He rebuffed Christians because he was Jewish. Secretly he suffered depression.

Trevor Rubenstein got mad when some Christians approached him at a mall and talked about Jesus.

“I’m Jewish!” he barked. “This Jesus who you’re following is a false prophet! Why are you sharing this with me?”

Later, he admitted that his anger was unjustified. But it seemed reasonable at the time: Judaism was important to his well-off family.

Trevor – his Hebrew name is Tuvia – grew up in an affluent family. His parents did well; his grandparents did very well, he says on a Chosen People Ministries video.

Despite living in the lap of luxury, Trevor experienced significant depression to the point of being suicidal.

“I would often contemplate killing myself,” he said. “There was this overlying feeling that I’m not loved like I want to be loved.”

The inner emptiness prompted him to look for acceptance, which he found among the druggies. He began to drink and abuse drugs.

“That really affected my grades and my education,” he says.

With plummeting grades and behavioral issues, he got kicked out of school.

“You’re not coming back to this school,” the principal told him in his office. “I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you don’t come back to this school.”

At college, a friend invited Trevor to a Bible study. Without really listening to what the activity was, Trevor acceded. Only too late did he realize he was in a Bible study.

But the friend had answers to Trevor’s doubts and Read the rest: Story of the Prodigal the heart of a suicidal Jewish man.

Atheism Kills compares deaths by Christianity vs. deaths by atheism

The next time an atheist accuses Christianity of being responsible for untold mass murder throughout history, point out to him that atheism in the 20th Century alone has killed 200 million people.

“Godlessness kills,” says Barak Lurie in his new book Atheism Kills. “Godlessness has resulted in far more mayhem and murders than all Judeo-Christian religion institutions combined. There is no comparison. Virtually every culture that has rejected God has collapsed or engaged in horrific mayhem. By contrast, virtually all cultures grounded on the Judeo-Christian tradition have flourished.”

Atheistic governments, seeking to impose their vision of utopia, feel compelled to eliminate any and all opposition, according to research from Atheism Kills:

• The French Revolution: up to 40,000 deaths.
• Stalin: 20 million deaths.
• Mao Tse-tung: up to 70 million deaths.
• Fidel Castro: up to 141,000 deaths.
• Ho Chi Minh: up to 100,000 deaths.
• Pol Pot: 2 million deaths.
• Kim Il-sung: 1.5 million deaths.
• Hitler: 11 million deaths.

 

Victims of the atheistic Mao Tse-tung regime

The list goes on. “Being an atheist dictator advancing atheist doctrine has always led to brutality and killings,” Lurie observes.

 

By comparison, what is the tally of the bloodbath supposedly orchestrated by Christianity?

• The Spanish Inquisition: up to 5,000 killed.
• The Crusades: 1 million killed.
• The Salem Witch Trials: 19 killed.
• The Ku Klux Klan: 3,446 killed.
• Religious wars post Reformation: 11 million.

 

Skulls from Cambodia’s “killing fields,” victims of the atheistic Pol Pot regime

“Atheism killed hundreds of millions in the span of only 30 years,” Lurie writes. “The number of killings on (the alleged) behalf of Christianity (are) minor in comparison and ranged over approximately 800 years.”

 

Lurie decided to become an atheist at age 11 when he stumbled across the clever arguments atheists wield to crush. Then he went to college and rediscovered God through philosophy classes.

Fyodor Dostoevsky was instrumental to his floundering faith in atheism. The Russian novelist explored the consequences of atheism — the resulting absence of all morals — in Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.

“It was he who first made me see the dangerous world of my own atheism,” Lurie writes. “His books show the consequences of living according to dangerous believes.” Read  the rest about Atheism Kills.

 

Mute the past

Samuel Pisar became a Harvard-educated lawyer and statesman out of the horrendous beginnings of a Nazi concentration camp. He eluded death sentences twice while watching hundreds of fellow Jews die in gas chambers. He escaped on a death march. A hardened and cruel boy, Samuel survived post-war Poland selling cigarettes and stolen coffee grounds. A French aunt from rescued him from the streets, and he began a new and completely different life.

