The very first thing I responded with was a very profound, silent prayer. Welcome to Connections with Rich and Bobbie. Hi, I'm Rich, Rich Homeris. And I'm Bobbie, Bobbie Hamlin. Well, we've come to our concluding episode of our visit with Pastor Joe Jacowicz and his thrilling story. If you've missed any part of it or would like to listen again, it's all captured on our website at Connections with Rich and Bobbie. That's all one word. And Bobbie is spelled with an I dot com. And we'll repeat that address later in the program. Now when we left off, Joe and his wife were attending an Orthodox Jewish wedding of his niece. Several rabbis and other Jewish leaders were there, and Joe stood out as a Jew who had become a Christian. The next day after the wedding reception, the immediate family, myself and my immediate family, were invited, because we were part of the wedding party, over to the rabbi's house, the chief rabbi who hosted the wedding at his synagogue. So there was about 30 or 40 people in the wedding party from both sides, the groom and the bride, that were invited to his house for dinner. And all of the men sat around one, like, huge, big table that only the men seat at, that can hold about 16 to 20 persons. The women sat at another table on the other side of the room, separated by a curtain. And so at the table where I was sitting, at the head of the table, there were like three or four rabbis and the groom who also, you know, they all have beards and black hats. They look like Quakers, but they wear this Jewish Orthodox garb. And the mother of the groom had a boyfriend and he was sitting next to me. The night before at dinner, the boyfriend says to me that he's a Christian. He says, oh, you're a pastor. He says, well, I'm a Christian and I go to such and such a church. And so I got to know him a little bit. We're back now at the dinner and suddenly we're talking and I'm talking to the Orthodox Jew next to me and suddenly the rabbi stamps his hand on the table to get everybody's attention and then he looks at me and he says, so Joseph we're glad you can come to the dinner. He says, so tell us how did you become a pastor and why did you leave the Jewish faith? Let me ask you, did anything go through your mind? Like, how deeply should I get into this? Or were you thrilled to say, what an opportunity to talk about the Lord? Well, the very first thing I responded with was a very profound, silent prayer. Help! I cried out to God. The next thought that came to my mind and this is of course very quickly in the matter of just mere seconds I cried out help and then I thought to myself well Joe God's been preparing you your entire Christian life for this with all the knowledge he's given you about Judaism and defending the Christian faith against Judaism and showing how Christianity is the completion of Judaism and the fulfillment of it as it has progressively developed through biblical theology starting in the Old Testament and being fulfilled and completed in the New Testament. And all of these verses that I have memorized, all of these references in the Old Testament to the Messiah just flooded back into my mind. God swept through my body a sense of peace and calmness. God just reminded me that he prepared me and trained me for a time such as this. So, for the next 20 minutes, I began to share the Gospel, keeping in mind their background and their perspective as Jews. As a Jew, I became a Jew. And I specifically referenced Romans chapter 11, Romans chapter 10, where the Apostle Paul makes a case as to why Jesus is the Messiah. I quoted about 15 messianic passages and prophecies in the Old Testament proving that only Jesus could have been the Messiah. I referenced Isaiah 714. I quoted it word for word where God says there, And the Jews, I'm very familiar with their response to that text where they say, Oh, that's a young woman. It doesn't mean virgin. And so I immediately, before anyone could say anything, I explained to them in Hebrew that the word ha'amah means virgin in most of the verses it's found in, but the final authority to determine whether ha-alma means virgin or young woman is the context. Now, if it meant young woman, then a young woman conceiving and bearing a son would not be a sign because young women conceive every day and bear children. But if a virgin conceives and bears a child, now that's a sign to Israel from God about the Messiah. So I went to Isaiah 9.6, Behold unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. I went to Psalm 2 where it says, Kiss the son lest he be angry. Put your trust in him, the second person of the Godhead. The Jews don't believe in the Trinity. They only believe in a monotheistic view of God, like one being. We believe in one God manifested in three persons, though, as Christians. And I quoted Psalm 22, which was the very words the suffering Messiah would say on the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I quoted Daniel, where it says the Messiah will be cut off or killed 400 years after the last prophet of Israel which was Malachi and Jesus was crucified 400 years after the last prophet died. So if it wasn't Jesus, somebody else back then had to be the Messiah. And they were getting more and more convicted, deeply convicted as those minutes went by. I glanced to my left to the Jewish guy from France who was attending the wedding and he turned white and he began shaking in his chair with such great conviction. Now, what about the Christian guy that was sitting next to you? Was he cheering you on and just saying, go, go? Oh, no, just the opposite. So, as the men got more and more restless, they were uncomfortable in their seats and the chief rabbi who was in charge was looking around at them, getting nervous and uncomfortable. out of conviction. The guy next to me, this professing Christian, kept distracting me. It was so annoying. He was elbowing me in my side and he would whisper once or twice under his breath. He said, stop, stop. He's saying, don't talk anymore. He