#6 TESTIMONY OF A MESSIANIC RABBI + Rabbi Michael LaPoff

Biblically Speaking

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Hello, hello, welcome to Biblically Speaking. My name is Cassian Bellino and I'm your host.

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In this podcast, we talk about the Bible in simple terms with experts, PhDs, and scholarly theologians to make understanding

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God easier. These conversations have transformed my relationship with Christ and understanding of religion.

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Now I'm sharing these recorded conversations with you. On this podcast, we talk about the facts, the history, and the translations to make the

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Bible make sense so we can get to know God, our creator, better. Welcome to Biblically Speaking.

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I'm your host, Cassian Bellino, and I am so glad that you're listening today.

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Today is a very, very special episode that I am so excited to share with you.

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I hate to give it away, but it's probably my favorite episode because it has completely changed my life.

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Before we get into that, for those who are new and that might be listening for the first time or tuning in to do me a favor because you're a good friend, thank you so much.

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I just want to say that here at Biblically Speaking, we are here to gain understanding of the word of God from a way that makes sense.

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I mean, we are humans and we need to be realistic about relationships and to know and love a living

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God. You need more than just going to church, going to Bible study, and reading the

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Bible. For me personally, I needed someone to explain things to me. I mean, it's as simple as that.

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I guess I'm a little bit lazy, to be honest, and I need someone to really spell it out for me.

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Who is Jesus? What is the significance of the time period? What was going on in the time period?

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I need background. I am curious and confused. For years, I felt like I really couldn't connect with God because of this lack of information.

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Honestly, I needed these answers. I needed these questions answered, and I couldn't find them at church or anywhere else.

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So what I decided to do, and I waited years to really start this because I couldn't find anybody else doing it.

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I think God just put on my heart that there's a reason. It's because I want you to do it,

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Cass. I took the leap, and since I started, God has just put theologian experts, rabbis, pastors, all in my path to let me sit down and be curious and be confused and ask these questions that hopefully you as the listener also have.

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Now we're going to get these answers from the experts who spent time in school and books to get these answers.

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From there, we have further understanding. God is much more the living

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Jesus Christ, is accessible, lovable, personable, physical, intangible in a way that we love and know our friends and family.

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I want to get to that level with Jesus, right? I mean, that's what we're trying to do, and it's hard to do that if you don't know him, if you're curious, if you still have confusion.

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So that's what we're doing here. Like I said, today is a very special episode.

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And I think it's because, well, usually on these episodes, we sit down with theologian experts, and I ask questions.

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But today we have a rabbi. And originally going into this, I wanted to ask him, why should

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Christians care about Jews? Not that I don't care about Jews, but why specifically?

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I mean, he's a messianic rabbi of the Jewish faith, and he speaks at a church in Arizona, a non -denominational

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Christian church. Clearly, there's an overlap, or else why would he be there? And all the time

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I've been a Christian, I've never really given a thought to how my

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Christian faith overlaps with Jews. But in today's world of antisemitism and the war going on, this is crazy.

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I mean, why should I? I think I need more than just, you should always love your neighbor, but how should

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I? And that was originally the intention going into this call. But we don't even talk about that. That's going to be another call.

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That's going to be another day. Today's call is a testimony, the testimony of a rabbi.

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And before you sign off, because you're here for answers, you're here for facts, you're here for experts. I don't want to hear a testimony.

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Don't go. Please don't go. Because this guy started off agnostic, atheist, telling his wife, if we ever become

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Christians, I'm leaving you. And maybe you feel like that. Maybe you're an atheist and you're like,

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I don't care. I don't care. I don't want to know. I'm only listening to this because Cassie's making me and I want to be a good friend.

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Give it a chance. He went from agnostic atheist to the craziest testimony

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I have ever heard in my life. My life has changed. My life is never going to be the same after hearing his story.

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So now he is a messianic rabbi. He's been a rabbi for 27 years. He speaks in public.

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He speaks at churches. His story is amazing. And I kid you not that I am no longer what

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I was before I heard this. My life before this episode and now my life after. But all jokes aside,

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I am so excited to share with you. And also, this is just me being maybe a little weird, but I know that this message is super powerful, not just because of the way

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I feel about it, but because of how many tech issues we have had to get this podcast recorded.

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We went through four different mediums. It was like, I use a software called

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Riverside. Didn't work. We tried doing Zoom. Didn't work. We tried doing Google Meets.

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Didn't work. And then it did. And then I had the recording, but it couldn't play. We had to get a software to get it to download.

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And even now, I'm trying to record the intro for this and it's just not working. So there are external forces trying to not let this message get out.

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So if we do successfully get it out, I count it as a blessing. But also that this is a very impactful message and I'm really excited to share it with you.

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So without further ado, thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy. Okay, we should be good to go.

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Yeah, we can just kind of start wherever. Well, welcome to Biblically Speaking, Rabbi Michael.

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Well, thank you. It's good to be here. Yeah, I'm so excited to chat with you today.

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I have so many questions and just in our pre -conversations, it's very clear that we could talk for hours.

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So hopefully we can be very efficient in the next 60 minutes. But I'd like to start off these types of podcasts just with allowing you to introduce yourself, give a little bit about your background in the 27 years of ministry and how you kind of found yourself becoming a messianic rabbi and just kind of your life story.

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We could spend the whole time just talking about that. How does one grow up as a young boy and then decide one day,

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I'm going to become a messianic rabbi? I didn't decide that, the Lord did. Basically, I come from a

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Jewish family, a Jewish background. And as a boy, I went to an Orthodox yeshiva.

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A yeshiva is a school where you speak Hebrew for sort of half the day.

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You speak English half the day. I went to the yeshiva from, you know, in kindergarten until the sixth grade.

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So I could speak Hebrew from the time I was four, as well as I could speak

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English. My family was a conservative Jewish family. Again, that's the whole discussion, conservative

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Orthodox or for Jews. But basically, by the time

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I was a teenager, I didn't have any faith in God at all. I knew that I'm a

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Jew, but I have no faith in God, that he exists, that he's real. And so I don't know if this is sort of going into a whole long discussion, but I figured when

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I was about like 12 or 13, that if there is no God, because I didn't believe that God was actually a real thing, then that means that the

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Bible and the Ten Commandments were not actually from God.

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They were written by a man. And so I figured, well, if it's just written by a man, then that means that we have to decide for ourselves what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's bad.

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And the only way I can ever know that is I have to try everything for myself. I have to experience it and I'll try it.

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And if it seems good, then it's good. And if it seems bad, then it's bad. And, you know, maybe something's good for me, but it's not good for you and so on.

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So anyway, I could go on and on with that. But ultimately, I became involved. I'm just curious. I'm sorry for interrupting. What did you, if you grew up for 10 years, let's say, and you were a

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Orthodox Jew, but you didn't believe in God, what were you believing for those 10 years? Well, first,

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I think that for anyone, when you're a child, up until you're maybe like 13 or 14 years old, you're not really thinking for yourself when it comes to faith.

