Ex-Warlock’s Radical Testimony: ‘I Was Being Guided by Spirits’
Richard Lorenzo Jr. has a powerful YouTube platform where he shares the light of the gospel to the world, and runs the successful Remnant Revival Outreach Center in Sanford, Florida where salvation, miracles, signs and wonders are abounding all the time. However, Lorenzo’s story is nothing short of a testament to God’s mighty hand of grace and mercy constantly at work.
In an exclusive interview with Charisma Media, Lorenzo shared how he grew up in a nominally Catholic family, but the deep and powerful message of the gospel was never truly expressed. Through high school, he found himself playing basketball, taking and dealing drugs, drinking, fornicating, partying, scamming, and doing whatever he pleased. During college, he was barely getting by to maintain an acceptable GPA, and eventually he moved from Florida to Brooklyn, New York. When this happened, his life continued to spiral downwards, becoming suicidal and having sleep paralysis, but he kept up the partying lifestyle he’d been deep into. He went through with joining the military, but this didn’t truly change the type of life he’d been living.
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It was then that he began to become interested in spirituality. However, what he found himself messing with was far from God. Asking his girlfriend about her family’s operation in the spirit realm, Lorenzo connected with her warlock cousin in Haiti.
“I saw things I’d never seen in my life,” Lorenzo says. “I saw a warlock for the first time do a ritual using alcohol, cigars, putting on outfits, dancing, doing ritualistic worship and summoning a demon into his body. Then the demon [spoke] through him in a different accent.”
At this point, the devil was trying everything he could to pull Lorenzo deep into the darkness. The warlock told him certain details about his life to build his faith in the wrong direction. He had to come back the next day with a goat to for the warlock to perform a demonic ceremony, which included Lorenzo signing a contract. Now living in L.A. with his girlfriend who was expecting their first child, Lorenzo found himself getting deeper into Santeria, crystals, the New Age and other evil practices.
“I’m going to Indian mediums, I’m going to psychics, I’m going to all types of spiritualists,” says Lorenzo. “I’m getting evil eyes and crystals. I’m starting to burn sage. I’m starting to do things to protect my home, and salt and corners and all these things I’m learning.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever said this before. I was being guided by spirits,” he says of his journey in witchcraft.
Lorenzo started following spirit guides and was being discipled into witchcraft. He had an altar, bought thousands of dollars worth of crystals, spent time learning about shamanism, how to balance chakras and other demonic spiritual practices. However, it was one question to the warlock he was discipling with that was telling of what was happening behind the scenes in the spiritual realm.
“I just remember having this feeling to say ‘what about Jesus?'” Lorenzo says.
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In all of his time exploring a multitude of religions and different practices, Lorenzo noticed that Jesus was always mentioned in some capacity whereas other religious figures were not mentioned again beyond their immediate context.
“He put his head down. He wouldn’t look up, and he started getting nervous,” he continues. “He kept saying, ‘oh no, no. He was just a man.'”
After this, the Holy Spirit started guiding Christians to come into Lorenzo’s life. After moving back to the state of Florida, the Lord sent a Christian man into Lorenzo’s life who persistently kept reaching out to him and inviting him church. He also started going to a barber who played Christian rap in the shop. Soon, he also had another woman who was praying for him, discipling him in the ways of Christ instead of the world. Before he knew it, he was purchasing a Bible and planned to sit down and read it. It was during his first time picking up Scripture when the Lord placed a pastor in his path to guide him along with the reading. This man also became important to Lorenzo once he was finally saved.
“He just starts pouring into me,” Lorenzo says. “He was just so loving, he got my number and he would always check up on me…Once a week he would bring boxes of pizza and just sit down and go over the Word with me.”
Finally, after avoiding the first man who kept inviting him to church, Lorenzo finally decided he would go to church with him. When he went, he saw the shock of his lifetime.
“This is what hit me as I walk in,” says Lorenzo. “I look to the right, see the stage, and I see the worship leader. It’s Paul, the barber.”
It started to become more evident that perhaps the Lord was working on constructing something in Richard Lorenzo Jr.’s life.
“They start play ‘Reckless Love’,” Lorenzo recounts, “For the first time I felt the presence of God hit me. I didn’t surrender to God, but I felt the the presence of God hit me.”
The peace of God was also greatly different than anything he had experience from other spiritual experiences. Suddenly while reading Romans, it clicked for Lorenzo that what he had been searching for was only found in Jesus.
“The minute I caught that revelation in my heart…the presence of God, an atmosphere came into the room. It was a light,” he says.
The presence of God was so overwhelming he fell down to the ground, experienced deliverance and gave up all of his old ways. He burned the witchcraft altars, and rid of all the old things from his life. By finding Christ, Lorenzo’s life, and so many others, have been radically transformed for the kingdom of God.
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Abby Trivett is content development editor for Charisma Media.
