Post by dannylirette on May 10, 2010 8:16:39 GMT -7
Outer Darkness: A Former Backslider’s Testimony
by Danny Lirette
My name is Danny Lirette and today I’d like to share my Testimony with you.
I was born on November 2nd, 1976.
From an early age my brother and I would attend a local Evangelical church with my parents, though both of my parents were not saved; my parents were simply Christians in name only, with mom being of the Evangelical brand and dad being of the Roman Catholic brand.
I vaguely recall sitting church and it being boring; I wasn’t interested in listening to the Preacher and can’t really recall a single sermon preached. I did, however, enjoy the treats given at the churches we attended as youngsters!
At approximately 8 or 9 years of age I was outside playing when God called my name audibly; I heard Him speak my name as I hear any human speaking, though His Voice was certain marked by the fact that I knew it was Him.
You have to remember that I wasn’t religious or a Christian; I was actually a troubled young boy who didn’t know Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, and yet God audibly called me by my name.
1 Samuel 3:1-8 “And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision. And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see; And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep; That the LORD called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I. And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou calledst me. And he said, I called not; lie down again. And he went and lay down. And the LORD called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And he answered, I called not, my son; lie down again. Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, neither was the word of the LORD yet revealed unto him. And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the LORD had called the child.”
Just as the Lord had called Samuel by name before he knew the Lord, so the Lord called me before I knew Him!
The Mercy and Grace of God is astounding in that God calls us before we call out to Him, and His love for fallen man is such that He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us, that we might be saved! Oh the matchless Grace of God!
At approximately the same time of age, I was also apprehended by the enemy while going to bed one evening; the memory of the terror that came upon me is forever etched in my mind.
While walking up the stairs to go to bed, all of a sudden the powers of darkness came rushing over me and I began screaming and yelling, not knowing what was happening; I know now, however, that it was the enemy, and oh what a darkness lives in him!
The specifics of why these two incidents took place in my life as a young child I may never know until I reach that Glorious shore on the other side to meet my Jesus face to face, yet I do know that they took place and I also know that God is Sovereign over all and He allows what He allows and puts and end to what H wants to put an end to.
Some would say that such experiences no longer happen in our day, that such things are the wild imaginations of a youngster; nonetheless, the Lord knows the truth of it all and eternity will reveal the fact of the supernatural to those who disbelieve that such events and others take place today.
Growing up, I was quite drawn, unfortunately, to wickedness.
My young life was a foreshadowing of the wickedness to come, of which we all now find ourselves in.
What most children in my vicinity would not partake in during those years of my young life, children now partake of in in this generation.
For example, I was one who would go into an abandoned building and light candles and burn Bibles and pray to devils; I was entrenched in darkness as a young boy.
Drawn to the dark side of the spiritual realm, my life was engulfed in evil.
Further to this, I engaged in a consistent lifestyle of stealing, lying, fornication, abominable deeds and all sorts of sinful behavior.
I longed to do evil and evil was my delight.
I had no time for education; there were too many opportunities to steal from shopping malls and stores.
Growing up I found myself stealing cars and later became involved in “petty” armed robberies (if the word “petty” can be used).
Finding no contentment in morality (morality without Christ is vain anyhow!) I turned and walked in immorality.
While my parents were “good parents” in the sense of being as “good” as they could have been without being saved, I was the “goat” of the family, always getting into trouble with the Police.
No amount of punishment or threatenings to punish me would stop me from living as I wanted to; no one was going to tell me how to go about living my life, that is, until a youth court judge sentenced me to 4 months (I believe) in youth reformatory.
At 12 years of age I was sent to a place called the Kingsclear Reformatory (now closed) in a city called Fredericton, NB; it was, if I recall correctly, June of 1989.
Here I was at 12 years of age in jail!
This institution was filled all sorts of wickedness, both from the “youth counselors” as well as the youth sentenced to be there and serve time.
While meant to be a place of rehabilitation, it was anything but such a place!
What was learned in this facility was hatred and hardening; there was nothing rehabilitative about this place.
A regular routine of fist fights and cliques were a normal part of everyday life for many of the youth who walked through it’s doors.
Youth counselors were just as wicked, if not more so, than the youth sentenced to this so-called “reformatory”.
Simply put, this institution reformed no one but only churned out youth more wicked then when they first arrived!
I found myself wanting to be accepted by the other youth, so I would engage in the same sneaky games as everyone else, and I soon learned the lingo of “inside life”.
The first months were the hardest, but I found that I was sent back year after year, I became more adapted to life within those walls.
Once out, I would soon return again, for other crimes.
I was in and out of youth jail for several years, my longest stretch being a 23 month sentence.