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In other words, you're in a family and, you know, this is who we are. This is what we do, you know, sort of here is

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God. Now, the thing is, for me, I've always had, you know, all of my life, even now, it's the beach impediment.

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So as a child with a beach impediment, I would pray to God for help because, you know,

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I would be sort of, you know, I'd be teased by kids in school and all that.

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And there was never any answer. So as I grew up and was able to think for myself,

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I just basically said, you know what, I don't really believe in God, even though this is what we've been taught.

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In other words, I went to synagogue every Saturday, at least once on Saturday.

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And, you know, I wore a kippah like I'm wearing now and tzitzitz, the little fringes we have.

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And I went through all the rituals and all the motions. But aside from that, when I would call out to God, there was nothing there.

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I would never get an answer. I'd never see anything happen. And the thing is, for me, from the time

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I was very, very young, I always knew that there was a supernatural realm that existed. In other words,

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I didn't really believe in God, but I knew that there's a lot more that exists than what we physically see with our eyes and what we can touch.

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So basically, I became involved in the occult. I was, you know, following after Edgar Cayce, who was a medium, you know, who would have seances and so on.

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I did what's called, you know, astral projection for a while.

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And I was a Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist for 16 years. And I actually came to faith in Christ from that.

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That's how I came to faith in Christ, was out of, like, Buddhism. I see what you meant now, that this could be a whole hour.

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This is a long discussion. Oh, it's at least. Oh, my gosh. So you grew up Orthodox Jew, didn't feel a thing, decided to find out for yourself what you wanted to believe, and tried everything, found yourself in the occult, and through that found

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God. Well, not specifically through the occult, but I, you see, it's sort of, my whole life basically was a search for, you know, like truth.

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In other words, from the time I was young and little, I was just always, I just always had a knowing in my heart.

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It's like, why do we exist? Why are we here? What's the meaning of life? Is there any purpose to this or is it all just some, you know, big accident?

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Which is a huge undertaking. So one of the reasons why I became involved in the occult and, you know,

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Eastern mysticism, Eastern religions, basically I was seeking answers.

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It's like, I'll look anywhere. I mean, I'll try anything. I also, by the way, and this is in the 70s, you know,

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I graduated high school in 73, was in college in the mid 70s.

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Basically, I got involved in, you know, like drugs, a lot of drugs. I mean, I did a lot of cocaine and LSD and, you know,

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I did some heroin. And the thing that was interesting is that I was doing all those things not to escape from reality.

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In other words, I wasn't doing drugs as an escape. I wanted to find answers.

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In other words, like way back then, you know, people thought that if we do LSD, you know, that's going to expand our mind.

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And we're going to understand God in a bigger way. Although the thing that's interesting is that even as a

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Buddhist, I was always what I sort of consider myself a Jew boo. In other words, even though I was a

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Buddhist, I'm Jewish. In other words, I don't believe in God, but I am

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Jewish. I'm a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If there's another Holocaust, whether I'm a

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Buddhist or not, I get put onto the train. In other words, so I kind of consider myself for years a

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Jew boo. You know, it's like I was a Jew who was like practicing Buddhism. Wow, that was an amazing story.

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Could you kind of walk me through? Because I feel like the search for answers is an honest living. And I think that's ultimately what we're all doing throughout our life, whether it's through achievement or creating a family or through finding

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God. But could you, I mean, I want to get into some of the questions, but what was that bridge from the occult?

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Which, I mean, what level of the occult are we talking? Like medium, talking to the dead, very demonic rituals.

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Like how deep was it? And then from there you jumped over to Orthodox Jew. What was that bridge?

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Well, first of all, as far as the Orthodox Jew thing, that was when I was a kid.

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I grew up in that. That's what I was taught. That's what I lived. But once I was old enough to really decide for myself, the thing that's interesting, like with any faith, not just in Judaism, I was constantly confronted with the hypocrisies of the faiths and the religions.

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In other words, for example, as a child, I would go to school, which is an Orthodox yeshiva.

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And we're taught, you know, you're supposed to keep kosher. You know, you're not allowed to eat pork. The Bible says this.

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And, you know, and you're not supposed to turn on a light on Saturday. You're not supposed to ride in the car.

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Well, just in other words, you're not supposed to like work on Shabbat. You're not supposed to do any kind of work. So the thing is, though, is my family was not

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Orthodox. They were conservative, which is like not quite Orthodox, almost

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Orthodox, but not quite. So the kind of things that would happen as I was growing up and, you know, why

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I ended up getting into these different places is that we kept kosher at home.

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In other words, in our home, we could only eat kosher food. We had separate plates for like meat and separate plates for dairy and separate silverware for meat and dairy and separate plates for meat and dairy.

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Only on Passover, because you're not allowed to have any like breadcrumbs or whatever. But what happened, so we kept absolutely kosher at home.

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But if we'd go out for dinner, like mom would order a bacon cheeseburger. And I'm like, well, wait a minute.

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You know, I was just a kid, but it's like I'm being taught in school. You're not supposed to mix like milk and meat.

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You're not supposed to eat pork. So it's like, how can, why do we do this in the house?

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But when we go out to eat, we have a bacon cheeseburger. And my mom, you know, who is a really wonderful lady, but my mom would just basically like, oh, you know, in the house, we don't do this in the house.

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But when you're outside, but I'm like, well, wait a minute. If you're eating the food, isn't the bacon cheeseburger going to your stomach?

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Whether you're doing it in the house. And so I basically, as I became older, I just kind of,

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I didn't really believe in any of it because I saw so much hypocrisy in the part of, you know, all the like rules and things that you have to do and are supposed to do.

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And then the way that we bend those rules, you see that in the church as well in so many ways.

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So as far as though the occultic stuff, I went to a college prep school in a

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New York city area. There was a very, you know, academically advanced school.

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Like everybody who went there, except for me, actually, I'm the only one, but everybody goes to Harvard, Yale or to Princeton.

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It's like, and what happens though is being this, you know, academically forward school, one of the classes that I had at school was comparative religions.

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So in class, we studied Hinduism and we studied how exposed to this.

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I was also a member of a metaphysical society at school, which is how

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I got exposed to the seances and so on. Now, I was never a

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Satan worshiper. You know, in other words, I wasn't like, I didn't sacrifice, you know, animals or nothing.

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I was always, I want, as a matter of fact, the thing that's interesting, like Buddhism or everything, it wasn't evil.

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It's like, we want like peace and love and, you know, happiness and everybody to be happy together.

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But as the thing that happens though is that Satan, and actually just interestingly, as you say that the word or the name

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Satan in Hebrew, the word is Satan. Satan is what we call

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Satan. And the word Satan means the accuser. That's basically what that name means, but he masquerades as an angel of light.

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So in other words, you don't have to be doing like Satan worshiping and, you know, sort of killing animals and sacrificing.

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There's certainly an aspect to it of that, but even things that like masquerade as light can still be inspired by Satan as a lot of the

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Eastern mysticism and so on is. When you say light, I immediately think of like,

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I don't know, I don't want to get any hate for this, but like, I think of like yoga and like that feel good, you know, higher, higher self.

