Sid Roth — Identity Theft
SID: Hello. Welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. I love the rarified air of Heaven. You know what identity theft is. But I want to tell you about the original identity theft. As a matter of fact, this person was put in the witness protection program against his will for 2000 years.
His name, Yeshua in Hebrew, Jesus in English, and my guess says, it's time to bring Jesus, the one called the King of the Jews, out of the witness protection program.
So you're a young college student. You're into drugs. Your major purpose is fun. You're Jewish identity, but not too religious, and your best friend becomes a Jesus freak. Ron, how did that affect you, your friendship?
RON: It about ruined my friendship when my best friend Brian came to me and told me that he now is a born again believer in Jesus.
SID: Now the word "born again", it meant what to you?
RON: It meant freak. It meant crazy. It meant religious nut. And there was a dramatic change in his life. He began to share the Good News with me. And I said, "Brian, I'm Jewish and if there's one thing I know about being Jewish, we don't believe in Jesus, or at least that's what I was taught." Well Brian was very persistent, and one day he told me, I actually asked him, I said, "Brian, are you actually telling me that if I'm not born again like you," I didn't even know what that meant, Sid.
SID: I know you didn't. You know how I know you didn't know? I'm Jewish, too.
RON: So I said, "Are you saying I have to be born again to go into Heaven?" I didn't believe in Heaven. I didn't believe, I thought maybe there's a God. But I certainly didn't know him. And Brian looked at me and he said, "Ron, yes, you must be born again." And when he said that I knew it was the truth. I don't know how I knew it was the truth, but it scared me half to death. And I said, "Brian," I said, "There is nothing in the Bible about being born again." Which is really funny, because I had never read, not only the New Testament, I never read the Old Testament. And I said, "There's nothing in the Bible about being born again." He opens up the New Covenant to John, Chapter 3 where Yeshua says, "Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God." And it was like swords coming out of Heaven. I was just, I didn't know what to do.
SID: But he wanted to be right with God, if there is a God. And so he didn't know what to do. So he's in college and one day another friend who's a Christian takes him to a Christian movie. What happened?
RON: Well this fellow Dean found out that I was a believer. We had a conversation a few days before about Yeshua, about Jesus, and as we're talking, I suddenly felt the presence of God. I didn't know what it was. I had never felt it, but there was just an incredible supernatural peace. Well he says, "Ron, I want to take you to a movie about Jesus." Two days later, we went to the movie in Durham, North Carolina, and at the end of the movie, we're both crying. I mean, it was a, as far as movies go, I'm all for a movie, but it was a movie. I wasn't going to become born again because of a movie. We get in the car, we're driving home and nobody is talking. And we get about a half hour back, it's an hour drive. We're a half hour back to school. And I said, "God, I have to know the truth. Is Jesus the Messiah or do I need to become an orthodox Jew or a Buddhist? Just show me how to serve you and I'll do it." And the next thing I remember is Dean loses control of the car. It begins to swerve from side to side, flips over upside down in a ditch.
SID: My goodness. Was it totaled?
RON: The car was totaled?
SID: Were you totaled?
RON: Not a scratch on either one of us. And that was my first prayer. That's when I realized that prayer is power. And we got out of the car, we went to, there was only one house within miles. We knock on the door. And lo and behold, two wonderful believers in Yeshua, Jesus, answer the door, and next thing you know I'm sitting in their living room and I'm asking them about Yeshua. I said, "If Jesus was the Messiah, why didn't he get off the cross and just prove it to everyone?" And you see, all I knew up until that point is that I needed to be born again, but I didn't know why. They explained to me about sin, that I was a sinner, that Yeshua came to die for me, that he could have easily gotten off the cross, but he chose to die as a sacrifice for me, and that through faith in him I could have eternal life. Well I didn't understand anything with their blood, sacrifice, lambs, except for the fact that the power and presence of God was falling on top of me. And when I say, Sid—
SID: Wait a second. You told me that you were into drugs in college. So weren't you on a drug trip that was like that?
RON: That was my first thought. I said, did I take anything today, and I hadn't. And I wasn't a drug addict. I was a drug user. And but this power was, there are no words in English. At the time, I thought this is a force field of electricity coming off of me about a foot in every direction. And I finally stopped and I said, "What is this?" And she said, "What is what?" And I said, "What is this power I'm feeling?" And I believed. I was born again. I walked out of that house a new creature, went back to school. Everyone wanted to know about the car accident. I said, "No, I have to tell you about Jesus."
SID: You mean, immediately you started talking about Jesus.
RON: Well that's what Brian had been doing for the eight months previous. That's all I saw him do. That was my example.
SID: Okay. Now as a Jewish man, I don't quite get this. He says that Jesus went into a witness protection program and he has just come out, and he wants to tell you who the true Jesus is. We'll be right back.