A team of two headed to a local grocery store to hand out our new Book of Life pamphlet to a predominantly French Jewish population. The original strategy was to wish people “Chag Yom T’ruah! ” (Happy Feast of Trumpets). Even though the parking lot was totally full, and people were streaming out of the store where we were standing, almost no one responded. They said no or just walked past us. One or two people took a pamphlet.
They do not know the biblical name of the feast they were about to celebrate, which unfortunately reveals, to some degree, their level of Scripture knowledge. They are often more dependent on rabbinic tradition than the reading of the Tanakh itself. The rabbis have taught that this feast heralds the Jewish new year. Scripture, however, tells us that God points to Passover as the first month of the year. (Exodus 12:2) We are now, in fact, in the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar. Most of us do not realize that this readjustment in numbering the months of the year came through Babylonian influence which crept into Jewish practice during their deportation. Jewish people think the new year is in the seventh month because this is when the Babylonians celebrated it.
Because of the poor response to our “Happy Feast of Trumpets” we changed our greeting to “Chag Sameach!” (Happy holiday). People became so receptive to taking our pamphlets that it seemed they were flying out of our hands. Within an hour and 15 minutes, we had given out 60 pamphlets, mostly in French.
An ultraorthodox Jewish man saw the mention of our radio show “Messianic Viewpoint” in the pamphlet and said, “I know what you are! You aren’t Jewish!” Gratefully, he didn’t complain to the management, who had previously given us permission to distribute literature if there were no complaints made. Please pray this continues to be the case.
A woman saw our pamphlet, raised her fist, and shouted, “Mashiach now!” What a springboard to show her our leaflet on the Messiah in Isaiah 53 and encourage her to read the whole chapter. She agreed and told us we should be giving them out to everyone at the store!
Most people returned our wishes for a joyous holiday and rushed off to their cars. On days of heavy shopping, we know that the volume of distribution is central. We gave out all the pamphlets we had. On other days, we can strike up longer conversations with people in parks.
Sunday September 5, Montreal
The first team of three gave out 70 Book of Life pamphlets and one English set of Scriptures. Some gospel tracts and a gospel of John were given to non-Jewish people they met.
A young Jewish woman who received the pamphlet was so excited to get it that we asked her if she had the Tanakh at home. She did not, so we gave her a full set, including the Brit Chadasha. She saw one of the volumes was a New Testament. We spoke of Messiah and gave her a bookmark with messianic prophecies, too.
We spoke to a Moroccan Jewish woman about forgiveness with the approach of Yom Kippur, the plan of redemption beginning in the Garden of Eden, and how our sins separate us from God. We explained blood atonement, and how we need to place our faith in His provision like Abraham did. She also accepted the leaflet on Isaiah 53 and heard how one single Messiah was prophesied to come twice and could make us righteous. Some Jewish people have been taught there are two Messiahs.
She agreed to look up prophecies from the bookmark when she got home.
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The second team of two went to a grocery store that was jammed with shoppers who were buying provisions for the holiday. That team also gave out 70 Book of Life pamphlets, wishing Chag Sameach to the customers as they left with their groceries.
There were so many leaving the store at once that the staff was having a hard time keeping the carts cleared away, so we pitched in to help. The Jewish store manager even joked with us and offered us a job! Another time when he came out, he asked to see what we were distributing. We had prayed there would be no opposition from the store before we began that morning. He simply glanced at the cover that had lovely Jewish graphics and said it was nice, handing it back to us. We breathed a sigh of relief that he was not going to oppose us, thanking the Lord for this direct answer to prayer. The manager thanked us for our help.
People were quite rushed, so we did not have any long conversations. We were grateful that we gave out everything we had in literature.
Please pray with us that these 200 seeds would find fertile soil. Past experiences of Jewish believers we know tell us that some were reached through picking up literature that had been discarded by others. God will use everything to accomplish His purposes.