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Like, that's what I think of when you say light, but what are you referring to? Well, Satan, I mean, this is, we're going to go off in a whole other direction here, but Satan and demonic things are very, very real.

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What Satan wants to do is to keep people from finding a relationship with God.

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Or if you find a relationship with God, he wants to keep you from being victorious in it.

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In other words, he wants to keep you, you know, like trapped in. So the thing is what happens, for example, is a lot of people think that anything supernatural must be from God or when something supernatural happens, that's not evil.

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That must be, you know, sort of God who's doing it. So what happened is as a Buddhist, for example,

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I used to have an altar in my house, this great big wooden altar with a great big box and a

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Sanskrit scroll inside the box. And I used to sit for hours and I would like chant

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Sanskrit prayers to a Sanskrit scroll in this box, you know, hitting a gong and burning incense.

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And the thing is, is that doing that, I had quite a lot of supernatural experiences that for me were exciting or were good.

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I mean, I found myself one time being at a place where I was like sitting on top of a mountain in a white robe, you know, seeing just like oceans and mountains.

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And the thing is, though, is that when I say that that Satan masquerades as an angel of light, the best way

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I when I was a Buddhist, we used to chant and people and what you would chant for things and you would get them.

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For example, I know it's going to sound silly, but I lived in the New York City area. It's really hard to get a parking space on the street.

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So I'd be like, you know, driving my car and I need to park my car and I would chant and all of a sudden the car would pull out right in front of where I was going.

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See that? Because I'm in tune with the sound and the vibration of the universe.

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That's what I believe. Would this be manifestation? Well, manifestation is anything.

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I mean, like the way that it's used today, where people like, I don't want to like,

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I don't know how to manifest, but, you know, where you like speak it into existence. That's not, that's not, no, not, that's not what

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I'm speaking about here. That, that could be something different. Thing is, is what happened, my experience in Buddhism.

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Now, again, we were, I was, I was involved in Broadway theater.

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I was working in Broadway theater and the show, A Chorus Line. I don't know if you're familiar with that show.

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A Chorus Line back in the seventies at the time was the most famous Broadway show that had ever happened.

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It was like the biggest Broadway hit ever. And it completely changed theater and film in terms of being, you know, introspective as opposed to being shows, you know, that were just like funny and sing -songy.

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It was about, you know, our lives and introspection. And what happened was A Chorus Line actually was our

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Buddhist group. Oh, it was all out of work, actors and actresses and people in theater and people who were waiters and waitresses.

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And we were all in the same Buddhist group. And, you know, we would sit around in our

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Buddhist group and, you know, like talk about, you know, sort of how messed up our lives were. And then, you know, we had people in our

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Buddhist group who also were very, well, they were all actors and actresses.

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We ended up, you know, doing a workshop off of Broadway and the show become one of the most famous shows ever.

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And it was basically like Buddhism on Broadway. Even though people didn't, weren't aware of it.

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But what happens, and the reason I'm saying all this is that the best way I can describe it for me, it was like, you know, the, you know, sort of the genie in a bottle, the idea of the genie, it's like you can have three wishes and a person says, well,

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I wish I could have a million dollars. And then they're, you know, like friend dies in a car accident and there's a million dollars left to the person.

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So they get the million dollars, but it's like that wasn't what they didn't want their friend to die.

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Well, the thing about like Buddhism and chanting was that in fact, it's very, very powerful, but it's not of God.

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So it's like whatever I would chant for, I would get if it was success or a parking space or a girlfriend or whatever it might be.

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I chant and I'd get it, but nothing was ever blessed. Everything was always cursed.

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In other words, one of the things is in Christ, in God, what happens is when he blesses you with something, it's blessed.

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But when I talk about like Satan being an angel of light, it's like on one hand, just for example, and going back to this, the people

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I worked with on Broadway were the first group of people to die from AIDS.

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In other words, there was no AIDS before that. That's when AIDS happened.

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Now, I was not homosexual. Thank goodness, because if I was, I would be dead now. But all the people that I worked with in theater, that was the first group of people who ended up with AIDS and they all ended up like dying.

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So it's kind of like, you know, you pray to have a big

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Broadway show and you're the most successful Broadway show ever, and you're famous and you've got money or whatever, and then everybody dies.

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So now in things that God, so the reason why

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I said that it's an angel, you know, that Satan is an angel masquerading as light is that it seems like this is all good and beautiful and nice and wonderful, but it's actually, you know, it's cursed.

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It's not blessed. In other words, people who do it for years and years and years, you don't have long term, you don't have like joy and a fulfilled life and a, you know, a wonderful family.

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And it's all people who end up like in sort of a train wreck. So anyway, as I said, we'd sort of went off in a.

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No, that was a beautiful story. Thank you for telling me that. I mean, I OK, so that's an amazing story, but still,

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I mean, we know each other because you are the messianic rabbi for Zion City in Arizona, which

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I used to live in Arizona. My sister goes there. That's how we know each other. How did you end up there? I mean, what was the turning point where you felt like God was calling you to do that?

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Because I think that's a pretty monumental moment in someone's life, especially with you trying to find answers and looking everywhere else.

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How loud was that calling that pulled you out of that and into the. I don't want to say priesthood.

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I keep wanting to, but into becoming a rabbi. Are you thinking about from the start or just the last this move to this church?

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I would say no longer a Jew, but now a rabbi.

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OK, well, actually, I won't I won't go. To the way that I came to faith, because that again, it's a it's a it's a very involved story.

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It's a pretty amazing supernatural story. But what happened is both my wife and I came to faith in Christ.

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We had an encounter with Jesus on April 24th in 1991.

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And I was. Thirty five years old at the time

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I was working. In like video,

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I went to N .Y. film school and I was involved. It seems like a long time ago, but in the early 90s, when they were still trying to get like video onto a computer,

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I was involved in the integration of the video and computers.

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And I worked a lot as a consultant to Apple and Sony and Pioneer. And in fact, that's how

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I came when I said I came to faith. It was through that that some people led us to the Lord.

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So what happens is. We have this like radical, radical encounter with God, both my wife and I at the same time.

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Well, I. Well, if I tell that story, I won't answer your question about how

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I got to Arizona. I can explain that to you. I think it's important to know what pulled you out and like fully pulled you fully into Christ.

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I would love to hear that story. OK, well, a couple of things that I would say, and I'm going to like sort of back it up a little bit when

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I back it up, because now I know now, you know, you can see things later that you don't see when they were happening.

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Yeah. But what happened was and I know from the Lord that this had everything to do with everything.

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When I was about eight years old, little boy, eight years old, I was really miserable because of my beach impediment and kids were teasing me.

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And I was like walking around the block where we lived in Jersey and I'm calling out to God and I'm just going,

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God, are you even there? Do you even exist? And then

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I said, you know, Jesus, I don't even know who you are. You're those other people's

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God. Are you there? Do you exist? And I know now when you're here at the circus,

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I was, you know, 35 when we actually came to faith. But when

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I called out to God at eight years old, when I called out to Jesus at eight years old, he began the whole process that, you know, sort of culminated when

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I was 35. That's why, by the way, just in general for anyone, Jew or Gentile, if you call out to God and ask him to reveal himself to you in some way or whatever, he will.

