Florida when I was very young and became very involved in the church there. I can actually describe my childhood experience as a rather positive one up until a certain point. I can remember just waiting and waiting every Saturday for the Sabbath to be over so that I could do something fun. My parents were very involved in the study of the book of Revelation and I developed a deep fear of the end of the world at a young age. I was being taught Bible stories but I had never heard that I could be used by the Holy Spirit in mighty power to bring a loving God to a dying world. My view of God was rather a fearful one and I was taught to live my life according to certain stipulations of Old Testament law. My education consisted of various small private schools where I usually took the title as class clown. My father was a Seventh Day Adventist lay pastor and I looked up to him very much. We would always do fun things together like go to Disney World, which was close by and go miniature golfing on Saturday nights.

The year that I turned 10, my mom became pregnant with my first brother Ryan. We went on vacation to visit some family in New Jersey, but my dad could not come due to previous work commitments. It was while we were in New Jersey that he called from Florida out of the blue and told her that he did not love her anymore and he was having an affair.

My world as I knew it was shattered. My mom and I returned to Florida and helped each other through a long term nasty divorce process. My brother was born right in the midst of all of this. My mom desperately needed somebody to help her pay the mortgage, so a woman named Kat moved into our house. Before long she became my babysitter and once my mom went off to work, Kat would take me to a nude beach or teach me things that I should have never learned at 11 years old. I was so confused and by the time I turned 12 one of the only things that I could dwell on was suicide. I felt that I was the cause of the divorce and that if I had never been born, none of that would have happened. We soon found cocaine in Kat's room in our home and the police were called and that was the end of that fiasco which only led to newer ones.

My mother was a complete emotional wreck and many times told me that my brother and I were the only things keeping her alive. Since the divorce she had completely lost her faith in God, and so had I. I could not understand if this God was so loving, why he destroyed my family. I began to develop a deep anger and hatred toward God and all Christians in my heart. One day when I was home alone, I remember going into the bathroom and locking the door. A giant steak knife accompanied me and I was planning on using it as a tool to help me escape from this world. As I held the knife to my wrists my entire childhood flashed before my eyes. A sudden fear came over me because I did not know what would happen to me after I died and it scared me so bad that I dropped the knife and ran out of the bathroom. Just a few years before, I had found my school principal dead in the bathroom and when I tried to tell somebody, everyone laughed at me because they thought I was joking. This scenario played over and over in my mind as I contemplated suicide, and it seemed like the spirit of death just began to follow me everywhere I went.

My mother started to bring home different men from bars that she would go to and I was so lonely, I started to beg her to let me go to public school. She finally conceded and my first day of 7th grade, I climbed into a school bus for the first time in my life. I was devastatingly ridiculed and mocked because of how sheltered I had been my whole life, and within weeks had a brand new crowd of friends and a brand new identity. I had found my niche with the Gothic crowd. Those who had long black hair, wore heavy dark make up, listened to satanic music and carried chains under their trench coats. I instantly took to them and they began to teach me their ways. One night when I slept over a friend's house, I was forced to do drugs, touch women and get drunk. This caused even a deeper hatred and depression to rise up within me. Needless to say, I failed my first year of seventh grade, and had to do it over. By age 14 I was an alcoholic. I would drink pure alcohol morning, noon and night, smoke various drugs and study my satanic bible that I had been given as a gift. Suddenly, all of my friends around me began to die. One of my good friends was accidentally run over by his mother, another one died of cystic fibrosis and the list goes on and on. I began to practice heavy occultism and witchcraft including but not limited to: the Necronomicon, séances and the worship of the dead, devil possession, Ouija boards, black magic, spells, and the art of sacrifices.

As I descended deeper and deeper into the darkness, I began to have one on one interactions with the spiritual realm and with demons. On one occasion I prayed to my father satan and sold him my soul in exchange for the power that I requested of him. In the years following, I did see many of the things I desired come to pass. At the age of 16 I had moved out of home and in with a witch who also taught me everything she knew including astrology and palm reading. We were not together too long before she took my belongings and ran off with another man. This drove me to attempted suicide for the second time in my life. Just as I was about to end my life with a bottle of pills, the phone rang and it was a good friend that I had met in school years ago. He eventually talked me out of the suicide and my life returned to normal for a season. Most of my friends were now expelled from school or in jail for various reasons such as bomb threats, drug busts, etc. But I was determined to live my life with a purpose. My purpose became to hate God and counteract Him in any way that I could. I remember going back to the church I grew up in one last time to see if there was any hope. All they did was judge me and I had had my last straw. I began to listen to music that spoke of torturing, raping, killing and mutilating Christians and then destroying their churches.

