In a recent video, apostle Richard Lorenzo Jr. sat down with Remnant Revival Outreach Center’s senior pastor, Carlos Cabrera to talk about his testimony from being a gang member dealing with demonic entities to becoming a man full of the Holy Spirit’s fire and power.
Cabrera recounts his upbringing in Orlando and how the choice as a teenager to go under his cousin’s wing led him to a dark time of gang activity that brought witchcraft to life.
“Everybody was ganged up,” Cabrera says. “And if you didn’t have a gang…[you] would just not have people to protect you.”
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After getting attacked by another guy, Cabrera decided to move forward with joining the gang. However, he had no idea what kinds of things he would be opening himself up to.
He says that the gang he was part of used hand signals, knowledge and would write down codes. They would even fast. He even points out that the acronym “folks” that was used stands for “for our lord king Satan.”
“I was in a whole [gang] worshipping the devil pretty much,” he says. “They wore the beads. The beads had to get blessed…the men do a lot of like the labor, the guns and the drug deal and everything. But the women what they do is a lot of witchcraft. The women would be all beaded up and they would be doing protection on you when you go out…they would bless you, and they would make sure that you were good and that you’re not going to go to jail and that you’re not going to get robbed, packages are going to get pushed through.”
Lorenzo points out that this witchcraft is similar to his own testimony when he was in Santeria and Voodoo, which required wearing beads blessed by a witch.
This opening to the demonic was just the start of the kinds of encounters Cabrera was about to experience.
“I would have conversations in the mirror with myself and I hear a voice being like, ‘Let me take over,'” Cabrera recounts. “I remember my eyelids would go black.”
One of the terrifying experiences that Cabrera had included levitating in the darkness with one of his friends as his friend became possessed while taking psychedelics.
“I look at him and we’re both levitating in the darkness,” Cabrera says. “All I could see was his face…and his eyes were all white. And then he starts to speak, and he was whispering.”
Cabrera says the person said, “You know why I’m here,” and suddenly he started talking about Cabrera’s rapping ability and how the two of them together could “have it all.” Every time that the person would speak, Cabrera had a visualization of of everything that was being talked about: money, fame, happiness and drugs.
“He’s like, ‘You can have all that tomorrow. Just come with me.’ He’s like, ‘You have a choice,'” Cabrera says.
Thinking about his family, Cabrera said no to the demonic offer. After this, the person began to get incredibly angry with him, intensifying in his words. He said no to this offer three times, and finally the two came out of the trance.
After these experiences, Cabrera ended up meeting with his uncle who gave him a Bible and advised him to throw away any of his possessions that had to do with the demonic. He also began going to church and seeking the Lord.
“I would just read the Bible and I would just pray,” says Cabrera.
While Cabrera’s journey was still a long one ahead in need of discipleship and full submission to the Lord, God was already on the move, making a way for him to become more and more like Christ. His testimony goes to show that God can transform, heal and deliver anyone from any darkness, breaking strongholds and releasing people from every demonic force and principality. Now as Cabrera is used in the pastoral role, God is showing His ability to work through anyone’s past to bring others to Jesus.
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Abby Trivett is content development editor for Charisma Media.
