My Jerusalem Encounter

Well, I'm very excited about continuing with the series Face to Face, and I'm very excited about sharing my testimony and my story of how of how I had a face-to-face encounter with Jesus.

So if you're wondering about my accent, I'm a Jewish Christian African American.

That kind of sums it up.

And and I really am because I'm I've actually got an African passport and an American passport.

I'm a South African and an American citizen.

I'm a believer in Jesus as well.

And uh and I'm Jewish, so I guess that's all four categories that we just covered there.

And uh talking about accents, they can be easily misunderstood.

Such is the case where there was a particular occasion there was a British ship off the German coast, and the British ship struck a reef and began to sink.

And so the British captain sent out an SOS immediately to the German Coast Guard, and a few moments later there was a crackly voice on the other side in a thick German accent, and it says, Yeah, what can I do for you?

He says, What do you mean?

What can you do for me?

I'm sending out an SOS, we're sinking, we're sinking.

And the German Coast Guard says, Yeah, I heard that you are sinking, but what exactly are you thinking about?

So hopefully that won't happen when I'm communicating with you today.

You'll know exactly what I'm thinking about today.

So, you know, being Jewish, and you know, many years ago, when you would talk about a Jewish person, uh you it was like the antithesis of believing in Jesus.

And so you people would just say, Jewish people don't believe in Jesus.

That was a common saying, especially when I was young.

And uh, you know, today we can't say that anymore because more and more Jewish people are coming to faith in Jesus as their Messiah.

Really, it's a sign of the times that we're living in.

In fact, today, I don't know if you know this, but uh maybe about 1967, before Jerusalem came back into Jewish hands, there were a handful of Jewish believers.

Most of the congregations were churches that other countries have planted.

Today there's over 120 indigenous messianic congregations in the land of Israel today.

We can give the Lord a big hand for that.

And not only in Israel, but all around the world.

And as Pastor Tom said, uh, we're very, very actively involved in equipping and training the body to be able to reach the Jewish people with the knowledge of their Messiah and training them how to do that.

And so I was one of those people that growing up, um, believing in Jesus wasn't an option.

I went to private Jewish schools, and uh my father didn't want me to experience the persecution for being Jewish that my grandparents experienced.

Um in Lithuania, my grandparents experienced pogroms at the hands of the Russian Cossacks.

Uh, during Easter, especially was a very scary time for them.

You know, we get the warm fuzzies, and I love Easter in America, you know.

But uh when you would when I mentioned Easter to my grandfather, just fear would grip his face because the Russian Orthodox priests would preach fiery sermons accusing the Jews of killing Christ.

And they would invade villages, mobs of what in the Jewish mind were Christians because they went to churches.

And they would plunder and loot and rape and pillage, and the saddest thing is that in the front there was a priest with a huge cross, and so they thought this was all being done and perpetrated in the name of Christianity and in the name of Jesus.

And so you can see what I've had to come up against.

For me to be now a pastor at a church, preaching the gospel is an absolute miracle of transformation and healing that God has done, and I'm so grateful for that.

And um just to give you a bit of the brief history, uh, so my my uh grandparents, actually, my grandfather and my great-grandfather left in about 1918, and then my grandmother on the other side left Lithuania in 1936, and all of the remaining family that was left behind uh in Lithuania, both of their villages were over 60% Jewish before World War II.

After World War II, there wasn't one Jew left in any of the villages gunned down and massacred by the Nazis.

And so we see the hand of God who when God has a plan for a family, when God has a plan for a life, he God saw there was going to be believers in the family, you know, all the way down through to me.

And God preserved the family so we'd be safe in South Africa during World War II, and uh so he had to tell the story, which is really a blessing.

It's much better than not being here at all, right?

And so uh so we see God's hand of preservation.

I really never considered Jesus an option, and my father sent me to private Jewish schools.

I always believed in the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And uh I just never considered Jesus as a possibility because I just knew Jews didn't believe in Jesus.

Why?

Well, I was told, well, you know, God can't have a son, and that's not possible.

He was a good man, and all those things, all those cliches that you hear about Jesus, and that's I just never gave it a thought.

Anyway, uh I went to law school for a few years and then uh decided that really wasn't for me, and uh I had no choice but to be to go into the army, I was drafted into the army, and during that time there was there was a lot of anti-Semitism.

