By Buddy Beachy –
Sure, he would go to church with his buddy. But as a committed Satanist, Nigel Begley went to curse it, everybody there and their marriages. While singing and preaching was going on, Nigel and his henchman from the coven were uttering curses and witchcraft under the breath.
“We were sitting there as they were worshiping,” Nigel recalls. “We were praying to Satan calling all these things down and all these things up. We sat down near the back of the church.”
But while the curse worked against other covens and random people not protected by God (because they were not Christians), a funny thing happened.
“All of a sudden I encounter the presence of the Living God and there’s this peace, there’s this overwhelming sense of Holiness,” Nigel says. “It comes out of absolutely nowhere.”
Tears welled in his eyes, and he struggled to hold them back. His henchman was crying too. As the secondary to Nigel, he was afraid Nigel would kill him for crying.
They couldn’t resist the Holy Spirit.
Today Nigel Begley, 52, is a pastor in Belfast, Ireland.
His journey into Christianity starts with his exit out. His father took them to church. But his father was a very angry and explosive man. Nigel and his brother could do no right. He was also criticizing them.
Thus, Nigel got completely turned off to the Gospel.
“He was always in our face. He would always find fault,” Nigel remembers. “So I rebelled in my heart against God. If someone asked me to go to church, my skin would actually crawl.”
He became a fan of dark heavy metal music: Metallica, Black Sabbath, Ronnie James Dio. He suffered depression, body dysmorphia and an eating disorder.
“I kind of delved in the dark side,” he says. “I loved all the horror films.”
With a buddy, Alister, he fell into horoscopes, New Age books and occult.
“I felt addicted to it,” Nigel says. “People are getting addicted to drink or drugs or sleeping around. But for me, the the evil of life and all those rituals was the very thing that got me addicted.”
One night he addressed Satan. If you want my life, cause this candle flame to flare up all the way to the ceiling. It did in neon blue.
He knew he was called – to become some kind of bigshot warlock. He network with fellow Satanists and got spirit guides. Satanism’s mandate: Do what thou wilt. It guided his life.
The Big Mo, his tattooed paramilitary friend, got saved.
“I knew straight way that he was saved. His outlook was different,” Nigel recalls. “I says, ‘Mo, you’ve become a Christian, haven’t you?’”
Mo answered affirmatively.
Nigel wasn’t hostile towards him, but he tried to trip him up with lots of tough questions. Big Mo was never thrown off balance. He would always go and ask his pastor and bring back an answer. For six months, Mo invited him to church.
“I used to bring in all my magic books and amulets and magical statues and try to freak him out,” Nigel says. “But no matter what I did, I could not get his eyes off this Jesus. When I looked at him I could see he was free from his previous life. He had a joy about him. There was a happiness. He was content.”
At last, Nigel relented. He accompanied him to church. But the intentions in his heart were to wreak havoc through his magic arts on the congregants.
It just didn’t work out that way. God won. He was crying as the Spirit fell on him.
“Unbeknownst to me, they had been grabbing ahold of the horns of the altar interceding for us,” he explains. Nigel didn’t accept Jesus immediately. He resisted.
God had to confront him. “This is your last chance,” God said. He repeated it for days.
Again, Nigel went to church. During the altar call, the pastor said, “There’s someone here. This is your last chance.”
“The very same words God had said to me,” Nigel says.
Nigel received Jesus in his room back home. Later his henchman also accepted Jesus.
“There’s power in the name of Jesus,” he says. “One night I sobbed and I shouted and I pleaded and I went to sleep in the middle of my night’s sleep. I’m aware that I’m in the presence of the Living God. I remember this thought came to me. I went, ‘This is God, this is the creator of the universe.’”
Today, Nigel is a pastor in Belfast.
