“I didn’t even realize the hold pornography and drugs had on me — I didn’t even realize it was wrong, because it’s so normalized today, but when I became a born-again Christian, my eyes were opened.”
At the height of his career, Keith Repult was the owner of the second largest porn distribution company in the United States, and one of the biggest smut manufacturing companies in the world. A self-made millionaire, Keith was living a life of luxury, he seemingly had it all: cars, money, a wife and kids. But deep down in his heart he knew that something was missing, he was empty, addicted to alcohol, drugs, and pornography.
Just few years ago, Repult was living what appeared to be a pretty privileged life, and then, he met Jesus Christ – and his world completely changed.
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“I didn’t even realize the hold pornography and drugs had on me — I didn’t even realize it was wrong, because it’s so normalized today,” Keith told The Gospel Herald in an exclusive interview. “But when I became a born-again Christian, my eyes were opened. If there’s one thing I want people to take away from my life, it’s that there’s always hope, and that hope is only found in Jesus.”
Today, Keith is the Recovery Pastor at Mission Church in Ventura, California and with his wife, Samantha, owns Surf ‘N’ Yogurt in Ventura, California. He shares his powerful story of redemption in his book Just Breathe: All Stories Redeemable, All Brokenness Repairable, All Addictions Breakable, from BroadStreet Publishers.
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Repult’s entrance into the adult industry is a long and complicated story, one that involves a difficult childhood and a life filled with addiction. It was in the 1980s that he ended up heading to California on a Greyhound bus with just $3 in his pocket. Once he arrived there, Repult worked odd construction jobs to pay the bills and eventually started selling drugs.
His struggle with addiction and desire for acceptance, he said, stemmed from the loneliness and emptiness he experienced as a child.
“Growing up, I was constantly bouncing back and forth between foster homes, I never heard the words ‘I love you,’ and I carried around a sense of not belonging, I never felt like I fit in,” he said. “I found temporary comfort in drugs and alcohol, and pretty soon I started selling drugs.
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Then, something dramatically changed one day when Repult was in a bar and noticed a man wearing a fur coat and gold chains. Repult went up to the guy thinking he might be able to sell him some drugs, but what happened next was likely much more than he had bargained for.
During their conversations, Repult told the guy that he was a carpenter and was looking for work. The man, who owned a small porn store, invited Repult to hang some shelves for him the next day and Repult took him up on the offer.
Before long, Repult found himself enamored by the business.
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“It was all about pipes and porn and novelty items for pleasure,” Repult said. “I thought it was alluring. I built shelves for the guy and that was my beginning into the industry.”
According to Keith entering the adult film industry was “a whole lot easier than leaving it.”
Over time, Repult went from building shelves with his newfound friend and employer to becoming a shipper and eventually taking on more and more responsibility. Over time, Repult said he was practically running the business and, when his friend wouldn’t give him a raise, he eventually moved on and started his own porn company.
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Before long, Repult found financial success and became a giant of sorts in the industry. Still, addiction plagued him.
While he was able to kick drugs and alcohol at one point for a 12-year period amid these successes, he admitted that his “new addiction was making money.”
At points, he said he knew deep down inside that making a living by selling porn wasn’t right, but that didn’t stop him.
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“I believe we’re all designed by God and there is a small part inside of all of us [that knows right from wrong],” he said. “A very small, small part of me … would say, ‘This isn’t right.’” Money, though, continued to flow in and overshadow that tiny voice.
“After taking over an adult film production company, I was putting out two films a week, making more money than I knew what to do with,” he shared. “I felt like, if I had these things, I believed people would like me. I bought a $60,000 watch, cars, houses – you name it, but it still wasn’t enough. The items got more and more expensive, but nothing was satisfying my soul. I had a hole in my soul and the wind blew right through. All along I was searching for happiness.”
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As for Repult’s own personal reaction to his profession, he said it really differed depending on whom he was speaking with. At moments, there was shame; at other times, there was boasting, though Repult said he did try to conceal his career from many of the people around him.
“I was hiding the truth from my neighbors, from society, of course,” he said.
As his business grew, Keith abandoned drugs and alcohol and met and married his now-wife, Samantha. Together, they had three daughters and a son, and hoping to live a quieter life, moved from the valley to Ventura, a little beach community they’d grown to love. There, they decided to open a yogurt shop.
