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The following program is presented by the Far East Broadcasting Company, because stories of people living out the gospel with their lives inspire all of us. FEBC, taking Christ to the world through radio and new media. Learn more at febc.org. ♪
Every messianic prophecy, the prophecies about the Messiah from Genesis 3 all the way down to the end of the Old Testament, they're all pointing to Jesus. If you have an open mind and open heart, you will see that you've been missing this all along.
Last week, you heard the personal faith story of Olivier Melnick, a Jewish man who has come to believe in Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah. In a moment, the story becomes even more personal as Olivier tells the story of leading his Jewish parents to the Lord. Stay tuned to First Person. I'm Wayne Shepherd.
Before we turn to the interview, though, thank you for listening and showing your support by learning about the Far East Broadcasting Company at febc.org. On behalf of FEBC, Merry Christmas to our listeners, and we look forward to the next couple of weeks as we celebrate Christmas together. Our guest, Olivier Melnick, is the Southwest Regional Director and Training Director at Chosen People Ministries. If you missed his personal testimony last time, go to firstpersoninterview.com and listen from the archive.
The reason I asked Olivier to come back this week is that he mentioned his parents accepting Jesus last time, and I wanted to hear the full story. ♪
Olivier, welcome back to First Person. I'm glad that we have this extra opportunity here to tell what I think has got to be a powerful story. Well, thanks for having me again. This was a joy doing a show with you. I'm glad to be back. All right. For the listeners who were not with us last week, we told a little bit of your story of coming to faith in Christ, and we talked about your ministry with Chosen People Ministry. That's all in the program notes and the archive. The listeners can go to the archive and listen to that first interview. But this week,
A bit of a surprise, because when we spoke last week, you brought up the fact that your parents were not believers in Jesus Christ until. And I want to tell that story here, if you don't mind. So you start. Tell me your background with them, and let's just tell that story. Well, I think I mentioned that last week I was born in France in 59. Both my parents were Jewish. My dad claimed his whole life that he was an atheist.
And my mother basically did not believe in God. If she ever did, did not believe in God because of what happened to her. See what? I didn't tell the story. So let me tell you today. My mother was...
15 in the house that she lived in until a few years ago in Paris, where her father was hiding in a cellar of the house during the war, the second world war. German occupation of France. German occupation. It was 1941 or 42. I was mixed to two years. I think it was 41. And, uh,
He was hiding in a cellar because he was Jewish, and he didn't have the proper paper. He was not illegally in France, but he was a foreign Jew who had married my grandmother, and he was in the process of getting his proper papers. He didn't have them yet. So a neighbor in the building called the Gestapo and said, we have a Jew in the building hiding. Oh, goodness. Sure.
So one evening the Gestapo came, knocked on my grandmother's door. My mother at the time was 15 and her father was at the time hiding downstairs in the cellar where they put the coal and then, you know, in the old buildings. And the Gestapo said, we know your husband is around here, so he needs to come with us for a few questions. And she lied, my grandmother. She said, no, he's not here. I don't know where he is. He left.
I don't know who he is. And they said, we'll come back tomorrow morning to get him. And if he's not available to come with us, we'll take you and your daughter. So they left. And she signaled her husband who came back upstairs and she explained the story to him. They came for you. Somehow they know you're here. And he said, don't worry. I'll go hide somewhere else. I'll let you know where I find a safe place and you can all come with me. She said, well, the problem is that they said, if you're not here tomorrow morning, they take...
me and Evelyn. Evelyn's my mother. And they, she said, so at the point he said, okay, fine, I'll go with them. Next morning they came, he went with them and he died in Auschwitz. Oh, goodness. Wow. That's what, the last time my mother saw her father was when the Gestapo came to get him and that was it. And she didn't find out until later in the 70s that officially that he died in Auschwitz and there was his name on one of those very thorough lists kept by the German government.
the German government. So she was taken to the south of France to hide on a farm. Your mother was taken. Now, how was that connection made? I mean, who was doing such a thing? Well, there were ways during the war for people to find...
people to take them to take them to a different country you know you pay him some money would take you to switzerland or so my grandmother found through a connection that i'm not aware of somebody to take my mother and two of her cousins on that farm and they stayed there for
Two years hiding on a farm as extra kids in that family of farmers who, by the way, those farmers in 2013 became Yad Vashem's righteous Gentiles. They are on the wall at Yad Vashem. Is that right? Yes.
Wow. Wow. Wow.
and he was not illegal, but he did not have what France required. And then to become anybody remotely Jewish, you're gone. Got it. Okay. So your mother is on this farm in the south of France with her cousins, basically hiding. Right.
Basically, hiding, she actually, I have pictures of her in a white gown, dressed as a Catholic girl doing a communion when she was a teenager to hide from the Germans.
