The Exorcist Files - From Atheist to Exorcist: Father Martins' Amazing Conversion Story

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

Father Martins was an avowed atheist. God had other plans. Now for the first time, Father Martins opens up about his remarkable conversion story and how God drafted him not just into ministry but into the spiritual war being fought all around us. For some people it's dramatic, for others it is simply a small whisper. We hope this encourages you that God has a plan!Thank you to our sponsors and Vault Members!Ollie. Feed the Obsession. Go to ollie.com/exfiles and use code exfiles to get 70% off your first box!Go to shopremi.com/EXFILES and use code EXFILES  at checkout for 50% off with Remi Club Subscribe & Save. Learn a new Language and get up to 60% off  your subscription at Babbel.com/EXFILESGet 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code EXFILES at https://www.cowboycolostrum.com/EXFILESSign up for the Vault here and support the show.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello, friends. One of the assumptions people often make about priests is that we've always believed, that faith came naturally to us, that perhaps from childhood we wanted to be priests, loved prayer, and never had serious doubts about God. That was not my story. I'm an adult convert to the faith. It was a long period of my life when I was convinced that God did not exist. Not simply that I doubted him.

but that belief in him was irrational. I looked at the state of reality as I understood it, and I concluded that belief in God was intellectually unsustainable. If you had met me years ago and told me that one day I would be a Catholic priest, I would have laughed at you. If you had told me that I would spend my life preaching Christ, handling relics of the saints, speaking about the supernatural realities of the faith,

and freeing people from demons, I would have thought you were insane. And then one day, I walked into a chapel and everything changed. Today I sit before you as a Catholic priest because Christ confronted me in a way that I never expected. And I tell you this story today, April 27, 2006, because today is the 30th anniversary of that conversion from atheism. I converted on this day in 1996. And so before I tell you what happened in that chapel, I need you to understand how impossible this conversion really was. So mine was not a story of someone drifting away from faith and then slowly returning or a story of someone who had questions, some doubts about the faith. Mine is a story of someone who believed that faith itself

was foolish. And so if you're listening right now and feel far from God, intellectually, emotionally, morally, spiritually, I want you to know something. I was once convinced believing in God was equivalent to believing in fairies or leprechauns. I was wrong. I grew up in a nominally Catholic family. My parents had my brother and I have baptized when we were infants. But we didn't grow up in a household that practiced the faith. We occasionally went to Mass, Christmas, Easter, and occasionally some other occasion, but not very often. Now, I was put in Catholic school by my parents, both my brother and I were, and I had some teachers that were great teachers. In fact, I remember my third grade teacher was an absolute marvel of modeling the faith.

And I remember that she taught us about purgatory. And the way she taught it was so riveting, was so convincing that from that point forward, I would pray and our father a Hail Mary in a Glory to be every night when I went to bed for the souls in purgatory. But then as I got older, I started to develop my intellectual capacities. And I started to examine the God question. And one of the things that became obvious to me is that many people who were highly intelligent, who were smart, who were admired by the rest of society for their intellectual gifts, they didn't believe in God. And in fact, it seemed the vast majority of scientists, for example, didn't believe in God. And, you know, scientists are often held up as the smartest folks around.

And so the fact that they don't have a theistic belief really made an impact on me. So it made me look at the question deeply. Now, to be very clear, I didn't have any acts to grind against the faith. I didn't despise Christianity, for example. I didn't despise the notion of theism. I strictly was looking at this through intellectual lenses. I was looking at the questions strictly through an intellectual lens. Does it make sense?

And as I got older, as I started making my way through high school, the fact that things needed to make intellectual sense became really important to me. And so as I began to look at the question, eventually some realities became evident to me. One, if God exists, why is there so much evil in the world? If God exists, why can the 11-year-old girl down the street be kidnapped and raped? If you were God, would you permit that in your world?

