Our Guest Ayelet Steckbeck

SID: So look, Ayelet Steckbeck is an Orthodox Jew is an Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva, studying about God, it’s a school of higher learning especially for Orthodox women, and the Rabbi instructs her the Messiah is going to come, peace will be on earth, pray for the Messiah. Another Rabbi teaches her that He should live inside of you so she takes it literally, and starts praying, “Messiah come back, bring peace,” I mean with what was going on in Israel it’s a very rational thing to be praying, “and live inside of me,” Ayelet, God really answered your prayer, you are walking along one day and what hit you?

AYELET: I was walking in the street in Jerusalem a little bit after I started praying God come and dwell in me and I felt a ball of fire coming within my back, and at the same time I heard a voice saying, “Now I am in you, everything is going to be alright.”

SID: You know I love that phrase, “everything is going to be alright,” I have to say it again, “everything,” I’m speaking to you, “everything is going to be alright.” So what did you think of all of this, this is pretty, this is amazing, what did you think about this?

AYELET: I didn’t really know what to think, but I had a friend, I didn’t really know that she was a believer in Yeshua, but she never told me all this time, and she, when I told her what happened, she said, “Okay, that’s the Holy Spirit that wants to live in you.”

SID: Now, and then, all of a sudden you start speaking in a language your brain had never been taught, a supernatural language, how did that happen?

AYELET: The first time it happened on a bus which was really funny, and then I prayed God, please can we do this quietly, so

SID: Did you understand what you were praying?

AYELET: No, no, but I had peace SID: Did you know that it was God? Yeah, I had peace.

SID: And then after that you started having visions, tell me about them?

AYELET: Yes, I had a lot of visions, a lot of visions about the Messiah, but I never saw His face, He was always covered with a taleit, with a prayer shawl, and I had a lot of visions that was

SID: Now that’s very foreign but the way, for many of you, but you know, what else would you expect King of the Jews, the Jewish Messiah, to be wearing? Would you expect Him to have a gigantic cross around His neck, no, they didn’t even have it at that time, no, a taliet, a prayer shawl, what do you expect? Go ahead.

AYELET: And then I saw some visions that were scriptures, the one I remember the most was a I saw a huge man, standing over Jerusalem, and one of His feet was over the Mount of Olives and one was over the Mount of Zion, and I didn’t know that it was a scripture until I saw the vision.

SID: You realize that in Zechariah they actually have a scripture about this, she didn’t even know the scripture and she saw it in a vision form. So things are going on, what happened next?

AYELET: Well a lot of things happened and I think, sometime like a year later the same friend that told me it was the Holy Spirit in me, invited me to a prayer house of Ruth Heflin in Jerusalem, she said those are Christians but they have the same Holy Spirit that I have as a Jew. And I was, okay, I was open and I went and I loved it. They all spoke in tongues so I was able to speak in tongues like, and they worshipped and prayed and I remember the presence of God was so strong, every time I went there I felt like weights were lifted off me.

SID: Now did you feel the same presence of God in the Yeshiva, or in the synagogue?

AYELET: Not as strong, sometimes in the holidays I would feel the presence of God, but not as strong, but of course the awareness of the Holy Spirit?

SID: So how come, how come these Christians had such a magnitude of the Holy Spirit and in the school, just at the holidays and even the holidays it wasn’t so strong, how come?

AYELET: I didn’t know, and I was really jealous, I was even a little bit upset at God, I was like how come they have it and we don’t, what’s happening here? But I kept coming back and I went through the whole summer of 1996, and I went like three, four times a week to pray with them.

SID: And one day there was a prophecy, a word from God and you wanted to have a copy of this, what happened?

AYELET: Well it was just before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and someone had a prophecy for the next year so I wanted to take the tape, I took the tape, but on the way to the Yeshiva dorms, I thought on my gosh, what if the Rabbi finds the tape with the name Jesus on it?

SID: You’d be in big trouble.

AYELET: So I took the tapes to the dorm and when everybody left I put it in the tape recorder and I tried to erase every word of Jesus.

SID: You mean you wanted to keep this prediction of what would happen, but you didn’t want the name Jesus there or you would get in trouble in the Orthodox Jewish Yeshivas?

AYELET: Yes, right, so I thought it would be really easy, but after five times I tried to erase Jesus name and it did not erase, the Holy Spirit really convicted me and I was very confused, I didn’t understand why but I knew I needed to repent.

SID: Did you tell anyone that you were trying to erase it and it just was impossible to erase?

AYELET: Well I went to this friend again, that brought me to the prayer house, and I said okay, you’ve got to explain to me what is happening. How come these Christians that believe in Jesus have more of the power of God than we do? And how come I am not supposed to erase Jesus name, why would God mind? And then she brought the New Testament in Hebrew, and she looked straight in my eyes and she said I believe Jesus is the Messiah. And I felt like someone took my brain and spinned it, thousands of times

SID: You didn’t know that she was a believer in Jesus.

AYELET: No, I didn’t, I didn’t know and I never heard a Jewish person believing in Jesus. And I was very confused, I thought how come here I am praying for Messiah to come and you want to tell me He already came? I was very confused.

SID: Did you read that New Testament?

AYELET: well I took the New Testament to the dorms, hid it again and when everybody left, took it out and started reading and I was really amazed, first of all

SID: I’ll tell you what, hold that thought, let’s find out why she was so amazed when this Orthodox Jewish woman for the first time in her life reads the words about Jesus, what effect did this have on her and what about this visitation that she had from Jesus? Be right back after this, don’t go away.