There is a video on my YouTube channel called Evelyn Returns to Poe, P-A-U. And that is a French TV segment explaining the story how she reconnected with the two brothers 70 years later. Okay, good. We'll put a link to that in our program notes. Good. Fast forward to me being born.
And coming to the Lord in 1983, I started sharing with my parents, sharing the gospel with them and didn't go very well. You know, Jewish parents, you have to understand that in France,
If you claim anything Christian, quote, end quote, the French people will think you're speaking about Catholics. Of course, yes. Because 80% of France is Catholic. And so when I talked about Christ or church or cross, it's all Catholic.
And they didn't have the best view of the Catholic Church because of many things that were done against the Jews. So, they did not understand. Well, I kept praying for my parents for 28 years. I argued with my dad. Every time I would try to witness... My mother was a very simple woman. I mean, she didn't really finish school for reasons that make sense. She was a teenager that had to skip school and be...
hiding on a farm during the war. So she was a simple woman. I tried to share the gospel with her, and somehow every time I tried, and I was in France, my dad would come in the room and ask the most irrelevant question about something else, and in my mother's mind would go into it, and it was over. I could never make any progress. The enemy was really at work, I think.
And about 10 years ago, my dad started to get really sick with cancer, throat cancer. And I was called to basically in March of 10 years ago, it would be like 2011, I think, I was called to come back by his sister saying, "You need to come back. I think your dad is not going to make it." So I flew back to France and both my kids and my wife wrote letters
to Papi, which is Grandpa in French. I get there and I stay at the house where my mother grew up, where she saw her dad being taken. Same house. Interesting, you know, little anecdote here. My mother was never in her entire life
never able to go to the cellar, which became a storage unit for us. You know, like an attic or a garage. Oh, because of the thoughts it brought. Yeah. She could never. She always sent my dad or us, can you go get this in the cellar? In 92 years of her life, she could never go once in that cellar. She never went down. Wow.
She was so scarred by, for good reasons, by what happened to her father, you know, in Gestapo. So I go to see my dad when I arrive in Paris and my mother and I come back to the house and I sit in the living room with her and I start telling her, I said, listen, mom, you know, dad's not going to make it. And they'd been married at this point for 63 years.
And she goes, I know. And she's crying. And I go, you know, I've told you before, and I think now is a good time to tell you again, man is always going to disappoint you. That includes dad. That includes me, anybody. But the one who will never disappoint you because he's true to what he says is God. And then she looks at me and she goes, you're probably right. And I go, really? And then, and she goes, but you want me to believe in God first.
And you want me to believe in the God that let my father die in Auschwitz. This is one of the most common Jewish question/rejection or arguments is why would I trust the God who let six million die? And if you have one or more in your family, it's even more personal.
So, this was a tough question, of course. And I got to tell you, without a doubt in my mind, the next explanation that came out of my mouth was the Holy Spirit speaking through me because I could have never come up with it. I look at my mom and I said, Mom, our son's name is Julien.
I said, Mom, at the time he lived with us, Mom, if Julian was to come to the house in the evening with two police officers and they said, Mr. Melnick, your son was caught running two red lights and one stopped.
one-stop sign. So we have a citation for $1,500 that you need to pay right now. I would look at the police officers. I would say, excuse me. He's 21 years old. He's got a license. He knows the law. He broke the law. He is responsible. Why do you want me to be responsible for him? And I told my mom, I said, mom, why do you hold God responsible for what men did to other men? And for some reason,
Don't ask me why. She looked at me and she said, you're right. It's not his fault. So at that point, I said, okay, well, then you really need to trust Yeshua, to trust Jesus. And, you know, it's a simple prayer. You don't have to give away anything. You don't have to do anything. You just trust that what he did on the cross for you and for me is real. And that makes you a child of God. And so we prayed.
And we'll continue this story with Olivier Melnick of Chosen People Ministries coming up on First Person. I'm Ed Cannon. The Far East Broadcasting Company partners with First Person because we celebrate the stories of people everywhere who have given their lives to Christ and serve Him. Our broadcasters in 50 countries of the world hear stories every day of people whose lives are transformed by the gospel and who have
faithful we've been taught God's Word. In addition to First Person, I'm pleased that Wayne and I host a podcast, and we invite you to join us. Listen to Until All Have Heard at febc.org. That's febc.org. My guest is Olivier Melnick, and Olivier is telling us a powerful and personal story of faith and
We learned about his coming to faith in Christ last week. If you missed that, it's in the archive. But this week, he's telling us a story of his parents coming to faith in Christ. And it's just so powerful. When we left off a moment ago, Olivier, your mother said you're right about Jesus. Pick up the story.
