Sid: My guest in the studio is Red Hot for the Messiah, the Co Producer of It’s Supernatural Television and Messianic Radio, another Jewish Believer in Messiah, Janie DuVall. And we’ve been reminiscing about how I came to the Lord and on the worst day of my life death looked better than life. I didn’t have the nerve to take my life or I probably would have Janie, taken my life.
Janie: You’re right, you had no answers at that point; and yet you said someone gave you a little booklet of the four spiritual laws, you said you felt nothing, but you said that payer anyway, but then you went to sleep. You left it with a cliff hanger, you went to bed full of fear for your life.
Sid: Well, just before I fell asleep, and by the way, I had gone out to a Jewish book store and I had bought a mezuzah, a silver mezuzah, I remember, I put it around my neck, you know what Christians do with these vampire movies is they put a big cross around their neck. Well, I’m Jewish so I’m not going to put a cross around my neck; so I put a mezuzah around my neck and I had a Bible at this time and I had been reading a little bit of the Bible. And I put the Bible under my pillow and I called my wife, who I was separated from for a year, Joyce.
Janie: Now, what did she think when you called her out of the clear blue?
Sid: Well, I wasn’t going to tell her what was going on because, again I had nowhere to go there was no one I could tell. I figured everyone would think that I was crazy; so I wasn’t going to tell them how crazy I was. And so I called my wife; and I said, “Joyce it’s bad and as I explained my wife was…
Janie: Yeah, she was really nice to answer the phone. Ha-ha-ha.
Sid: Well, she could hear in my voice that I had a problem.
Janie: That you were desperate.
Sid: And my wife, as I explained on yesterday’s broadcast was raised Baptist and when she got to college she had atheistic professors and so she became an agnostic; she was afraid to say she was an atheist just in case; so she would call herself a Southern Baptist Agnostic and then when we got married, I insisted that she convert to Orthodox Judaism. And she would say, “Well, Judaism doesn’t mean that much to you.” But see she didn’t understand, that religion didn’t mean much to me, even though I was raised Orthodox, but being Jewish meant something to me. She couldn’t understand it because there’s a difference between being Jewish and loving, and going to the Orthodox Synagogue. There was something in me that wanted to always be Jewish and so she said “You convert,” “My family wouldn’t understand.” I said “No, that is non-negotiable you have to convert, so she converted to Orthodox Judaism, so you might say she was a Southern Baptist Agnostic Orthodox Jew.
Janie: That’s a mouthful and I couldn’t say that.
Sid: That did not know Jesus so I call her on the phone, she can tell I’m really desperate and I said, “Joyce, will you pray for me?” Now she was really confused, at this and she said, “Yes, and she hung up the phone and I hung up the phone.” And like I said, “I didn’t care whether I lived or died, life was just too difficult,” and I went to sleep. Now, she told me, after that she did not pray, but then her conscience got the better of her and she didn’t pray because she didn’t really believe in God. And so she said, “You know I promised him,” and she is a very honest person. And so she said, “I will pray for him.” And so she prayed for me, I went to bed, I didn’t care whether I lived or died, now this is my story, it’s a true story, it happened a long time ago over thirty-five years ago, but I remember it as if it happened last night. I woke up, I didn’t know what to expect, and the first thing I realized is I wasn’t afraid.
Janie: Oooh, wow.
Sid: I mean, I went to bed so afraid that I wanted to die, and I woke up so alive I wanted to live; and it was as if there was a presence in my room, of love, of liquid love.
Janie: Did you think it was God right away, did you think it was Jesus? What did you think?
Sid: I knew it was Jesus, I knew it had to do with Jesus because, oh I forgot to tell you, I said a two word prayer when I went to bed, it was the best prayer I could come up with, “Jesus help.”
Janie: That’s actually a very powerful prayer.
Sid: That was the last two words I said when I went to bed, when I woke up it was like there was, if I wanted to worry, if I wanted to be fearful, if I was forcing myself to, I could not there was so much tangible, you could feel it. The atmosphere was tangible, it was pregnant with the presence of God and I couldn’t worry about a thing. And I just had this knowing inside Janie. I absolutely knew.
Janie: Did you want to start telling people at that point? Or did you think they would think you are crazy, still?
Sid: Nay, nay I didn’t want to tell anyone anything, I was just so happy that I knew Jesus, and that He rescued me and I knew it, I absolutely, I didn’t know that much about Jesus, but I knew it had to do with that prayer, Jesus help. And then I heard the audible voice of God for the first time in my life and this is what He said, “Return to your wife and daughter.” And Janie, my marriage was bad, so I didn’t want to do that, but I was so grateful to God I would have done anything that He said and so God restored my mind, God restored my marriage, God restored my family, God restored my health, and I can tell you that today, I’ve been married over forty-three years; we just celebrated our Forty-third wedding anniversary. My daughter is now married to a man that knows the Lord, and I have three Grand-daughters; I mean I am one grateful Jewish person. And then, I wanted to tell everyone about Jesus.
Janie: But what did your parents think a nice Jewish guy, I mean, what did your parents think now, you are believing in Jesus?
Sid: Well, my Father you have to understand was born in Poland and he used to tell me the story of his Father, my Grandfather when he would walk by churches in Poland, he would spit at them. And the reason he would do that, is because the anti-Semitism from people who call themselves Christians was so ferrous over the centuries involving Jewish people my father literally could not comprehend that his son raised in a good Orthodox Jewish Synagogue, Bar Mitzvah would believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Now my mother would have accepted me, no matter what, she wasn’t thrilled over it, but she accepted me, but my Father was just terribly ashamed because I immediately started as a bold witness for the Lord. I was telling everyone about Jesus and…
Janie: And then being in the newspaper and the whole world now knowing that…
Sid: This is just isn’t just a newspaper, it was the front page of a major newspaper in Washington, DC. And there was shame, when he knew that I believed in Jesus, but when I became so outspoken, and then got on the Kathryn Kulman television show;
Janie: Now everyone knew.
Sid: I did a couple television shows with her and he was mortified, my mother accepted me and it’s very interesting; whenever my mother would get sick she would ask me to pray for her. I remember a couple of times that come to mind, one time I saw her with bags of groceries and I saw her fall down and I came running out of the house and you know, helped her up and her leg was cut, it was swollen, it was black and blue and every color of the rainbow, it looked awful. I said, “Mom, can I pray for you?” she said, “Sure.” So I put my hand on her knee and I said, “Jesus, and I was almost afraid to move my hand away Janie, because I didn’t really believe that she would be healed,
Janie: Wow.
Sid: And I moved my hand away and the leg was normal.
Janie: Here your mother just got healed and you weren’t even sure if it was going to happen, what did you think? What did she think?
Sid: Oh, I was just praising God and then every time she would get sick; and then my mother became an evangelist even though she didn’t believe in Jesus.
Janie: Did she tell my Dad?
Sid: No, she did not tell my Dad, but she would tell all of her friends and when they would get sick I would pray for them. And then I remember my Aunt Rosie; my Aunt Rosie had mental problems and she spent most of her life in a mental institution; and one day the doctor, the Jewish doctor, I might add said, that my Aunt Rosie had to have her toe amputated because she had diabetes. So my mother said, “Can we wait, I want my son to pray for her?” And the doctor said and this is a quote, “Not even Jesus Christ could save that toe.”
Janie: Oh, wow.
Sid: So the next day I prayed for Rosie and before God Janie, she never had her toe amputated.
Janie: So you were seeing miracles from the beginning.
Sid: From the very beginning, I mean and I am well there’s another role coming just before the Messiah returns and that’s why I’m so excited about the update of my testimony…
