Muslim Murders Vatican Cleric in Turkey

Sunset in Thyatira, Turkey One of the Churches of Revelation

Middle East Miracles Will You Go?

Here I was in Turkey!  

April 2005

G-d’s Amazing Grace!
Turkey in an area about a days bus ride from the main port City of Antalya. This was a Roman built City with a Roman Wall still lining the entrance of the sea port itself. I was not alone here. Elesheva my friend was with me. She was a Messianic Jewish lady from Jerusalem but originally from New York City. G-d had instructed me to go to Turkey to take the saving message of Jesus Christ to the Turks. He had instructed me to deliver as many Bibles as I could to the Moslems of Turkey. I had just previously arrived from Antioch where the Apostle Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Peter and others had formed the First Congregational Church. They met in a Mountain side there and would escape the attacking Roman soldiers exiting the top of the mountain. I had the privilege of being there and seeing this escape route first hand. You entered the front of the mountain in a cave like entrance. It was all rock, rock walls, rock ceiling and rock floor. Then as you proceded deeper into the back of the mountain, there was a more narrow passage way that eventually veered upward winding to the summit or the very top of this mountain. This is where they would flee escaping the capture and persecution of the Romans. Ironic now that the Roman Catholic Church has secured this area protecting it from vandalism and charging entrance fees for its security and upkeep. It is now a tourist site and is open daily for visitors during visiting hours for nominal entrance fee. Inside this cave as I entered, directly in front of me there was an ancient stone throne or (kiseh in Hebrew) for chair especially dedicated to the Apostle Peter. As I stood in front of this chair and stone table, I felt an enormous outpouring of the Holy Spirit wash over me. Suddenly, I noticed an Arab man and his girlfriend standing nearby. I spoke to them  about Yeshua HaMaschiach which is Jesus the Messiah. He is the Savior and the only atonement for sin. They became very angry and began to  call me and the Jews pigs and monkeys. G-d’s Word does not return void.  So the words I spoke to them will do exactly as G-d has determined for His Word to do. It divides the Spirit from the Soul and the bone from the marrow. This was in Antioch the city where Christians were first called Christians and the Apostle Paul had his headquarters after leaving Jerusalem. He set sail not far from here venturing out on two missionary journeys. We journeyed from Antioch to outside the city. As we traveled on a small bus to the beach of the Mediterranean Sea, it was amazing and exciting to see the exact location of the Apostle Paul’s historic Missionary voyages. I had the opportunity to enter one of the fishing vessells there and as I stood on the top of the deck, I was able to watch the beautiful orange/red sunset setting over the Mediterranean Sea. I met the owner of a nearby restuarant there and had time to have some hot turkish coffee and witness to him and his son. It was sad to learn that after Jerusalem was invaded and the Jewish were taken to Babylon, that many of the Jewish were taken as slaves to work here in building a stone channel. Many of  them lived here cutting the stone channel preventing flooding of the land. When the waters would rise, the channel would receive the excess waters. The Jews were forcibly taken and treated as slaves to be used for hard labor. They built and created an inlet channel out of the rock and hard stone for the flood waters from the Mediterranean Sea to escape. The land was frequently flooded and crops were being ruined. There was much hard toil and suffering as they endlessly worked to build this channel over the course of many years. We were here for the day. It was quite windy from the Sea. I cannot imagine the wild storms that would come upon the sea with the waves crashing against the ships. It was in the spring and was not yet very warm in this region not far from Syria, Iran and Iraq. I  returned back to Antioch where we had received many Bibles from the Catholic Church. We had distributed these in Haran and totally exhausted our supply there with people begging us for more. This was so sad that we had no more to give them. We were heartbroken that we could not given then a Turkish Bible in their own language. Some Medical Doctors and City Officials were asking us for Bibles. We gave what we could. We prayed for then and anointed them with oil. How G-d gave us protection and Grace in this very Moslem Country when it is forbidden to proseltize and preach the Gospel. They could have easily arrested us and thrown the key away. We returned to Antioch where we gathered our things, thanked the Catholic Priest for our rooms where we had stayed, paid for our rooms and took a taxi to the bus station. Then we traveled on a chartered bus about 16 hours or so from Antioch heading to Western Turkey to meet our young Spanish Jewish friend from Brazil. We traveled the treacherous winding and snow covered mountainous roads and continued Westward until we reached the coastal City of Izmir.  It was beautiful here with the blue skys and ocean blue Mediterranean Sea. We had also met a young friend from South America. He was studying with a five year visa in Turkey and living in in the City of Izmir. We had met him in Antioch. From his studies in Turkey he had learned enough Turkish to speak conversationally with the locals. This was a blessing and a help for us. He had become our own personal interpreter. His testimony was that he was Jewish and G-d had miraculously delivered him from Homosexuality. After doing some ministry together in Antioch, he decided to return early to Izmir and resume his studies.  He wanted us to meet his German Pastor at a church there in Izmir so we took the bus and arrived at the closest street to the church. We entered and met a good brother waiting in the foyer. Then we were invited to sit and speak with the Pastor in His office. He was very gracious to give us over 100 plus Bibles to hand out to the Turkish Moslems there in Turkey. Praise G-d! They were Bibles written in the Turkish language. What a blessing! More work for the Lord! We were not far from Selchuk maybe about an hour. Only 20 minutes from Selchuk is the great City of Ephesus where the Apostle Paul preached and built the Church of Ephesus. We were able to hand these Bibles out in Selchuk and the surrounding areas. As we were handing these Bibles  out a middle aged man approached approached us on the street. Our young interpreter told him what the book was and we gave him one. Little did we realize that he was not really interested in the Bible but was wanting to turn us into the police for proseltyzing the gospel in a moslem country that believed in only Islam. But does’nt the Bible say in Romans 10:14-15, “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!” G-d had spoken to me months before to go into Turkey and hand out Bibles. He had sent a Jewish believer with me from Jerusalem. So for longer than a month we were traveling from one end of Turkey to the other from East to West doing what the L-rd had instructed me to do. After handing this Bible to this man we proceeded to enter a tour shop. As we sat down to discuss traveling arrangements with the tour agent, suddenly, a man entered the office wearing a long beige trench coat with bars upon each of his shoulders. Who was this? He looked like the KGB from Russia.
Stay Tuned For Part 2 Coming Soon!