I just had this deep longing and craving in my heart to be able to preach and teach the Word of God in a way that would feed the sheep. Welcome to Connections with Rich and Bobby. Hi, I'm Bobby, Bobby Hamlin. And I'm Rich, Rich Homeris. Well, again, we're continuing with our visit with Joe Jakowicz, who grew up as a Jew on his way to becoming a rabbi, when his life took a dramatic turn while in the military and he became a Christian. He instead felt called into the ministry and became a pastor. This is where we'll pick up in his story. No one is ever beyond saving. No one is ever not worth praying for. Should we say that? That we can always bring it before the Lord and we should never consider somebody beyond salvation. I would say, Bobby, never ever give up until their last breath. So right down to a person's last breath, I would encourage you, my friend, to share the gospel. I've been at the deathbeds of many people being called there as a pastor. And you have to be bold. You need courage from the Lord. You need peace and boldness and love and wisdom to be able to share the gospel. But don't hesitate to share at the deathbed of a dying person who is not converted. The thief on the cross. Nobody but our Lord knew that this day you will be with me in paradise. As far as everyone else knew, He was a criminal. He was worthy of being crucified. He had done horrific things and yet He was there on the cross. And He and only our Lord knew that this day you will be with me in paradise. Yes, what comfort to leave this world as a criminal nailed to a cross, paying the debt, the sin debt that He owed. In His case, He had to actually pay it. and he had to suffer the consequences for his sin, but he had the comfort and peace to know that within hours he would be in paradise with the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And that shows us the depths of God's mercy, in that God demonstrated His love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So if you're not a Christian and you're listening to this program, Oh, I plead with you to put your trust in Jesus Christ, whether you're in a prison, you're on your deathbed, or whether you're just struggling with this weight of guilt and sin on your shoulders. You're an obscure person, nobody knows you, you don't have any friends, you don't have any family. But God is there. And as long as you're still alive, you have hope. You can turn to Christ. You can put your trust in Him. He will hear your prayers. Jesus said, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. For there is no favoritism with God. Whether you be a Jew or a Gentile, Greek, or whoever you are, man, woman, boy or girl, God shows mercy to all who call upon Him. Now, Pastor Joe, you mentioned that you've been called to the deathbed of many as a pastor. You do weddings. You have various obligations as a pastor. So let's go back to your story. How did you become a pastor? How did God call you into the ministry? I was baptized two weeks later after I became a Christian. I started attending the church of the man who led me to the Lord. It was Grace Baptist Church located in Wilmington, North Carolina. and from time to time the church would ask an evangelist to come and preach and one particular week there was an evangelist named Dolphus Price who was well known in southern circles among fundamental Baptists. One Sunday he was the speaker at our church at Grace Baptist in Wilmington and he was preaching in a way that I got caught up with the glory of beholding Christ And it so spoke to my heart. It melted my heart afresh in love for Christ. But it also opened up something in my heart and mind of the glory of preaching. You know where it says, how beautiful the feet of those are of those who preach the gospel. I had this epiphany of what an honor and privilege it would be if I could preach like that. I just had this deep longing and craving in my heart to be able to preach and teach the Word of God in a way that would feed the sheep, help them and encourage them, nourish them in the faith. I had a desire just to do that for the glory of God alone, for the advancement of the church. I just didn't look at it as something as a springboard to draw attention to myself. But I thought to myself, wouldn't it be wonderful if God would give me such a gift to be able to help others, that they would love Christ more, that they would follow Christ more diligently. And God etched and placed that strong desire to preach and teach in my heart. And from there I began to pray about what gift God had for me, whether that would be a gift He would want me to develop and pursue, as well as being a pastor. And how about, again, your family and friends? Weren't they surprised when you wanted to not only believe in Jesus on your own, but wanted to become a pastor and share that with the world? Well, they were indeed. After my conversion, I was still in the Marine Corps. I had one year left before my enlistment was up. And I began to pray, Lord, what do you want me to do with my life? I want to serve you. I consecrate my life to you. What do you want me to do? I thought, well, maybe the Lord would have me make a career out of the Marine Corps. Certainly I was not going to become a rabbi now that I became a Christian. And so it opened up the door for me to consider what does the Lord want me to do with my life? And the other option was to go into law enforcement, which I did for a little while. And the third thing, which grew in a stronger and stronger desire over time, was to be a pastor. And when I shared that with my family, they thought I was crazy. Most Jews don't become Christians, let alone pastors or ministers. They become doctors or lawyers, accountants, or one of the professions. But not this Jew. I felt a call to become a pastor and to devote my life to Jesus Christ with the gift he has given me. And they eventually went along with everything. They had no choice. But over 20, 30 years, they saw the change in me, and they saw that God had truly given me that calling. agreed that that was my trade, so to speak, what God called me to do. This call to the ministry is