Robby Knuck's Testimony of the Exchanged Life

In 1979 Robby Knuck wrote an honest testimony from prison ("Living Free . . . In Prison") that describes the remarkable way that the Lord Jesus led him to see Him as his life:

"When I returned from Vietnam in 1970, I was a confirmed heroin addict.

"In the years that followed my release from the service, I experienced all the discomforts that accompany heroin addiction: I stole from loved ones and unloved alike; I robbed, cheated, and hurt people just to obtain money to get enough heroin: but there was never enough of the stuff.

"The odds were building up against me by 1972. One can only go for so long in such a condition. Eventually, something happens. For me, it was a police raid on a house in Miami where I was laid up 'coping a rush.' I was charged with possession of narcotic implements, loitering in a place of known narcotics, and possession of heroin.

"Because of this 'bust' it became apparent to everyone that I needed some help. Not only because of my personal desperation, but also because of the need to have some rehabilitative process in the works before I stood before a judge on the charges.

"This put my father to work looking for a drug-rehab for me to go to. I guess the best thing that could have happened was that a friend of Dad's came up with a place that was patterned after David Wilkerson's Teen Challenge.

"At this place, Surfside Challenge, I was exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't use the word 'exposed' lightly. We went to church three or four times a week, had morning devotions each day, studied the Bible two or three times a day, and much more.

"I can recall a time at the 1972 Democratic Convention in Miami. Flamingo Park was a camp ground for many of those who were protesting this or that. The director of the center I was in thought it would be a good idea to go down there and read the Bible. So off we went, supervisors, house-mother, program members, all of us. What did we do at the camp site? Read the Bible, twenty-four hours a day. Looking back, I'm sure it was more of a publicity gimmick than anything else--although there was some witnessing done.

"One thing I'll never forget was my third or fourth night at the center. There I was, still feeling really bad from 'cold turkeying,' when someone decided I needed deliverance from a host of demons that they discerned. What do you say to someone when they explain, 'You have demons in you and we'll get them out?' What could I answer but, 'Sure, why not!'

"They sat me in a chair in the middle of the room. Everyone prayed as this one brother called out this demon and that demon. Another member of the program who was standing by told me later, 'I was waiting for them to call out the "demon of Volkswagons" next!'

"Needless to say, it was not long before I asked the Lord to come into my life. Strange, but I remember my prayer: 'Jesus, if what these people are into is real, then come into my life.' That was my sinner's prayer.

"It would be nice if I could tell you that this was the end of my problems. But deliverance from 'demons,' and even accepting Christ into my life, didn't free me or give me the power to live the Christian life.

"If I imagined that everything would change at my conversion and that it would be nothing but a 'peaches and cream' life from then on, that wasn't the way it went. Not even when I experienced the 'baptism,' together with speaking in tongues.

"Most people felt that if you did not get a life-changing experience when you were saved, you had one coming when you got baptized in the Holy Spirit. Some called it the 'second blessing' and told me it was for 'power.' I did not feel a great deal of joy when this experience became mine, but to say I had experienced the dynamics needed to live the Christian life set before me by those brothers and sisters who were my elders--NO. Nothing really changed when I started speaking in tongues.

"I still had a problematic Christian life. I still felt hard-pressed, coping with my lusts, attitudes, and compulsions. The 'gifts' of the Spirit didn't rid me of the problem of myself.

"Soon it came time for me to leave the drug-house and re-enter society. 'Great!' I thought. Completely off heroin, with Jesus in my life I felt everything would be fine.

"My first day back on the job found me running over to the local SevenEleven to get a beer for lunch. Then two beers. Then more. 'Hey, what goes on here?' It looked like a clean-cut case of backsliding. Although looking back, I don't know where I backslid from. Sure, I remember always wanting to live the Christian life as explained to me by those dear saints, but I don't ever remember living it.

