The Story of Dustin Renz (Part 2): Forsaking Hypocrisy

In part 2 of our interview with Dustin Renz we discuss the life of hypocrisy he fell into for 10 long years after his conversion; he lived a double life as a good Christian on the outside and an addict in secret. He discusses the spiritual consequences of this period of his life and what it took for him to gain true freedom.

When a person lives in deception, they do it because they believe that it's going to benefit them. “If I tell the truth,” they say, “it's going to cost me.” In their mind the cost of the truth will be their comfort or their possessions or their family or their reputation. But what that person cannot see is that the cost of truth is far less than the cost of deception because, even though the truth might cost some temporal things, the cost of deception is their character. In a previous interview with Dustin Renz, we talked about the Satanic darkness that he allowed into his heart before he came to know Jesus. And about the incredible freedom that came when he started walking in the light. But even after Dustin came to know Christ, there was a time when he allowed deception to rule in his heart and it cost him dearly.

Dustin you wrote a book called “Pile of Masks: Exposing Christian Hypocrisy” to help professing Christians walk in the truth. I want to read a quote from it to give listeners a more complete picture of the life that you lived for a number of years. You said “most of my credentials [as far as writing the book] came from time living in the wilderness. The seasons I spent in Teen Challenge and Pure Life Ministries serve as bookends for nearly 10 years of running from God much like the biblical prophet Jonah. However, my running was done internally and the fish that swallowed me was called hypocrisy. But, like Jonah, I too realized the desperate situation I was in and cried out to God for mercy.” So to start today, can you talk to us about that 10 year period where you left to the light of truth and began walking in hypocrisy?

So it really started when I graduated Teen Challenge and I got a little bit more freedom (pornography had been a part of my life since I was young). In the beginning I was a sincere believer and I kind of had opened up this door. I tried to get a little bit of help, but I didn't really allow people to help me very much and so I kind of had this thing on the side. I want to Bible College and it became: on the weekends I go work at Teen Challenge and I'd look at pornography and then I'd go back to Bible school. And what took place over a period of time… I could see pivotal points where the double life kind of grew. It all revolved around secrecy and I began to lie. I lied to my fiance who became my wife. I lied to a counselor at school. I had to lie to get my credentials to preach. It was not a one day decision of “I'm just going to walk away from God internally and pretend to be a Christian.” It wasn't like that; it was these these small decisions, one at a time. Eventually, there was this public Dustin that everyone respected—I was in ministry; I became a missionary. Everyone thought “this is who Dustin really is.” Then there was this private Dustin that had gotten tangled back into drugs and alcohol and pornography and all that kind of darkness that God had rescued me out I began to gravitate toward, only in secret. It was almost like there was this public me and then there was the me that was hidden that actually looked a lot like I did before I got saved and it was a growing darkness one decision at a time.

One of the things that stands out in your book is that during this whole process, as you were making that one decision at a time that's creating this double life, was that the Lord was trying to restrain you. He was trying to keep you from that and keep you close to him. You were really honest about it, you said that that restraining love just made you angry, because it felt like God was trying to keep you—again that lie was resurfacing—God's trying to keep you from something that you deserved. How did your internal world change as you believed those lies?

What took place over a period of time—again this was the gradual change—there was a time where I really wanted to please God and got into the ministry to serve him and that was very much a real passion for me and fueled what I did. Over time it became more and more about me, especially as I began to live for myself, even though it was in secret. So the ministry became, in my heart, an opportunity for me to get famous or become something. So what took place is, over that time, I saw the Lord... He became a stumbling block to me pursuing what I want and looking back I can see it as mercy. He was trying to stop me from destroying myself; He knew that if I really pursued what was in my heart it would end up being the end of me. So He was actually trying to restrain me, but what happened inside was that I really got bitter to the place where eventually I really felt like I didn't t even want to be a Christian anymore. I felt trapped in a Christian life: I had married a Christian woman, I'd give myself to the ministry; I didn't have any kind of other career options or plans and so I kind of felt like I had set myself up to be stuck in this world with this God that I didn't trust anymore and I thought that he was really you know against me. So I just became very bitter, just this miserable bitter person.