Now, for those of you who don't know South African history, um the ruling party at that time was was the Afrikaans uh people, the Afrikaans nation, and they're the ancestors of the Dutch and Germans, and while many of them are God-fearing Christians, there's also a lot of anti-Semitism as well in that culture, which I experienced in a very extreme way while I was in the army.

In fact, three Jewish guys who I knew very well that anti-Semitism was so bad that three of them tried to commit suicide.

Uh, and it's really difficult to explain, uh, but that's uh that's it was just the atmosphere that we experienced during that time.

Um, I really knew how to fight, in fact, quite well.

In fact, I was undefeated in three and a half years of full contact martial arts tournaments, but I couldn't let the Afrikaners know that I knew how to fight because there were about 20 Jews and about 800 of them.

And if they knew that I could fight, then every single one of them, and they're huge, much bigger than me, most of them, um, then I would just be fighting every day for two years.

And I just didn't think that'd be a very good way to pass two years of my life.

It'd be kind of stressful, you know.

So, um, and so what I did, you know, us Jews are more known for our wit than our physical strength, even though I wasn't maybe an exception as far as being able to fight.

And so I looked for the biggest Afrikaner that I could find, and there was a particular guy, and his name was Toki.

Now, by the way, Toki means a door knocker.

You know those big old-fashioned metal door knockers?

And I had no idea why they called him Toki.

That wasn't his real name, but that's what they call him.

Imagine calling someone door knocker.

I mean, there's gotta be a reason, you know.

This is my friend door knocker, you know.

And uh one day I saw him in a fight, and he knocked this guy unconscious in one punch, and then I understood why they called him door knocker, because it only took one shot.

So I thought, well, I've got to win his heart and his loyalty, and I noticed, he wasn't the brightest of characters, um, but I noticed that he he drank a whole can of a huge can of sweetened condensed milk at about 30 seconds, and that's what he loved.

Someone said, Ooh, I agree with you.

And uh, and so I went up to him tentatively and I said, Toki, um, can I just make a deal with you?

If I give you one can of condensed milk a week, will you protect me and be my bodyguard?

Now he had no money, so his face lit up and he grunted, which I took to be a yes, and uh so he protected me for the rest of the time during boot camp, which was really uh pleasant because better than me having to do the fighting.

Um but anyway, so during this time I was going through a really rough time, and there was a particular guy who began to witness to me.

Now he was his name was John, he was a Greek South African in South Africa, just like in America, you have Greek South Africans, you have Italian South Africans, Portuguese South Africans.

And um he began to talk to me about Jesus, and I kind of began to listen to him because you know I was in quite a pretty desperate state.

But finally I said, Look, I'm Jewish and Jews don't believe in Jesus, so please, enough of all this Jesus business, just let's talk about other things.

And with that, he opened his Bible, gave it to me, and said, Here, read this.

And so uh, if you got your Bibles with you, open up to Psalm 22, and I'm gonna show you what I read, and it starts off saying, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Then it goes on to say, For dogs have surrounded me, the congregation of the wicked has enclosed me, they pierced my hands and my feet.

I can count all my bones, they look and stare at me, they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

Now, I read this and immediately I thought, but this is describing the crucifixion of Jesus.

You say, Well, how could I have known that?

Well, I'll tell you how I knew, because I listened to the record Jesus Christ Superstar.

And that's all I knew about the gospel in Jesus.

Now I believe it was controversial in some Christian circles, but I wouldn't have known the difference.

I just liked the music and I didn't know about all that stuff.

And so I knew because of the record, because you know, remember the remember the 45 RPM record?

Some of you will remember that.

It's like a huge black frisbee, that's what they look like, you know.

And um, about half of the guys laughing, the other half are like, what is he talking about?

What's a 45 RPM record, you know?

Anyway, at least half of you know, so you can follow with me.

And um, and anyway, so it had the words as well.

When you opened up the album, you know, it had the words so you could sing along, and I wouldn't sing in front of anyone because I wasn't a great singer, but I'd do it alone.

And the words there were, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And also, it said in Jesus Christ Superstar, which is my source of knowledge about the gospel, um, that they cast lots for his garments.

And so I thought, well, this guy's just given me the New Testament, and he's not supposed to give it to you the New Testament to read.

So I gave it back to him, I said, I'm sorry, but Jews don't believe in the New Testament, and I gave it back to him.

And he said, No, no, it's not the New Testament, this is Psalm 22, written by King David.

And I'm like, What?

There's no way that how could King David know about the crucifixion?

