R.A. came up to me with guns blazing! The conversation started out SUPER rough – he was aggressively attacking my beliefs in God and creation, and bashing me for not being open to the “scientific evidence of evolution”. R.A. was an intriguing secular Jewish man in his 50s.

He admitted that he does wrong things and believes in an eternity, but kept dodging my questions about God, and wanted to argue about minor issues like the flood, evolution, aliens, and dreams. I finally asked him if he felt close to God or distant from God. That made him pause and think, “Wow, that is a good question. I’ve never thought about that before.” I told him that according to Isaiah 59:2, our sin separates us from God. And this is important because the choices we make and how we live this life will determine our eternity: if we are close to God and have a right relationship with Him now, we will be with Him for eternity, but if we are separated from God now, we will be separated for eternity. He replied, “That’s a good point, I never thought about it that way. So how do I get close to God?”

HALLELUJAH! What an important question. “How do I get close to God?”

I told him that’s what Isaiah 53 is about: God provided a way for us to be close to him through the atonement of Messiah. I had him read the passage from Isaiah for himself and asked him who he thought it was talking about. He immediately said, “Jesus?” I told him I believe Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Immediately, his countenance changed from interest to anger, he ended the conversation, and walked off. But he took the tract with him as well as his conviction of sin and separation from God, his need for restoration, and knowledge that Messiah Jesus is the way of salvation. Please pray for R.A.