In our “World of Lies” series we've spent a lot of time focusing on how dangerous it is to harbor any kind of deceit in our hearts. And it's really easy to do that because we've got the cultures lies we've got the lies even in the evangelical church and then we've got the deceitful propensity of our own hearts. When you've got all that arrayed against you it might be easy to say “man it's as impossible, I could never walk in in the light of truth,” but you're a testimony that it is possible because you were in full-fledged deception and you did make a massive turn and begin to walk in the light. So what was that real turning point for you?

It began with my confession. I was on the mission field and I confessed everything to my wife and that set a series of events that took place: getting taken off the mission field and resigning and all these things that took place that, basically, were consequences of that. What I found is when I got back to the United States, for the first time, I didn't have a mask to hide behind. People knew because we came back early. I had to confess to family and friends; I mean it was fairly public. So instead of immediately repenting I just got even more bitter. I really wanted to run from God; I was really just in a place of I just want to give myself over to my sin that I want to deal with the consequences. 8 months of being in that dark place and I had the opportunity to come to Pure Life Ministries. I came as a last resort; I really didn't come with hope that things were going to get different. I thought for sure these people aren't able teach me anything. I feel like I know it all anyhow and showed up here at the program. The Lord just brought me through a several-month process of repentance; breaking down the self life, revealing my heart to me, showing me what I was really like and and it was this cooperation of him showing me and me admitting it and confessing it and crying out for help. It was through that process the Lord really brought me to a breaking point where I just really realized he was my only option if I was going to ever be free. It was the same place that I found back when I was in Teen Challenge. The same God who set me free once could do it again and if I wanted it, I could cry out to him, and he was making that available. So through a series of events that's kind of what happened: I'd ended up in the chapel for a while, for about a week, just crying out to God: “Lord I still want to have this relationship; if this is really available to someone like me who's done all these things; been in so much deception and really brought shame to the name of Jesus by my lifestyle... but if you still want me... I want what you have to offer me.” It was at that point in time he began this other process of rebuilding me and restoring me and bringing that restoration into my life that now, 10 years later, has brought me on a completely different path than what I was on before.

Did you ever think during that really painful moment, this crisis moment, like “what's happening to me is bad this can't go anywhere good.”?

I feel like the Lord, and He does this sometimes, He brings it just like where you feel like you can't bear it anymore and kind of dangles you there for a minute just like to let you feel that pain and I just remember shortly before the breakthrough came the feeling like “OK God I've done everything I know to do I've confessed, I've cried out to you, I see everything that you're saying, I agree with you and I just don't know what else to do.” I really felt like... I thought I was going to get crushed by the weight and it was at that point where I felt like “I cannot take this anymore,” when he began to reveal himself in a different way and that really began that process.

I think that would give people a lot of hope who might be nearing that breaking point: just keep letting the Lord do that; keep letting him take you there. As we start to close, I want to step away from your personal testimony and get your perspective as a pastor on something. We both know from our own experience and experience ministering to people that the church today is filled with all kinds of spiritual illnesses that have their root in hypocrisy. And your ministry is calling the bride of Christ to come up to your real calling your real testimony. What do you think is the biggest thing that is hindering people from coming out of hypocrisy?

I think one of the biggest issues in the western church especially is we've just learned to play church games. We figured out how to do Christianity and make it look authentic without actually it impacting our hearts, which is why Pure Life and my ministry and others like ours, we're calling people, constantly, to examine their hearts because that's where... Christianity has always been about the heart and I feel like in our culture somehow we've become religious in our Christianity where we've put up an image that if you go to church if you talk like a Christian, you listen to Christian music, you do certain Christian things—that's what Christianity is. Somebody can do that and live for their self at the same time. The reason people have such a hard time coming out of that is because there's such a lack of transparency in the church where we don't feel like we can have real, honest conversations about what's really going on because there's fear that is involved and it seems very widespread. I don't think people even see another option so you kinda end up just kind of fading in with the ranks and not ever allowing people into that deep place that says “here's who I really am.”

