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"I Realized what an Intense Spiritual Conflict was Going on for my Soul"
Dustin Renz
As a young teen, Dustin became involved with heavy metal music, aberrant sex and satanism. He renounced all of these when he came to the Lord, but Satan had a powerful grip on his heart and was not inclined to let him go. |
| | Copyright © 2020 by Pure Life Ministries. Permission is granted to use, copy, distribute, or retransmit information or materials on this page, so long as proper acknowledgment is given to Pure Life Ministries as the source of the materials, and no modifications are made to such material.
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| | | There's no doubt that spiritual warfare play a key role in the formation of an addiction to sex. But is a demon the cause of the addiction? Steve Gallagher biblically defines what a stronghold is and how demonic activity manages to fortify them.
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Our enemy is very real. We are the targets of his schemes, and he will be satisfied with nothing less than the destruction of our lives and our souls. Dustin Renz knows these schemes very well. He came to Pure life about a decade ago, and his story shows very dramatically how Satan is able to draw us into his world and corrupt our souls with his lies. Dustin’s experience may be more extreme than yours, but listen closely, because his story will help bring the enemy’s schemes in your life into sharp focus. (From #403 - World of Lies: The Father of Lies)
Dustin, several chapters in "Walking in Truth in a World of Lies" are devoted to explaining why Satan's lies are so powerful, and we know he is a master deceiver, but the reason that they are so powerful—that they have such a hold on us—is because our own sinful hearts want that deception. And we can hear those things in a theoretical sense, but miss how it connects to our own lives, how our own hearts are being pulled by the lies of the enemy. So I wanted to bring you in because, for many years, you bought into the devil's lies, and that was taking you somewhere very real in your internal world. I was hoping that you could give people a picture about what it was like for you in your life when you were walking down that path.
Sure, when I was young we did ouija boards and listened to satanic music. When I was at a friend's house, I got exposed to all these dark things. At that time, when I was really young, I kind of rejected it. I experienced it; but I didn't really long for it. It wasn't until I went through some things in my life: my parents divorce and some other things, when I found myself beginning to latch on to that. For me it was always music that was the driving force behind it. I listened to all kinds of satanic and goth rock bands, and what it did was open me up to a satanic deception and that really became a driving force of my life. As a teenager—in my formative years not, really understanding exactly what I was getting into—I just remember I was so filled with rage and hatred. I just hated myself and who I'd become and I hated people around me. I had a very strong desire to get revenge on people; I wanted to hurt people, I wanted to hurt myself; I had a history of suicide attempts. Outwardly that played out in cross-dressing and wearing all black; I did all that kind of stuff. I was very depressed, but even after I got out of that lifestyle and started dabbling with drugs and partying, I had the same internal anger and frustration and all that kind of came with me at all times. When I look back—I wouldn't have been able to verbalize this back then—I see… you know the Bible talks about how Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, and I realized I never had... I always had an awareness that the God of the Bible was really God and that there was a real devil but somehow, in all that I went through, the devil had almost convinced me that he was like a friend to me, that he would give me what I wanted—my heart's desires—and that God wouldn't be able to supply those things. So in all of that it was very confusing and deceiving, but looking back I felt like that's kind of like at the root of it: I really believed that God wasn't good and wasn't going to provide for me what I needed.
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