2nd of November 2024
You would be able to appreciate this article more if I refer you to the previous articles below under this heading of Jewish Evangelism. There I have given an account of how I met an old Jewish man named Yisrael. I met Yisrael in Seapoint for the first time on the first Shabat of November, the 6th of November 2021. Then, “coincidentally”, I met Yisrael a year later, on the first Shabat of November, the 5th of November 2022. Of course, we know that with God there are no coincidences and that God Himself is able to make divine appointments take place whenever He deems it necessary to do so. So on that first Shabat of November 2022, when We were sitting, relaxing on the park bench that overlooks the promenade and the sea, Yisrael came walking along the sidewalk and I had another opportunity to share the Gospel with him, this time by reading some of Isaiah 53 to him, after which I listened to him tell me a little about his life growing up in a religious neighbourhood in Israel.
So fast forward now to the first Shabat of November, the 2nd of November 2024. I had no idea in my mind that the two dates on which I had met Yisrael in previous years were both the first Shabat of November. Neither did I have any expectation whatsoever of meeting Yisrael. I simply had gone to Seapoint to do some evangelism, after another very long time of absence from doing evangelism in Seapoint. So on this first Shabat of November 2024, I arrive in my car and look for a parking place, parking at the first vacant parking place that I could find close to the Seapoint promenade. I was not feeling very “spiritual” at that moment, especially after a long drive through the busy Saturday afternoon traffic. So I decided to pray for a while until I could sense God’s Spirit guiding me. It took a while, maybe half an hour or so, but my spirit began to sense God’s Spirit. I tarried in that place of His Presence a little while longer and then I realized that it was already late in the day and that I would have to get out of my car and do what I had come to Seapoint for. So I opened the door of my car and as I was closing it, there right next to my car, was a little old man slowly walking past. Could it be Yisrael? Two years had past, so I had forgotten what he looked like. Also, my mind was not able to absorb just how much of a coincidence it was that I, in my random choice of parking place, random choice of time to exit my car, would meet Yisrael again for the third time. To make it even more significant a coincidence, Yisrael was not standing, but walking slowly in the direction of Green Point. If I had come out of my car a few seconds later, he would have by then been further away from my car, hidden from my view by the many other people who had come to enjoy the sunny weather as they walked along the sidewalk. Not fully recognizing him, I asked him how he was and he responded humorously in Yiddish. He told me that his name is Yisrael, before I could get the chance to recall his name from my memory. “Don’t tell me your surname”, I said to him, “I remember it”. I did indeed remember his surname, because it is such an unusual yet distinctively Jewish sounding surname. So I made it known to Yisrael that I had remembered his surname. He continued to walk though in the same direction that he was walking in when I had got out of the car, so I had to walk and talk with him at the same time. As we progressed, we discussed in Hebrew the war and the current political situation in Israel and I had opportunity to hear him tell me more about his life and what circumstances brought him in 1966 from Bnei Brak, a religious suburb in Tel-Aviv Israel, to Malmesbury in the Western Cape. He also told me about his son, who is a successful IT engineer in London and who is helping his father and his mother financially, also sometimes visiting from London and even paying for them to fly out to London to visit him and his family. As we walked and talked along the sidewalk closest to the promenade, I was also able to testify about my faith in Y’shua the Messiah. Along the way there were some anti-Israel, anti-Zionists making a big noise about their contempt for Jews, Zionists and Israel, even holding placards upon which were written “f_ Israel” (the full word, not just the “f”). as we got near to them, I said to Yisrael in Hebrew “come, let’s get away from this crowd”, wanting to avoid a situation of abuses being hurled at us. However, Yisrael was completely unfazed and simply continued to walk through this rowdy crowd as we talked together in Hebrew, the language of Zionists!
When we had walked a considerable distance, we turned back in the direction from which we had come. On returning to my car, I asked him how I could possibly meet him again, seeing that he rarely even answers his phone. He said to me in Hebrew “Gavri-el, ha mal-ach sheli yesader”, which means “Gabriel, my angel, will organize it”. When I was back in my car, I wondered if, seeing that both my previous encounters with Yisrael were on the same date, this time could possibly be the same date. I could not recall the date, so I searched this same page on my blog to see what the date was of my first and second encounters with Yisrael. To my amazement, both previous encounters that I had with Yisrael were on the first Shabat of November of 2021 and 2022. This, now my third encounter with Yisrael, was on the first Shabat of November of 2024. Now that is no coincidence. When we choose to obey God, He goes before us and prepares the way, even providing us with divine appointments! We don’t have to plan, for even when we think that our choices are random, not one of our steps are random to God.
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Bank: Capitec
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Account Number: 1664506126
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Jewish Evangelism
6th of November 2021
Today, instead of our normal Shabat meeting, the Lord advised me that it would be necessary to go out to Seapoint to do some evangelism. Keep in mind that I have not been involved in evangelism for more than two years, one reason being covid19, which has been an enormous deterrent to face-to-face evangelism. I believe that another reason is that the Lord sometimes separates us from a particular ministry in order for us to grow roots in Him so that we become more fruitful in that ministry further along the line.
So the last time that we evangelized in Seapoint, which was about two years ago, we were under tremendous spiritual attack from the enemy. This manifested itself in the way of my brother in Messiah being assaulted by a small, angry old Jewish man.
Thank you all of you who prayed for our outreach today. It could never have been such a success without your prayers, which were answered by the Lord.