I wouldn't. Secondly, if God exists, why are there so many different religions in the world, each one contradicting the next? Would you permit different religions in your world? I wouldn't. And thirdly, and this is the thing. the one that was really the hammer. If God exists, why does he hide himself? Why doesn't he simply peel back the sky and make himself known to his creation? Why do we need to take his existence

on faith? If you were God, would you hide yourself? So given these three states of affairs, I thought that it was impossible for an all-knowing, all-good, all-loving God to exist. And so take away any of those qualities. And you've now just destroyed, for example, the God of Christianity. You've destroyed the God of monotheism. You've destroyed the notion of a personal God. Now, this conclusion didn't make me happy because I was honest, enough with myself to know that we are hardwired to want to live forever. Nobody wants annihilation.

We find that concept, the concept of life coming to an end and our existing ceasing to be a scary reality. I was honest enough to acknowledge that. And so it wasn't a conclusion that made me happy, but I thought it was inevitable. And then I started looking at the implications of that. Well, if God doesn't exist, well, when you die, then you won't even know that you're dead because it will be lights out. There won't be a you that survives the death. So your existence is snuffed out in an instant. And that's that. You won't even know that it's been snuffed out. and then well what's the implication of that well a hundred years after you existed such that everyone else who knew you is also dead then you might as well have never have existed and so

you look at that and you think gosh like everything within me really doesn't look forward to that reality so we are hardwired to want meaning we're hardwired to want to live forever we're hardwired to want to have, we have an appetite for goodness, and we're hardwired to want it fulfilled. But given these three states of affairs, I thought, hey, there's just no question. God doesn't exist. So we are just futile human beings that are upon the scene with appetites that are bigger than we are, appetites that will never be fulfilled. And so while I was, you know, the beginnings of these thoughts came to me in high school. They really started to be developed in university.

And so, you know, I was going to my class. I was a philosophy major and I really, I liked the subject. It was interesting. And I found the study of philosophy, the study of logic, the study of rationality really helped me to be a better thinker. and that was really important to me at the time. And, you know, the philosophy that I took initially honed my atheism down, but then eventually it became the best tool for me to dispense with my atheism, or at least to break out of that thinking.

And that'll become evident as I go through my story. But I, in the course of my taking classes, I loved philosophy, and I just needed things to make sense. And, you know, I say this humbly. I graduated at the top of my class, and I say this simply because I took studies seriously. Things had to make sense. So I've heard often believers say to non-believers,

well, why don't you just believe? And friends, that is an awful thing to say to somebody. It's an awful thing to say. Because that person might be struggling with but that person might even desire to believe. But you can't believe in something that is simply a notion, right? Like, you can't tell me to believe in the tooth fairy simply because, well, you know, life will just be easier if you just believe.

You know, like there's an intellectual dishonesty there, right? And these are questions that are really important. And it's a struggle for many folks to get to them, not because they're dumb and not because they're not sincere, but because they take the question very seriously. And they understand the implications, the weight and the ramifications of how they answer. So I wanted things to make sense. And yet at the same time, I'm an undergraduate and I had some amazing professors and I had some really intelligent students around me. And some of them, not an overwhelming amount, but some of them believed in God. And I was astounded by this because I thought, like, how in heaven's

name can you believe in God given the way that reality is? I mean, somehow did you miss out on reading the memo? And these were some of the most intelligent people that I knew. And I remember there was one professor, for example, that I had, who was the wisest, most sage person that I knew. And I'm a completely different human being for having met him. He was the one who helped me to discover what I have within me. He helped me develop my intellectual and rational capacities. And through these, I came to, well, they aided me in discovering faith in finding the Lord and allowing the Lord to find me. But I was astounded that such people existed. And when I looked at them, they were different than the others.

They had a peacefulness and a tranquility about them. And this nonchalant attitude about life, they were joyful, they were happy, nothing seemed to really bother them. And this was true of both the students that I know that had faith and this small number of professors. And I have to say, what I saw in them was powerfully attractive.

