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1. Meet Steve--"I'm more of a Jew now..."
2. Meet Bob--"G-d delivered me from drugs..."
3. Meet Brian--"That's no coincidence."
4. Meet Steve--"I asked G-d for one more sign."
5. Meet Ron--"I decided to read it for myself."
6. Meet Sam--"These sneaky Christians..."
1. Meet Steve Feldman--"I'm more of a Jew now...":
I was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1945 to Jewish parents. I attended Temple Israel until the age of 17. I experienced the typical harassment by "Christians" because of being Jewish, but still found no fulfillment in Judaism. The struggling to do enough "mitzvah" to get into heaven just didn't bring peace. I left the Temple and Judaism and became agnostic.
In university I majored in Psychology and thus began looking at religion from a purely "intellectual and logical" perspective. I encountered several Christians who had a joy and a peace that I never had and while I secretly wanted that peace, I refused to consider their claims that Jesus was indeed the Jewish Messiah. To do so, I thought, would be betraying my Jewish heritage.
It wasn't until 1974, after reading Hal Lindsay's book, "The Late Great Planet Earth", that I began to earnestly study the scriptures to see what the Messiah was to be like. I discovered that no one else could have been the Messiah but Jesus. The prophecies in Daniel, for instance, gave a specific time for the Messiah to come--before the destruction of the Temple. Jesus obviously did come before the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD. After much prayer and study, I gave my life to Jesus ("Yeshua"), the Jewish Messiah.
After coming to faith in Messiah, I found out that I did not turn my back on 6000 years of Jewish history and tradition, but rather embraced them. I am more of a Jew now than I was before.
(Return to top)2. Meet Bob Goldstein--"G-d delivered me from drugs...":
I was born in Newark, New Jersey, and raised in a closely- knit orthodox Jewish community. As a young boy, I went to Hebrew school as well as public school. I was taught the Law and the Prophets and had my Bar Mitzvah. I knew about God, but had never developed a personal relationship with Him.
After my Bar Mitzvah., I began to drift away from the Temple and by my teen years I became involved in drugs and the hippie culture. I lived in that community till the Lord Jesus found me in the mountains of California and revealed Himself to me.
I was not consciously seeking Him but He was seeking me, (Thank G-d), and found me. It wasn't until I was 25 that someone asked me, "have you ever heard the truth about Jesus?" I immediately began seeking out knowledge about the Lord Jesus and became an avid reader of a book I never knew existed--the New Testament. Over the course of the next year and a half, G-d delivered me from drugs and called me into the ministry and by His grace, I have been serving Him ever since. Jesus is truly my Messiah!
(Return to top)3. Meet Brian Wasserman--"That's no coincidence.":
I am the kind of guy that questions everything but it wasn't until I got into serious trouble that I began to ask serious questions. I got myself into a situation where my life was threatened. If the truth be told, I was scared and I thought that if I were going to die, I wanted to know if there was any truth about Jesus being the Jewish Messiah. I knew that supposedly 2,000 years ago rabbis had made a decision about Jesus, and if they had made a wrong one, then every succeeding generation was making a wrong decision too. I went first to Conservative rabbis, then to Orthodox rabbis, to ask them why they did not believe in Jesus.
During my search, I move from Philadelphia, PA, to York, PA, to get away from my situation. I was determined to hear both sides, so I closed my eyes and pointed my finger at a list of churches in the yellow pages and called my pick to ask if they knew of anyone who was Jewish and believed in Jesus. It just so happened that the receptionist did know of someone, a Jewish believer living in the area for the Summer. Getting together with him, he began to show me Jesus in the Hebrew Bible. For two and a half months I studied with the Jewish believer on the one hand, while at the same time presenting questions to the head of Jews for Judaism. One night, I got them together and as we sat around the table, had a debate. It wasn't until the next day that I knew the truth.
The next day I read Psalm 22. It sounded unmistakably like Jesus. I knew then that Jesus was the Messiah and I committed myself to Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Since that time, G-d has protected me and I have been safe.
That's no coincidence that I just happened to move to York. That's no coincidence that I just happened to pick a church out of the yellow pages where someone knew of a Jewish believer. That's no coincidence that this Jewish believer just happened to be staying in the area for the Summer--the same two and a half months of my search. It was G-d.
(Return to top)4. Meet Steve Cohen--"I asked G-d for one more sign.":
I grew up feeling proud of what our people had accomplished and contributed to society. Yet, I wondered about religion. I recall watching Billy Graham crusades on television--I respected his high moral teachings. Everytime he began to invite people to commit their lives to Jesus, however, I switched channels. I didn't know much about my own religion, but I did know that I was not supposed to believe someone else's!
I was bothered that I didn't know more about Judaism and felt that something was missing. I had an emptiness inside. When I went away to college, I joined a Jewish fraternity but did not find the atmosphere very religious. I had a goal to be a criminal lawyer and in order to keep on track and avoid the Vietnam draft, I enlisted in the Air Force Reserves. I immediately became friends with a lawyer in the reserves, Alan. He was a Christian and began to talk with me about Jesus every time we did our one weekend a month/two weeks per summer training. We talked, we argued, I finally told him, "I'm Jewish. Jewish people don't believe, nor do we need to believe in Jesus."
