2,694 Matches for Brian Cole

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Brian Cole, brian.cole.927

Drummond, Wisconsin

Crossroads Outreach Center
The Oaks

married to Marsha Cole After 33 years of being heavily involved in satanism and the occult and various drug addictions, 30+ years of cutting and self-mutilation, 27 years of my life spent in prisons, crimes ranging from drug charges to attempted murder... Between my praying mother, Jail and Prison Ministry and the blood of Jesus, I came to know Him on Jan. 22, 2009 and have been living for Him and serving Him ever since. God restored my life, my relationships, my health. I live In Him and For Him!! TESTIMONY OF BRIAN COLE John 10:10 - “The thief does not come except to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. Somewhere along the path of life for every one of us there comes that dreaded moment when he suddenly sees himself for what he really is: minus all the sham, the surface and the show - he stands face to face with the stark truth,, minus the deception of his own selfishness. He sees himself clearly as all the idiotic self-deceptions are ripped away and we are shown what we really are: selfish, deceitful, con-manipulating, full of excuses and dishonest even to ourselves, full of hate, rage, vengeance, faults and failings. To those lucky ones, the young who realize this - and praise God that they do - and see it for what it is, destroy it now and take op Jesus’ cross and continue to retain His love as their guiding star until the end of their days. But to most of us, this moment only comes at a time when many of life’s battles and years have passed. I learned in one of my faith based classes that this is called a “paradigm shift.” This moment may be brought about by the death of a loved one, the loss of worldly goods, or a spiritual illumination. But to a druggy like myself, it has come when I finally faced the inevitable choice: death, suicide, insanity, or absolute sobriety and belief in Jesus Christ. In Luke 15:17 in the parable of the lost son, there was a point in the sons miserable existence “when he came to his senses.” I had come to my senses and it came to me in a blinding flash that has gradually torn away the very foundations of my life, and here arose the all too familiar cry from the innermost sanctuary of my soul and heart: My God, what have I done?! How pitiful am I? How sparing my help to others, how innumerable my mistakes, the wrongs. How all pervading my self seeking, how dishonest my every motive...how very sad I am, the lives I have destroyed or, at the very least, turned into chaos and discord. The many...I have hurt. This moment may last for hours or years, but however long it may be, it is a most dreadful and fearful moment, because on this moment and on my decision at this moment depends my very life. Nothing will ever be the same again. It is not that life’s greatest decision MUST be made, and even now it seems as if God Himself has me by the hands and Beelzebub has me by the feet and they are ripping me apart, neither willing to let me go! And having caught, for a fleeting instant, a vision of myself naked in the White Light of Truth and the Piercing Rays of Illumination; having seen and experienced the abyss which has separated me from what should be, from what I believed or tried to believe myself to be - and at the same time I recognized my own complete helplessness. I can now do one of three things: Rush in chaotic confusion back into my old ways (the comfort zone); allow the shock, failure, lies, and disillusionments to affect me and despair in one way or another and seek to continue to destroy myself; or do what I want so very badly to do at this instant by dropping to my knees and admitting: “God, Marsha, Mother, father, Brother...I have really messed things up! I am powerless and my life is an unmanageable and chaotic mess.” For the first time in my life, I realize my life is a mess… “With desolation is the land made desolate because there are none who think in their hearts.” (unknown). The above came out of my journals the day I made the decision to begin my new life in Jesus Christ on January 22, 2009! Let me introduce myself - my former self - the self that died on that day! For 33 God forsaken years (I am now 49) I had played the part of “the thief” mentioned in John 10:10. My list of convictions, which range from petty theft to first degree aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, is longer than most people have years in their life. The amount of time I have been incarcerated, 27 years, is longer than many Americans stay married. Yet the crimes I was caught for represent only a small percent of the numerous crimes in my life that I have gotten away with. If anything sounds like a resume for Satan, this is an awesome start. At the age of 10, after numerous years of being taunted, teased, and terrified by classmates and peers because of my short height and buck teeth, I was suddenly turned on to marijuana and Satanism. After partaking in these 2 activities for a short time, I came to realize that those who haunted me were now haunted by me; actually fearful of me! Imagine the satisfaction and the power I felt! It all began there; the end of my childhood and the beginning of a long, hateful, meaningless, vengeful and dreary life based on philosophies and creeds that I understood so well because they had once been used to justify the way I