The first time Ozzy heard the true Gospel he thought “Wow man, there must be a catch behind this. How could all we must do is believe in Christ?” This is good news, and it is also good news that God regenerates the heart and causes us to walk and obey His statues (Ezekiel 36:27).
My name is Ozzy, and I am 22 years old. I’m from Nigeria originally. I’ll just give a short testimony about how the Lord found me and saved me.
I’ll say my household was kind of like a Christian home but no one really told me who Jesus was. So I just went along saying I was a Christian, like what happens in many Nigerian homes.
So, when I was young, I got to hang out when I was like 8, 9 or 10, I don’t know. I always had a conviction there was a God. I guess in Romans, that’s what it says, that everyone knows there is a God.
So, I tried to do many good things even when I was little, but I just didn’t have any peace, like I knew I was wicked right from when I was little.
I got to go to a boarding house. My parents sent me away to a boarding house, and I think that’s when my heart just grew darker. At the age of 12, 13, I started drinking, smoking marijuana, just hanging out with the wrong people; and I joined what I would call a gang and that really just hardened my heart to sin.
I was just a wicked person. I was a big bully in my school. And I can remember we used to have a slogan in my school and the slogan was like, “Forgiveness is a sin.” And that’s what was just in my heart. If someone did something to me, I hardly forgave them because I was just wicked. I hated my mum, my dad; but I really loved my brother. That was one thing I really did.
From there, I was just really bad. That time I did loads of stuff and my parents were not proud of me. And I was just horrible in my schoolwork and everything. Everything I did in life just turned out badly.
And I can remember when I was young then, I was meant to come straight to England to study, but my Dad wouldn’t let me to come. He said I should do one more year in Nigeria because he thought if he just let me go, I would be in a terrible state. And I was really angry then. I really was just angry about life.
But I just look at it now like it was the sovereignty of God; because I can remember one day I was walking past, I was meant to travel to another place in Nigeria, and I saw a book. A guy actually wrote a book, He wrote a book using Proverbs 23, It says, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” That was the first book I ever read in my life. I don’t know how biblical it was then, but I just knew I was foolish as a man. I knew I had to change my ways. I tried to do loads of religious stuff, but I don’t know, there was no peace in me until I came to England.
I came to England and I forgot about all those things and I just carried on doing my way. I went to a catholic boarding school and I tried to do many good things. I was even one of the people who used to give out what they call holy communion. I got baptised in the catholic church and I kept on doing many things, but I was still wicked. I was still doing my drugs and drinking, hanging out with girls.
One of the things that really shocked me was when I came over to Manchester to visit a friend back from Nigeria, Fred, who actually attends the same church as I do (we grew up in the same place in Nigeria, went to the same school.) When I came to see him, the first time I came, he was still living his life in sin and we enjoyed ourselves.
The next time I came back to Manchester to visit him, I can remember we went out to a night before and we had some drinks, we’re hungover. He woke up in the morning telling me he wanted to go to church. I was just really shocked saying, “What are you doing? Why would you go to church? What are you doing on a Sunday?”
And I went to church that day, I think it was more like a charismatic church, and everything, people were just screaming. Now I know it was not biblical. and I don’t know what the pastor preached but that kind of also convicted me, but I just carried on in my own way. But the thing is that, One thing that Fred gave me, He actually bought a Bible for me. And through then, I started reading the Bible. I only used to read Proverbs; and he (Fred) encouraged me to read the New Testament. I started reading the gospels and I was really shocked by the kind of things I was seeing about Jesus and His claim, saying He was God, because no one told me that before.
And so, because of that, because of Fred, I actually moved over to Manchester to do my university. I just look at the way I came to Manchester and it was just like a miracle because I got rejected the first time I applied here. But I actually prayed; then I was lost and I prayed. I said Lord (I didn’t even know what I was saying), I said please help me to get to Manchester and I will serve you. I just said that as a prayer.
The school wrote back to me telling me I could come over to do my university degree. I was just excited but I was like a lost man. I came to Manchester, I forgot what I told God and just carried on with my lifestyle.
In the first year, I attended a church. I attended a church which was just an unbiblical church because everyone seemed like they never sinned. And I thought I was the only hypocrite in there. I tried to do everything, I tried to obey the commandments; but I see I could not just catch up with the people who claimed to be Christians there.
