My guest is Co Producer of It’s Supernatural Television and Messianic Radio, Janie DuVall who is also a Jewish Believer in Jesus and we’re kind of reminiscing about my life’s story. And on yesterday’s broadcast you found out that I was raised in a Traditional Jewish family, I graduated college and I got married, I had an early mid-life crisis, I left my wife and daughter and job because I wanted to be a millionaire before I was thirty and I was age twenty-nine and so I got involved in a New Age meditation course. In which Janie, I invited, they call it a counselor, the Bible calls it a familiar spirit.
Janie: Today they’re calling them, the spirit guides.
Sid: Right, I invited this inside of myself and it started telling me things I had no way of knowing. So in my logical mind, I was excited over this because I figured now I could use this information. I was a Stockbroker.
Janie: To be a millionaire, oh inside information.
Sid: Right, and be a millionaire before thirty and I would be happy just like Hollywood says you are suppose to be. And so but these powers started increasing and I didn’t even realize what was going on. I would just think of something and it would begin to happen; like for instance, I said to myself, “I’d like to be in business for myself.” And a few minutes later a businessman that I barely knew came into my office and he said, “Sid, if you ever want to go into business for yourself, I’ll give you a free office, free secretary, free telephone, because we have extra space.” And I thought wow, this power is really amazing.
Janie: You know it’s interesting, to me because the power was appearing good for awhile.
Sid: Right, but what also was going on and I didn’t know it at the time, is this businessman was a born again Christian; and God spoke to him and told him to offer me this free office. And it was weird Janie.
Janie: And what did you think of him?
Sid: Well, I couldn’t understand how he could do business, he had a partner that had just returned from Israel, this partner worked in Israel on a Kuputz for a year because he loved the Jewish people and he made nothing. The guy that offered me the position had a Bible on his desk and he’s reading this Bible and he’s spending so much time in Bible studies and he’s inviting me into these Bible studies. I like the guy.
Janie: Did you go to the Bible studies?
Sid: I tore it apart; at least I thought I tore it apart.
Janie: No really, what type of things would you say? I mean we’re you cynical, what were you saying about it?
Sid: Do you really want to know?
Janie: Yeah, I really do!
Sid: It was, I was absolutely so dumb, I remember saying, “Well, listen my religion is I’m a tree worshiper and I’m the only non-hypocrite in this room because as long as I don’t hurt a tree and I’ve never hurt a tree to my knowledge then I’m okay.” And I mean, I literally would say crazy things. I don’t know how they put up with me, but one day, I reached – I hit their buttons and one of the partners walked up to me and he said, “Sid do know that in your own Jewish Bible God condemns your involvement in the occult, in the New Age?” And I said, “No, show me.” So they opened the Bible up to book of Deuteronomy and they read Deuteronomy 18 for me and this is what it says, I have it open to the Bible, “You shall, (it’s Deuteronomy 18 starting at verse 9,) You shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations; there shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire,” Well, today that’s called abortion, back then they use to sacrifice children “Or one who practices witchcraft or soothsayer, or one who interprets omens or a sorcerer or one who condors spells or a medium or a spiritist or one who calls up the dead.”
Janie: The fortune telling.
Sid: The séances and spirit guides and all of those things. And then it goes on to say, “For all who do these things are an abomination.” And to be candid with you, even though I came from a good Orthodox Jewish background I wasn’t so sure that the Bible was from God.
Janie: Right, so then why would that even bother you?
Sid: I don’t know, but it did. Just in case.
Janie: Just in case you’re wrong.
Sid: I mean I’ve messed up with my wife, I’ve messed up with my daughter, I’d messed up with my job, I just plain messed up everywhere and now, maybe he’s implying I’ve messed up with God.
Janie: Well, did you continue with the spirit guide after that?
Sid: Oh, yeah, I’d continue with it, but I remember one day, I had the ability like someone goes to a Ouijas board and gets information, I would go to a dictionary and one day, I just felt I should point to words. I would like ask a question and I’d point to a word and I’d get a specific answer, but I didn’t have question. And so I pointed to one word after another and I kept writing down the words and it was a message and it said, “The message was “Refrain from this sinful book.” And that really scared me; and then I remember.
Janie: Wait, wait; reframe from the sinful book?