The more the years passed by, the harder I became.
I remember a particular time in jail when a Christian group came to the jail and I was alone with one of the Christians as he was seeking, I believe, to lead me to Jesus Christ.
I was going to receive the Lord when, if I recall correctly, we were interrupted by a youth counselor and the Christian man had to leave.
Oh the cunning craftiness of the devil to seek to abort a dead life coming into New Life!
But yet God was not through with me, and was not going to allow the enemy to have his way in my life!
Without getting into the details, I was involved in an armed hostage taking situation and briefly escaped from the Kingsclear Reformatory and was soon afterwards, the very same day, caught and sent to solitary confinement.
The reformatory was now going to send me to a maximum security facility on the border of Quebec and the USA; they no longer wanted me in their facility and would now have me transferred.
The new place I would be going to is called the Madawaska Regional Correctional Center, and the stories about this place from some of the youth counselors were meant to scare the youth.
Madawaska had the perception of being a violent jail, and I was a bit nervous about going.
It was certainly a massive change from Kingsclear!
Kingsclear was more like a school while Madawaska looked like something from a television program on prisons.
It had the two tier cells, bullet proof glass windows, “bubble stations” for the guards, emergency buttons on most of the walls in case fights broke out or in case guards were in trouble, round barbed razor wire for the outside recreation area… it was quite literally a prison for adults, though at that time it housed youth (now it houses adults).
It was “almost” impossible to escape!
So here I was to finish my sentence and also finish the sentence I had received for escaping from Kingsclear; a total of 23 months, which included what I was already serving at that particular time.
Being 6 hours from where my family was, it certainly wasn’t everyday that I received visits, but my parents did come to see me as much as they could.
Madawaska, as well as Kingsclear or any other institution that was segregated from family and society, was a very lonely place and very tormenting.
My days were spent even in jail by thinking of evil and evil things to do; from my waking moment I was usually involved in some type of evil.
There was one guard who I met, however, who was much more different than the other guards; Gilles was a Christian, and it was clear that there was something “different” about him.
It wasn’t only in his words, but his very atmosphere was not the same as the one in which the rest of us lived; while we lived in darkness, this man was clearly not living that way, but was living in the Light of God.
Of course I didn’t know all of the specifics at that time of what it meant to be a genuine Christian, yet I knew this man “had something” that none of us had.
He was always so nice and went out of his way to exude kindness and compassion, regardless of whether he was made fun of or not.
Unfortunately, I was one of the ones to make fun of him, but he continued to love me unconditionally, regardless of my evil.
He witnessed to me and would tell me of Jesus and forgiveness.
I was drawn to this man and looked forward to seeing him on shift.
Secretly, in my heart, I wanted to be near him; he made me feel so good being around him!
If I recall correctly, I asked him once while shooting a game of pool (He could play like no one I had seen!), “If God is in you, does that mean I’m playing against God?”
He laughed, of course.
While sitting with Gilles one day, I asked him something like, “Can you prove God?”
Gilles then told me of the Gift of praying in unknown Tongues (1 Corinthians 14:2) and how God gives His People a language that they never learned and were never taught.
Scripture also states that Tongues are a sign to unbelievers (1 Corinthians 14:22) of which I was at that point.
I then asked him to do it, to pray in Tongues, and with some hesitation, Gilled bowed his head in prayer and began praying in a Heavenly language that I had never heard before.
Here I was, a young man in a maximum security youth prison, filled with wickedness and knowing very little of God, and I’m sitting with a guard who begins praying in an unknown Tongue.
Immediately the Power of God fell on me and I became somewhat afraid of what was happening.
I knew that what I was hearing was not fake, false or gibberish; something had come all over me and I didn’t know what it was, except to know that whatever it was that this man was doing was of God.
I asked him to stop due to the fear I was experiencing, but it was not a “demonic” fear, but it was clearly the Fear of God, that I was in the Presence of God Himself while this servant of his prayed to Him in a heavenly Tongue.
God’s Spirit fell on me that day and I’ve never forgotten it.
At some point during Gille’s witnessing to me, I would go to my cell for bed at night and would get on my knees and ask Jesus to come into my heart; however, nothing seemed to have happened, and at times I would become very angry because the Lord would not save me like he saved Gilles.
No one knew the battle that was now raging in my heart, and neither did I know that God was preparing my heart for when He would save me!
By this time, an inmate named Bernie was led to Christ by Gilles, and as Bernie and I are sitting together, I asked Gilles to “speak in Tongues again”.
Gilles agreed, but said he would do so in the Interview Room with myself as well as Bernie.