Today, before we ventured out into our mission field, that being Seapoint promenade, we prayed for the Lord’s wisdom and assistance. This is what the Holy Spirit told me whilst we were in prayer:
“I am sending you out to sow valuable seed that will grow and germinate into fruitful trees which will provide shade and fruit to families, communities and nations. Some of the seed will fall upon the path. Some of the seed will fall upon the rocky places. Some of the seed will fall amongst thorns. Some of the seed will fall upon fertile soil. Don’t be dissuaded by your human limitations. The seed that I give you to sow has nothing to do with you and everything to do with who I am, the eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent God and My Kingdom. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone opens the door I will come in and dine with him and him with Me.”
The Holy Spirit then revealed to me that we were entering a harvest field. In the natural, you could only see people milling around on this Saturday morning. But in the Holy Spirit, it was a harvest field. Some of the people in the field are a hardened path. Some of the people in the field are rocky places. Some of the people in the field are thorns. But the harvest is the people who are fertile soil for the Gospel. The Holy Spirit said:
“Open up your mouth wide oh field and I will sow my seed into you for the harvest. I am opening you up oh harvest field. I am opening you up for the Eternal Gospel of My Son Jesus Christ. I am removing every obstacle that may lie in the path of my sowers of seed.”
The Lord said that we must always pray earnestly before we enter the harvest field, that He may give us His wisdom and His assistance, in order that we may see not in the natural but in the Holy Spirit, that we may see in the Holy Spirit the ripeness of the field that He is taking us into.
I approached a young man who was walking boldy along the promenade. I asked him who he thought Jesus is. He said “Jesus is a man who started a world movement”. He said that he didn’t know more than that about Jesus, because he was Jewish. I told him that I am also Jewish and I could see that he was visibly surprized to hear me say that. He was not offended though and was willing to give me some of his time. So I began to quote Isaiah 53 to him: “Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed”. I asked him if he could understand Hebrew and he said that he could. So I quoted the last part of Isaiah 53 to him in Hebrew, then translating into English: “For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors”. He said to me that he could see that Isaiah was talking about the Messiah, but he also said that he had heard that Jesus had fulfilled all but one of those descriptions of the Messiah made by Isaiah. I knew that the Holy Spirit would convince this young Jewish man of the truth; that Jesus fulfilled every one of those prophecies that Isaiah had prophesied about the Messiah. So he went off on his way. The precious seed of the Gospel of Yshua HaMashiach had been sown, because he had been willing to listen to my words.
We then proceeded to turn away from the see towards the road. There I saw a small, old Jewish man walking along. We began to have a conversation and I discovered that he was an Israeli who had spent many years in the Western Cape. His name is Yisrael. He had lived some years in Malmesbury, before meeting his wife and finding a job in Cape Town as a diamond cutter. We spoke in Hebrew. I asked him who he thought Yshua (Jesus) was. He asked me if I meant Yshua of Nazareth and I said yes, Yshua from Nazareth, the son of Joseph. He answered that he knew about Yshua, but that he did not accept him yet to be the Messiah. I asked Yisrael if he was willing to let me speak to him on future occasions about what the Jewish Old Testament says about Yshua the Messiah and Yisrael said that he was willing to let me do so. It is very unusual for a Jewish person to be open to hearing about the Gospel of Jesus. It is even more extraordinary for a Jewish person to be willing to have further meetings for discussions about Jesus. So for sure, your prayers were answered, because the Lord put in my path a very extraordinary Jewish man who is willing to find out who Jesus is.
Please continue to pray for this ministry. Jewish evangelism is not just about meeting Jewish people and preaching the gospel to them. It takes time to really develop a Jewish person’s trust and to explain to them what the bible says about who Jesus is and how their Jewish beliefs, culture and identity tie up with who he is. If the Lord places it on your heart, please consider donating to this ministry:
Bank: Capitec
Account Holder: Goodolivetree
Account Number: 1664506126
Branch Code: 470010
Jewish Evangelism
5th of November 2022
To all who prayed for our outreach in Sea Point, thank you. The outreach was blessed and YHVH helped us to sow some good gospel seeds into the lives of some. It did require some “footwork” though as one young man was quite determined to get to his destination further along the promenade, but he was willing to discuss the important matters of the gospel that were presented to him. I could definitely sense that the Holy Spirit came upon him at the final moments of our discussion, which is most encouraging, because as Jesus said “no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him” (John 6:65).
But for me, the highlight of our time only came near the close of the day. We were sitting, relaxing on the park bench that overlooks the promenade and the sea (Shabat is for resting is it not?!) and who should come walking along the sidewalk but Yisrael. Now Yisrael is a very senior Israeli gentleman, who we met almost exactly a year ago (The Lord’s timing is impeccable is it not?) on a similar outreach. After that outreach, I was able to meet once with Yisrael at a certain restaurant, but thereafter I was not able to contact him. As we sat with Yisrael on the bench now again, he explained to me that he does not bring his phone with him when he is going out with his wife. Seeing that I had earnestly wanted to share with Yisrael some of the Messianic proofs from the Bible since our previous divine appointment, I took the opportunity to read Isaiah 53 in Hebrew to Yisrael. I got to about half-way through it and then he expressed some disinterest, so we changed the discourse to matters other than the Gospel. Again, no amount of “proof” can convince anyone unless the Holy Spirit draws them, so your prayers for the salvation of the Jewish community are appreciated. Nevertheless, it was a privilege to be able to listen to Yisrael share with me about his time growing up in an Orthodox neighbourhood in Israel and his acquaintance with one of Israel’s last “sages”, a man known as Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karlietz, otherwise known as the “Chazon iesh” (“Vision of a Man” – the name of a series of books written by him).
To support the ministry of Jewish Evangelism:
Bank: Capitec
Account Holder: Goodolivetree
Account Number: 1664506126
Branch Code: 470010