It began to swerve from side to side.  The car was literally going back and forth. It spun around and then it flips over. Are we going to die? Being Jewish was very, very important to me, at least culturally. Twice a week I went to Hebrew school. Bar Mitzvah was very tough for me because I had to sing in front of a thousand people. I was very protective of my Jewishness even though I didn’t know God. I didn’t know I could know God, but I remember thinking, “Is there a God?” Life’s purpose was to have as much fun as you can before you die. Partying and drugs and alcohol.

My best friend, his name was Brian McRae, he was not Jewish, he was Irish Catholic.  He became a believer in Jesus. What had happened to Brian? Why wouldn’t he drink? Why would anybody want to be religious when you could just go out and have fun all the time? And to be honest with you I was a bit angry at Brian. He was my best friend and suddenly he couldn’t do the fun things with me that he used to do because of his new faith? I said, “Brian, are you telling me that if I’m not born again
like you’re talking about, I’m not going to heaven?”  I couldn’t think of anything more arrogant than for him to say that his way was the only way. Brian then turned to me and he opened up his Bible to John 3:3 where it says: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God”. And it was like swords just flew out of heaven and I didn’t know what to do. I could barely move.  All I can tell you is it was like somebody turned on the lights. For the next 8 months, I wondered, I searched.
Then in 1983, the Fall came. It was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and I decided, “I’m going to fast this time.” I’d never fasted on Yom Kippur, and at the end of 24 hours of fasting, of longing for something of a speck of a relationship with God… I felt nothing.

I did very poorly in school. I barely graduated. So I made it to this one college that would let me in – it’s not Harvard, let’s put it that way. I went home for Fall Break and I saw my friend Brian. Brian, of course, is talking to me about Jesus again and I said, “Brian, just stop. I have one question for you: ‘Is your life better now that you are a believer in Jesus?'” Because I thought he would say to me, “Ron, no. It’s not better – we had fun, we used to get drunk and party, we had a great time, and you know, now I live kind of a boring religious life, but when I die I get to go to heaven.” That’s what I thought the deal was – you exchange your fun life for a boring life and you get to go to heaven. But that’s not what Brian said to me. He looked at me and his face lit up with joy, and he said, “Ron, I know God”. And when he said that, I knew he was telling me the truth.

My friend Dean and I, he was in college with me, and even though he was not a believer he saw this Jewish guy who was interested and wanted to help. He took me to this movie about Jesus and at the end of the movie I was crying, and Dean – if I was crying he was weeping.  We got in the car. While we were driving back to Lewisburg and I began to pray. Now even though I’ve been in the synagogue all my life and been Bar Mitzvahed, and I’d been to Temple, I had never prayed. I’d never prayed from my heart. I’d never talked to God as if he was a person.  and I said, “God, I believe you’re real. I didn’t believe you were real 8 months ago, but today I believe you’re real and if you will tell me how to serve you I will serve you. Do you want me to become an Orthodox Jew? A Lubavich? Do I have to become a born-again Christian? Maybe a Hindu? I don’t know! But if you show me, I’ll serve you.” And as I finish this prayer, I prayed inside not out loud, suddenly I noticed that Dean was losing control of the car it began to swerve from side to side.  It spun around several times and as the car began to swerve from side to side and then spin around, I just thought, “Are we going to die!?” Then it flipped over several times and we ended up in the middle of a ditch. The first thought that came to my mind as I was laying upside down in a ditch in the middle of North Carolina was there could not be a Jesus. If this was real, how how could I get in a car accident right as I’m praying? And as I was having all these thoughts I realized we were in a car still upside down.  I looked at Dean.  He was fine. He looked at me and I was fine.  We looked at the car, this wreckage, it was a total loss.

It’s pitch black it’s probably 10:00 p.m. at night.  We didn’t know what to do. We start walking and we saw one house – one house in the middle of nowhere. We walked up to this one house, we knocked on the door, we walked in and we sat down.  They gave us water. I saw a Bible. I saw a magazine that I knew was kind of religious or something.  I knew we had just gotten in an accident. I asked the wife, “Are you guys believers in Jesus?” and she said, “Well yes!” She went on to talk theologically about what Jesus did, and I’m going to be honest with you… I didn’t understand any of it except that while she was talking to me, a presence and a power that I cannot explain in human words came upon me.  I’d call it electricity but that’s too weak of a word. I could not get rid of this feeling. The more I resisted it, the stronger it got, like somebody was just turning it up slowly. I just stopped her and asked, “What is this feeling I’m feeling?” I asked God just a few minutes before, “Show me the truth!” The next thing I know I’m upside down in the middle of North Carolina. Then I’m in the home of true, genuine believers in Jesus. The movie, the prayer, the car wreck… If I deny this I have no excuse. This is real.

The next day I woke up and I thought, “Well, how will I live a life free of drugs and alcohol, you know?”  Then one day became two days and two days became a week. Suddenly it was a month later and then I realized I was free. I just believed and everything. changed in my life. After I came to faith, I thought, “I’m no longer Jewish I’m now a Christian.” but then I began to read the New Covenant and I thought, “Oh my gosh everyone’s Jewish! There’s a guy named John the Baptist in the New Testament and he’s Jewish not actually a Baptist! There’s a guy named Paul the Apostle who’s actually a Jewish rabbi! The Bible says in Isaiah 53 that a Jewish man would come and that he would take on the sin of the Jewish nation and then he would die for them a sinners’ death, that he would be buried in a rich man’s grave. All that happened – and that he would see the light of life again. That is Jesus, Yeshua! But you might say, I’m Jewish! How can I believe in Jesus? Let me just challenge you: Go read the New Testament. What you’re going to find out is it’s a story about Jewish people finding the Jewish Messiah.

Ron Cantor is One for Israel.

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