The Interview Room was a place where guards took inmates to talk with them and was also where we made our phones calls to family, etc.
When Gilles said that, the Power of God fell all over me and I said to Bernie, “I’m going to be saved today!”
I now know that that was the Spirit of God revealing it to me and through my mouth; something in me all of a sudden “just knew” that I was about to be Born Again!
As we went into the Interview Room together, Gilles told me that “where two or three are gathered together in the Name of Jesus” that Jesus was right there present.
As Gilles led me in prayer to receive Jesus Christ, afterwards I asked, “How do I know if I’m saved?”
He replied that I’d know.
When we all walked out of the Interview Room, I went to the common area where inmates watch TV, play cards, etc.
When I told all of them that “I’m a Christian now”, suddenly the Spirit of God fell on me in a way that I can’t adequately put into words and at that moment I physically felt the Lord wash all of my sins away in front of those inmates; all of a sudden I physically felt completely “different” and knew that God was all over me, doing something.
I was clean and felt clean!
God was now my Father!
The moment I confessed Christ as my own, the Scripture was fulfilled in my life where Jesus promises:
“Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. “ (Matthew 10:32)
I was now Born Again!
Jesus Christ had now taken up residence in my heart!
I was instantly transformed from sinner to saint by the unmerited Grace of God!
All of a sudden I find that Jesus Christ is everything to me… His Person, Presence and workings in my life were forefront.
Not long after He saved me He also Filled me with the Holy Spirit and blessed me with the gift of praying in other Tongues (1 Corinthians 14:2)!
My life became consumed in Jesus and learning about Him.
I would receive, on rare occasions, dreams from the Lord and His Presence was with me day by day as He walked with me and I with Him.
My life was dramatically different and I was genuinely taken from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God’s Dear Son!
Being in that jail, however, didn’t allow much Church Community, and fellowship was very small, with only Bernie and one or two others; it was not like it is today, with an entire body of Brethren to maintain fellowship with on a consistent basis.
Little did I realize the cost of serving Christ; my view was that being Born Again rid me of all of my problems and that my life would now be a mountain top experience all the way to Glory.
How wrong I was!
Not fully counting the cost of coming to Christ and surrendering to His Lordship, I soon began to experience what every Believer experiences and will experience until we’re taken home: satan’s attacks!
I must concede that I was unprepared for the battle that lay before me… unprepared, in reality, for the battle that I was in.
(Continued)...
by Danny Lirette
My name is Danny Lirette and today I’d like to share my Testimony with you.
I was born on November 2nd, 1976.
From an early age my brother and I would attend a local Evangelical church with my parents, though both of my parents were not saved; my parents were simply Christians in name only, with mom being of the Evangelical brand and dad being of the Roman Catholic brand.
I vaguely recall sitting church and it being boring; I wasn’t interested in listening to the Preacher and can’t really recall a single sermon preached. I did, however, enjoy the treats given at the churches we attended as youngsters!
At approximately 8 or 9 years of age I was outside playing when God called my name audibly; I heard Him speak my name as I hear any human speaking, though His Voice was certain marked by the fact that I knew it was Him.
You have to remember that I wasn’t religious or a Christian; I was actually a troubled young boy who didn’t know Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, and yet God audibly called me by my name.
1 Samuel 3:1-8 “And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision. And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see; And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep; That the LORD called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I. And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou calledst me. And he said, I called not; lie down again. And he went and lay down. And the LORD called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And he answered, I called not, my son; lie down again. Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, neither was the word of the LORD yet revealed unto him. And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the LORD had called the child.”
Just as the Lord had called Samuel by name before he knew the Lord, so the Lord called me before I knew Him!
The Mercy and Grace of God is astounding in that God calls us before we call out to Him, and His love for fallen man is such that He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us, that we might be saved! Oh the matchless Grace of God!
At approximately the same time of age, I was also apprehended by the enemy while going to bed one evening; the memory of the terror that came upon me is forever etched in my mind.
While walking up the stairs to go to bed, all of a sudden the powers of darkness came rushing over me and I began screaming and yelling, not knowing what was happening; I know now, however, that it was the enemy, and oh what a darkness lives in him!
The specifics of why these two incidents took place in my life as a young child I may never know until I reach that Glorious shore on the other side to meet my Jesus face to face, yet I do know that they took place and I also know that God is Sovereign over all and He allows what He allows and puts and end to what H wants to put an end to.
Some would say that such experiences no longer happen in our day, that such things are the wild imaginations of a youngster; nonetheless, the Lord knows the truth of it all and eternity will reveal the fact of the supernatural to those who disbelieve that such events and others take place today.
