Posted on 04/30/2006 5:01:22 PM PDT by DBeers
"I WAS EXCLUSIVELY HOMOSEXUAL; I had never been with a woman."
That's part of the riveting testimony of the Reverend Darryl Foster, a board member of Exodus Global Alliance – a Christian organisation made up largely of former-homosexuals who promote the message that "change is possible through the power of Jesus Christ".
The Texas, United States, native was one of the featured speakers at the just concluded three-day conference: Sex, Sexuality and Homosexuality: Engaging The Truth hosted by Project PROBE Ministries, at the Sherbourne Conference Centre.
Foster, 45, is now a heterosexual who confesses that the first and only woman he has ever been with sexually is his wife of 13 years.
They have five children together but prior to that he was a practising homosexual for 11 years and declares he has been "free" of that lifestyle for the past 16 years.
"I was extreme in terms of my feelings for men. I got to the point where I literally hated women; I had no uses for them.
"But I'm a miracle of God that He can take something so messed up and turn it around. That's the power of God!" he told the SUNDAY SUN.
He grew up in the small town of Marlin, Texas, in a deeply religious household of "hard-core Pentecostals".
There was no father figure around and, as a boy, he was molested by a male in his church. The molestation started when he was 13 years old and continued until he was 17.
But from the time Foster was 11 years of age, he was attracted to other boys. He didn't have a name for the strange feelings he was experiencing, but he knew he was different from other boys.
He kept these feelings to himself, fearing he would be ostracised. So, like a good Christian, he went on attending church, "shouting, dancing and speaking in tongues".
However, his feelings toward members of the same sex grew stronger. At that time, and sadly still, homosexuality wasn't widely discussed in the church.
"The one thing I find is that they [Pentecostals] and I can only talk about Pentecostals, don't address it. Nobody told me, this is how you deal with these feelings. All I was told was if you feel that way or if you are that way you are going to hell.
"I knew I didn't want to go to hell but I didn't know how to stop or get rid of what was going on inside of me. I was having thoughts that didn't go away after I prayed," explained the reverend.
It wasn't until college that Foster fully explored his feelings.
College life was filled with others who were actively involved in homosexuality. And soon enough, he too embraced that lifestyle.
It wasn't until many years later, when he had pursued all the sexual partners he wanted to pursue, that he felt an overwhelming dissatisfaction with his life.
It reached the point where he actually started to plan his suicide during the Easter of 1990. He felt alienated from the church, God and his family and didn't think his life was worth living.
"It was during that time of utter despair that the Lord came to me via a movie about the passion of Jesus Christ. I saw this scene with Him struggling with the cross, being battered by men, suffering and humiliated.
"In my own suffering, I became engrossed in His suffering. It was at that time I heard Christ say: 'I did this for you'. Something broke inside of me; something supernatural happened that made me say: 'God how could you love me when you know all I've done?'
"And He said to me, 'But I do love you". It was at that time I asked God to forgive me for all the years that I was rebellious against Him.
"That day, He forgave me, He saved me, He filled me with His spirit and I became a new creature in Christ – all at once. I walked away that day, and I've been walking further and further away every day since then," said an excited Foster.
The transformation from homosexual to heterosexual didn't happen overnight, however. It took time to resolve all the anger and emotions and the relationship issues he was carrying on the inside.
God, he explained, began to change him until he got a picture of who he was "not just as Darryl Foster but of who I was as God's son".
"When my spiritual identity started to come in place then I could see my path as a man much more clearly – not a broken man, not a man who was sexually attracted to other men, but a man who had a destiny with God and I began to follow that destiny," he said adding:
"A lot of things you do in the gay lifestyle are habitual. I had to literally 'unlearn' it. God re-oriented me. You have sexual orientation, sexual disorientation, and sexual re-orientation where God says this is the way you should go. That's the path I follow."
The reverend, who wrote a book on his life-changing experience entitled: Touching A Dead Man, doesn't subscribe to the belief that homosexuals are genetically programmed that way.
He believes it is a choice one makes and just as drug addicts and alcoholics can overcome their addictions, so can homosexuals, with the help of God.