Sid: The dictionary, in other words I was using this book. God’s a jealous God, but I didn’t understand and now I’m beginning to get a little afraid, maybe I am getting in trouble with God. So I went to a bookstore, a big secular bookstore and the biggest section of books is the New Age occult books, so I grabbed one of these books off the shelf. I couldn’t believe the title. The title must have been written for me, it was called “The Jew, the Bible and the Supernatural.” And this book had a wrinkle in it that none of my Christian friends had told me.
Janie: What was in it that was bothering you?
Sid: Well, what it said was, “It’s an abomination for anyone to be involved in the New Age,” but Jewish people are under a Covenant with God and whether we know it or not God expects more from us. “Then the book proceeds to list famous Jewish people one after another that had lost their life for doing the same things that I was doing, but there was one Jewish man in particular, he was my hero at the time.” Do you remember a rock group called the Beatles?
Janie: Right.
Sid: Well, they had a business manager by the name of Brian Epstein.
Janie: That’s right. That’s right, I remember him.
Sid: The Jewish business manager. Now all the Beatles and their Jewish business manager went to the Himalayas and they had gurus, but at that time…
Janie: But what happened to him though?
Sid: At that time, only one of them died, the Jew, Brian Epstein,
Janie: Awe!
Sid: He was my hero. He had everything that I thought was important in life.
Janie: And he got into the New Age.
Sid: Yeah, and he died; and then it lists one after another that got into the New Age and died and now I’m really getting scared. And about that time I broke into something called astral projection; and that’s where your spirit leaves your body.
Janie: You had actually see your spirit leave your body?
Sid: I actually saw it like in a vision, it didn’t really happen, but I told a lady next to me I just saw this, she said, “Oh, you had a breakthrough in this astral projection, but let me warn you once you break through in this area every time you go to sleep your spirit leaves your body.
Janie: That’s a scary thought.
Sid: Did you ever see Rod Serling’s TV show the Twilight Zone,
Janie: Twilight Zone, I hate to say it, yes, scary.
Sid: Okay, he never had a script like I imagine, like I pictured myself leaving my body and someone finding me like that and I’m not even going to go there but it was so scary.
Janie: Oh!
Sid: I’m not even going to go there.
Janie: Yeah, really!
Sid: It was so scary. Janie, I was afraid to go to sleep at night, I was afraid. The phone would right and I would shake. I mean I had…
Janie: And you weren’t a fearful type person.
Sid: No, I was a positive thinker, I could do anything, but I literally had a spirit of fear in me. Remember I told you as a young boy the question popped in my head, what happens when you die?
Janie: Right, when you were six.
Sid: The worst thing I could think of was to die, well at this point the worst thing I could think of was to live. Life was too hard and I could picture how Jewish people that don’t know God like I was and you reach your point, you have no one to lean on and Christians aren’t sharing Jesus with Jewish people. I mean, I looked in every arena for help.
Janie: Right and you thought you finally had this answer and now you’re finding out that this is answer that was going to make you the millionaire, make you happy, this answer is not going to make you happy.
Sid: And who could I go to at that time? I mean I could go to my parents who would give their life for me, but I could say, “Mom, Dad my spirit’s leaving my body I need help.” Well, the best they could do is refer me to a physiatrist; then I go a physiatrist, I didn’t but I could picture going to a physiatrist and saying doctor, “I have a spirit guide inside of me and I think its evil and Deuteronomy.” I couldn’t go to a physiatrist, I couldn’t go to my parents, I couldn’t go to my Rabbi.
Janie: You were trapped.
Sid: Most ministers wouldn’t have known how to help me, but I’m Jewish so I wouldn’t have gone to a minister. I didn’t know what to do, and so some friends gave me a little booklet called, “Four spiritual laws and it talks about there is sins separating you from God, and if you confess your sins and believe that Jesus died for you and it made no sense to me. But you know my mind is so confused at this point and so I read this prayer.
Janie: Did you feel anything?
Sid: It’s the prayer of salvation, I felt nothing, absolutely nothing and I felt all sorts of things in the New Age, so I just figured well, I guess it didn’t work. And, but you know what Janie, God heard that prayer. And I gave God permission to move in my life.
Janie: You know I love that, because even when you don’t feel anything there is still a miracle there. And here you prayed this prayer with feeling nothing, and something happened!
Sid: So, what I figured is nothing happened and I was afraid to tell anyone that nothing happened, so I just ignored it and I remember the worst night of my life. Well were out of time. I’ll pick up here on tomorrow’s broadcast.
