Sid: We want everyone everywhere to hear the good news; we want everyone everywhere to get outrageous. I mean you are just too calm, cool and collected; if you really, really understood the mess that Jesus set us free from you would tell everyone, everywhere the good news. You couldn’t keep quiet. I have a friend that’s like that; his name is Jonathan Bernis; we go back a long number of years. But Jonathan I’m speaking to him at his home in Phoenix, Arizona. I want to take you back to a particular time in your life in which your whole life was turned around and that has to do when God told you to go to the former Soviet Union. This was before anyone knew anything; tell me about that.
Jonathan: Well Sid I was a very content pastor of a Messianic Jewish Congregation which I started back in 1984. And after 4 rather difficult years I had a very well established congregation; very good style of living. Owned my own 4 bedroom home and two car garage; the American, the American dream. And the Lord really did an uprooting job on me. I traveled to Russia on a missions trip because I had a interest in the Refuseniks Jewish people that had been denied the opportunity to follow their faith and their identity as Jews. And I wanted to find out for myself so I went over 1990 with a small team of 5 other people. And what I found there completely changed my life Sid. I found Jewish people everywhere I went to in two cities that I went to Moscow and St. Petersburg. And I found them extraordinarily open to the gospel. And I’ve been telling this for 14 years now that I’ve lead more Jewish people to the Lord in two weeks then I did in 10 years or more of Jewish ministry in the United States and it was very very clear to me. You know you’d have to be deaf and dumb and see that God was doing something extraordinarily in the Soviet Union. So I decided to make a missions commitment to Russia and Ukraine and travel there twice a year but to retain if course my pastoral position. And God just apprehended me on my third trip there. I was riding on a airplane back from St. Petersburg, Russia and everything was working out great. We had already established a number of different fellowships and the work was going great there and I saw this again just as a missions thrust just for our Messianic Congregation. And the Holy Spirit spoked to me very clearly on that plane out of Matthew 24:14 which talks about bringing the gospel to all of the nations of the world the Ethnos in Greek. And the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said “I want you to go back to St. Petersburg and I want you to begin to reach My people.” What I saw Sid in that word from the Lord was that although 1000’s of missionaries had been traveling to Russia because the doors had opened sovereignly there were very very few people reaching the multitudes of Jewish people. And we’re talking at that time about over 3 million Jewish people. And I knew that when the Holy Spirit spoke to me that it was going to be more than just a missions thrust for the congregation and myself but that it was a call to full-time missionary work, evangelistic work in the former Soviet Union. And that’s how the Messianic Jewish Festivals began. And it began and it completely uprooted my life.
Sid: Now I have to take you back to a meeting you and I attended it and it was leaders Messianic Jewish leaders and I remember you first broached the idea. And now again history you know today it’s a no brainer but back then and it appeared to me that as through almost every leader was discouraging you from discouraging you from doing this.
Jonathan: That’s true Sid, very often when the Holy Spirit speaks to you about something that seems impossible it makes no sense. And it just seemed to most of the leaders that it was too big a risk. And by the way; one of the principals that most believer’s don’t think about is that you have to be willing to step out of the boat and take risks. And it just seemed to the leaders there that it was not rational enough to hold such…to put on such a big event. You see Sid for 2000 years Jewish people have come to faith in drips and drabs singly You know it’s been fishing with one line with one line at a time. We haven’t seen mass Jewish Evangelism. You know what I call net fishing for almost 2000 years since the book of Acts. So it was in nobody’s world view or perspective that you could do mass evangelism or what is termed in the church crusade evangelism. We don’t like that work crusade too much because it means something else to us.
Sid: Hm. Well, just for those that don’t understand it’s a take off on the crusaders that were the most anti-Semitic people on the face of this earth.
Jonathan: Exactly.
Sid: Well, Jonathan I’m going to take you back to a particular time in history. As I said our friendship goes back a long time; I was at that leaders meeting. I think that I was the only one that said “God for it Jonathan.” And so Jonathan invited me to come to his first meeting of which I spoke as well as Jonathan. I have to tell you Jonathan as far as highlights in my life and I’m sure in yours what went through your mind that first meeting when so many Jewish people didn’t walk, ran to the altar! Droves, droves, thousands, not thousands but hundreds.
Jonathan: Sid, I was absolutely shocked as you were and Kul Sing Ha Sing group had been ministering at the Festival because we had no idea what to expect. We had been hearing from Russian Jews in the community that there would be a very small turn out out of fear of Anti-Antisemitism or there would be just a lack on interest. And we had a…remember we had a 4000 seat hall.
Sid: Outrageous, but you know what when God tells you to do something go for it! (Laughing).
Jonathan: And I think of course really for all of us was to see a full hall, the hall filled up and they actually had to close the doors before the event began because it was so full. We had an overflow crowd which was just…
Sid: Stop for a second; can you picture this Mishpochah; here we had to close the doors because we had no room for Jewish people to come in. And how many seats was that Jonathan?
Jonathan: Four thousand Sid.
Sid: Four thousand! And we had never ever seen anything like this. Again as a matter of fact I’m kind of bored in the ones and two’s I’m ready for the thousands Jonathan!
Jonathan: Sid, I have seen thousands of Jewish people respond to altar calls.
Sid: Over all of these years you’v kept some records; how many and I know that you know this fact because you do keep these records. How many Jewish people have actually made professions of faith at the various meetings that you’ve had at the former Soviet Union?
Jonathan: Well, we’ve done 24 Festivals in 11 years throughout the former Soviet Union. We’ve been to India, we’ve been to South America now which is another mission field that’s opening up for Jewish ministry Sid. Things are really, really happening now. This is the appointed time to favor Zion. In our ministry alone we’ve recorded about 250,000 Jewish people that have attended festivals and about half of those about 125,000 have responded to altar calls. We don’t say come to faith because we don’t know what’s happened in their hearts as they come forward. But they’ve responded to altar calls, they’ve prayed to invite Yeshua as a Messiah and Savior into their hearts. And so we don’t know how many have actually been born from above. But Sid for that many Jewish people to come to an event where they hear the gospel.
Sid: A quarter of a million!
Jonathan: A quarter of a million.
Sid: Hm, well let me tell you something Mishpochah Jonathan and I are a kindred spirit our heart is for everyone to know the Messiah. And this is God’s time to have mercy on Zion; This is God’s appointed time. You know where there’s this phrase in scripture “The fullness of the Gentiles” and there’s different spins on that but whatever it means we’re at the fullness of the Gentile age. And God promises in Roman’s to remove the Jewish scales. And I believe that the one Jewish people group, the largest in the world that is virtually untouched in Christian America is America Jews. Because most Christians aren’t sharing the gospel with anyone let alone Jewish people And I believe that this is the reason that God gave me a dream. And in this dream the Lord told me to write a book. In fact it’s kind of a funny story He told me that more Jewish people will come to know me through your book Sid than anything that you’ve ever done. I said “Lord, you mean my testimony book; it’s finally taken off.” And He said “No, your book of Jewish testimonies.” And before I could tell God I didn’t have a book of Jewish Testimonies I woke up, I did this book over a half a million of these books are in print. Most of them in Russian, and it’s interesting Jonathan said that the two cities that he really zeroed in on initially Moscow and St. Petersburg; we have received a mailing list of all of the Jewish families in Moscow, all of the Jewish families in St. Petersburg, Russia and we have mailed this to Jewish people. Just as Jonathan can’t say how many of the these quarter of a million that heard the gospel really responded in their heart and have gone with the Lord that’s God’s business. But can you imagine the fruit that’s coming from a half a million of these books? And this is God’s time for America.
