2 Atheist Brothers Baptized After Giving Their Lives to Jesus Christ | Powerful Testimony

I was at my job across the street where I where where I usually park. And I called out to God in in tears and screamed at God like, "Dude, I I give up. I've tried for years to beat this on my own. I've tried for years to drown my sorrow and my worry and all these things and earthly and worldly things. I've done the travel. I've had I've had the girlfriend. I've hooked up with the girls. I've done the drugs. I've done the parties. I've drunk drank. I've done everything you could do and nothing is working." And I basically gave myself to God in that moment.

I said God my leaders. My My latest, a few weekends ago, I had the honor and I had the privilege with my wife of baptizing two individuals, two brothers, Dylan and Trey, in the beautiful lake of Austin, Texas. Texas. It was such a profound moment in their lives because one thing about these two phenomenal brothers is that all their lives they've actually been devout atheists. They didn't want to hear about Jesus. They would come back and talk about Jesus. They were on a Paul experience. experience. And I have them on the platform today because a few years back, both of these brothers gave their life to Jesus Christ.

And not only that, being so inspired by the Holy Ghost, they took a journey away from where they're from, New York, to come to Austin, Texas, like Abraham, on a journey wherever God is sending sending them. And it's such a profound story that they found me last year at a coffee shop, Joe's coffee shop to be exact. And I was going through a season where me and my wife were dealing with some things, the loss of one of our child, a still birth. I have been going through things. I went back to my old ways. Things that I repented that I've been delivered from. I was in a dark season.

season. And the Lord sent two brothers all the way from New York to minister to me. They they thought I was ministering to them. No, no, no. They were ministering to me. And at that coffee shop, the Lord reminded me, pick up this camera and record what these two gentlemen have to say. Because when they begin to speak, it it's not only going to set you free, Mike, from what you've been doing, what you were backsliding into, but it's going to help whoever decides to watch this video. These two gentlemen are sent to go out into two and to go out into the world and to proclaim Jesus Christ.

Why do because you have professed the name Jesus and now I baptize you in the name of the father. father. Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Yeah. Not that cold. That's not that bad. Not that bad. My name is Dylan. I am from Long Island, New York. Grew up there since I was a little kid. Uh, my journey has taken me not very far away from New York. So, coming to Austin is a very different experience. Um, the most the farthest I ever went was upstate New York. Spent some time in college there. Spent some time in the city.

During that time and the rest of my life, I have never been a man of faith. I went to a religion class when I was younger. I always thought it was nonsense, something that is trying to control people versus setting them free. As I went to college, I was going through a really, really deep depression. Um, I I came out of high school very gung-ho on my ambition, my goals, chasing money, success. I was with a girl at the time who I thought things would work out with. They did not.

And it felt like looking back now that God purposely had these bad things happen because it it brought me to my absolute knees. Uh, the girl went away and my ambition went away. I lost kind of everything at the same time. And for me, that was that's all I had going for me was this un unstoppable drive and ambition that I basically built my entire life off of. I was the kid in high school and even younger than that, watching podcasts, self-help books, all that, putting anything I could into these things that were going to help me be successful.

Um, as I ended up going to college, I fell into a life of partying, degeneracy, hooking up with girls, drugs. Um, and throughout that time it was fun, but even during those times I would deep down realize that this is not right. This is not what I should be doing. I wasn't raised to be a degenerate person. Um, even though I wasn't raised in the faith, morals were still there and and all that. Um, as I went through that depression and being in college, I tried everything. Like I said, the self-help stuff. I went to therapy. I started exercising. Um, anything you could think of, I named it.

I was doing blood tests to figure out if my testosterone was low. I was doing anything I could possibly do to figure out how to beat this thing that's in my head that had been in there for years now. Um, and nothing worked. Little band-aids here and there. Smoking weed all the time. Band-aid helps you escape for a little bit, but you end up right back in it. Um, I end up coming home from school and thinking, you know what, now I'll be okay. I went to school. I got that experience. Things are going to be fine now.

I get home and realize pretty quickly that I'm the same guy I was 3 years ago when I left. and the depression was still banging my head in every single day. Um, suicidal thoughts, the whole thing. Um, as time went went on, my parents are divorced and our step family that came into the picture are in faith and we got to ask them questions over the years about all this stuff and try to understand their perspective. They would try day in day out to try to convince us that God was real and that this is what you're missing, like this is what you need to give yourself to.

And someone who is very full of ego and selfishness does not want to hear that I am God at that point. There is no God. Um over this year of being home after college, uh my one stepbrother Gage really was trying and finally started to get a little peak into my soul there to get some words down into my heart and I went through some interesting personal experiences that led me to question and start to think about this thing as being a reality. Um, all that brought me to which is what I call the final mental breakdown.

Um, I was at my job across the street where I where where I usually park and I called out to God in in tears and screamed at God like, "Dude, I I give up. I've tried for years to beat this on my own. I've tried for years to drown my sorrow and my worry and all these things and earthly and worldly things. I've done the travel. I've had I've had the girlfriend. I've hooked up with the girls. I've done the drugs. I've done the parties. I've drunk drank. I've done everything you could do and nothing is working." And I basically gave myself to God in that moment.

I said, "God, please take this away from me. Please help me. I I can't do this on my own any longer." Was the words I really remember saying was, "I can't do this on my own anymore." And from that day forth, it hasn't been easy, but I didn't give up. And I I have continued to grow in my faith ever since. Leading me to a point of quitting that job and surrendering to God and saying, "You know what?

