A Whirlwind Tour Through the Middle East – A Heartfelt Sharing by Pastor D
From what I gathered, the broad religious orientations within the Jewish communities in Israel are orthodox, reformed, messianic, and secular. Jews aside, other people of Palestinian and Arab descents also live in Israel with their own religious affiliations. Our tour guide in Israel was an Arab Christian, “my family was Christian before Islam was born,” said Nahzee.
Pastor D was my father’s Israeli contact. He came to speak to us about his life, his faith and his work as the pastor of a messianic church in Israel.
It must first be noted that the messianic Jews make up a very small population in Israel. Few Jewish people (in the world too) believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. There are historical and cultural reasons, but those few Jews that do believe in Jesus Christ are prepared to experience many trials.
Pastor D was one such rare messianic Israeli. He came to share with us his visions and views on Israel’s past and future.
Pastor D’s father was a German Jew. He was the sole survivor of the Holocaust in his family. Just before he was sent to Auschwitz, the Nazi’s shot him in both of his legs. They further denied any medical treatment for him. As such, the odds were highly against him for survival. Yet for some reason, the wounds were free from infections. By the time the Nazi’s lined him up for “selection” into the gas chamber, he was able to walk slowly and he proved himself capable of walking. He hang on in Auschwitz for half a year.
The people in Auschwitz knew that the Russians were coming to liberate the camps. The Nazi’s, before the final defeat, made the Jewish prisoners do the “final march.” Pastor D’s father even survived that with his wounded legs. He weighed 80 pounds when he was finally released from the concentration camp.
After the war, Pastor D’s father soon made his way to Israel and settled down. That explained why it was uncommon for a Jewish person at Pastor D’s age to have been born in Israel. Pastor D grew up Christian due to his mother’s influence. He always saw in his father’s experience the very hand of God protecting his father. It was furthermore God’s miracle that enabled his own birth. He grew up hearing God’s voice, and he always sought God’s guidance in life.
He joined the army as an officer. One time, he was riding in a tank and in the pitch darkness the Lord told him the tank would flip if they made their way forward. He warned the driver, but after the urging of the navigator they pushed on. Pastor D then kneeled within the enclosed part of the tank because he trusted God’s guidance. The tank flipped; the navigator died immediately. One other soldier who did not seek cover also died that night. Pastor D has himself experienced the Lord’s miraculous protection in his own life.
When he was seeking a wife, he prayed for a “Proverbs 31 woman.” He conveyed his courtship experience with much humor, and we certainly felt the love between him and his wife, with God himself as the matchmaker.
The day after Israel declared statehood, five neighboring Arab nations launched an attack. At the time, Israel had a fledgling army and little provisions. The British withdrew, and before they left, they confiscated every piece of weapon that their search yielded. Israel managed to save 18,000 guns. In a brigade of 100 soldiers, 40 did not have weapons. Yet in that terribly under-armed condition, Israel won as a new nation.
In the subsequent years, Israel would see seven more wars and would have won all of them. The population grew more than three to four folds in a few decades. Pastor D attributed this to be a fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy of an army of dried bones, growing flesh after the holocaust and slowly to form itself through a physical renewal (Ezekiel 37). Thus Israel marched into statehood.
Pastor D’s reading of Israel was the slow and gradually appearing trend of spiritual revival. He saw the growing recognition of Jesus as Messiah and God’s son. The Jewish people’s hatred toward Jesus arose mostly from the view that the Jews have suffered greatly at the hands of “Christian” nations. Once it was commonly thought that any Jewish person who believed in Jesus would end up in hell. However, that mentality might be slowly changing now. Although the messianic church was attacked by Orthodox factions, Pastor D held his ground and persevered through his faith.
I thought Pastor D was thorough and explained the Jewish viewpoint very persuasively. He was the first Holocaust survivor that I have personally met. Although his father also persecuted Christianity and resisted Christ, in his final year he did accept Jesus Christ. Every blessing in Pastor D’s life was a witness to the Lord’s miraculous doing, and he lived to preach the Lord’s word.
I certainly hoped that the tour group, with mostly mid-aged mainland Chinese, has learned something special from Pastor D’s life, ministry and family history. This lecture was not the usual knowledge that regular tours provided, and it was one of the most memorable experiences on this tour.