Growing up, I was quite drawn, unfortunately, to wickedness.
My young life was a foreshadowing of the wickedness to come, of which we all now find ourselves in.
What most children in my vicinity would not partake in during those years of my young life, children now partake of in in this generation.
For example, I was one who would go into an abandoned building and light candles and burn Bibles and pray to devils; I was entrenched in darkness as a young boy.
Drawn to the dark side of the spiritual realm, my life was engulfed in evil.
Further to this, I engaged in a consistent lifestyle of stealing, lying, fornication, abominable deeds and all sorts of sinful behavior.
I longed to do evil and evil was my delight.
I had no time for education; there were too many opportunities to steal from shopping malls and stores.
Growing up I found myself stealing cars and later became involved in “petty” armed robberies (if the word “petty” can be used).
Finding no contentment in morality (morality without Christ is vain anyhow!) I turned and walked in immorality.
While my parents were “good parents” in the sense of being as “good” as they could have been without being saved, I was the “goat” of the family, always getting into trouble with the Police.
No amount of punishment or threatenings to punish me would stop me from living as I wanted to; no one was going to tell me how to go about living my life, that is, until a youth court judge sentenced me to 4 months (I believe) in youth reformatory.
At 12 years of age I was sent to a place called the Kingsclear Reformatory (now closed) in a city called Fredericton, NB; it was, if I recall correctly, June of 1989.
Here I was at 12 years of age in jail!
This institution was filled all sorts of wickedness, both from the “youth counselors” as well as the youth sentenced to be there and serve time.
While meant to be a place of rehabilitation, it was anything but such a place!
What was learned in this facility was hatred and hardening; there was nothing rehabilitative about this place.
A regular routine of fist fights and cliques were a normal part of everyday life for many of the youth who walked through it’s doors.
Youth counselors were just as wicked, if not more so, than the youth sentenced to this so-called “reformatory”.
Simply put, this institution reformed no one but only churned out youth more wicked then when they first arrived!
I found myself wanting to be accepted by the other youth, so I would engage in the same sneaky games as everyone else, and I soon learned the lingo of “inside life”.
The first months were the hardest, but I found that I was sent back year after year, I became more adapted to life within those walls.
Once out, I would soon return again, for other crimes.
I was in and out of youth jail for several years, my longest stretch being a 23 month sentence.
The more the years passed by, the harder I became.
I remember a particular time in jail when a Christian group came to the jail and I was alone with one of the Christians as he was seeking, I believe, to lead me to Jesus Christ.
I was going to receive the Lord when, if I recall correctly, we were interrupted by a youth counselor and the Christian man had to leave.
Oh the cunning craftiness of the devil to seek to abort a dead life coming into New Life!
But yet God was not through with me, and was not going to allow the enemy to have his way in my life!
Without getting into the details, I was involved in an armed hostage taking situation and briefly escaped from the Kingsclear Reformatory and was soon afterwards, the very same day, caught and sent to solitary confinement.
The reformatory was now going to send me to a maximum security facility on the border of Quebec and the USA; they no longer wanted me in their facility and would now have me transferred.
The new place I would be going to is called the Madawaska Regional Correctional Center, and the stories about this place from some of the youth counselors were meant to scare the youth.
Madawaska had the perception of being a violent jail, and I was a bit nervous about going.
It was certainly a massive change from Kingsclear!
Kingsclear was more like a school while Madawaska looked like something from a television program on prisons.
It had the two tier cells, bullet proof glass windows, “bubble stations” for the guards, emergency buttons on most of the walls in case fights broke out or in case guards were in trouble, round barbed razor wire for the outside recreation area… it was quite literally a prison for adults, though at that time it housed youth (now it houses adults).
It was “almost” impossible to escape!
So here I was to finish my sentence and also finish the sentence I had received for escaping from Kingsclear; a total of 23 months, which included what I was already serving at that particular time.
Being 6 hours from where my family was, it certainly wasn’t everyday that I received visits, but my parents did come to see me as much as they could.
Madawaska, as well as Kingsclear or any other institution that was segregated from family and society, was a very lonely place and very tormenting.
My days were spent even in jail by thinking of evil and evil things to do; from my waking moment I was usually involved in some type of evil.
There was one guard who I met, however, who was much more different than the other guards; Gilles was a Christian, and it was clear that there was something “different” about him.
It wasn’t only in his words, but his very atmosphere was not the same as the one in which the rest of us lived; while we lived in darkness, this man was clearly not living that way, but was living in the Light of God.
Of course I didn’t know all of the specifics at that time of what it meant to be a genuine Christian, yet I knew this man “had something” that none of us had.
