One for Israel Professor David Mishkin shares how he once thought that people who believed in God were stupid. Until he experienced how God pulled him out of darkness and had a powerful encounter.
His Story
Professor David Mishkin’s grandparents were born in the European Union. They are Yiddish-speaking Jews who in the early 20th century came to America. He grew up with Jewish parents who were no longer Orthodox but still Jewish.
The professor didn’t believe the story of Moses and Pharaoh, the plagues, or the miracles. He said that it was “unthinkable” to think that Jesus could have had any part in his life. He had serious depression, and he thought about killing himself when he was a very young child. It made no sense to him because everything looked fine from the outside.
The Accident
“So when I got to high school my plan was very simple. Just keep my head down, hope that it doesn’t last forever and just try to get through it. In college, I was a disc jockey and that was something very new for me. I could even say for the first time in my life I was having fun,” he said.
Unfortunately, it didn’t last. He started having the same old thoughts and feelings that he had when he was a kid. He was thinking about committing suicide, and he tried to do it three nights in a row by drinking a lot and taking a lot of pills. After the third night, someone found him and called an ambulance to take him to the hospital. He didn’t know it would be that severe.
Leading to the Powerful Encounter
Though he had been to New York before, he learned some new things about his family while he was there. For instance, both of his grandfathers killed themselves. Afterward, he found out that another great-grandfather in the old country had done the same thing.
“The one point of optimism I had was having just hit rock bottom I had nowhere to go but up. So I decided to give it a go. Life,” he said.
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He tried a lot of different jobs and activities but failed at all of them. He still hadn’t reached the point where he had the old thoughts. Out of the blue, he heard bad news one day. One of his Jewish friends came over and told him she now thought Jesus was the Messiah. He asked right away, “What are you talking about? This isn’t right; he’s not for us.”
The Powerful Encounter
But Professor David became curious so, he read the Bible starting from Genesis. Then, he jumped to reading the New Testament and that’s when he had a powerful encounter with God.
He said, “I realized that at this point I was reading no longer as an inquirer or as a skeptic. I was reading as somebody who is pretty much on board with the message. In other words, I believe this. And I had just been reading about Jesus in the New Testament and I was saying, ‘Yes, I agree. I want this.’”
The professor added, “So I prayed I need Jesus as my Lord and Savior. And God not only heard my prayer, he answered it immediately. From that moment on, I became a new person. All of the stuff, the combination of spiritual issues psychological, emotional, nature-nurture, was lifted and I was set free.”
Watch the full video here:
Reference: ONE FOR ISRAEL Ministry
Header image: Professor David Mishkin [ONE FOR ISRAEL Ministry]. YouTube, 31 March 2024, https://youtu.be/k6vIM37AxHM
