A Jew Finds The Messiah
By Daniel Rose as told to Anne Hazelton
PART II
® HE battle in my heart went on —day after day and night after night; ten days and nights of such torture as I had never expected to endure soon sapped my strength. Though my sister Carrie, at my own insistence, had stopped reading the passages from the Old Testament to prove to me that Jesus of Nazareth was in deed and in truth the long- awaited Messiah of Israel, I could not forget the beauty of the words she had read. “He is despised and rejected of men; A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: And we hid as it were our faces from him; He was despised, and we esteemed him not. “ Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. “ But he was wounded for our trans gressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our peace was upon him; And with his stripes we are healed.” The pathos of her beautiful voice, reading those words, which I presumed at first to be from the New Testament, had stirred me more deeply than I cared to admit. I was utterly amazed and confused when I learned that Carrie had been reading from the Old Testament, from the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah in our own Bible. For the first time I acknowledged that chapter could speak of none other than Jesus of Nazareth. Was He in truth our Messiah ? Day by day I grew more desperate. I could not sleep; nor could I eat. “ I must do something,” I whispered to myself late one evening. “ I cannot go on suffering the tortures of Hades like this. Either I must accept Christ, or reject Him. I cannot remain neutral. The issue must be decided tonight. I cannot go on like this.”
Jewish scroll containing Deut. 6:4 with background of Jewish flag and Star of David. Last month Mr. Rose told how he had been reared in a religiously orthodox Jewish home in which the laws and ceremonies of Judaism were strictly fol lowed. But one Sunday evening when he and Selina, his wife, were on their way to the theatre, the sound of music com ing from a church they were passing pulled at him until he suggested they go in. Daniel Rose loved music and it was that which drew him to toss all objections and restraints of race and religion aside and to enter a Christian church. Though he joined in the singing, wherever the Name of JESUS CHRIST appeared in a hymn, he quickly covered it with his fingers and remained silent until the congregation had sung past that Name he had been taught to hate. Daniel Rose and his sister had married sister and brother and the four of them were very close in their family, business, and social lives. Daniel’s world rocked, one day, when a letter from his sister told him of her joy in finding the true Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Elohim Himself. He did not renounce her, as she had expected he might, but replied: “ You are old enough, Carrie, to know what you are doing. But as for me, I was born a Jew and I will die a Jew.” Imperceptibly, however, the pleasures of the world began to be less attractive. When Carrie came to visit him, she tried to tell him more about her conver sion but Daniel would not listen. But when she fell ill and he thought she was dying, he was willing to do any thing for her, even to acquiesce in her request to kneel by her bed and accept the Messiah, Jesus Christ, as his Saviour. But even as he knelt and forced his stiff lips to follow in that faltering prayer, he knew in his heart that he was bargaining with God for his sister’s life. Carrie was healed, but still Daniel knew no peace of heart; he was under such deep conviction he could neither eat nor sleep.
I went to my room, closed the door, and dropped to my knees. “ Oh, God,” I cried, “ the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I do want to know the truth. I cannot sleep . . . I cannot face another day without know ing the truth. If Jesus Christ is Your Son and my Messiah, I will accept Him, but show me the truth!” Like a flash, God’s Spirit bore wit ness with my spirt, and the truth was borne upon me with deep conviction that Jesus Christ truly was the Messiah for whom every faithful Jew waits, and I accepted Him then and there as my Saviour from the penalty of all my hated sins. The flood-gates broke, and my soul was released from hell! I arose shouting and praising His Name. The bands of sin had been snapped asunder, and I was born into the king dom of God—one of His children—no longer a tool of Satan and a slave to sin. I was free, forever free, from the penalty of sin and death. “ For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord,” was one of the verses Carrie had quoted so many times after reading from the Old Testament prophecies of His coming that I had no trouble in remembering it now though I had tried to reject it at the time she gave it to me. For years the Gift had been waiting for me, but I had been turning my back upon Him. Now I had received Him, and He was mine. My shouts of praise rang through the house and brought Selina and Car rie hurrying to my room in some alarm. Carrie knew immediately when she saw my face that the great transaction had really taken place this time. I was no longer trying to bargain with God—not even for peace. I had truly found Jesus Christ to be the Messiah and High Priest, the Saviour who saves His people from their sins, and finding Him the peace had come, a deep and abiding peace which the world could never give, nor take away. Selina was more moved at my experi ence than she admitted at the time and
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Page Eleven
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