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It may take a week. It may take months. It may take years. But God answers those prayers.

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And so when I was eight, I said, hey, Jesus, I don't even know who you are, you know, but if you're out there, will you show me?

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So in any event, I'm going through, you sort of heard

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I was involved in theater. Now, what happened was that I'd gone to NYU film school, wanted to work in film, ended up working at Broadway by accident because I was involved in this

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Buddhist thing. And I always thought that if I could be in show business, if I could, you know,

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I want to be a film director, I want to be in show business, that's going to make me happy. And the thing is, is the years

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I spent in theater, I was like miserable because everybody who I worked with, first of all, well, people were sexually all over the map and unhappy.

31:34

But everybody I met, they were either alcoholics or they were doing drugs. In other words, the more fame, the more notoriety, the more you got, the more people just went off the deep end and even got to the place where we would, you know, isolate ourselves because it seemed like somebody always wanted something from us.

31:54

And so you just sort of back up. So what happened was after a bunch of years working in theater, the guy that I worked for, you know, his name was

32:05

Michael, Michael, Michael, Michael Bennett. Michael Bennett won, I don't know, you know, like sort of 20

32:13

Tony awards. In other words, he's a big, famous film director who, not film director, theater director, choreographer, producer, who actually ended up dying from AIDS, you know, not very long after.

32:27

But what happened was when I was really young, he said to me, you remind me of me when I was your age, when I was like 18 or 19 first getting involved with this.

32:35

And that way at the time, it's like, well, you know, Michael Bennett says I'm like him. By the time I worked with him for a while,

32:41

I'm like, oh my God. If I'm like him, I'm going to turn out like that. So basically

32:47

I got out of theater. I left theater. I just, you know, like walked away from it because in the back of my mind,

32:54

I always wanted to have a wife and, you know, a family.

33:00

I just wanted a normal life. So I haven't figured out how to do that one, but I wanted a normal life.

33:06

And so I left theater and I went into business with my dad because I basically,

33:12

I wasn't really interested in the business that he was doing, sort of selling hardware and this or that, but I would be an owner.

33:22

And so I'd make a lot of money. And I started my own division of that company selling access control systems and sold them to S &P and to W .R.

33:33

Grace and American Express and made a ton of money and bought a 40 foot yacht.

33:39

You know, we would sort of go on trips up to Cape Cod every summer with my wife.

33:49

And, you know, like I drove expensive cars, you know, like BMWs. I had every new gadget.

33:58

I had the first big screen television that had ever been invented in Advent. I had, you know, like laser discs.

34:04

I had every new thing because I just kept thinking, OK, if I can like buy stuff, that's going to make me happy.

34:13

If I make a lot of money and can just buy everything I want, that's going to make me happy. But no matter how much stuff

34:19

I bought, I was just always like miserable. It's like, you know, you would sort of buy something and then think,

34:26

OK, what am I going to do next? Well, I need to get this. I was buying stuff and I waited until I was like 29 years old.

34:38

I married my wife,

34:44

Nancy. And what happened was even there after six years of our marriage, the marriage was basically falling apart.

34:53

We didn't really fight. We didn't argue with each other. But I was off over here, you know, working in this computer stuff and the video stuff.

35:02

She's selling real estate and we didn't really argue or fight. I think for that we had to wait until after we had gotten saved.

35:09

But for then it was just kind of like, you know, I'd ask her, has the dog been walked?

35:17

You know, have you emptied out our garbage? That kind of thing. And what happened, though, was I became so despondent because she was

35:26

I waited for the right person to marry. And that was Nancy. And yet if it's not going to work with her, it's not working with her.

35:34

It won't work with anybody. In other words, nothing works. I had fame in theater.

35:41

I had like money in my own company, which we ended up selling because I really hated it.

35:47

I got out of that. And even like marriage, I married the right person.

35:53

And even that doesn't work. So I would just like lay in bed and stare at the ceiling and just think,

36:01

I just want to die. I just want to die. It's like there's no point to life. There's no purpose in life.

36:07

There's no meaning in life. Now, I would never kill myself because as a

36:12

Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist, I believe in reincarnation. So I thought, in other words, basically, if I shot myself,

36:19

I'm just going to come back. But it's going to be worse the next time around because of what I had just done.

36:24

In other words, we have our karma is all the stuff that builds up. So I wanted to die, but I couldn't kill myself.

36:32

And now right about this point in time, I get a telephone call on a

36:38

Saturday. Now, this all takes place in a week. I get a telephone call on a Saturday from these two people from Sweden.

36:46

I'm out east in New Jersey. These people are from Sweden. They're in Vegas at the

36:52

NAB show, the National Association of Broadcasters.

37:01

And they want to buy this very involved like video animation, audio pro tools kind of system and all the booths that they're going to in Las Vegas at the

37:12

NAB show. They go to Apple and they go to Sony and they go to Pioneer and Panasonic.

37:18

And they all say, oh, one of the only people we know who can really put this all together for you is Michael LaPage out in New Jersey.

37:25

So they call me up and they say, we're in Vegas. Can we fly out tonight? I was on a

37:30

Saturday. Can we fly out? We want to buy all this stuff. And I said, you know, that's a lot of money you're talking about.

37:36

We have the funds. We can get the money wired to you. OK, come on out.

37:42

So these people fly out from Las Vegas to New Jersey and I go to pick them up and they're staying at a hotel in the middle of nowhere.

37:50

And I go to get them. And when I first meet them, the guy hands me a book and his wife hands me a cassette tape, you know, like, dub, dub, dub, dub, dub, dub, dub.

38:05

A lot of, you know, Christ is going to set me free. And they start talking to me about like, Jesus, I just go, oh, no, they're born again

38:15

Christians. And I mean, they're telling me it's like they're saying to me, you know, the reason we're here is that God, God told us to buy all this equipment to make videos about Jesus Christ, descendant of the

38:33

Soviet Union. Well, and I'm there listening to this and I'm going, you know what? If God sent you, then we're going to make sure to sell

38:41

God a very bad. It's like, you know, we're going to don't worry. We're going to make sure that, you know, we don't want to shortchange

38:48

God. We're going to give him the best. So they kept talking about Jesus.

38:54

And I said, I'm Jewish. I'm Jewish. We don't believe in Jesus. I'm Jewish. They go, no, you know, he's your

39:01

Messiah. You know, like Jesus is Jewish. And yeah, Jesus is alive and he wants to know you.

39:10

And I said to them, you know, you know, Jesus was a Jew. He was a teacher.

39:16

But, you know, Jesus is not alive. He's dead. If Jesus is alive, where is he?

39:24

Show him to me. Where you say he's alive, where is he? Well, they keep talking about Jesus and I take them, you know, we spend the afternoon, you know, like beginning to work out this plan for what they want to buy.