They had this peacefulness and this tranquility about them, and I found myself drawn to be around their company more and more. In fact, I took every opportunity I could to be around them, not just because, well, that I admired them, the way that they lived, which was really a marvel, but the fact that they were intelligent people alongside this sincerity that they had. And so I just, I found myself drawn to them. And the piece that I say that radiated off of them. And the anecdote that I like to tell that illustrates this piece is an event that happened one morning. So I was on campus with one of them. And we were in a coffee shop near the back end of campus. And we were in that coffee shop because we all parked our cars in the back end of this campus

because it had the cheapest parking. And so we're sitting at this coffee table. It was approximately 11 a.m. in the morning. And, you know, we're sitting at one of those ubiquitous round coffee tables that you see in a coffee shop. He's sitting across from me. And we're just chatting. Each of us is going to have a class at some point. But for the time being, we weren't in class.

We're just enjoying a cup of coffee in one another's company. And somebody comes in and informed me. him, the guy that I'm with, your car was stolen out of the parking lot this morning. And it was joyridden in the back roads behind the campus. And it was slammed into an oak tree. Your car is hugging someone's oak tree on their front lawn. Your car is garbage. And so what this meant is, you know, some person, some drunken fool, was still drunk from the night before, managed to get into his car and drive away with it, and went speeding and destroyed this guy's car. And so he's just informed in front of me that this has taken place. And so he receives this news and he turns and he faces me again.

And this is what he said to me. I guess it just wasn't God's will for me to have a car right now. And he could still enjoy the cup of coffee in front of him. And, you know, our conversation went on for probably half an hour more, at least 20 minutes more. I can't tell you a word of what we talked about afterwards. I don't even know if I was aware of it at the time. I was so blown away. I was so mesmerized by his reaction to this event, he couldn't give a care that his car was destroyed.

It didn't bother him in the least. The fact that this is what God decided, that this is what Providence ordained, that at this moment his car would be destroyed, he couldn't give a rat's rump about that. Whereas for me, that would have been the cause of a crisis. It would have destroyed me. It would have occupied all of me. He couldn't give a hoot. And he drank his coffee just as peacefully as he was before. Who does this?

Like, this is not how people live. This is not how human beings are. And so this is what I mean by what they had within them was powerfully attractive. And so one of them one day decided to organize a Eucharistic adoration retreat for half a dozen of us, half a dozen college kids. And because I had gone to a Catholic high school, this individual who organized the retreat assumed that I was Catholic. So we all have those little things that we do with our dogs that are just a little bit over the top. I have friends who, for example, have camping chairs, one for each dog. That's their chair. I have friends who take their dogs out for their

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I heard the word retreat, and I understood vacation. I said, yeah, for sure. This would be at the close of the semester. The week following the end of the semester, I thought, perfect, let's do a retreat. I'll bring the beer. At that time, I was the only one of the six that had a car. So that's how I made myself useful. Oh, sure, I'll be the one to transport the beer.

This retreat is centered on adoration of the Eucharist, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. And I have no idea what that is. How would I know? I just went through 12 years of Catholic education. Now, I mean, I don't want to belittle the entire education, but there were too few teachers, in my experience, that radiated what they should have radiated. And could that have had a difference in me? Maybe. Could have had a difference in others.

you know, absolutely. I think so. I think a lot of us didn't have to go through a whole lot of the pain that we had if they were better witnesses. But I do not want to say that every teacher that I had didn't live a proper and heroic even Christian witness. I just didn't have enough of them. I didn't witness the teachers that I had, very few of them lived a heroic faith. And so I arrive at this retreat. And the student who organized it, he really went gung-ho. So the entire retreat was centered on Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for 24 hours a day. So 24 hours, divided by six of us, means each man gets four hours. I mean, even the strictest orders in the church, like the Carthusians, the Trappists, they don't do that. but this is what we set ourselves to do, or this is the schedule, the program that he set for us. I still as yet didn't know what it meant, what it consisted of. However, what it meant for me was I had threes and nines on the clock. So 3 p.m., 9 p.m., 3 a.m., 9 a.m. And as luck would have it,

who was the first one to have a shift? Well, it was yours truly. And so everybody, else files out of the chapel and here I am in this chapel looking at what appears to me in that moment I thought gosh I just don't belong here I felt absolutely foolish I just I wanted to leave it felt to me that I was doing something as foolish as kneeling in front of a tree and talking to a tree Now, obviously, it was not the case, but that's how it felt to me. And so, what did I do? Well, I plotted my escape. I thought, well, I just, I got to find a way to leave this place because obviously I don't have the faith that they have.