If God is real, which I believe now it is, I'm sure he'll lead me somewhere." And as time went on, as I quit that job and I sat around doing not much, I just prayed, I got led to Austin, Texas about 3 months ago. And the way that those dominoes fell, man, impossible synchronicities and things that you could just not make up that got me to go on this trip for free. Um, after being here, I felt this call to just move here. No idea what I'm doing. Still don't. Just got here yesterday. Um, even having this conversation is wild. Just walking into my gear like impossible.

Um, and we're just trying to live out what God wants. I don't know what he wants from me yet, but I'm obeying. And all I can say is don't give up. If if God is trying and you're trying, things are going to happen for you. You just have to give it time. And all that matters is God. Like once you get past the point of caring about earthly things, you start to notice how small and insignificant those things are. And you realize God and Jesus is all that actually actually matters. That's all I got to say. Who are you here with? I'm here with my brother Trey.

How you were you behind me? I was. Oh, I had you. I had you. Thank you. Thank you. You too. I want to be longer, but I ain't want to drown you. How you doing? understand receive you receive today. Today come into my life. Come into my life. Heal. Healed. Saved. I now confess. I now confess. You are now my life. because you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Today, along with the brother John, I now baptize you in the name of the Father and Son, and the Holy Spirit. [Laughter] [Laughter] Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Woo. He's going to share some more of his own journey. Yeah.

So, yeah, like you heard, my name is Trey. I'm Dylan's brother. Uh, it's pretty similar story to his in the beginning where we grew up like we did religion class, but I always kind of thought it was a scam. Uh, I saw that it made certain people happy. It also held down others and stuff like that. And I was like, it's probably just like a fake story, kind of like Santa or something like that. Uh, but I never actually did my own research on anything. So, I was like most people just talking from actually zero reference point and making stuff up.

And once, like Dylan said, our step family kind of moved in, we were able to ask more questions. It was more just from a point of interest. I I it felt like the barrier to entry was too high still and that I would never be able to like get into this exclusive club. Um, but I started chipping away, was asking questions. Um, and then once Dylan got got is like the the joke we always talk about is uh that is when it kind of sunk in like oh wait th this is possible. Maybe I'm doing this all wrong.

And similar to him I kind of was depressed most of my life. Had like severe amounts of anxiety. Couldn't really do anything or like leave my room. Anything like that just terrified me and I became a shut in essentially. And it wasn't until mine and Dylan's paths diverged when he went away to college and I was still at home that I kind of had to live as my own person for once and it was really hard and I kind of just if it was a sink or swim I sunk really hard and I just stayed in my room.

Eventually, I picked up writing, which is now like what I want to do long term, write books and just like fantasy novels, stuff like that. And that gave me some semblance of peace, but I didn't know why. I just kind of was like, I'm not going to mess with it. I'm just going to go with it and hope it keeps going. And once we found the faith where Dylan already had it, and about a month later, I realized I don't even know what I was going through, which shows how like meaningless like earthly things are at this point. Um, but it was a really hard day.

I couldn't get through it anymore. I was talking to Dylan. I went in my room, closed the door, and started balling my eyes out. And I said it before, but I never meant it with such conviction where I said, "Jesus Christ, I accept you as my my Lord and Savior." And the intense wave of love and I I can't I can't even explain. Like I had a physical reaction and I immediately was like, "Oh my god, it's real." And this I was like, "Oh my, this changed literally everything. The game has changed forever." Then next day talked to Dylan about it.

And as we were talking about it, about how amazing this was, we realized we had that same feeling again just talking about Jesus and how we kind of came to it. And we went to a lunch with our mom, explained it to her. She she was getting into it, but it's still sort of like on the fence. Um, and from there, the the weight of the world hasn't been on my myself since once I realized realized that you can't fill a god-shaped hole, which I stole that from a a a guy named Cliff Cliff Nectal. But, uh, yeah, you can't fill a God-shaped hole.

And if you're trying to be your own god, the weight of the world will be on you. And no one can do that except God. And yeah, basically ever since then, just been following following our intuition, following the word, and it got us here into this crazy place somehow at Joe's coffee shop meeting Mike. This is insane. Not possible. It is God. We got to get in real quick before I close this out. All right. These are the two brothers right here. That's us. And what do you both of you all want to take from this Austin experience that God has you? We all want from this two question.

I want to feel like I'm actually of use to God. Like whatever I'm doing, I want to feel that there's a purpose behind it. Um I want to see if the world outside of what our little hometown was is what it's cracked up to be. I want to see if we find a new church community, if we find more spiritual people that didn't really have the benefit of having at home. We did have a a Bible study at home with a pastor and a guy that was great. Um, and it gave us a taste of that like church community.

Um, but yeah, I just I'm I'm excited to see what God's plans are for me versus what I usually was doing, which is my plan. Letting go and just saying God's got a bigger bigger dream and reason for me than me and just seeing what happens. How about you? I mean, pretty similar cuz I would definitely say before finding the faith, there is no way I would have ever done this. Me, too. The thought of moving across the country with no money, no job lined up on a whim. I've never been here before. This is my second day I've ever been in Austin. Uh it's crazy.

And I'm just Yeah, I'm excited to just continually follow follow his guidance and see where it takes us. [Applause] Baby, you want to come out and pray? They have a way of sharing their story. Their testimonial is so powerful. Both Dylan and Trey are true inspirations because they remind me of the brothers that you see that were disciples of Jesus Jesus Christ. These two are inseparable. And shout out to Rob, their father, because when Rob came to see the baptism at that day, he dedicated his life to Jesus Christ.

And I can just imagine how profound it was to see his two two sons give their life to Jesus and and be devout followers. So this whole family, man, has blessed my life. Dylan Trey, I love y'all. [Music]