had been treated. One of these philosophies or worldviews is the idea that “the only type of person fit to exist is he who has the power to attain authority no matter how ruthless the means.” And: “The whole of nature is a continuous struggle between strength and weakness, and eternal victory of the strong over the weak.” And, “I regard Christianity as the most fatal. seductive lie that ever existed.” These quotes are by Nietzsche and Hitler. Satanist Anton Lavey’s message from Satan to us followers was: “We are only animals and we should do as we please.” And Aleister crowley, our Prophet: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” These were the “laws” or “values” which influenced a great portion of my life. Other than the times I was forced to attend Church as a young child by my Mother, I don’t remember any good experiences with the Church at all. I do remember waking up one time in that same Church in the basement after a 5 or 6 day spree on speeders. I robbed that same Church on more than one occasion. As a young adult and an avid Satanist looking to become the best at what I do, I robbed many Churches for the sole purpose of stealing the sacramental bread which we would use to desecrate in our rituals and ceremonies. I was also a drummer in a band at the time, and robbed a couple Church’s just for the electronic equipment. Other Church’s I broke into just to vandalize, invert crosses and defecate on altars or under statutes. I would take a mall to cemeteries and smash any icons dealing with Christianity. I would destroy nativity scenes in December. I did pay tribute to God in my past. I have a cross tattooed on the bottom of my “left” foot so whenever I walked I trod on Christ. It was tattooed in such a manner that when I was in prison and going through a strip search and my back was to the authorities and they had me lift the bottoms of my feet up, it would be inverted. I destroyed more Bibles than most bookstores have books, and cursed God and Christ in many rituals as well as vocally to as many hated Christians as I could. Hard to believe how very easy it was to make a Christian become angry and show their true colors, especially in the prisons. That was my job, and I was VERY good at it. The drug use in my life from that point on included about every drug imaginable. You name it, I’ve either tried it or been hooked on it. My worst addiction came in 2006 when I discovered crystal methamphetamine. Even the meth was not enough though, as I was always snorting many other pills or using other drugs while on the meth. My lifestyle in the last year before my arrest in 2009 involved staying awake for 3-10 days and night on meth and other drugs, sleeping for a day or two, then starting all over. I went from a 185 pound rock from working out for 6 years to a 135 pound skeleton, losing pieces of my teeth and defecating blood on a daily basis. I was always sick. After all, the last 2 years before my last arrest in 2009 I had been trying to commit suicide by overdosing. I almost succeeded three times in 2008-2009, including the night before my arrest when I put my car in the ditch during a blizzard out selling drugs and coming down off meth. I fell asleep in a snowbank. My brother saved my life that night. When I began my first incarceration as an adult at the age of 18, I was already an avid Satanist. Despising society and all the people in it, I literally became a Satanic zealot! It CONSUMED my life. Believe it or not, back in the early to mid 80’s Satanism was allowed in the prison system. I had more books on satanism in prison than I ever did on the streets. Even many of the guards at the Green Bay Correctional Institution were afraid of me. At times, they even joked with me and would hang chicken bones on my cell bars while I was at chow. It was far from a game though, it was my life. Satan owned me. At one point, in 1987 while at Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution, I remember telling my best friend - who used to live with me and my wife and we were involved in a big federal sting operation together and serving time together for it - that if Satan had come to me and asked me to kill my own mother, that I wouldn’t hesitate. I lost my friend that day. But it was also the same day I realized after making that statement just how controlled I was by the demons I served. Many “occult’ things occurred in 1987, and it was the year some changes were made. After 9 years as a hardcore Satanist I slowly got away from it (I thought) and got involved with “Thelema.” This religion was started by Aleister Crowley. From that point on, for the next 24 years I became a Thelemite, a follower of Crowley’s “Book of the Law.” I was soon hooked up with the Grand Treasurer General of the O.T.O. (Ordo Templi Orientis), Bill heidrick, who hooked me up with Sharon Gaidosh, the Priestess of the Isis/Nepthys Camp in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. From 1984 up until 1990 I battled with the Department of Corrections to get Wiccan/Pagan religious groups recognized in the prison system. With the help of Sharon, Andy, and others at the camp and the backing of the O.T.O., in 1990 the Wiccan/Pagan Religious Groups became official in the Wisconsin prison system and are still there to this day. This means that anyone involved in any aspect of the occult (Satanism, Asatru, Wiccan, Thelemites, etc.) are allowed to practice their religion and hold rituals