Sid Roth - I Stood At the Cross of Jesus. Then I Looked Up and Saw This...
Hello! Sid Roth here. Welcome to my world, where it's naturally supernatural. My guest says that most Believers, they don't even know how to make Jesus irresistible. Not only is there a much better way to lead people to Messiah, there's a much better way to be healed! She's found that after her teaching, Evangelism and Healings they're easy! Want to find out how simple it is?
Sid Roth: Did you know that you have a legacy? Natasha's great grandfather was the only Christian she knows of in her family. There were 70 years of atheism, in the former Soviet Union Communism. How old were you when you saw your first Bible?
Natasha Schedrivaya: About 30 years old.
Sid Roth: Can you imagine? The first Bible she ever opened, she's age 30. She was raised as an atheist. She couldn't understand someone that believed in Jesus. But her grandfather, once a week he would gather their big family together, and he would read from what book?
Natasha Schedrivaya: He would pull his big Bible, and he would open it. He would put his glasses on, he would point the finger on the page, and start reading. And my grandmother, his daughter, she would tell me the story over and over, because when I was just a child, I would come to visit her every summer, and she would tell me that story. And because I grew up in the under Communism, didn't know anything about God, I thought it was kind of she made it up, or s just a strange thing. But then after later when I became a Christian, got born again, the first thing that the Holy Spirit reminded me, it was that story! And I knew that every time a miracle would take place, when my great grandfather who was absolutely illiterate, didn't know alphabet, couldn't read newspaper with the Stalin speeches printed in there and yet, every Sunday he would open his Bible, put his 11 children around the table, and read the Scripture.
Sid Roth: So, one day a colleague of hers another atheist, Ella, had a brain tumor. And she calls you up, and what did she say?
Natasha Schedrivaya: Well she invited me to come and visit her to her apartment. So we didn't haven't seen each other for almost a year, and so I went to visit her, and here she started to tell me about Jesus! She gave me her story! She developed a brain tumor, and you know the medical service in Soviet Union was very poor, so the doctors really diagnosed her with the brain tumor, and said that, you know, "You are gonna going to die we cannot help you". So she went to the all the extra sensories, and the last person she went to was her aunt she was an underground Pentecostal Believer so her aunt took her to the church, and Ella received Jesus into her heart, and the right in front of all the Believers, the swollenness disappeared, pain was gone, and so she was healed! And so the next day, she took all the medical papers that she had, went to the doctors, and she just asked him to run the tests, etc. And they were so shocked to see that she was absolutely healed!
Sid Roth: so what did you think, when she told you what happened to her?
Natasha Schedrivaya: Well, I thought just what the doctors told her. They said, "Well, sometimes unexplainable things happen, but it cannot be God because God doesn't exist". So this is what I told her. "You know, don't tell me about Jesus because I you know, it's a mythical figure", because this is exactly what the Soviet encyclopedia placed in every library all over the Soviet Union. It said next to Jesus Christ, a "mythical figure". So, and this I told her, "He is just a fairy tale".
Sid Roth: So she gives you a Christian magazine, you don't throw it away because at that time, in the former Soviet Union, they had nothing!
Natasha Schedrivaya: When Ella gave me this magazine, a Christian magazine printed in Russian, smuggled into the Soviet Union by Russian Baptists located in Sacramento, California, so I took this magazine and told her, "Don't call me anymore, because you know I don't want to hear about God. I don't want to hear about Jesus. He helped you that's fine, but I don't believe in Him". And so I told her, "When I am ready, I will call you", and I left.
Sid Roth: By the way, when you left, what was going on in the mind of your friend Ella when you walked out that door?
Natasha Schedrivaya: This is what she told me later. She said, "When you closed the door, I went in pray into prayer, and I asked told God, 'God, she is going to Hell. There is no hope for her.'" She really gave up on me. I was so resistant. I was so hard. And I just wouldn't accept that as the truth. I read from cover to cover, this magazine, and then you know, it's the first Christian literature that I ever seen in my life, so I decided to write a letter to the editor, very short. "I'm 29 years old, I am an atheist. I don't believe in the existence of God. If He existed, then why", and then I listed all the questions! Mailed the letter, s Gorbachev became just the head of the of the Communist party a little bit more freedom, but still the country was closed, and KGB watched so every male, so I didn't expect even that they will let the letter goes over the border.
Sid Roth: Yeah.