said, don't you know that you're being very rude? You know, you're at this man's house, you're his guest. And so I didn't say anything to him because I didn't want to ruin the momentum and the flow. of what was going on, so I just shook it off and didn't say anything to him and I kept speaking, I kept speaking. Wow, what a challenge on both sides of the table, with a Jewish audience on one side and a so-called Christian sitting next to him, embarrassed, trying to get him to stop on the other side. Yes, the enemy always shows up, trying to silence the gospel. We'll return to Joe's story in just a moment, so stay with us. You're listening to Connections with Rich and Bobby, and we'd love to connect with you. Just go to our website at connectionswithrichandbobby.com. That's connectionswithrichandbobby.com. There, as we mentioned earlier, 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, posting on Instagram, or tweeting us on Twitter. Now let's return to Joe's story as he continues talking about his amazing, but very challenging, opportunity to share the gospel with all these Jewish leaders. Finally, after 20 minutes, I gave him the full gospel. The chief rabbi stands up and he begins to clap his hands together and pound the table and singing a Jewish song to totally change the conversation because he saw that all the men were getting convicted. So after they started singing the song, I was praising God that I had such an opportunity. They were all born witness to the truth that Jesus Christ... And I told them, I said, Jesus Christ had to be the Messiah. I said, there were over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament about the Messiah. Precise prophecies about where He would be born, how He would die, what His name would be, what He would say on the cross. And Jesus fulfilled all of those prophecies to the letter. Nobody else could possibly be the Messiah. And their eyes grew open. I said, you men know the Hebrew. You know what I'm saying is true. You know you can't mutilate those prophecies in the Old Testament and make them say something that you want them to say. And they were grumbling. And then finally the rabbi wrested control of the conversation. And then after it was done, I turned to this so-called Christian. And I said to him, I said, why were you distracting me? He says, well, don't you know you were being very rude? I said, let me explain something to you. I said, you should not have been distracting me. You should have been praying for me. If you were faithful to God, you would have seen and discerned what was taking place. I said, the rabbi asked me what happened. He asked me why I changed from being a Jew to trusting in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I was answering his very direct question. It's like the Apostle Paul said, for I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it's the power unto salvation that you were committed, that you were compelled to declare the full counsel of God. Well, my wife and I did pray before we went and flew to Miami for the wedding that God would open the door of witness, but I had no idea. that it would be this great an opportunity where they would ask me specifically about how I became a Christian and left Judaism and they would have all their chief leaders there. Now, Joe, as we close out here, do you have any final thoughts or challenges that you'd like to share regarding not only being a faithful witness when called upon, but just anything that you'd like to share with our audience? I think it's very important to be faithful to God as a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether you have to be instant in season or out of season, whether you're prepared to share the gospel or not, You should, at the moment, ask God to help you and step through that open door of opportunity and share the gospel. Share what you know. Don't keep the gospel secret. Don't hold it to yourself. Most Christians hear thousands of sermons over their lifetime. They have so much knowledge about the Lord and the gospel. We need to share it. You know, the Lord says we need to labor while it is day, for the night comes when no one can work. and so we need to serve God now each day because as each day goes by we can never get that time or that day back again. We're a step closer to being with the Lord and we should use our all, all the skills, knowledge, all the we have about the gospel, all the opportunities we have for God's glory because God gives them to us deliberately. He trains us We accumulate these skills and this experience for a reason. Nothing happens randomly. And He uses all of it. He wastes nothing, even the bad experiences, the pain and tribulations we go through. Use all that God has given you in terms of your knowledge and experience for His glory each and every day. Waste nothing. 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. And what a wonderful way to close our visit with Pastor Joe Jakowicz, by reminding all those listening of the glorious grace and mercy of God. And what a fantastic true life story Pastor Joe has that proves that that's true. Well, in our next podcast, we're transitioning from a Jewish person to a man from Holland who shares his exciting story, which is like a Robinson Crusoe adventure. So be sure to join us then and invite others to join us for these life changing stories. You've been listening to Connections with Rich and Bobby, 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. It's free. And again, if you've missed any episode or would like to scroll down and listen to another in our library, or would like to refer someone to hear our podcast, just go to connectionswithrichandbobby.com. And if you have a smart speaker, you can also listen to us there by simply saying Alexa, Siri, or Hey Google, play the podcast Connections with Rich and Bobby. And you can connect with us through social media on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. 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.