A few days ago just as I came home after a long day and was sitting with my family, I recieved a phone call from a friend. Even though he is not a believer, he knows I am and that I pray for sick people for their healing. He asked me to come urgently to a family and help pray for their terminally ill father who is dying of cancer. Even though the day had been long and exhausting, I felt a strong stirring and urgency to go there.
I was greeted by this old man’s children, a son (30 years old) and a daughter (35) who are currently nursing their dying father at home, since the hospital gave him no hope and released him into his children’s care.
We sat and began speaking. We spent 3 hours talking about everything, the meaning of life, salvation, eternity. It’s not difficult to see people’s hearts really open up in a situation when death knocks on their door.
They felt so touched by God at that moment, that right there I prayed with them and they both invited to receive Yeshua their Messiah and Lord into their hearts. Immediately the man’s son told me he felt a burden was lifted from him and he felt peace. He confessed that for a long time he held an offence against God for “allowing” this to happen to his father. He said his father was a good man all his life and didn’t deserve this. He held a deep grudge against God, and only after we spoke about his father, he realized God had nothing to do with it, since his father was actually an atheist all his life.
It was such an amazing moment for me, being a pastor of a large congregation, leading a ministry, going back to basics and the simplicity of service, and ministering salvation to two people. Simply leading them to Yeshua and bringing salvation into their home.
To me it has been an incredible highlight of this feast of Tabernacles, when God comes into people’s homes and dwells with them.
Beit Hallel is a Messianic Jewish congregation in Ashdod, led by pastor Israel Pochtar, serving holocaust survivors and the poor and needy locally and throughout the nation of Israel, while building up the body of Messiah in the promised land of Israel.