"I had gotten married in the course of all this, and for a time my wife and I started fellowshipping in a local Pentecostal church. We paid our tithes and even on a few occasions, had some brother or sister over. My drinking continued though, and because of a physical impairment, I landed in the hospital more than once.

"It was during this time of drinking and ending up in the hospital that my darling wife got saved. And although she never told me in so many words, I know she turned me over to the Lord. Boy, was I in bad shape in those days!

"This is being written in a Florida prison. Why am I in prison? Not from the drug charges. (I evaded those through a technicality.) One day, having just come out of the hospital for drinking, I hit the bottle again. (I drank alone in bars. My drink was vodka and I chased it with water. Looking at it now, I can see that I just replaced heroin with vodka.) This upset my wife a bit, and she left to go over to her father's to sit the whole thing out.

"I don't remember the details, but by the time it was over I had armed myself and shot a police officer. He lived, but will never walk again. The charge I'm doing time on is attempted first-degree murder. I was sentenced to fifteen years in the state pen. When you read this I will have been locked up for four years.

"For me, spiritual life really started when I came to prison. I can't say why, it just did.

"I guess my best explanation is that I suddenly sensed that 'He is all and in all.' I remember my first day on a job here at the prison. I was raking some gravel, when I thought, 'Wow, I could be doing this for the Lord!' I realized that life was all in how I looked at it. From that point on my spiritual life developed at an accelerated rate.

"My spiritual progression since being in prison can best be traced by the books I've read. I remember my initial preoccupation with books on demons (I wonder why?), and on deliverance. One can't read about deliverance without coming across Derek Prince. His series on demonology paved the way for me to his 'foundation series.' What a time of blessing and growth in learning the principles of Hebrews 6.

"From here I moved on to one or two other men before coming into books by Watchman Nee. Until then I never had the Scriptures explained like Nee did in his books. (Nee wrote only one book, The Spiritual Man; other books with his name on them are reprints of his sermons and teachings.) Watchman Nee was the first man who brought me into any depth with Romans 6:6 and Galatians 2:20--my co-death with Christ, identification with Him in resurrection life, and the distinction of spirit, soul and body. For the next two and a half years, all I read was books by Watchman Nee. I set out to consume anything with his name on it. Looking back, I see him as a part of the whole--a means to an end.

"My next step in growth came through the writings of Norman Grubb. I started with his Deep Things of God. Then God Unlimited crossed my path. Each had just enough to cultivate a taste for something altogether new and not found in what I had read in the past. There was still something missing in Nee's writings. Even now I doubt if I could effectively put my finger on it. I'll just say something was missing--something I found through Norman Grubb.

". . . In writing this, my story, I don't have a 'point' to convey so much as a person. I imagine some would think that person is Norman Grubb. No, He has helped greatly, but the Person my story focuses on is Jesus Christ. He is all I have, all I now live for.

"I have come to see that Christ 'fills all in all.' In Him I lived, am living, and will live; in Him I moved, am moving, and will move; in Him I had my being, have my being, and will have my being. I've learned the truth of 'all things work together for good'--even all the dope I shot in my arm, all the people I've hurt and all the other negative things I've done.

"As I look back now, I see more clearly the overwhelming hand of God in it all--not only up to, but even beyond my present setting in prison. True, sometimes I did not see His hand; but our seeing or failing to see has nothing to do with the reality of His presence. His will is manifested in all the circumstances of life, regardless of how we see them.

"You remember the parable Jesus once told about two men who were forgiven their debts. 'Which of them therefore will love him more?' Jesus asked his hearers. The answer: 'I suppose one whom he forgave more.' Indeed, where there is much sin, there is much grace; and grace is no more evident than in my position right here and now, in prison. This is not to say that I love Him more than you, just to explain how God's grace has been manifested in me.

"I have nothing but gratitude for the keeping with which He has kept me, never once casting me aside. I am here in prison to the praise of His glory; and I know that some day I will be released from prison, also to the praise of His glory."