Israel My Glory - July/August 2011

passerby. Every day from then on, Nina sat on a bench on the Atlantic City board- walk and read a few chapters from her new book. The more she read, the more convinced she became that she was read- ing a “Jewish book,” as she put it. Soon Nina began to notice little changes in her life. No longer did she dis- play a nasty temper or tell fibs to smooth over social situations. She was not work- ing to make these changes, yet she knew they were occurring. Nina was confused. She knew she was not the same. Searching for answers, she approached a Christian friend to help her understand what was happening. She learned that reading God’s Word was transforming her. She realized the Bible was like no ther book. It was powerful, so powerful that it convinced Nina to trust Jesus. It was then Nina began her new life.

Power to Forgive

Corrie ten Boom grew up in Holland
before World War II. She and her family
were regular readers of God’s Word and
devout believers in the Lord Jesus.
Though the ten Booms were Gentiles,
they loved God’s Chosen People and
paid the ultimate price for their faithful-
ness to them. As punishment for hiding
Jews from the Nazis, they were sent to
concentration camps. Corrie and her sis-
ter, Betsie, ended up at Ravensbruck
where Betsie died. Corrie survived. Years
later God’s transforming power mani-
fested itself in a marvelous way. Wrote
Corrie in her book The Hiding Place:
“It was at a church service in Munich
[in 1947] that I saw him, the former S.S.
man who had stood guard at the shower
room door in the processing center at
Ravensbruck. He was the first of our
actual jailers that I had seen since that
time. And suddenly it was all there—the
roomful of mocking men, the heaps of
clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face. He
came up to me as the church was empty-
ing, beaming and bowing. ‘How grateful
I am for your message, Fraulein,’ he said.
‘To think that, as you say, He has washed
my sins away!’
“His hand was thrust out to shake
mine. And I, who had preached so often

ISRAEL MY GLORY

to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

“Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

“I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.

“As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”1

From Terrorist
to Zionist

Another dramatic example of how God’s Word changes lives involves Walid Shoebat, a Bethlehem-born, Palestinian Jew-hater from the cradle. His chief goal in life was to kill Jews and die a martyr for Allah.

In the mid-1970s he became active in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and was doing everything he could to help accomplish his life’s goal, including carrying out terrorist attacks in Israel. 2

Walid moved to America to attend college, all the while raising funds for the PLO. In 1993 he married a Christian. “I wanted to convert her to Islam,” he told BBC News. “I told her Jews had corrupted the Bible.” She asked him to prove it. So he bought a Bible.

For six months he studied the Word
intensely from cover to cover and discov-
ered the truth. He renounced terrorism,
repented of his sin, gave his life to Jesus
Christ, and was made a new creation in
Christ Jesus—all because he read God’s
Word with a sincere heart that wanted
to know the truth.