It doesn't make sense.

So I read it again and again, and sure enough, it says a Psalm of David.

Anyway, I was really befuddled, I didn't know how to respond, but I was convinced it was a Christian plot to try and convert Jews.

And uh, you know, us Jews are more known for our quick thinking than our physical prowess, you know.

And uh and so I just my lawyer-trained mind began to think, and I thought, no, no, okay, here's the problem.

I've got an explanation for you.

This psalm was trans translated by Christians, and Christians don't know any Hebrew.

Us Jews know Hebrew, and so you guys translated it to try and make it sounds like it sound like it's Jesus, so that gullible young Jews like me would just somehow read it and then by osmosis become a Christian.

Spiritual osmosis, you know.

If you want to know what that is, I've no clue, but it just sounded good.

And so I thought, here's what I'm gonna do.

When I'm on leave, I'm gonna go to my grandmother's house and I'm gonna read the Hebrew myself.

And then I'm gonna read the rabbi's translation into the English and see what they say.

So I went on leave, opened up the Tanakh in the Hebrew, read the Hebrew, read the English in the Hebrew translation, and I was very surprised to find how similar it was to the NIV translation, with one difference that really jumped out at me, and that is what I read earlier on, uh, verses in verse 16, where it says, They pierced my hands and my feet.

Now the Hebrew word for that is Ka'aru or Ka'ari, depending on where the vowel is.

You have to understand in the original manuscript, there are no vowels in the Hebrew in most cases.

Like if you look at the Torah, there's no vowels.

So the same word, depending on where the vowels would be, could be translated, they pierced or like a lion.

Either way, are you following me?

But here's the thing, when I when I read the context and it says, they like a lion, my hands and my feet, I'm like, what does that mean?

Because the rest is describing the symptoms of a crucifixion, and then it says, They like a lion, my hands and my feet.

I'm like, imagine if someone threatened you and said, I'm gonna pierce your hands and feet, and I'm gonna crucify you.

I mean, that'd be quite scary, right?

If if that happened.

But if someone came up to me and said, I'm going to like a lion your hands and your feet, I'll just be like, Are you drunk?

Or like, what are you talking about?

You know?

And so, so so here is my point, and this is really important.

You know, I thought, well, if it says they pierced my hands and my feet, and that is one option, why change it to something that makes no grammatical sense?

And so something hit me deep in my heart that is it possible that maybe the leaders of my people are trying to hide something?

Because if it's if Jesus is not the Messiah, let it stand on its own merit.

Don't change the context to something that makes no grammatical sense.

Now, the reason I'm bringing up this whole point is it's very important because from that time onwards I believed that Jesus was probably the Messiah, but I had no clue what to do about it.

Because the guy who'd witnessed to me belongs to a weird cult group, which I don't have time to go into what they believed, but just to say they were weird.

And and he was weird, and I didn't want to be weird.

But I thought Jesus could be the Messiah, and I didn't know what to do about it.

I didn't know you had to be born again or how to pray to receive Jesus, none of that stuff.

Anyway, I I kind of treasured this in my heart.

Um, finished up my my army service.

Well, it took a long time, it was two years total.

And the last 18 months I took up boxing very seriously and and I was um winning the battle on the outside, I couldn't be bullied and pushed around, but deep in my heart, I felt such an emptiness and such a hatred as well for those who've been persecuting me and being anti-Semitic, which of course God has dealt with that in my life.

Um, in fact, since then I even thought at one point I was called to be a missionary to the Afrikaners.

That's how much healing God has done in my life, and there's many of them who are wonderful Christians.

But anyway, so I was I was in this dilemma.

I just wanted to leave South Africa and never come back because I felt like I was not treated as a South African but as a Jew, as someone as if I didn't belong there.

So I went to Israel, lived there for a while, lived on a kibbutz for a while, came to New York City when I was a student.

I said to my dad, if I'm gonna study in America, I want to go where the action is to the big apple, and I was there in the big apple, and I certainly took a big bite out of the big apple, but it didn't satisfy me.

I had everything that you'd think would make a young man happy, and yet I still wasn't happy.

I had a void in my life that only God could fill.

So uh came back to Israel in the summer of 1984, back to the same kibbutz, and while I was there, I was traveling with a friend of mine from Zimbabwe who was my my wrestling and rugby playing buddy, and um a born-again Christian from Washington, DC came and shared a room with us, and uh I can honestly say the first time in my life that I met a born-again Christian, or it I don't know what born-again was, but a Christian, who loved Israel and the Jewish people was an American Christian.

