Apples of Gold Jan/Feb 2024
This week I went to the hospital for a doctor’s appointment. While there, I saw some of the hospital workers who remembered what I had shared with the doctors about Jesus during my last visit. Knowing what I believed and in whom I believed, they were hostile to me.
When they saw me, they only wanted me to sing the praises of the doctors who had helped me overcome my heart failure. [Editor’s Note: On February 27, 1987, Zvi suffered cardiac arrest and was found face down at a bus stop on the Jaffa Road in Jerusalem. He was taken to the hospital where doctors pronounced him clinically dead. They said life-support equipment was keeping him alive; and if he ever regained consciousness, he would never return to normal. Clearly, God proved them wrong!]
“Now that you are back in this hospital, why don’t you return to the doctor who healed you?” one asked.
“I will tell you what I have told all my doctors for many years: God cures the sick, but the doctors take the payment.”
This enraged them. Knowing I believed in Jesus, they accused me of following another god.
“I do not follow other gods, as you do. I follow the one true, mighty God,” I said.
“Show us in the Holy Bible where it is written about your God,” one of them said.
They thought they had fooled me, thinking I could not prove the Bible prophesied that Jesus would come. But they were not concerned with truth. They only wanted to appear smart and powerful against people like me who believe in Jesus.
“Now show us what the Bible says about how we follow other gods besides the one true God, as you say,” one said.
“I am happy to show you what the Bible says,” I replied.
“You must show us the proof only from our Bible, not your Christian books,” another challenged.
“Do you have a Bible with you?” I asked. But they did not.
So, I gave them my Bible. I thought they would claim it was not the true Bible, as they often said. But as they examined it, they agreed it was the true Bible.
“Now, show us where the Bible says we follow false gods,” one said.
They tried to put me down and make me weak in my faith. But when they asked me to read about my God in whom I have believed, I read to them from Deuteronomy 6 in Hebrew: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!” (v. 4).
“This is not only my God; He is your God too,” I told them.
“If this is so, how have you believed in another God?” someone asked. “Will you try to tell us the Bible teaches about Him?”
“Yes!” I answered. “It does!”
“If this is true, show us where it is clearly written that the One from Bethlehem in whom you believe will come. If you cannot show us, you have no right to speak to our people with your lies.”
“I am happy to show you where your own Bible speaks of my God,” I said.
With a heart full of love, I directed them to Micah 5:2: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.”
“You can see that this is from the Holy Bible and is not a fictitious story,” I said.
“Why have our rabbis never shown us this verse? And why have we never heard this truth?” one asked me.
I gave them the same answer I had given others: “I am here to bring you the truth the Lord has given us. The Lord said in Isaiah 49:3, ‘You are My servant, O Israel.’”
These people genuinely wanted to know how I had come to faith in Jesus. No longer did they attack me. Instead, they were friendly, having seen the truth of God’s Word with their own eyes. I am waiting for the next time I can speak to them. I am confident we will meet again.
From The Friends of Israel archives
