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TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL SISCHY
I was born in Johannesburg on 3 March 1970. I am one of four children, the eldest son and the descendent of Russian, Polish and Lithuanian grandparents all of whom had an Orthodox Jewish background. My maternal grandfather was a rabbi but he died while my mother was very young. Both of my parents were born in South Africa; they met at work, soon got married and then I came along. I grew up in a very lively Jewish home. We celebrated the festivals with gusto. They were often an elaborate extended family affair with aunts and uncles all joining in! I studied at my local Hebrew School for several years and had my bar mitzvah when I was thirteen.
After finishing my High School studies, I applied to the University of the Witwatersrand for the degree of Medicine. I was accepted and graduated in 1993 and then did an internship at Hillbrow hospital in 1994.
I was always looking for answers and the question "why" would frequently form on my lips. When I started to study medicine, the question was, "Why all the hurt and the suffering?" I thought that I could help. In my second year of Medical School, my mother died. This left me with more "why" questions but no answers. I questioned God as to whether He cared. I questioned whether this life was all that there was and what happened when it's over? I also became very fearful and anxious. The Scripture says, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Knowing that God wanted to give me answers to my questions was too wonderful!
In my fourth year of medical studies, I met Teresa. She was also on a search for truth. She had come to medical school to study for a nursing degree. Teresa grew up in a church in which she was later confirmed, but did not feel close to God. In her fourth year of study she went with a classmate to a church meeting and came back different. She explained to me that she had been "saved" - saved from what, I was wondering? She told me that Jesus is the Messiah of the Jewish people and that I should see for myself if this was true. What a radical thing to hear - me a good Jewish boy, I would not put a foot in a church!
I did not know it at the time but Teresa and her friends were praying that God would open my eyes to the truth of the Messiah. On the Sunday after Passover (which happened to be Easter Sunday), I attended a "sunrise" service. I did not know what to expect and I thought it rather strange that there was a religious service happening outside before the crack of dawn. At that service my heart was strangely warmed and I had a sense that I was going to burst into tears - I was not sure why at the time and managed to "pull myself together."
I then read the New Testament. For the first time in my life. I read about Jesus, this enigmatic yet caring Jewish carpenter who said and did such amazing things for my people and then died. Amazingly, He even predicted this and that He would return after death. I read on and saw how His first followers were all Jews and that they really believed that they had found the Messiah of Israel. This was astounding to me. It began to dawn on me that I too had to make a choice - if Jesus is the Messiah, then I too had to follow Him - if He was not then no one should follow Him! After a few short weeks I chose to follow where He would lead and committed my life to Messiah Jesus. I experienced a wonderful peace as the truth really set me free and my burden of sin was lifted from me. It has not always been an easy road from there. I have had to face rejection and persecution from friends, family and the Jewish community, but God has remained faithful and has been my strength through it all.
The Lord was gracious. He allowed me to practise medicine for five years and during this period He was preparing me for Higher Medicine - the medicine that cures the heart and soul of its pain, anguish and sin - only found in Messiah Jesus! In January 1999, my family set off for the USA to begin missionary training with Jews for Jesus. We returned to Johannesburg in late 1999 to complete training.
In August of 2002, I took over the directorship of Jews for Jesus in South Africa. What a
privilege to serve the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and to represent Our Messiah in South Africa and beyond!
TESTIMONY OF DAVID BLOCK
The year was 1969. The event had been advertised on the radio again and again. I arose at four o'clock in the morning and watched a blazing comet with utter awe, as its tail stretched across the eastern skies. My love affair with astronomy had begun.
South African astronomer Jack Bennett, who discovered the comet and whose name the heavenly object bore, became my hero. The next day I telephoned him and asked him rather timidly, "May I meet with you?" To my surprise he said, "Yes, do come over." And it was really then that the little hidden flame which had been ignited began burning to understand the cosmos.
Shortly after that my father bought me a four-and-a-half-inch reflector telescope. That was no little thing for a teenager. With that incredible instrument I could start to look at planets like Saturn and at some of the nebulae in which stars are born.
I wanted to pursue studies in astronomy and my father was my biggest supporter. Leon Block always encouraged me to question things, to look beyond the ordinary and to make up my own mind. After all, we were Jews and that was part of our tradition as well.
My Jewish Upbringing
Both of my parents' Orthodox Jewish families have their roots in Lithuania. And we certainly kept to all the traditions as well: My mother would light the Shabbat candles and we would have a traditional Shabbat meal together. I went to shul both on Friday night and Saturday. We kept Pesach. I fasted on Yom Kippur. I was bar mitzvah. We were practicing Jews. And I did all the things expected of a good Jewish boy. Actually, I felt that I was doing the best that I knew how to live out my Jewish faith.