39:37

And I got to bring them back to the hotel and there's nowhere for them to eat there. There's, I mean, they're in the middle of like a highway in the middle of that work.

39:45

So I bring them home for dinner. And I bring them home and here's my wife.

39:50

And they're talking about Jesus and talking about Jesus. And they're telling me all of these like, you know, one, one, one, one, one, one, one miracle after another.

40:04

You know, we would pray to God, you know, that we wanted to share Christ with the sort of king of Saudi Arabia.

40:10

And we got on a plane and then we met the king. And I said, well, I chanted. And I wanted to work for Stanley Kubrick.

40:20

And the next day I met his sister at a supermarket and got in contact. In other words, basically every miracle, you know, we had a miracle.

40:28

Well, I have a miracle as Buddhists. Well, I have a miracle. We have miracles as Buddhists. But they just kept talking about Jesus.

40:33

And they kept saying he's, he's alive and he wants to know you. And he's the Jewish Messiah.

40:39

He's your Messiah. Well, we have dinner with them and we take them back to their hotel.

40:45

And on the way home from the hotel, this is now Sunday night. My wife says to me, you know, something about those people was just really special or different.

40:58

I mean, I've never met anyone like that before. And I turned to her in our car. This is on Sunday evening.

41:04

And I said to her, Nancy, don't you dare become a born again Christian or our marriage is over.

41:10

That's the end of it. It's finished. That was on Sunday night. So I'm with these people on Monday and we're working all day trying to put together this equipment.

41:19

They're buying about $40 ,000, $50 ,000 worth of stuff. And they keep talking about, you know, like Jesus.

41:26

And I wanted to get into an argument with them about abortion. So I would start talking about abortion and they would talk about Jesus.

41:35

And I tried to talk to them about homosexuality. And I talk about homosexuality and they would talk about Jesus.

41:41

And no matter what I said, they just say, you know, like Jesus is alive. You know, Jesus wants to know you.

41:48

He's the Messiah. He's the Jewish Messiah. On Tuesday, I'm with them all day and I drive them back to their hotel.

42:00

We're in my car and they say to us, would it be OK for us to pray for you?

42:07

Well, you know, you're spending $50 ,000. If you want to pray, go right ahead and pray.

42:14

I mean, you know, you can wave banners, do whatever you want. So we're in my car. I'm in the front seat of the driver's seat.

42:20

They lay their hands on me and start to pray in tongues. Now, just for whatever it's worth,

42:25

I didn't know what that was they were doing, praying in tongues. But I have to say, I've been chanting in Sanskrit for 16 years.

42:32

So it's kind of like, I don't know what that was, but it's like, you know, it wasn't any stranger than what

42:38

I was doing from last night. But while they were praying for me, a fire started like ignited in my heart.

42:49

It felt as if somebody had like sort of had a torch and, you know, turned it on.

42:56

And my heart just started burning and burning and burning and burning inside of me.

43:03

And when they got done praying, I said something about, you know, the sort of heat or the fire.

43:08

They didn't know what I was talking about. But from that moment on, on Tuesday, whenever I was alone, when nobody was around who could hear a word that I was going to say,

43:19

I would call out and I would say, Jesus, if you're the Messiah of the Jewish people and if you are alive and if you want to know me, then you show yourself to me.

43:32

Because I've always sought the truth. I've always wanted to know the truth. And if you heard who they say they are, they say that you're alive.

43:41

Show yourself to me. Well, I prayed this on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday. I'm sort of shortening this a little bit, but they were leaving to go back to Sweden on Friday morning.

43:52

We were all done. We had the whole thing together. And I was at home Thursday evening alone. And I was in our bedroom.

44:01

I knelt down at the side of the bed. And I just said, you know, Jesus, if you are the

44:07

Messiah and if you're alive and you want to know me, then you show yourself to me now because these people are leaving tomorrow for Sweden.

44:17

And I've never heard anyone say the things about you that I've heard them say. And once they're gone, we're done.

44:24

It's all over. You know, that's the end of it. I got up and I walked over to a mirror in our room.

44:31

Now, what I'm going to describe or explain here is what I saw. It's not it wasn't actually on me.

44:38

It's what I saw with my eyes. I stood there looking at myself in the mirror.

44:44

And first I had a scar that went down the right side of my cheek.

44:49

And the scar opened and like blood and almost like pus started coming out of it.

44:56

And my skin began to turn black. My eyes turned black.

45:05

Then it was like my skin became as if it had scales. And it grew cold and dark and empty.

45:16

And it was horrifying. And I stood there going, this is not

45:22

Jesus. This is not Jesus. This is not Jesus. And it kept getting blacker and worse and more horrifying.

45:32

Now, the thing, it was so dark. And when you see a horror movie, in a horror movie, even though the evil creature is like really ugly, but it's alive.

45:47

This was ugly, but it was like empty, cold.

45:54

And I stood there, I'm just going, this isn't Jesus. This is not Jesus. And after about 20 minutes, it kept getting worse and worse.

46:02

The telephone rang and I went and answered the phone. And it was Annette from the couple from Sweden.

46:09

And I said to her, I said, Annette, I don't understand what's going on. Here's what happened.

46:14

And I said, this is what I'm seeing. And this is not Jesus. And at the same moment, she spoke on the telephone, but I heard a voice right inside here say, no, it's not

46:28

Jesus. It's you. I had spent 35 years of my life believing that there was no such thing as God and believing

46:38

I could do whatever I wanted to do. And I would never be held accountable for it.

46:44

And when you stand before a holy, holy, holy God, you are guilty.

46:54

His purity and his love and his light and his truth. You can't stand in his presence in our filth.

47:04

And I had demanded of Jesus that he show himself to me and he showed me who

47:11

I was without him. And I stood there and I just I had my hands up and I just said, oh, my

47:24

God, I am in big, big trouble. I was so far separated from God.

47:33

I had opened my life up to so much spiritual garbage and stuff is very, very real.

47:42

And I had opened my life up and my life was full of it. And God opened my eyes to see who

47:50

I was without him. And I stood there and I also knew at that time that it's like this was my last chance.

48:01

In other words, it was my free choice. But if I said no to God, that would be it.

48:12

And I knew I was going to lose my family. I knew I was going to all these other things were going to happen.

48:18

But I stood there and I just I didn't say a sinner's prayer or whatever.

48:24

I just stood there and I knew that in fact, in fact, Jesus is alive and he is the son of God.

48:32

He is the Messiah. And I just stood there and I went, OK, yes.

48:40

Didn't say a sinner's prayer. Actually, I did the next day. But that's when I was born again. So I'm up that whole night.

48:49

You know, my wife comes home from her, you know, like meeting and, you know, baritone.

48:54

She goes to bed and I'm sitting out in the living room. And my house is like spiritual

49:00

Grand Central Station. It's like I'm sitting there and I've got a Sony Walkman.

49:06

Remember Sony Walkman's like little cassette players. I was listening to her tape. The blood of Jesus Christ will set me free.