And I just don't want to ruin this experience for them. And so this was 1996. This is before cell phones. So I couldn't, I couldn't lie. say that I got a phone call and I couldn't lie and say, hey, I forgot something at home because, well, there's stores nearby. If you forgot something that you needed, you could just go buy it. And so I just didn't have an excuse that was worthy enough to tell. But there was also something else and something even deeper. I had too much respect for them to lie to them,

to tell him his truth. Like, I just saw something in them that was just so astounding, so attractive, something so perfect that I just didn't have the heart to lie to them. And so I just, I had to make a decision. Either that I would say, like, look, I just, I don't believe and I can't be here. Or I was going to swallow it up. And for the next three days, that was the length of the return. treat. I was going to sweat it out. And so I decided on the ladder. And then I did something. I did the

most honest act of my life in that moment. I got down on my knees in that chapel in front of what appeared it to me to be a cracker. And I said, Lord, God, I don't know if you exist or not. I don't don't believe you do. And me just even saying this makes me feel foolish, like I'm talking to nothing. But if you do exist, please reveal yourself to me. And if you do, if you do, if you can give me the faith that I see in these guys, then I give you my life. Now, I said this, I'll give you my life. I didn't know what that meant. But what I was not saying was, hey, if you can show me that you exist, gosh, I'll be a priest of yours and immediately I'll sign up for the seminary. That's not what I was saying. But what I was saying

was something absolutely 100% sincere. That if you show yourself to me, I will know that you are the greatest reality that exists. And I'll do whatever you want me to do. That's what I was saying to him. So I wasn't offering him anything other than that. then allowing him to be my God. And so what happened next? Well, I didn't see anything. I didn't hear anything. In fact, there was nothing but just the ordinariness of being in that chapel. And you know what? I thank God for that. I look back now. I'm glad for that reality because if I had seen anything or hurt anything, then it would have been the easiest thing to doubt. And so I never had that.

But what I did have was the one thing that cannot be faked that even somebody with mental health issues cannot be tricked by. And that was just a feeling of peace. Now, it was not an overwhelming feeling of peace. I've used the word over the years of a thread of peace as an analogy. wasn't overwhelming, but that sense of peace was strong enough that I felt tied down in place into that chapel pew that day in front of the Blessed Sacrament, front of the Lord of the Eucharist. It wasn't overwhelming, but it was strong enough that it could tie me down and leave me there

long enough for my shift to go by. And in fact, I was surprised how quickly it went by. six hours later at 9 p.m. I had my second shift. And that thread of peace had now become somewhere between a string and a rope. Again, it wasn't overwhelming, but it was more than what it was. And I, again, was surprised how quickly the shift went by. There was nothing earth-shattering about it. I did a little bit of reading. from some spiritual book or the Bible, again, trying to understand what all of this was about, trying to understand what it is that these people believe and why they believe it. By the third shift, which was at 3 a.m., I walked into that chapel as an atheist, and I walked out as a believer. And so what happened, you know, by this time, the building is

quiet is still, everybody else is asleep. Now, your shift was an hour long and you could only leave if the person that was coming to relieve you showed up. So if that person didn't show up, you couldn't leave. The Eucharist couldn't be alone. I came to discover that there along with everything else, including what Eucharistic adoration is. And I thought, well, I've given myself to be here for these three days, so I'm going to make sure I'm not late for that person. that I have to relieve. And, you know, one of the big reasons why that I didn't leave, one of the big factors, aside from not bringing myself to be able to lie to these guys, was the fact that, well, there's six

