The Power of Christ to Turn a Demon into a Petros

Roberto, 31, gave his life to Jesus Christ after the Refuge service at Emmanuel Enid this past Sunday.

Roberto gave me permission to share his story.

Last Sunday was Father's Day, and Roberto was at Emmanuel for only the second time. He came with his girlfriend and their infant daughter.

Roberto listened to Emmanuel's missionary to Africa, Yacouba Seydou, speak about "the Father's love." It was after the service that Roberto sought me ought and said, "That (the message) hit me hard." He asked if he could talk to me. I sat down beside this man I'd met only an hour earlier as he entered the building.

On the front row, with tears streaming down his face, after being assured that God's love extended to even him, this massive man bowed his head and asked for the Father's love to enter his life. Roberto prayed, receiving Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord.

Roberto came by my office yesterday to visit with me about some nightmares he's been having since Sunday. He told me his full story and asks that you pray for him.

Roberto never knew love as a child. "The only comfort I ever received was through my grandma. But she died when I was eleven."

It seems Roberto's parents were in the habit of tying Roberto to a chair with a belt and beating him with a hockey stick. "I know when I was nine, ten, and eleven, I did some things that made my parents mad. But the beatings I took were awful."

Roberto was born and grew up in South Central Los Angeles.

To find acceptance and a sense of belonging to a family, at the age of 11, Roberto began hanging around older boys who were part of a gang called Florencia 13 (F13). The number 13 represents the 13th letter of the alphabet (M) which stands for Mexican Mafia.

Florencia is the most dangerous gang in Los Angeles.

At the age of 12,  Roberto "jumped in" (gang slang for "joined") Florencia 13 by enduring 30 seconds of a massive beating by fellow gang members.

Usually, a person is given gang nickname when joining Florencia 13 (e.g. "Whiskey," "Trinny," BullsEye," etc.), nicknames that memorialize something about the gang member.

Roberto was too young to have done anything notorious, so F13 didn't bestow a nickname at the time of Roberto's initiation.

But two weeks later that changed.

Roberto was involved in a fight. "I don't remember much about it, but when it was over, I was on top of my victim, and when the gang members pulled me off I was covered in blood." Roberto said his fellow gang members said, "Dude, you went crazy. Your eyes turned red. Nothing could stop you."

They gave him the name "Demon."

He was 12 years old.

During the decade from 2000 to 2010, F13 was at war with the East Coast Crips. "It was all about drugs. South Central Los Angeles was a war zone."

At the age of sixteen, Roberto got his girlfriend pregnant. She and the baby both died during delivery. "The deaths of my child and my girlfriend shook me. I understood death from gang wars, but why would a baby and a first-time mother die?"

Roberto told me that a local Baptist church would often send "street evangelists" down to Florence Avenue to preach. "I would sometimes hear them say 'God loves you. God loves everyone.' After the death of my girlfriend and baby, I thought I needed to find out about this God who loves."

Roberto went to the local Baptist Church in South Central Los Angeles that next Sunday.

"When I went up the steps to enter the building, one of the street preachers, I think they called him a 'deacon,' stepped up to me and said, 'Where do you think you're going?'

"I'm coming to church."

"The deacon told me, 'We don't want your kind here.' I couldn't believe it. They'd been preaching on Florence that 'God loves everyone,' but they didn't want this one."

Roberto told me he didn't have clothes to dress up for the church, and looking back, he probably looked like a gang member, and the deacon was only trying to 'protect' the church. Bur Roberto was searching for God, and having been turned away by the people he thought could tell him about God, he determined to plunge even deeper into lawlessness.

Roberto told me that a few months later he met the street preacher on Florence Avenue, and this time he put a gun to his head and told him had had to the count of three to leave the neighborhood or "I'll put a bullet in your head."

When Roberto was a senior in high school (2005), devil worshippers who dressed in hoodies and all black told Roberto he was "a vessel" and that their lord had Roberto forever. "I'll never forget the strange coldness I felt and the voices in my head every time the Satanists came around me. They would always call me by my nickname "Demon" and told me I was "a vessel."

Roberto climbed the ranks of F13. The United States federal government stepped in and through a series of raids to clean up South Central Los Angeles, Roberto and several other F13 leaders were arrested and charged under the federal RICO crime act. Roberto went to prison for several years.

"When I got out, I knew I had to leave Los Angeles, or I'd soon be dead."

He came to Enid, Oklahoma because of a job opportunity at a food manufacturing plant. He met his girlfriend in Enid, and just a few weeks ago they had their child.

"For the first time since I was sixteen, I thought I'd try to go to a church. I'm a new father, and we couldn't think of a better time than Father's Day."

Indeed. At Emmanuel Enid this Father's Day, Roberto came to know Christ as his eternal Father.

Roberto told me that since giving his life to Christ, he's had terrible nightmares. He dreams of his friends who were killed in the streets of Los Angeles, three of whom died in his arms. He has nightmares of the occultists telling him "You're a vessel." He wakes up during the night thinking about all the people he's harmed.

The nightmares are vivid and real.

As he shared with me some of the details of his dreams, he wept.

I went to him in my office and hugged him. I prayed for him and with him. I told him that "Christ who is in you, is greater than he who is in the world." I shared with him that Jesus has made him a promise that "the work I've begun in you, I will continue to completion."

Roberto will be baptized soon. Emmanuel Enid has purchased a Bible for Roberto as well as a Bible for his girlfriend. We're engraving their names on the covers of the Bibles.

A few years ago Emmanuel Enid changed our focus.

The changes that have occurred have been tough for some. Traditions ended. How we did worship changed. The church began looking different.

But it was intentional.

We decided to focus more on a culture in need of a personal Savior instead of church members in need of pleasurable satisfaction. We determined to reach sinners in need of Christ more than saints in need of comfort. We decided to become missional.

Emmanuel Enid has created a worship service that is non-traditional. We call it our Refuge worship service and we make it different in two distinct ways:

1. Members dress down, the lights are left down, and the preacher doesn't talk down. 

2. The music sounds secular, the message stays simple, and the members show sensitivity to sinners who have no religious background

In other words, there's no judgment for people who show up without a clue about Christianity.

We've seen prostitutes come to know the love of Christ. We've seen meth addicts turn their lives around and become greeters at the Refuge service. We've seen men who dress up as women and women who dress up as men. We're sharing the love of Christ with them for we believe that only "the love of Christ constrains us." You don't change to get God's love, but you will change when you experience God's love.

Emmanuel Enid even welcome gang members instead of telling them "You're not welcome."

This Sunday, we'll be presenting to Roberto his first Bible.  We're also giving him a new nickname.  No longer will Roberto be known as "Demon."

Roberto's new nickname is "Petros." Petros is the Greek word for Rock.

"Upon this Rock, I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail."

Welcome to the family, Petros.

(Note: Pastor Wade has intentionally changed Roberto’s real name to protect his identity).