In my first installment of Overcoming Homosexuality, I introduced Matthew. This is the rest of his story, and how he ended up overcoming homosexuality.

Meanwhile, back at the cross, Matthew then proceeds to totally serve God. He then joins the church’s prison ministry team to preach to criminals behind bars. As he is doing all of this, he suddenly starts to get physically weaker. He couldn’t swim as long as he used to, his endurance and stamina are weakening, and he starts having problems with his intestines. He goes to a doctor, tests are run, and he finds out that he has full-blown AIDS – he is HIV positive!

He then starts yelling at God – how could He do this to me? God had healed him from the homosexual lifestyle and he was fully serving God and now all of a sudden he comes down with AIDS. God then very quickly tells him that the AIDS he has come down with is not as a result of any judgment being passed onto him by God – the AIDS has come upon him as a “consequence” of the homosexual lifestyle that he had been living in earlier and that he was simply reaping what he had sown over all of those previous years.

Matt then received realization and revelation that what seeds you plant in the ground will grow. And if you plant seeds of destruction, then you will eventually reap death and corruption as a result.  God then tells Matt that He will fully heal him from the AIDS, but only if Matt is willing to agree to fully forgive everyone that has ever wronged him in this life – including the man who had given him the AIDS.

Matt at first wrestled with God on the issue, but he went ahead and did it. He forgave his brother who had molested him, he forgave his parents who had not properly loved him, and he forgave the man, whoever he was, who had given him the AIDS. Matt said he did not feel any forgiveness towards these people when doing this before the Lord, but he went ahead and confessed it out with his mouth and gave it all to the Lord.

Shortly after doing all of this, Matt’s AIDS takes a turn for the worse. He literally comes down with all of the symptoms of AIDS and ends up bedridden just waiting to die. As he is in bed literally dying from this disease, he keeps telling the doctors that God is going to heal him. Everyone thought he was crazy. They had also put him on AZT, which eventually makes him sterile as you will see further on down in the story.

Then one day as he was lying on his deathbed literally waiting to die, he gets a Word of Knowledge from the Holy Spirit to speak out this Word of Knowledge to the man who was attending to him in the hospital. God tells him to tell the man that he knows that he is gay! Matt speaks the Word of Knowledge out to the man. The guy can’t believe Matt would know something like this since they did not know each other. This man had been a Christian, but had turned away from God.

This man then tells Matt that if God will really heal him like he is claiming, then this guy would give his life back to Jesus and turn from his homosexual ways!

Then here is where miracle #3 occurs. While in bed dying from the AIDS and being hooked up to the life support machines, all of a sudden his vital signs start to rebound! Several doctors come running back in, check out the machines and tell him that they don’t understand it – but that all of his vital signs are rebounding back.

Matt literally stands up in his hospital bed and starts jumping up and down saying God has now healed him. They then do some more tests and tell him that even though his AIDS has miraculously gone into remission – that he is still HIV positive – the AIDS bug is still in him and that it could re-activate at anytime during his life.

As a result of the above miracle, the man who Matt had spoken the Word of Knowledge to earlier gave his life back to Christ and renounced his homosexual lifestyle!

Matt then continues on his walk with God believing that God will someday complete the healing and completely take out the HIV virus where he will no longer be HIV positive.  Matt continues to stay on the church’s prison ministry team, witnessing to criminals and homosexuals. One day he was scheduled to speak in one of the prisons to 20 criminals wanting to hear his Christian testimony.  When he walked in, he saw 20 men sitting in chairs directly in front of the podium he was going to speak from.

And guess who was sitting in the front row directly in front of where he was going to speak? The serial killer who had raped and molested him years earlier when he had been serving in the Coast Guard.

As soon as he sees this man, he starts feeling anger and wrath rise up in him. But then he had remembered his deal and covenant with God, that God would completely heal him from the AIDS if he would be willing to forgive all of those who had ever wronged him in the past – including the serial killer who had raped him.

Matt knew he was being tested and knew he had to try and forgive this man – even though his feelings were not initially lining up with it. Matt’s sermon for this particular group just coincidentally was going to be on forgiveness!

Talk about an unbelievable chess move made by God to arrange for all of this to occur!

Matt then delivers his sermon to the 20 inmates. After he gets done, he then makes an altar call to see if anyone wants to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Only one guy raises his hands to come up to get saved – and it is the serial killer!

Matt says that the man then starts to break down and cry in front of everyone. He then proceeds to tell Matt and the other 19 inmates that he has killed other people, that he has AIDS, and that he has given AIDS to other people during the course of his crime sprees! Matt finds out, right there on the spot, that this man was probably the man who had given him the AIDS when this man raped him back when he was in the Coast Guard.

Matt then asks the man to come forward in front of everyone else. Matt then tells this man that he was one of this man’s past victims. He tells the man that he was the 18 year old that he had raped at knife point at the location that it had occurred. Matt then tells him that he has fully forgiven him for what he has done to him and that God will also fully forgive him and accept him into His kingdom if he is truly sorry for his sins and is willing to accept Jesus as his personal Savior.

This man ends up getting saved that night with Matt. As a result of this man’s dramatic confession and Matt’s response to him, the other 19 inmates, who initially had not raised their hands to come forward to get saved, all broke down, came forward and accepted God’s free gift of eternal salvation as the serial killer had just done.  Matt later found out that this serial killer, whose name was Kyle, died a year later in prison.  Matt firmly believes that this man is now in heaven as a result of getting saved that day with him.

Shortly after all of the above occurs, Matt receives another powerful message from Jesus. Jesus tells him to go back and re-check his status on his AIDS. Jesus tells him that he has now received a full healing.  Matt says that Jesus spoke these specific words to him and he says he will never forget these words. Jesus said to him – “This day I have purged your blood with My Blood.”

Matt was literally choking up as he re-said those words back to the person who was interviewing him for this story. Matt then goes back to the doctor and has his AIDS checked out again. The doctor comes back completely dumbfounded and said he was now HIV negative. There was no trace of the virus anywhere in his system!

This doctor then interviewed other doctors who are experts in the treatment of AIDS.  They said they have never seen anyone get diagnosed HIV positive, then break into full blown AIDS with all of its symptoms, then go back into remission while still continuing to be HIV positive, and then all of a sudden go into complete HIV negative!  After all of this occurs, God leads Matt to the woman He wants him to marry.  Matt had become sterile as a result of all the medication he had been on earlier trying to combat the AIDS.  At the time of this interview with Trinity Broadcasting Network, Matt’s wife is now pregnant and they will be having a brand new baby boy very shortly! God has now also healed this man from his sterility! Matt gets himself checked out every 6 months to see if the AIDS have come back.  The AIDS has not come back on him since 1994 when he had received the complete healing from the Lord on it.

Matt continues to serve God full time preaching about the mercy, love, forgiveness and power of God and that God can forgive and set anyone free from their past – no matter how bad or shameful their past may be.