As you're talking about coming out of hypocrisy you said it yourself that what had to happen was that there had to be a confrontation with the truth, and one of the things that Pastor Steve has been lamenting about during this entire series is that, largely, in the church pastors aren't giving people the truth they're giving people what they want something that caters to their own thoughts and feelings. So what's your take on that. If people aren't even getting the truth, how are they going to come out of hypocrisy?

You know I try not to discount the fact that God has a way of doing things despite the culture. And I do have hope that God is raising up voices. Obviously if I didn't think it was possible then my ministry would be kind of irrelevant because it would be a lost cause, but I do think that God's raising up repentance preachers and a return to holiness. Whether or not that's a widespread thing—that doesn't seem very likely with the current church culture—but I do think that... Jesus said “My sheep hear My voice they'll know my voice,” and so I think even despite a worldly church culture... of course there's a lot of people in the masses that have itching ears... there are some that are hungry. The Lord's always got a remnant; I've seen it as I've gone to minister in churches and been part of the church world, there are some that are the real deal who really want the Lord and they see that they're being sold short and so the Lord has a way of getting a hold of those ones. I would pray and and love to continue to pray, and I will, that the whole church would wake up, but based on the current culture and what I see in the scriptures that doesn't seem like a very likely scenario, but despite all of that I do believe the Lord's working and will continue to work. I think what happened to me of course could happen to someone else. It happens at Pure Life on a regular basis but it also happens in churches when people hear the truth, it happens in devotional times and quiet times when people are reading the scriptures for themselves. So I think the Lord's got a way of getting a hold of his people.

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One last question before we stop: that point where you said everything began to change was the point where you told someone everything. For the person who is knowing right now; they're listening and they're knowing “I'm that one who has to tell someone everything,” but the prospect of what it's going to cost them is absolutely terrifying. Just speak to that person.

First off I would say allowing it all to come out and exposing that was not an immediate fix as I thought—in some ways it was the beginning of the nightmare because that's when I had to walk through a lot of the consequences so... I had this picture of this beautiful moment where it came out and then all the consequences are wiped away. I had a misconception about it. However, looking back over my life, for years, I had wanted to confess what I was doing. For years I thought if I could stop lying about this, if I could get out of the darkness, I can at least begin the process of getting free. I literally wasted year after year after year after year after year hoping to get it right between me and God. That was the lie that was always there: I can do this; God you need to help me and one day I'll get free and no one will ever have to know.” It's a lie from the devil; I mean we're talking about the deceptions of the enemy; the Devil's right there. My biggest cheerleader in my hypocrisy was the devil whispering in my ear: you don't have to tell anybody. I think that's the biggest lie we have to overcome is, I look back and I don't think it was even possible that I could ever have gotten true repentance without first talking. The option of “I'm going to get this right eventually in secret,” was never a real option it was the enemy just putting that out front of me and so it always seemed like, “next times the last time and I'm going to get free,” and I'd have like a couple of weeks where I wouldn't be in some sin and I be like, “OK I'm free, but then I'd fall back, but it was always an illusion I was chasing. The reality was exposure is an absolute necessity. I tell married men all the time, if you're married and you have a spouse you need to confess whatever's going on; you need to let your wife know, but beyond that a spiritual leader you know find somebody; not just a buddy you can chat with who's not going to bring you to a place of accountability, but you need to find somebody that you can be real with and then allow the process of consequences and conversations; all those things you have to walk through, walk through it one step at a time realizing there is freedom coming, but you're going to have to walk through some pain along the way. But the longer you put off that decision, the deeper you get into it anyways and so what you could expose today and get free, if you wait two years, imagine how much more deeper the darkness because the sin doesn't shrink it gets bigger in darkness. The Bible says today is the day of salvation; it is a great day to expose sin and get it out in the light; yes you should have done it 10 years ago. You didn't but now's your opportunity and I would just encourage somebody: do it now, make that phone call, have that conversation while you feel the Lord convicting you, because if you wait you'll convince yourself enough to do it.

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