Prior to becoming a Christian in 1988, I was involved in the occult, toying with all manner of invalid spiritual experiences such as seances, premonitions, demon control, curse casting, out of body travel etc. I hated Christians because they were so happy, and seemed fake to me.

Conversion

In 1987 I attended a high school in Canberra that was doing a recording project in another city. Half the school traveled by train to the city, recorded in a massive cathedral (for acoustic quality) and traveled home. I had a gang, and was wandering down the train when Marcus Reeves stopped me and said, “Robert, why don’t you sit down and find out what we are studying”. I dismissed the gang, and sat down. They were studying the prophetic predictions about Christ from the Old Testament.

Upon seeing these amazing statements, and their factual conclusions in the life of Christ in the New Testament, I was converted. Marcus invited me to his Anglican Youth Group (Episcopal). But I simply did not enjoin the Christian life, nor allow the life of Christ to change me. I continued to smoke, drink and live a riotous life.

Then in 1988 Mark Maskell witnessed Christ to me again, in a bus interchange. I was convicted of my failure to change the way I lived, and went to St Marks Anglican Life Center (the same church Marcus attended). Shortly after being saved, I was filled with the Spirit, spoke in tongues and then got much deliverance from demonic oppression.