In the meantime, I met my future wife on a blind-date. Two months before our marriage, my future in-laws had invited me to attend a Christmas Eve service at a Lutheran church. This was 1972. I was touched by the warm atmosphere and the love that I felt at the candlelight service, but I did not participate. My friend Alan, however, continued to pray for me. In fact, he was praying that G-d would make me miserable in what he called my spiritual complacency, so that I would have to consider Jesus as the Messiah. G-d must have heard those prayers because in May of 1973, I got my grades--I had flunked out of law school! All that I had been working toward for the last three years completely came to a halt. I was now at a complete and devastating loss.
One evening in late May, I was looking outside at a lantern in our backyard and thought, "If there really is a G-d, prove it! Make that light go out." Poof! It went out! Well, there was a thunderstorm going on, so I waited five minutes and thought, "OK, if you're really there, make it come back on." Poof! Immediately the lantern came back on! I was floored! That weekend I found a Bible at a garage sale and began to read the book of Matthew. I discovered something that I did not know--that Jesus was Jewish! Was Jesus the Messiah? I realized that I was ignorant of the Messianic prophecies and decided to study the Hebrew Bible. I found that I could not rule out Jesus!
At Christmas time in 1973, Alan and his wife came for a visit. After dinner we talked more about Jesus and he extended to me a personal invitation to receive G-d's gift of eternal life. Doubts began to flood my mind. I glanced around the room and my eyes fell on two candles burning in our living room. I remembered the sign of G-d's existence that I had been given so many months before through the lantern in our backyard . So I took a bold step. I asked G-d for one more sign. "If you really want me to follow Jesus as my Messiah, make one of the two candles go out," I silently prayed. Immediately (without knowing of my silent challenge) Alan rose from his chair, walked over to the candles, blew one out, and returned to his chair. The battle was over. The moment I repented and made a commitment to Jesus the Messiah, I experienced a peace I had never known before.
(Steve Cohen leads the Apple of His Eye Missions Society. Contact him via his e-mail at SCINFL@aol.com, or visit his site at www.appleofhiseye.org.)
(Return to top)5. Meet Ron Goldstein--"I decided to read it for myself.":
I grew up in what is considered a typical "reformed" Jewish home. As a young boy, my "religion" centered around Hebrew school attendance and the celebration (or acknowledgment) of some of the more important Jewish holidays. I learned about Noah, Abraham, Moses and others, but these were just stories about men who had no real meaning or significance in my life. I will never forget the studies we did on the Nazi Holocaust and sitting in the auditorium with other Jewish children and watching the horrible movies which showed bulldozers pushing piles of human bodies into their mass graves. I could not understand how so many people could participate or stand by and allow such senseless slaughter to occur. I was certainly empty and confused. My family quit attending synagogue as I moved into my pre-teen years and I quit attending Hebrew school. I revived my interests and studies just long enough after the tragedy against the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics so that with the help of a tutor, I had a Bar Mitzvah.
By the time I was in my later teens, I was not a happy person, and the emptiness and confusion was beginning to grow. Because of peer pressure and unhappiness, I made a lot of poor decisions during that period of my life--decisions that only left me more troubled. If G-d was so distant to me at that time, then Jesus Christ was definitely a mystery. I had no idea who this Jesus was. However, someone shared with my father about Jesus. My father had not been a "religious" person at that time, but when he began reading the scriptures, particularly the New Testament, G-d gave him the understanding that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. My father gained strength and peace because of his faith, and it helped him during a time when he had to care for my uncle, his brother, who was dying from brain cancer. My father's faith and internal peace was noticeably evident, so much so that when my friends (most of whom were Catholic) would visit our house, they would often be drawn to him and their discussions would center around the Bible and spiritual things. This would irritate me because I wanted nothing to do with my father's new "religion".
(My father would later tell me that during the period of time that he was caring for his brother dying from brain cancer, he would often read stories from the Jewish Bible to his brother. Eventually, his brother asked him to read stories about Jesus from the New Testament. It was after his brother's second brain surgery, while lying in a bed at Barnes Jewish Hospital surrounded by family members (my father included), that his brother sat up and said he had something to tell everyone. He then stated, "I want you to know that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel." As you can imagine, most of those in the room quickly left in tears and at least one relative accused my father of "converting" his brother. Within a year, my father's brother passed away.)