described in Romans 10 verse 15 that says, And how shall they preach, unless they be sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things. And we'll return to Joe's story in just a moment, so stay with us. You're listening to Connections with Rich and Bobbi, and we'd love to connect with you. Just go to our website at connectionswithrichandbobbi, that's all one word, and bobbi is B-O-B-B-I dot com. That's connectionswithrichandbobbi.com. There, all of our podcasts are posted, along with all of our contact information. Also, you can connect with us on social media by friending us on Facebook, post on Instagram, or tweet us on Twitter. Now, let's return to Joe as he continues talking about his call as a Christian pastor. Now, as your background coming from the neighborhoods of Brooklyn all the way through the Marine Corps, but mostly your heritage as a Jewish person, has that given you opportunity to be able to be a witness to those of your same background? Oh, absolutely. It seems like as more time goes by, I have an opportunity to witness to Jewish people more and more, even rabbis. About two years ago, my niece Katie got engaged. She's an Orthodox Jew. She became very religious. We grew up in a conservative Jewish home. But as a young lady, over time she became more religious. And like me, she pursued Judaism at first in seeking answers about the meaning of life. And so she embraced Judaism very heavily. She actually became an Orthodox Jew, joined herself to a local synagogue congregation of Jews, and she learned Hebrew. She went on three trips to Israel, spent a lot of time in Israel. She went to Hebrew University, learned how to speak Hebrew, conversational Hebrew, and she got heavily involved in Orthodox Judaism. especially the Chabad branch of Orthodox Judaism. They're very radical, to say the least, and they're very dedicated as Jews. In her movement and the Chabad movement, the rabbi's wives serve as matchmakers and they have a national or international network and database of potential eligible marriage types of both men and women and so the rabbi's wife of her congregation here in Palo Alto California matched her up with a Jewish Orthodox man in Miami Beach, Florida. So they began to communicate and email and talk on the phone and there was an arranged marriage. They had an Orthodox wedding in Miami Beach and the whole family flew down there. Her mother, my sister, that is, my mother and the immediate family, my children, they all flew down to Miami Beach and it was a traditional Jewish wedding just like the wedding on Fiddler on the Roof I wore a yarmulke. We were in the audience, and the men sat on one side of the congregation, the women on the other, and they had three or four different rabbis participate, and they had a traditional wedding where the mothers and a few of the other women march around the bride who is sitting up on the stage. She has a veil covering her face. She's sitting in a royal chair, and they march around the bride seven times. with some traditional chanting and then the groom comes up and the veil has been over the face of the bride all day long but the groom comes up and he's the only one allowed to lift the veil and finally he lifts the veil and then they both stand up together arm in arm in front of the rabbi and he says some traditional sayings and then they're married. We all went into the reception room And they were like dancing like Russians, you know, with their arms folded. And they put the groom on a chair on a table and lifted him up. And there was a circle of about 50 to 100 men who were just going around in a circle, a revolving circle, singing Jewish chants and songs. And he's on the chair with a drink. You know, they were drinking heavily, some of the young men. Here are Orthodox Jews getting drunk there in the synagogue. So, while I'm sitting in the audience, you know, sitting at one of the reception tables, watching all this, and I'm looking at my wife, you know, a rabbi walks up to me and he says, That's one of my Yiddish names in Hebrew for Joseph, is Yassal. Yassal, and my name is Rabbi So-and-so, and I'm Katie's rabbi, and I said, oh, it's nice to meet you. I've heard a little bit about you from Katie. He says, yes, we've heard about you as well. He says, we understand you're a Christian, even that you're a pastor. You have left us. Can you tell me why? Why did you leave Judaism, and why did you become a pastor? I said, Rabbi, when we get back to California, I would be more than happy to drive to Palo Alto and talk with you more about this. He said, oh, I'd love that. So we exchanged business cards, and I did that when we got back to California. We spent three hours together talking about the question, who is the Messiah? And from the Old Testament, and I quoted tons of scripture. Sharing one's faith to whomever the Lord leads our way, even to a person well-schooled in the scriptures, like in Joe's case, to a rabbi. Well, there's still more. In our concluding podcast of Joe's story, he talks about being put on the spot by the Sanhedrin. leaders of the Jewish faith, so be sure to join us then, and invite others to join us for these life-changing stories on our podcast. Just point them to our website at ConnectionsWithRichAndBobby.com. That's ConnectionsWithRichAndBobby.com. Now you've been listening to Connections with Rich and Bobbi, and we'd love to have you subscribe to our podcast on this platform or any of the others like iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify. If you have a smart speaker, you can listen by simply saying, play the podcast Connections with Rich and Bobbi. And you can connect with us on social media on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. So please do take a moment to let us know about you. And we'd love to hear any feedback about what you've heard on our podcasts. This is Connections, connecting with one another as Romans 1 verse 12 says, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. So thank you for listening and remember, tell others and spread the word, God's word. And don't forget to join us next time on Connections with Rich and Bobby.