Today is your day of salvation - Stephen's story
Stephen doing a Bible study with our Director of Ministry, Richard Gibson
Stephen, a young blind Jewish man, contacted our office as he wanted to learn more about the christian faith but was worried about how his Orthodox family would react. The office put him in touch with our director of ministry Richard Gibson who met up with Stephen soon after…
Stephen had been attending Torch Trust for the Blind meetings for some time. He had shared his interest in following Jesus to someone at Torch and after expressing fear of rejection by his Orthodox family they advised him to call International Mission to Jewish People. I returned his call and we arranged to meet after Christmas. However, just a couple of hours later he called back and asked if I could visit him sooner, so we arranged to meet the following day.
Believe and Repent
I arrived and we got straight down to talking about the Lord. He told me he believed Jesus was the Messiah promised in the Hebrew Bible and recorded in the New Testament but was worried how his parents would react. Being registered blind, he was very reliant on their help. I asked if he had already repented of his sin and accepted Jesus as his Saviour and Lord but he was unsure if he had gone that far.
I explained the gospel to him beginning at the first Messianic prophecy in Genesis 3:15 which shows that God would pay a physical price to destroy the enemy. Stephen can’t read the Bible for himself so relies on audio recordings but he knew the basics of the Bible. He was convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, but I told him that believing intellectually is not enough; even Satan does that and his fate is sealed. I made it clear that he needed to repent of his sins and accept Jesus' free gift of salvation. He nodded, said he believed and wanted to follow Jesus.
Today is the day
I asked Stephen if he wanted to pray and acknowledge Jesus as his Lord. He hesitated and again said that he was scared that his mother would withdraw support and help from him. He told me that she regularly threatened to do just that and used it as a form of control - adding that it didn’t really work! I reasoned with him that if that was the case, he might as well have her threaten him over something important. He replied, ‘Yes, that is so right!’
I emphasised that the Bible says that ‘today is the day of salvation’. I asked him again if he wanted to pray and was delighted when he said he did. Praise God, Stephen repented of his sin and enthusiastically professed faith in Jesus as his Saviour!
A new creation
At his baptism a few months later, Stephen said, ‘When Richard asked me if I wanted to pray for God to forgive my sin and accept Jesus as my Saviour and Lord, because today is the day of salvation, I was ready to do that – it was what God wanted me to do.
I prayed to ask Jesus to forgive my sin and be my Messiah and Lord.’ As Stephen gave his testimony he went on: ‘Soon I will be baptised… I go down into the water and symbolically die, like Jesus did, and am raised up as a new creation in Jesus to follow him for the rest of my life.’