Now that didn't mean that I was unquestioning when it came to the things of God. On the contrary, I'd listen in shul as the rabbis expounded how God was a personal God and how God would speak to Moses, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, and wonder how I fitted into all of it. And by the time I entered university I became concerned over the fact that I had no assurance that God was indeed a personal God. I did know that He was a historical God and that He did deliver our people from the hands of Pharaoh. But that seemed far removed from me in this scientific age. Those were "stories", as it were.
Where was the personality and the vibrancy of a God who could speak to David Block? If God is truly God, I reasoned, why had He suddenly changed His character? The seeds of doubt were sprouting.
University Years
In order to follow my interest in astronomy I entered Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg. I sought a Bachelor of Science degree in applied mathematics and computer science. As a professional astronomer, a background in mathematics and statistics was essential.
While still a student, I was appointed as a "demonstrator" on the staff-in other words, I would help students with their tutorial problems on a formal basis. I also became quite friendly with Lewis Hurst, then professor of genetics and of medicine. He had a great interest in astronomy, if only from an amateur point of view, and he asked if I would give him individual lessons.
Week by week, Lewis and I would discuss the complexities of the cosmos, and I would explain fundamental terms in astronomy such as "black holes" and "quasars." It was a full but private course I was giving him.
The friendship grew and I started sharing my feelings about the cosmos with him-that it is so beautiful, that God is so creative, that he's made this stunning world. I even shared my doubts with him: "Are we, as Shakespeare said, just as a 'Fleeting shadow to appear and then disappear'? What is our purpose for living? What's the raison d'etre for being here? Is there a Designer out there?" Lewis listened thoughtfully and then spoke, "David, there is an answer to all your questions."
"You know, Lewis, what does concern me is that the universe is so large, it's so immense. Do we go anywhere when we die?"
"There's an answer to all the questions you're asking. Would you be willing-I know you come from an Orthodox Jewish family-but would you be willing to meet with a dear friend of mine, the Reverend Mr. John Spyker?"
My parents had taught me to seek answers where they may be found and so I consented to meet with this Christian minister. Of course, in my heart, when I put my telescope on Saturn, and saw it in all its majesty and splendour-its rings simply encircling that globe-I just knew that there was a Great Designer. In fact, I knew that there must be a personal God.
The Reverend Mr. Spyker read to me from the New Testament book of Romans where Paul says that Y'shua (Jesus) is a stumbling block to Jewish people, but that those who would believe in Y'shua would never be ashamed.
Suddenly it all became very clear to me: Y'shua had fulfilled the messianic prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures, such as where the Messiah would be born and how He was to die. While my people were still waiting for the Messiah, I suddenly knew that I knew that I knew that Jesus was the Messiah, and is the Messiah. And I surrendered my heart and my soul to him that day. That was in October of 1976.
I gave Judaism a chance and I accepted Him who is fully, fully Jewish. Paul, before he believed in Jesus, was a student of the great rabbi Gamaliel. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He had studied. He had examined. Yet, when Paul met the Master face to face, the Master mastered him. The Master mastered me as well.
It might seem strange to some that a scientist and a Jew could come to faith in Jesus. But faith is never a leap into the dark. It is always based on evidence. All people believe and all scientists believe. They don't all believe in a personal God, of course, but each one of us uses our own measure of faith. Each one of us has a personal world system, a personal belief system.
As a scientist, I always think logically and I reason things out. That was how my whole search for God began. I looked through my telescope at Saturn and said to myself, "Isn't there a great God out there?" And when I studied relativity, relativistic astrophysics, cosmology and all those beautiful areas of mathematics, they pointed me to the fact that this whole universe is masterfully made, finely-tuned and controlled by the Great Designer. The logical next step was to want to meet this Designer face to face.
We have astronomical evidence that demands a verdict. And I've examined this evidence, not from an emotional point of view, but from a logical point of view. We've got historical evidence that Jesus, the Jew, lived and died and rose again from the dead. When Albert Einstein was asked by a reporter if he accepted the historical existence of Jesus, he responded, "Unquestionably! No one can read the gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."
To the person who is seriously seeking today I would say, read the gospels from an objective point of view, as Albert Einstein did. As Isaac Newton did. Don't let your emotions override or cloud your decision. Seek after truth and don't let anyone make up your mind for you. It is far too important. It does matter what you believe.
Dr. David Block is a Professor of Applied Mathematics and Astronomy at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. He has a Bachelor of Science Honours degree in applied mathematics, a Master of Science
degree in relativistic astrophysics and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in astronomy dealing with "The Morphology of Spiral Galaxies." He has been a visiting astronomer at the European Southern Observatory near Munich, West Germany and at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Hawaii. He resides in Johannesburg with his wife, Liz, who is also a Jewish believer in Jesus.
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