I had a yacht in the south of France
and a huge house and I felt
on top of the world.
The time came when the stock market
crashed. I lost everything.
I remember
As a little boy, my Orthodox
Jewish grandfather leave
the room we were in and go
upstairs several times a day.
I said to Grandma, Where does grandpa
go every day?
Oh, she said, he goes to speak
with God.
So I thought to myself, if grandpa goes
to speak with God, God must be a very
important person.
My parents saved up to send
me to college, and then I became a
barrister at law, and I loved being on my
feet with with the wig and the gown.
I'm sure you've seen it.
Unfortunately, I had a phone
call from my mother.
My father was in a hospital
and that he was very ill and I had
to hang up my wig and my gown and I
had to look after his business.
There were no other children.
I became hardened.
And I wanted so much to
prove to all these people
that I could make money as well.
And years went by and I married
a lovely girl. Her name was
Valerie. And I
became very successful.
About five years after that,
I turned my finance company
into a bank.
And five years after that, the bank
went onto the stock market
and I became a multimillionaire.
I had a yacht in the south of France
and a Rolls-Royce and a huge
house and I felt on top
of the world. The press called me Midas
and I was full of ego and I was
full of myself.
I was my own God.
I didn't take any interest at all in
the one true God.
The time came when the stock market
crashed because the price of oil
climbed dramatically
and I lost everything.
So I went from one extreme to the other.
One day I was very rich and the next day
I was suddenly treating people with
all the champagne and caviar and I was
taking Valium and drinking whiskey.
And I was very, very unhappy.
One day in Los Angeles,
several extraordinary things happened.
We went to a Bible study
in someone's house and he
was a Jewish man.
I was sitting there.
I didn't know anyone around me.
There were clearly Jews
and Gentiles.
And I was deeply in
thought about what I'd heard from
the man who'd done the teaching
from the Bible, from the Old Testament.
And a woman came
up to me after the lesson, and she
simply said to me.
She said, Joseph.
Are you now ready?
To receive Yeshua, Jesus
as your Messiah.
And when we went out of that place,
Valerie said to me, Joseph,
there's something I have to tell you,
something very special happened to me.
She said.
They told me about Jesus and who He is.
And I have accepted Jesus
as my Messiah.
And I looked at her and
I said, I've done the same.
And I burst into tears.
I'm not ashamed to tell you.
And I probably cried for 10
to 12 minutes.
And I recieved Yeshua.
And I knew that something big
had happened to me.
Well, in the weeks and months that
followed, we went to synagogues.
We went to churches and very
uncomfortable in churches.
But they talked about Jesus.
And I decided I wanted to learn
more.
I went to a seminary and
later on I became a teacher
of the Bible.
Pastor of a small church.
And that was a wonderful experience.
And I loved telling people about
Jesus is Jewish.
All the apostles are Jewish.
And when people say to me, oh you've
converted, I say to them, no,
I haven't converted unless Jesus
has converted.
Practically all the Bible was written by
Jews. And I feel very much at home.
It was very hard for Valerie.
She'd picked up a germ
that was in a bad part of her body.
Even before she knew me
when she was a teenager.
In those days, they didn't have the
medical knowledge to know how to
stop it spreading.
Unfortunately, years later, she
passed away.
And I will never forget the wonderful
time I had with Valerie,
whom I adored and loved.
I have struggled with
why God allowed
her to suffer so much.
But we have to trust in God
and we have to realize that his ways are
not our ways.
And I'm sure she'll be well one
day when heaven opens up
for those who believe in Jesus.
He was divine.
He was indeed the son of God.
He did indeed come to this earth, which
to me today, many years later,
is still amazing to me, that God
would send His own son
to help us
reach out to him
and be forgiven for our sins.
I had missed something for many years of
my life. I think if you asked
me what was my overriding emotion
and that was gratitude,
thanks to God for showing
me the truth, thanks to God
for allowing me to share that truth
with other people.