And that's huge, you know, because if you look at Europe and the history of Europe and really just about the whole world and church history, the only church that is known to love the Jewish people, I mean, really known to really love the Jewish people in Israel, you know, are the believers in America, the evangelical body in America.

And I'm so grateful and so thankful for that because that was a turning point in my life.

Frank began to talk about Jesus in the context of uh Israel and Jerusalem, and I remembered thinking, what on earth was Jesus doing in Israel?

I had no clue he'd ever been there, I had no clue he was a Jew, I thought he was the first Catholic ever.

I really did, because the Christians I knew hated the Jews, so I never thought Jesus could be Jewish.

I really thought that the reason that his name was Jesus Christ is because his parents were Joseph and Mary Christ.

So obviously the son's Jesus Christ, you know, it makes sense.

And then I mean, if you look at the most famous art pieces, Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, none of them look Jewish.

I mean, Jesus and the disciples, they look like Swedish choir boys from Western Europe, you know?

And then the only one who looks Jewish is the evil betrayer, Judas.

Thank you very much, you know.

He looks like a Jewish caricature with a huge nose and black hair and beady little eyes, you know.

And I mean, it really didn't help the Jewish cause at all, even though I love great art, you know.

So I remember for those of you who've been to Israel, you're probably familiar with Jaffa Gate.

I was walking towards Jaffa Gate with my friend about to go to the to the Arab market to do some negotiating and and bartering, which I kind of enjoyed.

And as I was walking there with my friend, I began to have a thought that a young Jewish man probably shouldn't be having.

Unless the Holy Spirit was drawing him.

And here was the thought I began to began to have.

This is not the city of David, this is the city of Jesus.

Why would I be thinking that as a Jew?

Because the Bible calls it the city of David, and I'm walking towards the the gate, Jaffa gate, and all of a sudden, I mean, literally, just as real as Michelle sitting there in the front row, there was Jesus standing about 10 feet in front of me, just looking at me, with the most incredible eyes and look that I've ever seen in my life.

And immediately the first thing I thought was, wow, he looks so Jewish.

I was like, I was literally shocked.

And I was about to turn my friend to my friend and grab his arm and say, hey, look, there's Jesus, but I realized that he wasn't seeing Jesus, and neither was anybody else.

It was just me.

And as I said, the first thing I knew is, wow, he looked so Jewish.

He looked so in context in Israel.

The second thing that I knew immediately, I shouldn't have been having this thought as a Jew, unless the Holy Spirit was drawing me, which he was, but I didn't even know there was a Holy Spirit or who or what that was.

The second thought I had immediately was this is more than a man.

I just knew it immediately by revelation.

And the third thing that I knew was that he loved me with a perfect and unconditional love, even though he knew every sin that I'd ever committed and every sin that I ever would commit.

He was completely unfazed by that.

And I didn't know the scripture that said that while we were yet sinners, God loved us and all that.

I didn't know any of those scriptures, but I experienced that love.

And then he spoke a word to me, a resounding word into my spirit.

It was an audible voice, and it was Hinaini.

It's the only time I've ever actually heard God's voice.

Hinaini in Hebrew means here am I.

In other words, I am the one you've been looking for.

And then just as I'm feeling this incredible love and this amazing feeling, he disappeared.

And I was looking everywhere for him, and I looked, and he reappeared again, about ten feet to the right.

Again, looking at me as if I was the only person on planet Earth.

I mean, who doesn't want someone's complete, undivided, full attention?

That's what I had.

And that's the attention that Jesus gives you when you call on him.

Then again he disappeared, and this time I'm beginning to panic again, and I was looking everywhere for him and I couldn't find him.

And uh just to describe the third time and final time that he appeared to me, the first two times he was looking at me like I was the only person in the world.

But the third time I was standing and I looked up on the wall and I saw him walking along the wall, and I was facing the wall, but he was walking this way to my right, and he wasn't looking at me at all.

In fact, it was as if I didn't exist.

He was looking straight ahead of him, resolutely walking along the wall of Jerusalem.

And I didn't know how to pray as we do today.

The only prayers I knew were pre-written prayers in Hebrew, but I just thought in my heart, I just thought, how I wish he would look at me just one more time.

And as God is my witness, the second I thought how I wish he would look at me just one more time.