of us there, there's 24 hours in a day, and 24 divided by six is a nice, clean number. It's four. Every man gets four hours. If I left, it would be 24 hours divided by five, which is a lot messier of a number. But it also means that they've got to do more Eucharistic aeration because the Eucharist can't be left alone. And I didn't want to inflict that on anybody. So I thought, gosh, I'm going to bring myself to stay. So I mean, God can, even with that, even with a wrong motive or a misguided motive,

God can still get what he wants out of it. And that's a proof of it. So I walked into that chapel in this very still building. and the peace was very palpable at this point. And I'm sitting there, and I'm not doing anything but kind of quote-unquote sun tanning. I'm just absorbing the silence, the peace, and the space of this exquisitely beautiful chapel and being in the presence of something that millions upon millions of people throughout the world believe is God. and then at a certain point, I knew, I knew that I knew that I knew, I was in front of

Almighty God, and it completely enveloped me. So it wasn't an intellectual conclusion that I arrived at. It wasn't, although it involved something cognitive, I knew I was in front of God. There was a knowledge that I'm in front of God, but it wasn't a figuring out that I did. God revealed himself. He pulled back the veil, so to speak. And in that moment, what I experienced is much deeper than a feeling, much deeper than an emotion, but a complete and total awareness that resonated throughout my entire being. I knew I was in front of a mighty God. I knew I was in front of the one who created me. I knew it was in front of the one who created me

in order to love me. And I experienced that love in that moment. It was powerful. It was palpable. It was real. And I remember the intellectual difficulties that I had with the faith, they just dissolved.

There was an awareness that they just were not authentic. And I'll go into that towards the end of this episode. But I knew I was in front of God. And time just went by amazingly fast. At 4 o'clock, my shift was done, but there was nobody there to relieve me.

So the poor guy who had to come after me, he was asleep. He slept right through his shift. And the 5 o'clock guy, he didn't arrive either. So it was shortly before 6 a.m. when the next person came in. And I can't remember if it was the 5 a.m. guy. who finally did wake up, or if it was the 6 a.m. guy who came in a little bit early. Don't know. I just can't remember. But at that point, I didn't care. I was in front of Almighty God. And I knew that he created me and had a purpose for me. And in that moment,

in that instant, all of reality changed. I mean, in the sense that, I now could view reality through a completely different lens. And so I left that retreat, utterly convinced that God existed. So what did I do? Well, I had just finished my second year of my undergraduate studies the previous week. And so I had two more years to go,

and I finished those. So I just got back from an epic trip to Austria, and it really made me want to learn German. There's so many beautiful words, like Gemushlikat, which describes a strange sense of serenity and peace, despite the hustle bustle of our daily lives.

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Just head to cowboy colostrum.com slash X-Files and use the code X-Files at checkout. That's 25% off when use our code EX5. at cowboy colostrum.com slash X-Files. And then I went to graduate school again for philosophy. And so I just, I finished my education. I didn't jump into seminary right away. That came, in fact, on a separate retreat, gosh, seven years later. But my life was oriented different, and I knew that I lived for God and only for God.

and I would do whatever it is that he wanted me to do as soon as he convinced me of it. As soon as he told me of it, as soon as I heard his voice, I was ready to go. In that retreat, everything changed. Now, I'll tell you this. What really was the key to all of it was, first of all of it, was first of all the witness of others. Because that alerted me to a reality that was mesmerizing. Even if I didn't understand it and even if I didn't share it, boy, it was a lot of I ever convinced of their witness? Was I ever convinced of the way that they lived? Like, they had the

art of living down pat. It was powerfully attractive. So that's one. The other thing is that I agreed to challenge myself. Like, when I went to that retreat, I didn't know what it was about. But when I discovered what it was about, boy, it hit me like a wall of bricks, I decided, I'm not going to lie to these folks. I'm not going to just take off and miss out on this opportunity. I'm here and I've agreed to do this. And so I'm going to do it even if I don't like doing it, even if it's going to be an agony and a prolonged agony

in me trying to sit here and fulfill the conditions of this retreat. But the third thing, and this is the one that is really, really important. This is the one that if I didn't put this down on the table, I don't know if God would have been able to reveal himself to me the way he did. I made God an offer. I said, Lord, I see something in these guys. I want it. It's attractive.