in the prison chapels. What a glorious success for the Devil What a downfall for the Christians I despised so much! After being released from my first 10 year bit, I was released to and resided at the O.T.O. camp in Milwaukee where I lived for about 8 months. Within the next 24 years I had become a high initiate of the O.T.O., ordained at a priest of the Ecclesiastic Gnostic Catholic Church by Bishop Lon Duquette, confirmed and baptized into the EGCC. I was also an initiate of the secret inner order of the O.T.O. called the A..A.., and initiate of HOOR (Holy Order of ra-Hoor-Khuit), was knighted as a Knight of Baphomet, and participated in the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn, Wicca, the Rosicrucian Society, the Holy Qabalah, Theosophical Society, Chaos Magick, Discordianism, Buddhism, and more. I had been led to believe in a long intellectual process of searching for answers and I had been taught this search could take many lives and that very few actually attain truth or illumination. Some of the highest initiates have attempted to attain the “Great Work”, the Summuin Bonum (Attainment, Oneness with God, the Great Work) for centuries without success. I was under the conviction that the real truth was only to be found within oneself, that God and man are essentially one and that the separation between man and God comes from being born in this illusory world (Maya) which catches man in its embrace and entices him away from finding the TRUE meaning of life and existence. Deliverance is impossible unless one renounces the allurements of this world. Yet who was God? What was God? I believed God was nothing more than “forces” of the universe and nature. After I moved from the temple in Milwaukee back to my hometown of Chippewa Falls and Eau Claire I had began a chartered O.T.O. camp of my own called “The Tower Of High Sorcery Camp.” And even though I had thought I was free from the slavery of Satanism, I would quite frequently go back to it to perform destruction ritual when people messed with me. Since my young days I had also been involved with many forms of self-mutilation which originated in cutting myself to get blood for the Satanic rituals. My arms and chest are covered with multitudes of scars of pain, loneliness, hurt and humiliation. Then came the tattoos, body piercings, S&M practices. I had went from inflicting pain on others which wasn’t always a satisfying release for me, to inflicting pain upon myself which I could understand and justify. Physical pain was easy to deal with; I could feel it, understand it. Mental and emotional pain I could not deal with. My life came to a head with death in 2007. After so many years of being locked up, involved in darkness, I already didn’t believe belonged in this world. i played dungeons and dragons for over 24 years as one means of escapism. When I turned a past friend of mine on to meth and he died in a fire because he couldn’t wake up after we stayed awake together for 6 days and nights on meth, I lost it. In the 2 weeks following his death I lost my job, my car and my home, and lost all desire to live. Even though all these years I thought I was some kind of tough guy, king pin, I didn’t have the courage to take a gun to my head and pull the trigger, and I wanted that more than anything. So I started trying to take myself out by ODing on drugs. To make a very long story short, when I was arrested for possession of marijuana, meth, and many other charges in january of 2009 and slowly my mind began to clear of all the drugs, many realities hit home. I realized how low I had gotten, how close to death I had come, that I had just gotten married to a woman 20 years younger than me and there was a 6 year old boy involved. I hadn’t even realized it!! After 44 years of life, 33 of them involved in a criminal lifestyle, for the first time I realized something was wrong with me! Just like the Prodigal son in Luke, he had come to himself, and this was my coming to myself. I was in the center of an ocean without a life preserver. For the first time in my pathetic life I had an honest DESIRE to stay off drugs and attempt to live a successful life, even though I may end up spending a good portion of them back in prison. But I still wanted to do it MY way, even though my way had been unsuccessful for the last 33 years, but at least I had the DESIRE. I began my journey by attending a faith based drug and alcohol program called Almond Tree. You had to have a Bible in order to do the homework, to fill in the blanks. I sure didn’t want people seeing me with a Bible, so I managed to get to the library by myself one day, found one of those small pocket size Gideon Bible’s, stashed it in my sock, and went back to my room and hid it under my pillow. After lockdown I would pull it out and do my homework. At one point I came across a scripture in Ps. 51:7 “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” It blew me away because it was word for word part of our cleansing rituals in the occult! This is where it went from me filling in the blanks to God’s Word filling in mine. That verse got me curious and I started reading more! A very long story short, I began attending other faith-based groups in the jail, each one exactly what I needed at the time I needed them! All I remember of those first 4 weeks is that God was silently inviting me in as He became more and more real. As the layers of guilt, shame, anger and hurt were