By Raul A. Ries (pictured above) (1948- ), adapted from Decision magazine, October 2001, and other sources.
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As a child in Mexico City, the last thing that I wanted to become was an abuser. Throughout my childhood, my father abused my mother, my grandmother, and me. I remember screaming because I was so frightened. He was an alcoholic and often forced me to go with him to bars where he got into drunken brawls. By the time I was nine years old I was filled with hatred. I remember, at the age of eight or nine years old, thinking, “One of these days, I am going to kill my dad.” That was my life. My goal was to kill my father.
Because of my father’s drinking and abuse, my mother moved us away from him to Los Angeles. I learned martial arts when I was 17. I was still filled with rage, and I become violent. I began to take out my frustrations and anger on others. When I would go to parties, I would get into fights and hurt people. It was only by the grace of God that I didn’t kill anyone. By the time I was a senior, I already had been in and out of jail, but never once booked because we knew the cops, and the cops used to let me go. Then one night at a party I saw my girlfriend with another guy. I beat up the young man and he almost died.
I was arrested and given a choice—the military or jail. That was in 1966 during the Vietnam War. I’ll go to war, I thought. It would be a license to kill, and that sounded good to me. I joined the Marines, went to boot camp, and then to Vietnam. I was assigned to a special missions team. I killed many people on our raids. We never took prisoners.
After ten months in Vietnam, I became overwhelmed by the constant terror of war. I threatened to kill my captain if he sent me out on one more mission. The military put me in a straitjacket and shipped me to Oakland Naval Hospital, where I was put into a psychiatric program.
In spite of this, I was honorable discharged in 1968. Just before I left the Marines I married Sharon Farrel, a young woman I had dated in high school. I had been writing to her while I was in Vietnam.
But the violence of the war haunted me. I went back to studying martial arts, and eventually opened my own studio. Now I was more dangerous than ever, because Vietnam had removed from me any fear of killing. Throughout this time, Sharon loved me and showed me God’s love by how she lived her life. But it wasn’t long before I was fighting in bars and cheating on Sharon. Before I knew what was happening, I was as abusive to my wife as my father had been to me.
In 1972, after suffering almost four years of abuse, Sharon decided to leave me. She wanted to help me overcome my problems, but now we had two sons. She did not want them to grow up to be abusers. She knew that to save them, she had to leave me.
One evening I went home and found the suitcases had been packed. Sharon was planning to leave me, but I wasn’t going to let that happen. I decided I would kill her and my kids, and when the police would come, I’d shoot it out with them until they killed me.
I took my rifle from the closet and loaded it with 18 rounds. While I waited for my family to come back from church services, I punched holes in the walls, shattered picture frames, and knocked over shelves. I wanted to destroy everything.
As I stood in front of the television set, I was seething. I hit the television with the rifle butt, but instead of breaking the screen, my gun hit the button to turn it on. And there was this bald-headed guy, a pastor, talking about Jesus and his love. I stopped and listened for a moment, but then it made me angry. The last thing I wanted to hear was some preacher. I aimed my rifle at the television and was going to shoot it, but I could not pull the trigger. I kept listening to the man talk about the love of God. He said: “When you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, all the past is gone. The slate is clean, and you can begin a new life with Jesus.” It seemed as if he were speaking directly to me, and I realized that what he was saying was my last chance. I needed a new life and this was my only hope.
I began to cry like a baby. I never cried before, but now I was crying uncontrollably. I knelt and prayed, “God, if you are real, and if you are able to save people, I want you to come into my life tonight and save me.”
When I stood up, I knew something had happened. Jesus had taken away my anger and hatred, and he had given me his love and peace. I wiped the tears from my face and put away my rifle. Then I drove to the church to find Sharon and tell her what just happened. When I arrived, the pastor was giving an altar call. I couldn’t find Sharon, so I went to the altar where someone prayed with me before I went home.
The lights were already on when I parked in front of our house. As I walked up the sidewalk, I could hear Sharon crying. The door was locked, so I called out, “Sharon, open the door.” She opened it a crack and asked, “What do you want?”
“I accepted Jesus Christ,” I told her. “I am ready to change my life.” She shut the door in my face. She did not believe me. I finally convinced her to let me in the house. It took months for her to believe that I had truly changed and to forgive me for the pain that I had caused her.
I began to attend church in Costa Mesa and to read my Bible. In the fall of 1972, I sensed that God was calling me to proclaim the Gospel at my former high school. For two months I visited the school regularly and talked with students. One day, about six months later, I stood on a bench and explained salvation through Jesus Christ. Some kids threw their chocolate milk at me, but several hundred students responded. Other schools invited me to speak to their students. Soon, I was visiting eight schools a week. In the evenings, I was teaching a Bible study in my martial arts studio. I was ordained in 1975, and my Bible study has grown into a large church that supports many ministries.
God healed my relationship with Sharon. She could see that God had really changed me. In 1976 we had another son. God forgave me and removed the anger, hatred, and bitterness that had been consuming me. Now I have the privilege to reach out to others with God’s message of grace and forgiveness through Jesus Christ.
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Raul is the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel in Diamond Bar, California.
For much more on his incredible life and ministry go to: https://calvarygs.org/
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The bald pastor on the TV screen that Raul could not shoot was Chuck Smith, who in 1969 began a ministry to the hippie generation. His amazing story was told in a the 2023 movie Jesus Revolution starring Kelsey Grammer as Pastor Chuck, Joel Courtney as Greg Laurie, and Jonathan Roumie as Lonnie Frisbee. Take a look at the trailer:
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Pastor Chuck
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