Natasha Schedrivaya: And then two months later to my surprise, I received this package. I opened the package, and for the first time in my life, I see a small blue Bible in Russian. You know you know, there is something! You know you this is what I realized. You can live in the lie you can brainwashed for 70 years in the country. When the system tells you there is no God, and you really don't know what's truth anymore. But when, if you are looking for the truth, when you see it, everything in you really recognizes it! So when I opened the Bible, and the first page of the first words, "In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth", something was going on on the inside! It sounds so familiar, although I never read it before, never seen! It's almost like every cell in my body was responding, to the truth. And I didn't know at that time what was it, but it was God already knocking at my heart, and trying to reveal Himself to me. So I read you know the funny thing was there was a Bible in the package, there was some Christian brochures, and I couldn't really understand why in the world they would put 10 copies of the same issue of the Christian newspaper! Well what happened was you know when I brought this package and this Christian literature to my home, and I put them on a desk and I start reading magazine, and the newspapers, um my father came! He was a political officer in the Soviet Army, teaching Communist ideology for 28 years. So he came comes home, and here he sees all this literature! He got very angry, and he said, "You know you need to get rid of this, because they will come!! They you know, I didn't know who "They". They will come", and "They" and if they will see, they will arrest us, and and such etc. So just take away this, because my family, you know, we were readers we love to read. We had a lot of books, you know, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Pushkin, so I just hid those brochures between the books on the bookshelves, and then I hid one copy of the of the newspaper in my room, and then I took the 9 others, came out. You know we were we lived in an apartment building, and I put them in the mailboxes of my neighbors, because you know don't you don't waste anything in the, you know in the Soviet Union because, you know, we lived in the time of deficit. You don't throw away even a newspaper, so I put in the mailboxes, thinking because I was still an atheist thinking, you know, "If they will come, then I will not be alone on the train to Siberia", you know, so...
Sid Roth: Okay. A miracle happened. Two months after she sent this letter to America that she didn't even think would get there a letter comes back from America, and two sentences in that letter you'll be shocked when you hear it totally transformed her life. Be right back.
Sid Roth: Okay, we're on the edge of our seat! Tell me about this letter you get from America, two months after you wrote a letter, and didn't even expect a reply.
Natasha Schedrivaya: Well, in fact it was a few months after I got my first package. Since that time, the this Baptist mission located in Sacramento, they had been so faithful. They would send a monthly package, with another issue of magazine, some brochures, and 10 copies of the same issue of the newspaper!
Sid Roth: Did you keep putting them under the doors?
Natasha Schedrivaya: Yes! I kept putting 'cause you know...
Sid Roth: She's an Evangelist and doesn't even know it!
Natasha Schedrivaya: And I didn't even know it! So, what happened one day, I received this letter, and the return address said it's Sacramento, California, but the name of the person who mailed it was an American name. It was as I remember, it was Patrick Panneck. I did I never knew this person, so I opened the letter, start reading it. So this man writes to me that he is a Christian, and he decided to visit this Russian church that is not far from his home. And so when he came to this Russian church, and he's as he stood at the bookstand, he meets this Russian man named Nicolai, who was an editor of the magazine to whom I wrote a letter! And he said, as they start talking, Nicolai pulls out of the pocket of his jacket my letter, and he tells this American Believer, "She is an atheist. She's 29 years old, she doesn't believe that God exists. Please pray for her", and he handed to him my letter. I mean when I read this, that touched my heart so much. An American Christian, and this editor was didn't throw away my letter! He carried it he treasured it. It means my life matters. It means p there are people there is an American who is not indifferent to me. And then the last two sentences, they were the l as we say in Russia, "the last drop in my overfilled cup". It said, "I want you to know I am praying for you", and "God loves you". That was it! Now I know that we put this sentences at the end of every letter, without even thinking, but these two sentences changed my life.
Sid Roth: What did you feel?
Natasha Schedrivaya: I felt like I mean there is someone who I considered an enemy he is praying for me! He cares about me! He wants the best for me! And then he says that God loves me. Now by that time, every night, you know because I read all the literature, and at the end of every issue of the magazine and the newspaper there was the Lord's Prayer, so at a certain point, I start thinking what if He exists? Just in case, I am going to start praying before I go to bed, just reading this Lord's Prayer! Just in case, you know!
Sid Roth: Insurance.
Natasha Schedrivaya: And so when I read God loves me, it just was it just penetrated my heart! I was so excited, and I just ran to the phone to call my friend Ella!
Sid Roth: The one that says you're going to Hell.
Natasha Schedrivaya: Yes! She gave up on me! So anyway I called her, and I said, "Ella, you need to understand, I got a letter from an American! Can you imagine, an American? And he says that God loves me, and he's praying for me! I need to show you this letter! I need to translate to you this letter"! And she was not really very excited. She gave up for on me, for sure. And she said, "Well, you know I don't really have time. Tomorrow is a Sunday I'm going to church. I don't have time for you", and I said, "Well can I go to church with you"?, just to show this letter! And so, kind of I'm inviting myself!