were brought to the surface, it seemed as if the discussions in these groups on any particular day or week corresponded to and dealt with exactly what I was going through at the time, and God was at the surface of it all. I was slowly being healed and even began reading religious material and the Bible that the Chaplain had given me. The day I surrendered to Jesus was the day I requested to do my 5th step with the Chaplain. Needless to say, he had been following my progress and knew how close I was. he had asked me why I was REALLY here? I had then asked the Chaplain about the one thing which was holding me back from making the commitment. It was forgiveness. How could God forgive ME for all the things I did and said against Him personally. hen he explained that not only did He forgive, but He forgets, as far as the east is from the west, and wants me for who He can make me rather than what I have made of myself, and that all I had ever done will be forgotten and He would begin a new work in me, that the old has gone and the new has come… I got down on my knees and gave my life to Him!!!! January 22, 2009. After all those wasted years looking for “illumination” and “enlightenment” in all the wrong places, the truth that saved me was the very truth I had denied, hated and despised all those years! There is only one Truth! “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” What is the truth? Jesus said, “I am the way, the Truth and Life…” The Holy Spirit had a work to do in me, and he began immediately! It began with changing my identity, the identity I had created for myself (long hair, calling myself Ozzy, body piercings, black nail polish, black eyeliner…) to living the identity God had created in me. THAT was hard1 He began convicting me of things that were no longer acceptable as a way of life: stealing, lying, cheating, manipulation, asking people I had hurt for forgiveness… He gave my emotions back in a BIG way. The only time I ever remember crying were for animals I had lost. The only human being I had ever shed a tear over is when I was responsible for Eriks death. Now I was crying over the littlest things: TV shows like Extreme Home Makeover, reading about Jesus, thinking on my past, praying with people... This January 2015 I will have been God’s Masterpiece for 6 years. Next June 1, 2015 I will have been out of prison for 5 years. It would take volumes to write of all the blessings the Lord has blessed me with. He has restored all my relationships with my wife and close family. He has given me the gift of a little boy with another on the way. He has put me in many ministries, including Prison Fellowship, Faith riders Motorcycle Ministry, Good News Jail and Prison Ministry. He steered me to working with children in AWANA and VB and youth groups, which eventually let to a full time job as Associate Pastor, Outreach Pastor, and Pastor of Student Ministries at Faith Free Evangelical Church in Stanley, Wi. I am going on my 4th year in seminary, and just last month, November 11, 2014 passed my written thesis, and defended it in front of the council for EFCA and got my Pastoral licensing! Over the last 4 years I have had the opportunity and honor of being invited to numerous places to give my testimony or give a sermon. From my own youth and Church, to numerous other Church’s, youth groups, drug programs, men’s and women’s retreats, biker events and rally’s, youth retreats, prisons, jails, Gideon conventions, Indian reservations, etc. to share the good news of Jesus Christ! People often ask me how I know God is real. I tell them one thing. After living the life I did for 33 years, I didn’t just wake up one day and decide: “Gee, I think from now on I’ll just be a good guy!” No, real changes have been made. Nothing I have done in these last 6 years have been a result of anything I did or could do. ALL glory and honor to Jesus Christ! I know from personal experience that God is real, that the Holy Spirit dwells in me. He DID change me, and He IS changing me from “glory to glory.” I know that even though satan comes to “steal, kill, and destroy,” Jesus has come “to give life in all its fullness.” That is not just recitation me, its an actual fact that I have seen played out in my own life. He really has given me life in all its fulness and I am thankful for that! For me, one of the greatest things about meeting Jesus is not so much my eternal home in heaven, or His transforming power, or even all of the answers to prayers I have witnessed. What I treasure most is the very first gift God gave me on that day I met Him: the gift of forgiveness and belonging to the family of God. God held nothing in my past against me. He made me an adopted son of the most benevolent King! He makes me feel and experience His love for me so deeply that I actually feel as if I’m His favorite child even though I know His love is perfect and does not play favorites. I can trust Him with every aspect of my life because I know that He always works lovingly on my behalf. I am profoundly thankful for the ability he gave me to forgive others and to love others and to enjoy the love others show me. So, like the man in the desert who only has one cup of water, I offer that to you if you are thirsty for a drink! in God’s awesome love and light, may you all be as blessed as I… Jer. 29:11-14 Ps. 73:21-28 Jer. 33:3 Phil. 4:10-14 In Christ, Brian Cole

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