49:13

The blood of Jesus Christ will set me free. And I'm listening to it all night. And in the room, you could just feel and sense the spiritual, like all this garbage and stuff in me.

49:26

So what happens is the morning's coming along and the light comes up, you know, and the daylight comes up and I say to Jesus, I go, you know,

49:36

Lord, you can, I'm yours. Send me wherever you want to send me.

49:42

I'll go wherever you want me to go. I will do whatever you want me to do. There's just one thing

49:47

I want to ask of you. Which is very funny because almost every single day I have to go, you know,

49:53

Lord, there's just one more thing. But at least for that day, I said,

49:59

Lord, and can I have a woman in my life as a companion, whether it's my wife, Nancy or somebody else?

50:06

Because I didn't know what was going to happen. One of the last conversations I had with Nancy was Sunday night before when

50:12

I said to her, you know, don't you dare become a born again Christian or our marriage is over. So what am

50:17

I supposed to do now? So she's sound asleep in the bedroom. And I go in and kind of shake her arm a little bit.

50:24

And I said, Hey, Nancy, I, you know, can I talk to you? I need to talk to you.

50:29

And she's like, no, I'm sleeping. Go with me and leave me alone. I'm tired. I said,

50:35

Nancy, I'm going to make Jesus Christ, my Lord and savior. And I want you there along with me.

50:41

And she just go like, what? I mean, so she gets out of bed and we get in the car and we went down to what

50:51

I now like to call the first church of the quality in the hotel where Scott and Annette were staying.

50:58

And we go to the hotel to pick them up, to bring them to the airport, to go back to Sweden. And I go back to the room where Scott is.

51:08

And I say, Scott, I want to make Jesus Christ, my Lord and savior. And Scott says to me, no,

51:14

I'm not going to do it. And I have the same reaction as you. I'm like, what? I mean,

51:19

I thought, you know, it's like, Hey, sign the card, come forward, raise your hands. And Scott's like, no, he said, he said, you are entering into a covenant relationship with our

51:32

God who is alive, who shed his blood for your sins, who sacrificed himself.

51:37

And he's giving you free atonement. He's giving you the free gift of salvation, but you are offering him your whole life in return.

51:45

You believe that I don't want to take you through some sort of an exercise.

51:52

So I just said, Scott, let's just get on with this. And so he says to me,

51:58

I want you to renounce everything you can think of. So I start saying,

52:04

I renounce Buddhism. I renounce astral projection. I renounce cocaine. I renounce marijuana.

52:11

I renounce Edgar Cayce. And as I'm saying these things, stuff is just like leaving me and leaving me.

52:19

What do you mean by stuff? Like, like spirits or pain? How tangible is it? Well, no, like, in other words, you could just,

52:27

I could feel like, I guess you could say spirit, whatever, just basically as I was renouncing these things,

52:38

I renounce, but it's like, it was just like stuff.

52:44

You got to experience it, I guess. It's like, it's, it's, but so, and the thing is, by the way, I wasn't rolling on the floor convulsing or whatever.

52:55

But by the way, there was a lot more. I mean, I, I, I renounce everything I could think of for that day.

53:01

But over the years, you know, sort of God showed me, the thing that's interesting, this is a whole other discussion, but most

53:08

Christians, most people, when they come to Christ, let's go, oh, you know, I, I believe Jesus, I received salvation, but they never cleanse out all of the like junk that they had and you're saved, but the junk's still there.

53:23

You got to start a clean house and that's a process. Anyway, that's a whole different discussion.

53:29

But so the thing is, is when I get all done for that day with everything I could think of, Scott has me, you know, like kneel down by the edge of the bed.

53:37

I say the sinner's prayer with him. He leads me through the sinner's prayer. Then he says to me, would you like to receive the baptism in the

53:46

Holy Spirit? And, and I, I mean, I have no, what's the Bible? I don't, what's that?

53:52

I said, I want the whole package. Yeah. I mean, I don't know whatever there is. I want, I want it all.

53:58

I want everything. I want all of it. So he said, ask Jesus to receive the baptism of the

54:03

Holy Spirit. And then just, you know, begin to, to give him thanks. So I asked

54:09

Jesus for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And for me, by the way, everybody's experience is completely different.

54:15

But for me, all of a sudden I felt a waterfall just begin to fall upon me.

54:24

And it, it started, it went into my head and just started washing and washing and washing and washing.

54:33

And it went all the way down from my head, through my torso, through my body. Now here where you say what, all of the pain, the rejection, the, the, the hurt, the anger, the, just the, the, the, the, the unforgiveness, the bitterness, the, all of the junk was just getting washed away.

55:00

And when this experience had come to an end, and of course, I'm there thanking the Lord, you know, begin to speak in tongues.

55:07

You know, it wasn't until I got into the church and I found out that we're not supposed to speak in tongues anymore. I was just in, in a hotel room.

55:14

You know, I didn't know that back then. So anyway, but what happened was, um, Just pause for a second. So that is like a pretty specific gift of the spirit to speak in tongues.

55:24

You just started, or were you like trying to do it? And that's just what happened. I was just praising

55:29

God and, and, and not, not thinking about anything.

55:35

And it was just like, sort of like babble, you know, just, but, um, so the thing is though, for me, when this experience had ended of this, like waterfall and getting washed,

55:49

I could actually perceive I had been born again.

55:55

I had new eyes. I had a new heart.

56:01

I had, it was like, everything was brand new. All of the 35 years of life,

56:12

God just sort of gave me a clean start, a fresh start.

56:19

So there's all going on. And my wife, Nancy is sitting in the room in the corner and Annette, the, you know, it's

56:25

Scott's wife, says to her, okay, Nancy, you know, what about you? And Nancy goes, well, you know,

56:31

I was in bed about an hour ago and, and I don't really, I don't understand what's going on here.

56:39

And they said to her, now, by the way, she was an Episcopalian by her youth and her, you know, growing up, she sort of believed sort of that God kind of maybe exists out there somewhere, but has nothing to do with us in any way, shape or form.

56:53

So they said, you know, and Annette says to Nancy, she goes, you know, when she goes,

57:01

I don't know what's going on here. She says, our Lord Jesus Christ is in this room right now.

57:08

And he's asking you a question. Do you want him to be your Lord and Savior? Excuse me,

57:14

I just took a drink of water. And Nancy said, I don't know. I mean,

57:19

I haven't thought about it. I don't know. And Annette said, well, you know, that's good.

57:24

You know, you shouldn't, if you're not sure, but our Lord Jesus Christ is in this room right now and he's asking you a question.

57:32

Do you want him to be your Lord and Savior? And there were only two answers to the question.

57:38

Excuse me. I'm sorry. There are only two answers to the question.

57:45

One is yes, I do. The other is no, I don't. That if you answer, well, you know, like maybe if I think about it or maybe when something changes or you're answering the question right now, no,

58:00

I don't want you to be my Lord and Savior. Well, Nancy just said, I don't want to say no to God.

58:07

So she prayed the sinner's prayer, received the Lord and she received the baptism of the

58:13

Holy Spirit at the same time too. So that's how we got there.