It would be lovely to be able to live a reality, to be able to live life in your providence if you exist. Of course, I'm saying all of this, convinced that he does not, but I said it anyway. And I said, if you exist, please reveal yourself to me. And if you do, I'll give you my life. Meaning you'll be at the center of my identity. Because there will be nothing that is anywhere near as important as you.

And you know what, friends? God took me up on my offer. I made him an offer. And he said, deal. And I have never had a single doubt of my faith ever since that moment. In fact, the moment of becoming a believer, the moment of being aware of his existence is just as strong for me now. Like, I can recall that experience. I can recall what it was like.

But the experience of actually sensing it, of living it, I still have. It has never left me. And what God needed. was for me to make him an offer. And so I was ready to lay everything down for him. So I didn't say, look, I'm going to give you three minutes in between the football game and the baseball game to make yourself known to me. I was saying to him that you were the most important thing in the world. If you do exist, please reveal yourself to me. And I will put you at the same. center of my existence. And you know, when I arrived at that retreat house, you know, the first

thing I did was I walked through it, floor by floor. And, you know, this place, it was an Ancaster, Ontario, Canada. It's still there. The place is called Mount Mary. And the three floors, so the place was at one time, it was originally built as a boarding high school. And then it closed as a high school and was turned into a retreat center. And it's run by, it was run at the time, by Ukrainian Catholic nuns. They built the place and they were running it. And the Ukrainians are just marvelous decorators. They know beauty. And, you know, there was just beautiful, astounding artwork there. And I remember walking through the place. And I remember walking, you know, they had three statues there that, well two of them I as an atheist I knew who they were but there was a third I didn't so one was

Jesus and it was an image of him as the sacred heart the other one was a man holding a baby well that has to be Joseph Jesus's father and the other one was one that I didn't know who it was and I went through that whole retreat and left not knowing who it was but I remember looking at it and finding it not very attractive and I thought gosh that's a kind of What an ugly statue. Who would ever make something like that? And I stared at this thing at this statue for what seemed like an eternity, but it was probably two or three minutes.

And what I was doing, again, I just arrived at this place, and I scoped out what it was like on the inside, and I was taken and struck by the beauty until I got to this statue, which was kind of, well, its beauty didn't really fit that with the others. I mean, it wasn't ugly, but it was a little bit garish. regardless, as I'm staring at this statue, the thought came to me, gosh, like, isn't Christianity so weird? But then the thought followed that, but wouldn't it be wonderful if all of this was true? If God held us in his providence, that he really was looking after things, and he's bringing things into a happy ending for all of us.

And the thought of that was, there was a longing for it to be true. And, of course, I left that retreat, absolutely convinced in that, that he's bringing everybody along a path for their glory. Now, will all of us accept it? I doubt it. I think people live their lives. Some people live their lives. And in the end, they reject God. So it seems, for all intents and purposes to the realities.

of which we are capable of observing and noting, it appears like they left this life without friendship with God. Regardless, though, it's available. And it's just there for the accepting. And I accepted. I made God the offer. I said to him, if you reveal yourself to me as God,

I will accept you as God. you will be God to me. So what of the argument that I had against an all-knowing, all-good, all-perfect, all-loving God to exist based on those conditions of reality, of God exists, why is there so much evil? Why are there so many different religions, each one contradicting the next? And why does God hide himself? Why do we have to take his existence on faith? In that moment, when God made himself evident to me, came an immediate awareness that my objections were intellectually sincere.