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Repult still owned his porn business at the time, but he decided to also start a small yogurt shop in his local community. Before the shop’s doors opened, someone found out about his career and painted the words “Porn Producer” on the building — a painful moment that forced Repult to think deeper about the fact that he was “living a double life.”
“So, filled with shame and horror and came home and told my wife, ‘it’s time to move again. I want to sell, I want to move,'” he said. “She said, ‘no, we’re not going anywhere. We’re going to hold our heads up.'”
Still, he forged on with his plans to pursue a relatively new beginning outside of his already robust porn successes.
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Through that little yogurt shop, God began bringing people into the family’s life that would forever change them. There, Keith met Pastor Jude from City Church who prayed with him and shared God’s love with him for the first time.
“The night before we opened this guy comes up, him and his son. He had this twinkle in his eye. He had this glow,” Repult said. “And he walks in and he says he wanted a cup of yogurt.”
Repult obliged and later heard from other locals that the man who had come into his shop was looking to start up a local church and, when the customer later returned, Repult asked if he wanted to grab coffee with him, to which the man obliged.
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“We met down at Starbucks and I told him my whole story, and at the end I said, ‘Hey, what do you think? Do you still like me?'” Keith said. “All he said was, ‘God knew what he got when he got you.’ When he said those words, I hung onto them, I wanted to change my life, but I didn’t know how. He told me, ‘Keith, just keep looking to the cross.'”
After twelve years of sobriety, Keith had earlier started using drugs again: “Cocaine quickly became a habit for me,” he said.
Still, he wanted to start going to church, and through the witness of a friend, Samantha, too, began attending church. Soon, the couple became actively involved in a local church, and as God softened their hearts, they no longer wanted to be a part of the adult film industry.
“I knew I wanted to leave,” Keith said, “So we gave it all up, and I got baptized.”
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Hoping to overcome his addictions, Keith decided to enter a 12-step program. There, he came under the counsel of godly men who helped him recover and grow in his faith.
“I saw my sin for what it was,” he said. “I had addictions I didn’t even realize I had.”
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Today, Keith said he barely recognizes the broken man he once was. Now, he uses his testimony to remind others that God can save even the most broken of individuals.
“Pornography was normal, everyday life for me,” he said. “Now, I see that the adult industry is dangerous for human life. It’s a dangerous, it’s perverted, it’s taking sex and grossly missuing it. Four years later, I’m sober and abstinent from porn. My life looks completely different.”
He added, “I want to encourage others who may be struggling to find someone you really trust and let it out, you can’t keep this stuff inside. Go to counseling and talk about it, and then make amends with those you’ve hurt. I did, and it’s changed my life.”
“Run to the cross,” he said. “God is there waiting to redeem your story.”
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“I prayed, worshiped, and fasted 40 days to Hindu gods and goddesses. I prayed for peace of mind I done yoga worshiped kundalini Spirits and wore special ritual clothes. I wore “Ayyappa Mala”, but the gods did not respond to my cry! Then I met Jesus!” Jesus SAVED Life from HELL
Dear beloved Friends in LORD JESUS CHRIST
Greetings in the mighty name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I am very happy to write this message and to share my testimony with you.
I was born into a Hindu family (my name in Hindu Srinivas Chowdary) (heathen family). My family, including me, were idol worshipers. As our lives were moved this way, during my childhood, my father fell sick due to chronic diseases. Doctors had told my father that he would die within a few days due to illnesses. While he was on his bed, he came to know about Jesus Christ from an evangelist and received Jesus Christ into his life. He was healed by God’s grace and recovered from his sickness. Because of his conversion, however, my family members and relatives of my own caste excommunicated my father. After the sudden demise of my mother , I left my father and was brought up in the home of my grandparents. Before my conviction, I disliked my father and, along with all my relatives, we persecuted him by accusing that he believed in Jesus Christ who is the God of lower class people. Even then, my father did not open his mouth against us, but only bear all the persecution.
Meanwhile, I completed my degree in Business Management and accepted a job earning Rs. 35,000 per month (about $850) . I gradually habituated many bad habits like smoking, drinking, and my life then became bad. I was without peace of mind so I turned toward all kinds of Hindu gods and goddesses and worshipped those so called gods. I, also, wandered to different places to worship false gods so that I might find peace of mind, but without results. I used to wear different types of special ritual devotee clothes to become the devotee of this world’s false gods.