Just like this sister on the front row, the way I'm looking at her, he turned and looked me straight in the eye, as if to say, the second you thought that, that was a prayer to me, and now I'm answering that prayer.

And then he disappeared and he was gone.

And there I was left standing there with my rugby playing wrestling buddy, drinking buddy.

No ways was I gonna tell him what just happened.

He would have said I should go and see a psychiatrist or something.

But I knew that what had happened to me was the most real thing that had ever happened in my life.

All I can say is from that time onwards, my life was a blur.

Went back to the kibbutz.

I wanted to tell Frank, but he had already gone.

He was the only other Christian I knew.

Came back to the United States, was going to my college to change my major, and there were some Jews for Jesus guys handing out tracts, and I ended up, long story short, going to see the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984.

Some of you will remember the Olympics back at that time.

And I met another Jews for Jesus guy, and they invited me to a meeting on a Tuesday night.

Walked into this meeting, and the guy who was speaking was his name was Avi, and he was a small little guy, and I know that's not relevant to the fact, but I'm just saying he was very small, but he was powerful in the Lord, small but mighty.

And um and I remembered seeing, just like we have in our messianic service, Jews and Gentiles worshipping the God of Israel together through the Messiah Jesus, calling Jesus Yeshua, it made perfect sense to me.

Now you remember there was Psalm 22, there's the vision I had of Jesus three times.

And after the service, Abby came up to me and said, Hey brother, do you believe that Jesus is the Messiah?

I said, Yeah, I guess I do.

If I didn't believe by that time, I'd really have a thick head, you know.

And uh he said, Have you ever prayed to receive God into your heart?

Now I had no idea what that meant, and I just thought, I remember thinking to myself, what a strange little man.

You know, but how is God going to fit into my heart?

I mean, I'm a Jew, I know how huge God is, and I'm teeny compared to him, you know.

So I had no clue what he meant.

So he realized I needed some help, you know, some bit of training in theology or whatever.

Took me into his office, showed me Romans chapter 10, verses 9 through 11, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.

Romans 10:9–11

And I remembered thinking, are you serious?

Believe that God raised him from the dead?

That is a hard pill to swallow.

Now you must understand, I was 22 years old at that time.

I'd seen Easter celebrated in South Africa, and and but I just thought that's a time that you buy chocolate eggs for people and and then like something to do with little chickens and bunnies, and I, you know, I didn't quite know what it was all about.

Just I had no clue.

I was 22 years old, I had no clue that Jesus was supposed to be risen from the dead.

But I thought after everything that I've experienced and seen, at some point I've got to just take this by faith.

And I've got to pray this prayer and receive Jesus, and guess what?

I prayed the prayer, I received Jesus, and it took.

Because when he comes, he comes to stay and he never leaves.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Praise the Lord.

And now it's easy to believe the resurrection because I've experienced it myself for 28 years.

Amen, as many of you have.

So let's just close in prayer, just that the last uh, as we close out today, the last minute or two.

And uh, this is a very important time.

No one looking around.

We just want to have a little private moment with the Lord.

And you know, maybe you know about Jesus.

Maybe you even go to church, but you you haven't because look, I I saw Jesus three times.

I've already believed in him, but I still had to receive him.

And the Bible says, as many as received him to them, he gave the power to become the sons of God.

And and you know what?

This is the safest, best place to receive Jesus.

I wish I could have come to a place like this long before I was 22.

I really do.

I wish I knew about a gateway before then.

But if you don't have that assurance of your sins being forgiven today, God wants to give you that assurance today.

That 100% knowing that you are forgiven and completely accepted.

And if that's you and you want to just pray that prayer, I'm not gonna embarrass you.

If you want to pray that prayer today, with no one looking around, just lift up your hand high in the air.

You ought to be proud to lift your hand up.

Lift your hand up high in the air, and we're gonna pray together.

God bless you.

Many hands going up.

You ought to be proud to do that.

Lift your hands up high.

Anybody else?

God bless you, God bless you.

Probably the safest place in the world to pray.

Many hands in the back there as well.

Probably the safest place to pray to receive Jesus is right here in the house of God.

What an honor and what a privilege.

So, so let's just pray together.

Let's pray aloud.

Just right on our seats, just pray the simple prayer after me.

Just say, Jesus, thank you for dying for me.

I receive you now as my Lord and my Messiah.

Wash me in your blood, cleanse me, Jesus.

I believe you died for me and you rose again.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.