Sid: All this week I’ve been talking to Jewish people that are Red Hot for Jesus because this is God’s moment. There is a short window in the United States of America in which God is going to reveal Messiah to Jewish people to form the One New Man to have the greatest revival the world has ever seen. Speaking of the greatest revival the world has ever seen, I have on the telephone, Alyosha Ryabinov and Alyosha has been a concert pianist and lately he has moved into a new type of music, a new song and we had him featured at our One New Man Celebration. And Alyosha, “What is the difference between the music you play today and the music you played as a concert pianist?”
Michael: Well, as a concert pianist I played music that was written by other composers and even music that I wrote, but today I also very much just like to plug into the heavenly realm and there is a lot of music out there. And just receive it directly and awesome things happen when I play.
Sid: Tell me one awesome thing that happened when you played.
Michael: Well, a lot of healings happen for example when there was a man that received the eyesight a few years ago just by listening to the music.
Sid: Well, speaking about receiving eyesight, Alyosha is one of the testimonies in the new release of my book “They Thought for Themselves.” This is a book that God gave me a dream in which came to me and He said, “More Jewish people would come to know Him through this book,” and of course I hadn’t written a book at that time, “Then anything I had ever done.” And history proves that this dream was from God because of over 850,000 of these books are in print distributed mostly to Jewish people, predominately in the former Soviet Union. So one of the testimonies in the book is Alyosha Ryabinov and he was born in Kiev in the former Soviet Union and Alyosha you were raised as an atheist, tell me a little bit about that.
Alyosha: Yes.
Sid: But your parents were Jewish.
Alyosha: Yes, but I was born in a Jewish family and of course in Ukraine, at that time the religion was prohibited for most people, so almost everybody was atheist. Most Jews were atheist and even when I was in school and in college I even have to take a course on atheism which was required. So I was Jewish ethnically, but spiritually really was nothing, atheist.
Sid: And for the sake of your, because you were Jewish and there was great discrimination against Jews in the former Soviet Union, you wanted to leave and come to the United States, but it wasn’t so easy back then, was it.
Alyosha: No, it was very difficult, a lot of people were actually in prison or there were various forms of persecution like losing your job or being expelled from universities. So when I wanted to leave and I applied I had a great amount of fear and this is when I began to think about God, even though I was an atheist. And one interesting thing about atheism when people ask me, “When did you hear about God in the first place?” I would say, “Well the first people that told me about God were atheist,” because, well they have to explain to you who doesn’t exist. And so a…
Sid: So your original source was atheism, so you decide because you are desperate and I guess that’s the reason that you are going to pray to God, but how does someone that isn’t even sure that there is a God pray to God?
Alyosha: Well, I didn’t really know how to pray, but I just knew nobody could help me in my situation. I just needed to go and see for myself, if there is God I’ll just talk to Him. So I actually ended up walking in Kiev I went to a church and I’d never been in a church before and this was a Greek Orthodox Church and I was Jewish, I knew I thought I was in the wrong place but…
Sid: But why didn’t you just go to a synagogue?
Alyosha: Because it was very dangerous for a Jewish person to appear there.
Sid: At that time.
Alyosha: At that time, yeah and it was a lot easier for me to just walk into a church. And I didn’t care about anything; I just wanted to find God. So I walked into this church and there was an image of Yeshua, now I just knew a little bit about Him, that He was called the God Christians. And I talked to Him and I said, “Jesus, I don’t know if you’re God or not, I don’t know anything about God, but if you are and if you are real, here’s a good chance for you to prove that, make it possible for us to leave this country.” And I prayed on behalf of our family and after that I left the church. And maybe a week past or two something like that, it was not too long, and we were called to the Immigration Office and we were given permission to immigrate, just like that.
Sid: Now did you think that was a coincidence or did you think that God really answered your prayer at that time?
Alyosha: I really battled between thinking that it was coincidence or maybe there is God, I just needed some more happenings.
Sid: Well, you asked God for a sign and what happened?
Alyosha: That happened quite a bit later after we immigrated already and we came to Chicago and settled and you know some people began to share with me about the Lord. Actually wanted to know what it meant to be a Jew. And somebody says you know, I know a very good book on the Jewish history, it’s called the Bible, read this. And I began to read the Bible it was learning about God and the God of Israel and I just wanted to know, as a matter of fact the Bible has the New Testament and you know and when I began to read about Yeshua, He happened to be Jewish. I just said, “Wow, He doesn’t appear to me as Christian I thought, he is really Jewish and He loves the Jewish people. So I just one morning I woke up and I started to talk to God, and I said, “God if you are really exist and if Jesus is really Jewish and the Jewish Messiah and my Savior, give me some sign.” I didn’t know that in the Bible that a Jew will ask for a sign. So suddenly, and it was dark in the room and very dark, it was before the sun came up, early in the morning; suddenly a bright light filled the room and it stood there for some time and then it left. And I definitely believe that it was for a sign and I looked outside and there was no sun yet, so a definite sign, a light came into the room.
Sid: But that still wasn’t enough and then your sister becomes a believer has a Bible study in your home, you’re at that Bible study one day and you really weren’t even thinking about becoming a believer but what happened?
Alyosha: I wasn’t ready to become a believer although I had been thinking a lot about what I was learning and my experiences and the Leader of the Bible Study who was a Jewish believer, He was teaching and then suddenly just out of the blue he turned to me and he asked me, “Would you like to accept Jesus as your Messiah, as your Savior?” And I was stunned, and I felt I wasn’t ready, I thought I wasn’t ready so I opened my mouth to say, “No” and to my own surprise came out, “Yes.” So he lead me in prayer and that was the day where I,…
Sid: And to make a long story short, Alyosha is married to a Jewish believer, and he is a believer now and when he plays music like at our One New Man Celebration, you can get the DVDs or the CDs from our ministry. Let’s hear Alyosha play with “the Spirit of God.”
Alyosha Worship Excerpt.