As part and parcel of the devotion, I wore “AYYAPPA SWAMY MALA,” which is a special type of ritual black clothes to become a devotee of a famous south India heathen god “AYYAPPA” and, also, I completed a difficult fast for 40 days. The rituals of “AYYAPPA MALA” are very difficult to do. It required getting up every morning at four o’clock in order to take a bath in freezing cold water, sleeping on the floor without even a simple blanket, and having on only one meal per day in order to worship this god.
Even though I felt it was difficult, I did all these rituals but had no mental peace, or joy, or encouragement in my life. Moreover, I thought that these rituals would lead to heaven.
One day, suddenly, I had some questions in my mind about my life, like who am I? Why was I born into this world? What happens to my life and where will I go after my death? I asked many people about these questions, but nobody could, convincingly, answer my questions. Some people said that those who do good things will go to heaven and those who do bad things will go to hell, but I was not satisfied will these answers. Sometimes I would be afraid when I thought of hell because of my own bad behavior.
My life was just like the prodigal son. So, my monthly salary was no longer sufficient to meet my basic needs besides my other expenditures. In addition to my job, I, also, was employed as Art Director in the movie field according to the advice of some of my relatives. I took the job because I desired to earn more money to meet my prodigal expenditures. However, the Rs. 15000 to 20,000 per day I had earned in this field did not bring happiness. I continued to feel something was still lacking in my life. My life only continued to be miserable.
One day, December 14, 2000, I was on the way to Chennai (one of the metropolitan cities of India) with Rs. 2 Lakhs ($5000) to purchase some equipment needed for the work of making movies. On this day, an untoward incident happened in my life. Some robbers followed me to snatch the cash bag I carried with me. During the ordeal, I was constrained in a net as they stabbed me two times and stole all of my cash. They left me on the ground cover in my own blood. I was stabbed so severely that my bowels came out of stomach. I thought I was going to die.
As I lay upon, what I thought was my death bed, I began praying to my Hindu gods, but they did not answered my prayers. I, then, remembered the words of a pastor, who had spoken to me during a time when we had been filming at a church for a Hindi movie in 1995. That pastor, looking at me, prophesied that I would become a great man for God and suggested that I remember and pray to Jesus Christ when troubles should come. He, also, requested, then, that I receive Jesus Christ as my personal savior. As I remembered those words, and facing the worst trouble in my life, I prayed to God my Savior Jesus Christ in my mind and ask Him to save my life. Immediately after I prayed, the Lord spoke to me, “Rise up! You cannot die.” I heard just one voice out of heaven and I saw, only, two great hands that lifted me up.
Some people had come to see me at the government hospital soon after the attack around 12:30pm on December 14. 2000. The doctors told them that I was going to die within 20 to 30 minutes and ordered that I be taken to the mortuary ward because they did not want to take the risk that they should operate because they feared that I would die anyway in their hospital bed. Meanwhile, some of the nurses (sisters) prayed four (4) hours in the name of Jesus Christ for my life. I remained alive without treatment; my bowels on the outside as I lay on a stretcher and continued bleeding. When the doctors observed that I was still alive at around 4:30pm, that afternoon, they were astonished and took me, immediately, to the operating room to perform surgery. Jesus, my God, miraculously saved my life. No heathen gods had heard my prayer previously although I had worshipped them.
After that time I began to read the Holy Bible, confessing my sins to God. I believed Jesus Christ and received Him, the only Savior on December 24, 2000. The pastor who led me to Christ and I prayed together as we fasted fasting for a period of 7 days. God spoke to me through the Scriptures (Jeremiah 1:5) and called me into His ministry. I resigned from my job and left my kith and kin (who were idol worshipers) and dedicated myself to full-time ministry. Beyond all the trials and tribulations, now, I am leading my life by putting my trust in my LORD and Savior Jesus Christ without compromising with the world or the things of the world.
It is gain to pray to for the salvation of God’s people in INDIA and I humbly request your precious prayers for this holy ministry of God. We need your spiritual encouragement and generous involvement for the development of God’s work in India. (Currently we have ministry work in 6 different states) Once again thank you so much for sharing, prayerfully, your love and vision for this ministry.
I hope to hear from you soon.
With Love and Prayers,
Evangelist Johnson V.
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