Sid Roth: I hope you're getting this! This woman's so assured she was going to Hell, she didn't want to even invite her to church!
Natasha Schedrivaya: So, she finally agreed, you know, and so we met together the next day. I translated the whole letter while we were riding a bus! So we came to the church, it was an old Pentecostal church they survived persecution, etc. And so we were sitting on the balcony, and during the service, my eyes suddenly were opened, and I suddenly realized that God is a reality. He is real! He exists! You know my, I I was crying, and I was whispering to God. I said, "God, I'm sorry I didn't know You existed. If I had known You existed, I would I would follow You. I am so sorry! I just didn't know about You anything! could you forgive me for that"? And then there was an altar call! You know, I knelt such was a tradition you kneel, and all I could say, everything was so spontaneous, but it was God! And I was just crying and repeating the same phrase, you know, "Jesus, I didn't know You existed. I'm so sorry". And then the minister of the church helped me, and led me into the Lord, you know, in through the r prayer of repentance, and accepting Jesus. And when I stood up, I never thought that I lived with such a burden. When I stood up, the burden it seemed like the burden of the sins of the whole world was lifted from me, and I was filled with peace, and joy, and lightness! I was transformed, and I was absolutely a new person! So I'm the next thought was, you know, I need to run home and tell my parents. They will be excited to hear about that God exists, and Jesus is real!
Sid Roth: As a new Believer, she was hired as a translator, and heard a revelation that was different than any of these new Christians had ever heard before! And she found out that she could operate in miracles, the same way the people on TV did! She never knew it! She thought people had to have special anointings from God, but she got the most amazing revelation that few Christians in America have. We'll be right back.
Sid Roth: Natasha, you told me your life goal is to make Jesus irresistible to people! Why is that your passion?
Natasha Schedrivaya: Because, you know in my life, I resisted so much the Gospel, I resisted Jesus, I resisted God, that my heart is toward the to make God so s easy to be understood. To make Jesus irresistible, so that people could respond to His love, in faith, and then the miracles are the outcome of that.
Sid Roth: You were, as a new Believer, because you were so proficient in languages, you were a translator for the Osborns. T.L. came, and his daughter LaDonna. You translated for LaDonna. What was the big revelation you got from T.L. Osborn? What was what was the thing you got? What's the take away?
Natasha Schedrivaya: Well, the greatest revelation that I got from T.L. Osborn, that the power is not in you. You know you don't have to possess a special set of anointing's or gifts, you just need to know the message. The power is in is in the message. Apostle Paul says that "I am not ashamed of the gospel", "for it is the power of God unto salvation". If you know the message, if you know the truth, if you know the Gospel, and people believe, that's what produces the greatest miracles conversions, healings, etc.
Sid Roth: You don't know this, but you are looking, right now, at the first woman Bishop of the former Soviet Union! And she has gone to 36,000 villages! Tell me about the babushkas.
Natasha Schedrivaya: Babushkas. Those Russian babushkas, those old ladies, their life was tough. The cow is sick, husband is beating her, and drinking, and she wants the message. She wants the truth. She wants God who will help her! And will change her husband, set him free, and heal her cow. And we saw miracles! Oh how God would touch even animals! And the cows would give the best milk! You know we have one babushka. She says, "My cow is a Christian cow now! My milk is the most delicious milk"! Honestly! This is what's happens!
Sid Roth: Very quickly, she had an open vision. I want you to look into the camera, and tell them what you saw in your open vision.
Natasha Schedrivaya: Okay, one day I had an open vision. I was standing at the cross of Jesus, He was crucified and I was standing at the foot of the cross, and I tried to look up, because I wanted to see His face, and yet the cross, it seemed like the cross was going into the Heavens. I didn't see His face. I saw his feet all torn out and in blood. And so then, suddenly I saw a big drop of blood, falling from Jesus' body, and it froze in the air. And when I looked at this drop of blood, I heard God speaking to me, "Do you realize that one drop of Jesus' blood would be enough to deal with the sin of the whole world, yet He shed all His blood just for you alone"? And then I thought this is it! This is it! This is the what makes the difference in the life of a Believer! I pray, Father, I pray in the name of Jesus now, for all the people who don't know You, or maybe they think they know You. But I pray that You would reveal Yourself. Reveal Your love for them, in the way that they would understand that all the sufferings, and the price that Jesus paid, it wasn't just for all people in the world. All this price was paid just for you alone. All His blood was shed just for you alone. His sacrifice is very personal, for you, so just respond in faith to Him, and accept Him into your heart as your Lord, and Savior.
Sid Roth: I say to the world, Jesus, You're my Lord!
Natasha Schedrivaya: Jesus, You're my Lord!
Sid Roth: Amen!