Fred my friend, started reading the Bible and taking the thing seriously; and he would tell me things, I’d be like, “Man, you need to calm down.” Because I thought he was getting radical.
And He told me one thing one day. He said look, this Bible is serious and he told me he didn’t know whether he was saved. That really struck me. I said, If he wasn’t saved, then who am I. I thought wow, because I was even hiding some things I used to do from him. He stopped doing smoking and drugs. I used to still do it behind his back and still go to church. I was just a hypocrite and into many horrible things. And he just told me he wasn’t saved. That was a big shock to me.
By God’s grace, I think he met Kevin Williams, the pastor of Grace Fellowship. He met him in town and he just started coming to the church. He started taking the Bible seriously and he was telling me about Christ. And I don’t really know; I think he got converted. Then he invited me to the church.
One thing that really struck me when I came into a biblical church was everyone (after the sermon in my former church, I would just want to talk about football and everyone was fine with it,) but when I came here, everyone was just talking about Jesus Christ, opening their Bibles and just glorying in Christ; and that really struck me.
I was not comfortable here because I was just a sinner, and I could just see people really excited about Christ and talking about His name. That kind of challenged me. That kind of wanted me to check the Scriptures and see who Christ was.
And when I came here, Kevin was preaching on the Songs of Solomon and just talking how Christ truly loves His believer, and how He’s done everything. The first time I heard the true Gospel, I thought “Wow man, I’ve never heard anything like this.” I said “Wow, there must be a catch behind this.” I said, How can all we just do is to believe in Christ? I thought because where I went around, people were telling me, you have to do this, you have to do this, you have to do this, you have to take care of yourself.
And that time, I was in a miserable time for six months; because I would talk to Kevin, I would say, Kevin, what can I do? I was just convicted of my sins. I did not want to do the things I was doing before. I did not want to hangout.
Just hanging out with my friends and seeing the things they used to talk about was, to me, not the life I wanted to live. I can remember going into a night club once and the music there and everything, I ran out from there. I was just convicted about everything and I was literally weeping on the road. I said, “Lord, I want to change, save me.”
I was still looking for something to do and I talked to Kevin. Kevin just said, “Look, you just need to repent, turn away from your sins; that Christ has paid it all.” He was graceful for me and just showing me Scripture, showing me John 19:30 where it says, Christ has done everything and He said it is finished. You just need to trust in Him.
I said “Wow man, it can just be so easy.” I listened to sermons; Paul Washer’s sermons and they would say the same things. But I was just looking for something to do. I was just in a miserable state because one day, I would think “O, I’m saved because I got free from some sin.” I was looking to my performance and not Christ.
I kept on just praying. At nights, I was not able to sleep properly. I came one time and the day Zoe gave her testimony, I sat at the front when Zoe gave her testimony. And I was just praying that time. I said, “Lord, please save me. I want to trust in You. I don’t want this life.” And Zoe gave her testimony and it was like she was talking to me.
I think the Lord just opened my heart then. And she just told her life, how she was a hypocrite before, and how she looked to Christ. She gave one verse, Romans 10:13 which says, “Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
[Zoe’s Testimony] I just saw the Scripture which said “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” And that night, I went to bed crying over that Scripture. I said, Lord, Your word says “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” I said, Lord, I don’t know if You’re true, I don’t know if You’re real. I said But Your word says this; You got to save me.
I just went home that day; I said Lord, it says this in Your Word. I just said, I’m taking Your promise; and it kind of like, just clicked. I said, Look I’m just gonna trust You, Where else can I go to?
And I think I just understood the Gospel, that it’s all about Christ. I don’t need to look to myself, that He’s paid it all.
And I just thank God. From thereon, the Lord has just been showing me things. The thing about when I got saved, the first book I really got to read was the Gospel of John, and that kind of just blew my mind of who Christ is, and how much He’s worth. And since then, the Lord has just been helping me, more and more, to understand who He is. And that’s why I need the Gospel everyday.
So, I just want to encourage anyone, If you’ve not trusted in Christ, He’s all we need in this world, and we just need to repent and trust in Him. He’s paid it all for sinners. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” – John 6:67 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” – John 6:68-69