In doing so, he provides a model for Christians trying to slam the door on the past: “I had to wipe out the first 17 years of my life,” he said. “I muted the past” and “turned to the future with a vengeance.”

When God made us a “new creation” and “born again,” it was to “wipe out” how ever many years were previously lived in sin.

 

Helen Shapiro, star from yesteryear, comes to Christ out of Judaism

Once more popular than the Beatles, Jewish-born singer Helen Shapiro believed all Christians were anti-Semitic after a boy at school accused her of crucifying Christ.

Shapiro got an early start in music fame as a teen and stormed through England’s top rankings in the 1960s. In 1961, the 14-year-old released her first hit “Don’t Treat Me like a Child,” which peaked at number three on British charts, according to an ASSIST News story by Charles Gardner.

In 1963, the Beatles were actually an opening act for her when they played together on tour. The Beatles’ first big hit “Please, Please Me” hit number one on that tour.

Shapiro also rose to the top of the charts with “Walking Back to Happiness.” Though she sang it, she didn’t really find true happiness for another 28 years.

As she rose to fame, she felt empty and cast around for something to believe in. Dabbling in New Age philosophy, she visited clairvoyants and spiritists.

By her late teens, her career as a pop singer began to decline. As beat music rose in popularity, along with newer female singers such as Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black, and Lulu, Shapiro seemed old-fashioned and characteristic of the bee-hived, pre-Beatles, 50s era.

In the 70s and early 80s she performed in stage musicals and jazz concerts. She played the role of Nancy in the musical, Oliver! in London’s West End and made appearances on British television.

By age 40, Shapiro stopped believing New Age notions and doubted the existence of God.

Then someone gave her the book Betrayed by Stan Telchin. As a leader of a Jewish community, Telchin was aghast when his daughter became a Christian. Feeling “betrayed” by her, Telchin embarked on a mission to demonstrate Jesus was a fraud by using the Old Testament.

Instead, he proved to himself beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus was the genuine Jewish Messiah. The prophecies in the Jewish Scripture, he discovered, pointed invariably to Yeshua-Jesus.

“Isaiah 53 was about how He took our sin. I was gobsmacked,” Shapiro told Assist News. “And Daniel prophesied that the Messiah had to die before the temple was destroyed. It all seemed to point to Jesus.”

Read the rest of the story.

The BIGGEST EVER next big thing

The biggest ever NEXT BIG THING rocked the market with its appearance 2,000 years  ago. This teknon, this logos, totally revolutionized the world, and there has been no turning back. Consumers rushed to get it, but because retailers refused it, they snapped it up mostly on the black market.

Then as unexpectedly as it appeared, the phenomenon died — though only for three days. When it came back, it exploded with unprecedented growth. Jealously guarding their monopolies, competitors unleashed law, courts and mafia-like hardball to successfully drive it underground. Still it prospered.

The old systems were hopelessly outmoded. Who would want to limit himself to the mainframe in Jerusalem when now anyone, anywhere, anytime could have immediate and personal access?

It made forgiveness of sin just too easy. Who would want to sacrifice an animal for every stinking sin? Inferior models were even subsequently offered, but who wanted them? They actually made forgiveness harder to attain.

This big thing had free apps that weren’t advertised. Not only did consumers get Heaven, they also discovered it brought abundant life. Forget about talking to Siri; you could now talk to God. As for directions, it helped you navigate the quickest route to happiness. It had an app for a satisfying marriage, a joy-filled life, a purposefulness, wisdom. Better than social media, it brought you live friends (in the church), people who liked YOU, not just your posting or your tweet.

Do you remember this next big thing? It was Jesus. And He has never been replaced by a newer big thing. He is still just as good as 2,000 years ago. You won’t find Him at the Apple store. You’ll find Him in a simple prayer of opening your heart to Him.