He was always so nice and went out of his way to exude kindness and compassion, regardless of whether he was made fun of or not.
Unfortunately, I was one of the ones to make fun of him, but he continued to love me unconditionally, regardless of my evil.
He witnessed to me and would tell me of Jesus and forgiveness.
I was drawn to this man and looked forward to seeing him on shift.
Secretly, in my heart, I wanted to be near him; he made me feel so good being around him!
If I recall correctly, I asked him once while shooting a game of pool (He could play like no one I had seen!), “If God is in you, does that mean I’m playing against God?”
He laughed, of course.
While sitting with Gilles one day, I asked him something like, “Can you prove God?”
Gilles then told me of the Gift of praying in unknown Tongues (1 Corinthians 14:2) and how God gives His People a language that they never learned and were never taught.
Scripture also states that Tongues are a sign to unbelievers (1 Corinthians 14:22) of which I was at that point.
I then asked him to do it, to pray in Tongues, and with some hesitation, Gilled bowed his head in prayer and began praying in a Heavenly language that I had never heard before.
Here I was, a young man in a maximum security youth prison, filled with wickedness and knowing very little of God, and I’m sitting with a guard who begins praying in an unknown Tongue.
Immediately the Power of God fell on me and I became somewhat afraid of what was happening.
I knew that what I was hearing was not fake, false or gibberish; something had come all over me and I didn’t know what it was, except to know that whatever it was that this man was doing was of God.
I asked him to stop due to the fear I was experiencing, but it was not a “demonic” fear, but it was clearly the Fear of God, that I was in the Presence of God Himself while this servant of his prayed to Him in a heavenly Tongue.
God’s Spirit fell on me that day and I’ve never forgotten it.
At some point during Gille’s witnessing to me, I would go to my cell for bed at night and would get on my knees and ask Jesus to come into my heart; however, nothing seemed to have happened, and at times I would become very angry because the Lord would not save me like he saved Gilles.
No one knew the battle that was now raging in my heart, and neither did I know that God was preparing my heart for when He would save me!
By this time, an inmate named Bernie was led to Christ by Gilles, and as Bernie and I are sitting together, I asked Gilles to “speak in Tongues again”.
Gilles agreed, but said he would do so in the Interview Room with myself as well as Bernie.
The Interview Room was a place where guards took inmates to talk with them and was also where we made our phones calls to family, etc.
When Gilles said that, the Power of God fell all over me and I said to Bernie, “I’m going to be saved today!”
I now know that that was the Spirit of God revealing it to me and through my mouth; something in me all of a sudden “just knew” that I was about to be Born Again!
As we went into the Interview Room together, Gilles told me that “where two or three are gathered together in the Name of Jesus” that Jesus was right there present.
As Gilles led me in prayer to receive Jesus Christ, afterwards I asked, “How do I know if I’m saved?”
He replied that I’d know.
When we all walked out of the Interview Room, I went to the common area where inmates watch TV, play cards, etc.
When I told all of them that “I’m a Christian now”, suddenly the Spirit of God fell on me in a way that I can’t adequately put into words and at that moment I physically felt the Lord wash all of my sins away in front of those inmates; all of a sudden I physically felt completely “different” and knew that God was all over me, doing something.
I was clean and felt clean!
God was now my Father!
The moment I confessed Christ as my own, the Scripture was fulfilled in my life where Jesus promises:
“Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. “ (Matthew 10:32)
I was now Born Again!
Jesus Christ had now taken up residence in my heart!
I was instantly transformed from sinner to saint by the unmerited Grace of God!
All of a sudden I find that Jesus Christ is everything to me… His Person, Presence and workings in my life were forefront.
Not long after He saved me He also Filled me with the Holy Spirit and blessed me with the gift of praying in other Tongues (1 Corinthians 14:2)!
My life became consumed in Jesus and learning about Him.
I would receive, on rare occasions, dreams from the Lord and His Presence was with me day by day as He walked with me and I with Him.
My life was dramatically different and I was genuinely taken from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God’s Dear Son!
Being in that jail, however, didn’t allow much Church Community, and fellowship was very small, with only Bernie and one or two others; it was not like it is today, with an entire body of Brethren to maintain fellowship with on a consistent basis.
Little did I realize the cost of serving Christ; my view was that being Born Again rid me of all of my problems and that my life would now be a mountain top experience all the way to Glory.
How wrong I was!
Not fully counting the cost of coming to Christ and surrendering to His Lordship, I soon began to experience what every Believer experiences and will experience until we’re taken home: satan’s attacks!
I must concede that I was unprepared for the battle that lay before me… unprepared, in reality, for the battle that I was in.
(Continued)...