I remember many nights at this time in my life where I would lie in bed feeling so empty and unhappy about myself and the things around me. One night, after a particularly bad argument with my parents, I laid in bed and cried out to G-d for help. This was probably the first sincere prayer I made to G-d, and even then, G-d was not a reality to me. Very soon after, I was home alone one morning and grew tired of watching TV. I noticed my father's Bible sitting on the coffee table. For reasons unknown at the time, I picked the Bible up and decided to read it for myself. I went downstairs to the basement, laid on a cot bed, and read the entire book of Matthew (the first book of the New Testament). (Remember, at that time I did not know who Matthew was, nor did I know what the New Testament contained). What I do remember for certain was that immediately upon finishing the book of Matthew, I knew without a doubt that Jesus, this Jewish man from Nazareth, was the Messiah. In the days that followed, I continued my study of scripture and within a short period of time, I received Jesus as Lord and Savior of my life. When G-d touched my life I was not in a synagogue, church, or other religious setting. There was no human invitation, no choir present, nor priest or rabbi with words of wisdom. I was alone in a basement, lying on a cot bed with a book called the Bible!
(Return to top)6. Meet Sam Nadler--"These sneaky Christians...":
I was born on a snowy winter's day, January 2, 1948 in Queens, NY. Growing up in Middle Village, Queens, in the late 40's and early 50's meant growing up Jewish. With a synagogue on every block, the choices seemed endless. Where we attended, however, depended mostly on whom we were getting along with during any given High Holy Day season.
I received a normal Jewish upbringing, and was eventually Bar Mitzahed according to orthodoxy, much to the pleasure and relief of my family who were relieved because even at such a young age I was 'religiously resistant'. You see, I had questions. There were a number of Auzchwitz survivors in my neighborhood--the numbers on their arms were a constant argument for me against the existence of God. "How could there be a God, much less a 'God of Israel', that would allow such atrocities to be perpetrated against people, especially the Jewish people?" One night when I was nine years old, I put God to the test: "Okay, if you're there, have a penny appear under my pillow," I prayerfully demanded. I figured I wasn't being greedy--anyone can come up with a penny, right? But the next morning, since there was no penny under my pillow, I concluded there was not a God over my head either.
After Bar Mitzvah the pressure was off for me to attend synagogue and I gave up any participation in religion. I spent my teenage years removing any residual effects of religion and taking pride influencing others to do the same. My life became one of petty crime and local mischief (much to the disappointment of my parents, I am sorry to say). Following my stint in VietNam, where I developed both a fondness for using and selling drugs, I lived in various scenic locales in California. I lived in and traveled in an old green Econoline van, that at one time dictated I stay for awhile in Eureka, California and get a job. (The van broke down!) I worked in a hippie/fisherman/lumberjack bar, and it was here that I met my first Christians. They would come in about closing time to give the drunks a place to sleep. One of them told me how much I "needed the Lord." "You'll never be truly happy until you come to faith in Jesus," she said. Just to show her how 'happy' I was, I laughed at her and said, "I have so much religion of my own that I'm not even using, what would I want with any of yours?!" But something happened. Nothing that I was totally aware of then, but something happened--a spiritual seed was planted.
Circumstances changed quickly soon after. I found myself soon back in San Francisco, living in a drug-oriented flat with about a dozen other 'denizens of the dark'. It was during that time that I met a Jew who believed in Jesus. When he told me he was Jewish, I genuinely felt sorry for him. I questioned his upbringing and thought this must me the dumbest Jew I ever met, for if there's one thing a Jew should know, is that we "Jews do not believe in Jesus." Period. When he invited me to a Bible study, I could only mock. The strange thing is, the night of that study, I decided to go, on a lark, to laugh at the believers. While I was there, someone showed me a portion from the Hebrew Prophets, Isaiah 53. I read it. I couldn't believe my eyes. It spoke of one who would die for the sins of my people but yet not stay dead! Nothing is supposed to be this clear, especially not the Bible! Objective Evidence? These sneaky Christians, acting so sincere and Jewish, they must have taken part of their New Testament and stuck it in 'my side of the Bible!' They were confusing me with facts. I pretended not to be interested. But over the next several months, I began to search for the truth--studying the occult, Metaphysics, looking in all the wrong places, and kept coming back to considering this Jesus.
On the evening of January 10, 1972, I became convinced that there is such a thing as "spiritual evil" (till then I figured there was no objective right and wrong: "spiritual power" was simply what you made of it). It was then that I realized that drugs were opening me up to the spiritual realm--but the wrong spirit! It was a spiritual battle for my soul, which I was losing, and I was thoroughly convinced that I need a Savior. I needed Jesus.
Though I didn't know all the right words to say, I asked Jesus to save me. And He did. When I prayed that simple prayer, the Spirit of God came down upon me with power. I was cleansed, forgiven, and I experienced a peace that I had never known before. I woke up the next morning and I knew in my heart one thing: Jesus is Lord. I didn't know how I knew that, but I did, and I knew I had to change. I didn't know what to do. After a few dead ends, I remembered the Bible study I had went to and thought, "Maybe they know what to do?" I was surprised that they remembered me, but they had prayed for me daily and rejoiced when I told them, "Jesus saved me last night--what do I do now?"
I soon started studying the Scriptures, growing in Messiah, and learning to share Him with others--something I have tried to do for over thirty years now. Some of that will have to wait to told at another time, but this is my story and I am sticking to it!
(Sam Nadler leads Word of Messiah Ministries. Visit this site at www.WordofMessiah.org.)
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