I began to write poetry and songs consisting of this subject matter as well although I took it to an even deeper level (which I will not discuss here). I had built a small altar in my room to satan, and my mother finally found out just how deep into these things I was. One of my good friends had even sacrificed her own baby! One night as I was going out, my mom fell on her knees before me and screamed Son! Please don't do this! Please don't ruin your life like this! Please come back to Jesus! My mother had decided to turn back to the small faith that she had and cling to whatever she had previously known about God. I was possessed by many demons and in that instant one demon rose up within me and took control of my voice. "Woman, it said, Do not EVER speak that name in my presence again! Then I left her crying on her knees and walked out the door. Whenever I would hear that name Jesus, I would shudder. A few days later, my mother came to me with a "proposition. Son, she said, I'd like you to come to a Christian music festival with me. No! I yelled. Why would I want to go to a Christian Music festival?" I thought to myself. Then suddenly, an idea came to me. There was to be 90,000 Christians at this festival and it would be my chance to prove to as many of them as I could that their God was a liar and that satan was the true father. I decided to go, and after much preparation I took all my literature and we were on our way.

There are of course too many details to recount here; however what I will tell you is that I was successful for a couple of days. I was getting drunk and doing drugs and just having fun until I went to see a Christian Metal concert. I love metal music, and I absolutely loved the concert - however what I did not like was that they would proclaim the name of Jesus with boldness in the heavy music that I thought was only for satan. After the concert, I had a chance to meet with the lead guitarist who I talked to for a long time. He told me that he also was a satan worshipper, and that Jesus had changed his life. I had never in my life heard a story like his before but I almost instantly rejected it. A few nights later, I went to check out a worship concert that was being put on. Many of the people in this concert were clapping, dancing, singing, crying, lifting their hands toward the sky, etc. I had never seen anything like this because in the religion that I was raised in, most of these things were prohibited. These worship bands had drums, electric guitars and were actually encouraging the people to dance and go crazy for this God. I was very intrigued by it but I proceeded to mock them and laugh at them so as not to show my interest. Before long it was like this hungry desperation was bursting out of my being and I just had to know if this God was really who the Bible said He was.

At that moment, under the stars in the midst of beautiful mountains in Pennsylvania I cried out to God and told Him that I would give Him one more chance to reveal Himself to me. My desire however was that He come at that very moment and show Himself to me, more real than the people that were around me. Before I knew what happened, it was like a strong wind that knocked me to the ground! No one else around me felt it, only I did! Following this experience I found that I was stuck to the ground in a near fetal position on my knees, and I could not get up no matter how hard I tried! It was like there was a twenty ton weight on my shoulders. The next thing I felt was a strange tingling moving through my arms and I watched them as they lifted up toward heaven. I actually felt dozens of hands around my body and under my arms as they lifted up, although there was no one there in the physical. At that moment I felt like I was in the middle of the bliss of heaven! It was an ecstasy so unspeakable that to this day I've still felt nothing like it! In that moment I heard a voice whisper in my spirit "I forgive you. I knew that it was Jesus Himself speaking to me! And I could do nothing more but cry and repent before God and ask Him to save me. I then heard Him say, Everything that you have been through will now be turned around and used for MY Glory!"

Although at that time I did not know exactly what that meant, I trusted Him wholeheartedly and knew that I just had a radical encounter with the God of the universe! Although I was a satan worshipper just 5 minutes ago, I now was a radical evangelist for the kingdom of God and would stop at nothing. I went immediately back to the friends that I was previously partying with at the festival and preached my socks off to them! I told them what Jesus had done for me and about the encounter that I just had! I told everyone I could find including my mother who almost fainted from excitement! The details from this point in my life are too many to write outside of my full length book which is yet to be released, however, I had a great bonfire and burned over 2,000 items including CD's, clothing that was used in service to the enemy, movies, pornographic material, etc! Almost every desire and sin addiction that I had vanished on the very night, however it was nearly 4 years before I was completely delivered from all the demonic activity that I had been involved with. It took me nearly 5 years of studying the Word to have a clear understanding and interpretation of the Word of God outside of Seventh Day Adventism and every other sect that had tried to pull me in. It wasn't too long before my mother and I were both filled with the Holy Ghost and began to move in signs and wonders.

I took it to the streets, I took it to revival crusades, into restaurants, into satanist clubs and eventually to over 30 nations of the world by age 25! There were many fall outs in my family life due to my radical conversion as a Born Again, some of which my Seventh Day Adventist family labeled us apostates to the faith and threatened to kill us. Sometimes the police even had to be called, however I glory in the sufferings of Jesus and would never change this calling for the world! God brought me my beautiful wife in 2007, and together we continue to go into both the darkest places and the farthest nations (including our own) bringing the transforming fire of God to a world in need!

http://www.kingdomdwellers.com/ - www.KingdomDwellers.com
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