58:21

Now, if you want to know how we got to Arizona. Oh my gosh.

58:26

I was entranced. I was entranced. I was joyous. I was crying. It's not my story.

58:33

It's God's. I was just there. He's the one who did everything. Yeah. Yeah.

58:39

I like don't have words at this point. I mean, that was just an amazing story. And I, we're going to have to just have another call.

58:46

I'm sorry, but maybe after Hanukkah, but that is incredible.

58:53

I mean, I think it's just, you were so, I don't even want to say you were open to the spirit.

58:58

You weren't even in tune with the spirit. You weren't even actively seeking it. And yet it grabbed ahold of you and grabbed ahold of your life.

59:04

That's amazing. Well, the other thing that is, is incredible. And I know that we're going to see this happen to other

59:12

Jewish people. In the coming days, I have this from the Lord in my spirit. What happens is that my story is a 35 year story.

59:22

In other words, it took 35 years for me to get to that week. But just so you kind of get a picture of this.

59:32

Saturday before I hated Christians. I hated

59:37

Jesus. I wasn't interested in God. I wasn't searching for religion.

59:43

It wasn't on my radar. I wasn't speaking. I wasn't anything. That's on Saturday. And by Friday, my wife and I are born again and baptized in the

59:55

Holy Spirit. One week. Now, again, it's really like 35 years and a week.

01:00:03

But the reason I'm saying that is that there are people out there who are like, I'm not interested in,

01:00:08

I hate God. That it's like when God decides, it's time.

01:00:15

It's like in one week. And it completely, our lives completely changed 180 degrees from that moment on.

01:00:27

Yeah. So how does it land right now? Because you're

01:00:32

Jewish, but you're a Christian. Well, yes. Yeah. Well, a couple of things again, we'll get it.

01:00:41

The words that we use, that people use, people don't have a common like definition and language of what words mean.

01:00:51

Now, the thing that's kind of interesting is that the word Christian in Greek, the anointed one is the word

01:01:01

Christos. So a Christian is a Christianian.

01:01:07

In other words, it's a Christ follower. Someone who follows the anointed one, Christ. Now, the anointed one in Hebrew is the word

01:01:17

Mashiach, or we would say in English, Messiah. So whatever it's worth, the word

01:01:23

Messiah and the word Christos is the exact same word. One is in Greek, one is in Hebrew, but it's the same thing.

01:01:30

So as far as I'm concerned, a Messiah, Nick, and a

01:01:35

Christ, Ian, is the same exact thing. It's a follower of Christ.

01:01:42

But what happens is in America and in American church, when people say a

01:01:49

Christian, they usually think about being a Protestant. In other words, I'm not a

01:01:54

Catholic. You're either a Catholic or you're a Christian. A Catholic is a Roman Catholic who sort of has all that.

01:02:03

And then a Christian is a Protestant. In other words, like a Baptist is a Christian, a Methodist is a

01:02:09

Christian. Well, a Christian and Protestant are not synonymous.

01:02:15

In other words, I am not a Protestant. I'm actually ordained in the assemblies of God, or actually

01:02:22

I was. I'm no longer in the assemblies, but I was ordained in the assemblies for over 20 something years.

01:02:29

But the thing is, I'm not a Protestant. I'm a Jew who believes in our

01:02:34

Messiah. So it's like when you say the word, you know, a Messianic Jew, I'm a Jew who believes in the

01:02:39

Messiah. But to me, the word Christian and Messianic is exactly the same word.

01:02:44

One is in Greek and one is in, you know, Hebrew. I'm not a

01:02:50

Protestant. Now, I mean, this can get into a very long discussion, but in other words, well, this can get in a really long discussion.

01:02:59

I don't know that we want to... I do have so many questions, you know, like for their next call and just kind of leapfrogging off of this, you know, as a

01:03:07

Christian, what should my relationship be to my Jewish friends? And as a, you know, what, how do we care about, you know, somebody of a different faith that is actually very similar?

01:03:17

And I think that that is in a later conversation, but I think

01:03:22

I just want to kind of tie this up with one of the verses that you sent me. And it was the Romans 1, 16.

01:03:28

And I just think that this like almost brought me to tears when you sent it to me with, for I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes, first to the

01:03:39

Jew, then to the Gentile. Amen. And I'm the Gentile, right?

01:03:46

Yes. See, the thing that's really interesting, again, we get off into a whole thing here, but in the book of Ephesians is the epistle that Paul wrote that talks about the church or the body of Christ and Ephesians 2,

01:04:04

Paul explains that in Christ, that there was one like new man created that was

01:04:12

Jew and Gentile, one new man. So it's not a Jew. You should,

01:04:19

I can read it. Ephesians 2. Yes.

01:04:26

2, 11 through 22. Well, it's everywhere. And I mean, it's the whole book, but therefore keep in mind that once you

01:04:32

Gentiles in the flesh, we're called answer here. Let me read in the version that you're more. Yeah.

01:04:38

Let's do NIV. I like NIV. I'm going to go NIV 1984. I don't like the newer ones.

01:04:45

I can, I have it up if you, if you're, if you want to. Yeah. Now I've got right here. Okay. So it says, therefore, remember that formerly you who are

01:04:57

Gentiles by, by birth and called uncircumcised, uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcision without being done in the body of man's men.

01:05:06

Remember that at that time, you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise without hope and without God.

01:05:19

But now in Christ Jesus, you who are once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ for he himself speaking about Jesus.

01:05:28

Jesus is our peace who has made the two Jew and Gentile one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing in his flesh, the law with its commandments and regulations.

01:05:43

His purpose was to create in himself, one new man out of the two, out of the

01:05:51

Jew and the Gentile, a new man that's making peace. And then this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which he put to death their hostility.

01:06:04

He came and preached. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near to the

01:06:11

Gentile and to the Jew for through him, we both have access to the father by one spirit.

01:06:19

So the thing is, is that the church or those words, even the church,

01:06:24

I'd rather call it the bride because it's, it's, it's his bride, but it's meant to be

01:06:33

Jew and Gentile in the book of, you know, some of those, some of the other verses I sent you in Romans, you know,

01:06:40

Jew and Gentile, one in Messiah. What happens is that the body of Christ, the bride, the church was never intent.

01:06:50

By the way, there's a lot more in Ephesians that can go into this. The church was never meant to be a Gentile church.

01:06:56

It's meant to be a Jew and Gentile church, the Jew. And now it says in scripture in Galatians, it says that in Christ, there is no

01:07:06

Jew. There is no Gentile. There is no male. There is no female. There is no bond slave. There is no free.

01:07:12

And what Paul's explaining there basically is that as far as God is concerned, it doesn't matter if you're a

01:07:17

Jew or a Gentile, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, if you're a free person or a slave, God loves us all the same and equally, and none is better and none is more important.

01:07:27

But in the flesh and the physical, there are still men and women. There are still slaves and free people, and there are still

01:07:36

Jews and still Gentiles. Eight billion people approximately on earth.