They were absolutely sincere. But intellectual honesty also demanded my acknowledging that I don't have a bird's eye view of reality. In other words, I am not God. therefore I could be wrong in my perception or my reasoning and clearly I was because I knew in that moment that God doesn't hide himself that religions may contradict one another and so what it doesn't mean that there isn't a true and authentic one there doesn't mean that there isn't one head and shoulders above the rest and it doesn't mean that Christ didn't come down and begin a religion to be the religion to end all religions, to show us the way, to carve out the path towards God. So entangled in my objection against God's existence is that, that I know what the proper ordering of things is, and that the experience of pain and suffering preclude the existence of a existence of a existence of a religion,

an all-good, all-knowing, all-loving, creator, along with contradictory elements in religion and the fact that we need faith. So many people reject God for serious reasons because of evil, suffering, hypocrisy in religion, unanswered prayers, scandals in the church, scandals by those who practice religion, represent God, etc.

These are real problems. But one has to be careful. You have to be careful not to assume that because you have unanswered questions, God therefore does not exist. Many atheists believe they have disproven God when in reality they have only disproven a caricature of God. We need an encounter and experience with God for our faith to be real, for our faith to be full, for our faith to be unleashed within us. So one doesn't gain that merely by arguments. In fact, I've only ever in my life met one person who converted to the faith because of an argument. And he's an absolutely sincere person, a great friend of mine and went on and did great things with his life.

But I only met one. So we need more than just arguments for or against God's existence. We need more than just testimonies from others as to why they believe or do not believe. leave, and we need more than just information about the debate or whether God exists or not. We need an experience of getting down on your knees and asking God, if you're real, would you please show me? And if you are, I will give you my life. Are you ready to get down on your knees and beg God,

to pull back that veil. And are you ready to make him the offer that you'll put him at the center of your life? So those two things are equal in importance. You can't just ask God, hey, short yourself to me, and then you walk away from that experience, living your life as you want. Now, I'll see how it strikes me. You know, if I like it, you know, I'll change right away. But if not, you know, maybe down the road or God's not an entertainer.

He's not there to satisfy your intellectual curiosity. he's not there to entertain you. He has to be your God. And if you're not ready to give him the role as God, then he can't reveal himself to you because you've closed him off. And finally, the third thing that I want to mention is that the supernatural is real. How else can you explain how perfectly rational people convert and stay converted? people who are highly intelligent, they're not fools. They have all kinds of education, they have all kinds of rationality, and they believe. And that belief becomes the ground for all their happiness. And these are people who are nobody's fools.

So how could such perfectly rational people believe in something that would be the equivalent of believing in leprechauns or tooth fairies? The author of Hebrews says, so this is Hebrews chapter 11, verse one, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Some translations have, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. In other words, the author of Hebrews is saying that faith is not just an optimism that God is there. it's not just a wishful thinking we believe in something that has no stamp of evidence in the universe on the contrary faith is the substance it's the stuff of that which we hope for in other words the reality is already inside us it's already been imprinted within us it's not just wishful thinking

it's not optimism there's stuff already within us and that brings a conviction. So to get there, friends, give God an invitation to put that stuff within you. Now, this will be the holiest act you've ever done in our whole life, the most serious act. And it has to be treated with seriousness. It has to be done with all sincerity. I thank God, if you reveal yourself to me as God, then I will treat you as my God. Thank you, friends, on this happy occasion for me, which I thank God for. I thank you for being along with me in this journey, and I hope that what I've offered you here is edifying for your own faith.

And this podcast is centered on conveying and communicating the reality of evil. but our battle as exorcists against evil is possible only because we have faith. And I wanted to share with you how I came to that place. And I ask you with me to give thanks to God for this great gift that he gave me and that he's continuing to give many people. And if you don't have it, friends, I hope I've given you a way that is clear enough that you may be able to to pursue God and obtain it for yourselves. God bless you. You're in my prayers always. Please keep me in yours.