Don’t Risk your Soul for the Words of a False Prophet

Are we going to bet our own eternal future on a false prophet? The silence spoke volumes to me I knew I was into something really deep. I grew up in Morocco I come from a religious family. My grandfather was a rabbi and so was his father and grandfather. It was less and less comfortable for Jews to live in Muslim countries. Going to school and coming out, there were some young Muslims waiting for us with stakes, and we had to fight our way home. I remember my father used to say, “If you forget you’re a Jew, they will remind you.”

I was 13 years old when we moved to Montreal, and it was when I was in college that my friends had a special interest in Eastern religion, I remember, and also in prophecies, and I remember one of my friends was getting into Nostradamus’ prophecies and I said, “Don’t do that! Why would you go to Eastern religion? We have Daniel, Ezekiel…Why should we go to see other prophets?” And they said, “Okay fine.  So what did they (Daniel & Ezekiel) say?” and I said, “Well I don’t know, I’ll find out.” For the sake of my friends, I went to inquire. I went to see my father and I asked, “Do you know about the prophets? Did they say anything about our times?” My father said, “No, I don’t know.” I said, “Did your father leave anything? Did he ever tell you something? Did he leave any books?” And my father said yes and so he brought me three beautiful books. Great! But they were siddurs (prayerbooks) you know there’s nothing there. About a week later there were people who came to the college and they set up a book table. I picked up the first book and I turned it around, and it said: ‘What the Hebrew prophets say about the end-time prophecies’! I looked at the table and it was a Christian table, they were evangelists. I saw the name of Christ and I saw crosses… If I had seen this before maybe I wouldn’t have gone there. How can they know about my own book better than me – better than my father?! So I took the book thinking if I would see from the corner of my eyes the name of Jesus, I will skip over it. I associated the name of Jesus with antisemitism and I was dumbfounded about the preciseness and the importance of prophecies in the scriptures; We have the prophecy of Moses in the Torah and we have the prophecies of David in the Ketuvim (writings). 

This is when the writer spoke about the Messiah. He mentioned Isaiah 53. That did it. I was so touched by the clearness of the words in there – I couldn’t believe it. It is so concise, so descriptive. The hero dies! And not only that, the hero was led as a lamb to the slaughter and he didn’t open his mouth. That was him! One who comes, perfect, with no sins to come and die for us. And this is what Isaiah 53 says. I recognized him. This is when I accepted the Lord Yeshua as my personal Savior. I saw him there, I met my God. I’ve never felt as Jewish as I did then. My brother brought me to see one of the chief rabbis in Montreal. And right away says to me, “You know, the Messiah doesn’t die.” I said to him, “But you know, I just read in the Talmud that, you know, the Messiah dies, in Sanhedrin 98b.” He went and he opened up his book and he saw it and he went around the table once, and he came back and he said to me, he says, “This is one opinion, but we go, as Sephardics, we go with what Maimonides, the Rambam says, and the Rambam says very clearly that Jesus is not the Messiah and that the Messiah doesn’t die.” So I said to him, I said, “Do you consider the Rambam a prophet?” And he says, “Yes! From Moses to Moses! Moses Maimonides and Moses from the Scriptures.” And I said, “But you know Maimonides gave a prophecy that didn’t come about. Are we going to bet our own eternal future on a false prophet?” It didn’t go well. He got very angry of course, he bangs on the table and he said, “You’re lying!” he says, “He never said that!” I’ve found a book in French where Maimonides writes to Rabbi al-Fayumi in Yemen, and where he gives that prophecy, and I brought it to him. And he said to me, “There are mysteries that I don’t understand.” And he gave me back the book. I knew I was into something really deep, really great.

You know in rabbinical Judaism, the idea of Messiah is so broad you know, depending who you ask you’ll get a different answer. You know that when you take two Jews, you get three opinions when it comes to the Messiah you get maybe ten opinions. The reason why they came up with two Messiahs: Messiah ben David and Messiah ben Yosef is because they couldn’t put the two comings of the Messiah together. They do not go by what the scripture says. When you go to the Torah, when you go to the Tanach (OT) the idea the concept of the Messiah is clear. You know Yeshua said it in John 5:46, he says, “If they knew Moses, they would know me.” If you stay within the Scriptures and if you stay within the Torah within the prophets and the writings you will find Yeshua – he is right there! He’s waiting for you in the Scriptures.

Mr. Gabizon is One for Israel.