In 1996 he co-founded with his wife an outreach ministry called 'WITNESS' particularly geared towards helping men and women of colour who find themselves in "unwanted" homosexuality.
It is not for the homosexual who wants to remain a homosexual, but it is for those who have decided: "God, I need help. I don't want to be this way".
He says he has seen the lives of hundreds of people – most of whom have grown up in the church" transformed through this ministry.
And whereas the church had an excuse in the past for not dealing with the issue of homosexuality, Foster said it didn't have one anymore.
"There is a lot more openness now. I don't blame the church for my choices. But now God has given them more revelation, I don't think the church has an excuse to say: 'We don't know'.
"We (Exodus Global Alliance) are here to say to people: 'Here is what God wants you to know about all of these people who are in your churches serving, sometimes in high positions, but who are torn up. What we are doing here is planting a seed and, hopefully, there will be someone to water it," he said.
Yes. The so-called elites, leaders of society have mostly gone mad and are leading countless numbers off the cliff. Only some make it out alive. Almost always in the face of ridicule, bad advice, criticism, and even worse. Swimming upstream when all one's fellows are swimming downstream takes determination, courage, and some measure of spiritual vision.
My level? I see it from a distance. I read this analogy once.
When on the path to God, it's like a traveler returning home after a long painful journey to distant lands. Finally, he's turned around and starting home. He's still in the forest, but now and then reaches the top of a hill, from which he can see his home in the distance. He's happy, because he knows he's on his way home.
Thank you SoulMan for sharing with us the story of your struggles.
Don't think for a moment that you are alone in your struggle with sin. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We have all offended God and violated God's moral law - the Ten Commandments. And for our offenses, we are all condemned on the Day of Judgment to a lake of fire in Hell. And as long as we are in the flesh, we will all struggle with sinful temptations, but temptation is not sin. That is until the day that we are freed from the bonds of the flesh and join the Heavenly Father in spirit in eternity; if we will confess and repent of our sins, and put our faith in Jesus Christ for our salvation. Praise the Lord.
Since God is the creator of all the heavens and the earth, he can use all to his will; and he does. But it is the gravest of errors to think that it is by the devices of men that man is freed from the bonds of his sin. To do so is to say that some of man’s problems are too big for God; that the created is greater than the Creator.
Praying is important; it is our dialogue with God. Bible tells us to pray "unceasingly". One can't be a Christian unless he dialogues with God. That is how God directs and corrects us. He is the great Councilor. But praying is of no value if one is not obedient to what God direct us to do, through prayer. And that often, if not always, requires great faith in God to do. Because what God often directs us to do is the antithesis of the dictates of popular culture. So to be obedient to God requires great faith in God. We must trust in Him absolutely. If we truly trust Him with our life eternal, then we certainly can trust Him with our mortal lives.
Through our absolute trust in God and the Word of God, God bestows on us the blessing of the Holy Spirit. It is through the Holy Spirit that God does His miraculous work in and through us. It is God’s power in us. It is not a power that we can use, but a power that uses us. And we must never forget that, that whereas we are children of the Almighty, we are also servants of Lord. All that we ask of the Father in His name and to His glory, He will give us. But to receive the Holy Spirit we must be Born Again into the Spirit. It is in this rebirth into Spirit that God gives us a new life, and we then become dead to who we once were in the flesh. We become a new creature in Christ. All things are made new in our rebirth into the Spirit.
No good ever comes from the minds of men, who have not first humbled themselves before and submitted their wills to God – who have been Born Again. The Bible tells us that there is none good, not one, save that of God. The differences between men who are in the Spirit and who are in the flesh, are like that of Thomas Jefferson and Joseph Stalin.
Do not put your faith in men or their devices. Put your absolute faith in God and let Him use men, and their devices, and you, to His glory. Through the Holy Spirit.
I will pray for your victory over sin and for the new purpose God has for you, to His glory. Feel free to PM me if you feel the need.
In Christ’s love. S4T.
Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
1 Timothy 1:8-11 But we know that the law is good, if a man uses it lawfully; Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For fornicators, for homosexuals, for slave traders, for liars, for perjurers, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.
Psalms 19:7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
Galatians 3:24 Therefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
John 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
1 Peter 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides forever.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
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