01:07:42

And there are 16 and a half million Jewish people on earth, which accounts to like two tenths of 1 % of the world.

01:07:51

It's like Jewish, like 99 .8 % of the world are

01:07:58

Gentile, 0 .2 % are Jewish. And yet God says that the body of Christ, so there's always going to be more

01:08:09

Gentiles in the church or in the bride and the body of Christ, then there will be Jews. But the thing is, is just like a family,

01:08:20

God intended a family to be a husband and a wife, a father and a mother, not just a single mom, even though single moms sometimes have to do that, but that's not

01:08:31

God's plan. That's not the best he has. Well, the thing is, is the body of Christ is meant to be

01:08:38

Jew and Gentile together. And again, we'll get into this maybe some other time, but the return of Yeshua, the return of Christ is dependent on the

01:08:48

Jewish people coming to faith in him because that's, we can go through all those scriptures.

01:08:56

It's all there. But the thing is, is that, so I mean, even here, when you say like,

01:09:02

I mean, you had asked one question and I can give you a hundred answers for that. But one of the questions you said was like, you know, like why should, you know, sort of Gentiles or the church, you know, like even sort of care about the

01:09:14

Jews? Well, your savior's Jewish, your king and your Lord is

01:09:19

Jewish. So simple. Yeah, I want to end there just because that's such a good closing and an introduction to our next conversation in which that call,

01:09:34

I want to lean into, you know, why should we care about Jews in the, in this Christian world, in my Christian world, you know, let's be selfish about it in my own

01:09:42

Christian world. Why should I care about somebody in a different religion if we want to characterize it that way and how can

01:09:48

I, because, you know, it feels very siloed. And then I really want to jump into, you know, a couple of the questions that I sent before, just understanding that transition between Jewish to Christian, just in biblical times.

01:10:02

But I, I just want to thank you for sharing your testimony. This was such a good understanding. And I think a lot of people who are searching for answers right now, and they are searching everywhere but Christ, they're going to find themselves at Christ's feet because they still want to find the answer.

01:10:17

And he is the one true answer. And he is the creator of all of the things that they're currently seeking and in the occult and in Buddhism that was created by God.

01:10:26

But that isn't God. And slowly you'll find your way up that chain to him, the creator.

01:10:32

You know, can I throw another sort of quick little story in here?

01:10:38

Of course. No. Well, I mean, I know you're at the closing there and this is something that in a certain sense,

01:10:46

I almost have like a shame or whatever to say, but I love it because of, you know, his sense of humor.

01:10:57

I mean, God, God is so funny and he has such a sense of humor.

01:11:03

What happens is when I got, I got, got, got married to my wife. Now I was a jubu.

01:11:10

My wife was an agnostic Episcopalian. We got married by a judge at a country club.

01:11:15

And the thing is, is we talked before we got married. We talked about, you know, what are we going to do?

01:11:23

If we have kids, what are we going to do if we have kids? And she didn't really care.

01:11:30

And I said, well, you know, we could either raise the kids as you know, under, under Judaism.

01:11:38

Because even though I don't really believe in God, our Jewish family structure is strong.

01:11:43

You know, people, people care for each other. There's not a lot of alcoholics like our family. And forgive me,

01:11:49

Nancy, if you watch this anyway. So it's the truth, but so the thing is, is or we could raise him as a

01:11:59

Buddhist. You know, we could, we could, you know, like raise our, our, our children as Buddhists or we don't have to raise them as anything.

01:12:06

But I said to her, I will never raise my children under Christ.

01:12:14

Now, that's what I meant. That was what came out of my mouth. When we were getting married, before we got married in 1985, now we got, you know, we were both born again.

01:12:25

We got saved in 1991, you know, six years after we had been married.

01:12:34

And about two years later, I'm in my car driving and the Lord speaks to me.

01:12:40

I'm singing, you know, like praise and worship to him. And he speaks to me and says, you know, you know, you will have a son.

01:12:46

And I went, oh, great. And so I go home and I say to my wife, I said, are you pregnant? She goes, no.

01:12:53

I said, well, you know, the Lord told us that we're going to have a son. And nothing ever happens.

01:12:58

Nothing ever happens. We moved to Indiana, part of that, how we got to Arizona. And we go to every like doctor and every specialist and all the doctors and the specialists and everybody say, you will never have children.

01:13:16

You will never have children. And I just said, you know, if I heard God or I believe

01:13:21

I heard God, then we're going to have a son. And if it was something that I ate the night before, then we won't. But we don't need to do in vitro.

01:13:28

We don't need to, in other words, basically 14 years after God told us we're going to have a son, when we moved out here to Arizona, I turned 50.

01:13:41

I started having neck problems and things like that. And I'm praying. I'm going, Lord, you know,

01:13:47

God, you're God. You know, Abraham was 100. Sarah was 90. Nothing's impossible for you.

01:13:52

But Abraham and Sarah both had servants and we don't have any servants. That's like, we're going to have to raise this child ourselves.

01:13:59

And so if you're going to do this, do this now. And right after that, she got pregnant after 22 years of our marriage.

01:14:07

And we have a son. And our son is on fire for Jesus.

01:14:15

When he was in Israel, he got, you know, you know, baptized in the Holy Spirit on Pentecost in Jerusalem in Israel.

01:14:23

Yeah. Well, he's right. But the thing that I just find that's so funny is that, you know, we like go,

01:14:32

I'll never raise my children under Christ. And God's like, oh, yeah, watch this.

01:14:39

A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I told God I'd never start a podcast. I would never put myself on the internet publicly.

01:14:47

That's like the quickest way to get to God's plan is telling him exactly what you want to do. I don't use the word never.

01:14:54

The word never is no longer in my vocabulary at all. But I stay away from that word.

01:15:02

Yeah. You're telling yourself you'll never become a Christian. You absolutely will become a Christian. I'll tell you what.

01:15:10

It's funny when we would be out sharing Yeshua, sharing Jesus in cities with like a sort of Jewish people in parks.

01:15:19

And I had a friend who would go with us and he'd be talking to a

01:15:27

Jewish person. And the Jewish person would go, well, I will never believe in Christ. And as he's walking away, my friend would just go, you know, hey,

01:15:36

Harry, that's what we all said. Famous last words.

01:15:43

We all said that. Wow. Anyways.

01:15:49

Oh, my gosh. I'm so excited for the next conversation. This is such an exciting place to end and also begin.

01:15:55

So thank you for your time. And thank you for being patient with me during all the tech issues. Satan really didn't want us to talk today, but we are here.

01:16:03

Amen. All right. Well, I just want to say thank you. And is there anything you want to plug right now?

01:16:10

Do you want to plug Zion Church just for anybody listening? I want to plug Yeshua. God is on the throne and it's all about him.

01:16:19

And if you call him, he'll answer you. You'll hear from him. So I'm good.

01:16:26

Thank you so much for coming. Although Zion City Church is in Tucson and it's a wonderful place and you're welcome. We do a

01:16:31

Shabbat service once a month on the first Friday of the month. There it is. There we go. Thank you so much.