Well, so to my, I mean, I was shocked. Okay, you have to understand 28 years of prayers and arguments. I thought for sure. I mean, I was praying, Lord, please send people their way. I mean, I live in the States on the West Coast and they live in Paris. I lived, they both passed now. Lord, please send somebody to witness to them. It's not going to be me. You know, I'm their son. They're not going to listen to me. So I was, I was okay with that.
Somehow, the Lord had a different plan. He had me witness to my mother. She ended up praying with me to receive Jesus that morning, that Saturday morning at our house. And she's 92 years old? At the time, she was 87. 87, okay. 87. 87.
Actually, 85, because my dad was 87. Okay. They're two years apart. Yeah, sorry. Small detail. Just to be accurate. Right. Exactly. So I tell my mom, okay, this afternoon, we're going to go see dad. That's why I was there. So we went every day. And my whole family is Jewish. My three nephews, I have one sister, my three nephews and nieces are...
are very religious. You would consider them by American standards as modern Orthodox, I would say.
And so they would go to grandpa's room in the hospital and pray and open their prayer books and recite prayers all the time. They know what I believe. We don't argue. They don't believe yet. But as I'm going with my mom after lunch, hours after I lettered to the Lord, I'm praying in the car. I'm going, Lord, please make it so that when I get there, none of my family is there so I can have an alone time with dad because this is it. This is it. And
And funny story, we get to the hospital, very, very busy place. You know, there's very little parking in France. So I'm telling my mom, I'm going to ask Jesus to find us a spot in front of the hospital. One of those prayers, sure. We've all prayed that prayer. Which I don't really do very often. And sure enough, we got a spot right in front. And I told her, mom, don't get used to it. But it's good to ask God for things like this because sometimes he will deliver.
And so we parked the car and we go upstairs and thank you, Lord. My dad is in his bed. Nobody's there. So we get in the room. I sit next to him and I start talking to him. I said, Dad, I have letters that JD and Claire wrote and Ellen, my wife, also wrote. Can I read them to you?
because they couldn't come. So he nods because at this point he cannot even talk, maybe a word or two. And I said, by the way, dad, I want you to know this morning, mom and I prayed and she invited Jesus in her heart. She said, okay, it's time for me to make that move. She believes that Jesus is the Messiah. And that was the most important move she made in her life, the biggest decision. So we'll never be separated. Death will never separate us. And
Wow. This is also something that you need to think about because very soon you'll be meeting your maker and you do not want to be on the wrong side. So he's looking at me, nothing. I said, can I read it?
The letters, sure. So I read the letters, and very short letters from both my kids basically saying, please, papi, grandpa in French, listen to dad, listen to what he has to say about Jesus and about God. You don't want to be separated. A very short plea with them on, please, one more time, consider Jesus in their own words. I read my daughter, I read my son, and then I read my wife's letter, who's
a little more polished about some memories she has with my dad. And then I said, "So dad, you know, mom prayed this morning. What keeps you from praying? Would you like to invite Yeshua in your heart?" And he looks at me and he nods yes.
And I mean, I cried a lot that day. So he couldn't talk. So I said, dad, you're going to hold my finger. And every time you agree with me, you're just going to squeeze. And I will mean, yes, if you don't squeeze, that means you don't agree. And I said, Lord, I'm a sinner. And he squeezed. I'm separated from you. And he squeezed. I cannot do anything to save myself. And he squeezed. I agree that your son, Yeshua is the Messiah. And he squeezed and on and on and on.
And then all the way through the, through the,
the sinner's prayer or whatever prayer we prayed. And at the end, as a good spiritual son that I was, I look at him and I said, did you pray this because you meant it? Or did you just want to brush me off? The last thing you should say as somebody comes to the Lord and he looks at me and he gathers all the breath he could take. And in French, he looks at me and he goes twice. Which means I believe, I believe. Oh,
And I, the same day, within five hours, and 11 or 12 days later, my dad was reunited with the Messiah, with God. And, you know, he's been with the Lord since then. But I always think, you know what, dad, you were so stubborn until 10 days before you passed. And now you have a ministry because it's an encouraging ministry to me to tell people, don't stop praying for your loved ones.
You never know when God is going to make this happen. Don't give up. Don't be discouraged. Yeah, we have a few more minutes. I want to talk more about that, but I need a moment to recover here, Olivier. I need a moment because the story you have just told me, I mean, you can tell. I mean, there are tears in my eyes right now. This is so powerful. And the fact of the matter is we all have people in our life that we're concerned about, but maybe we're not bold enough to share Christ. Maybe
Maybe we are. I don't know. But just talk to us. Help us. Give us the courage we need to speak up. And I mean, this is news too important to keep from anyone, right?
This is, you know, I tell people all the time, you know, I tell people, what would happen to you if the person who was bold enough and cared enough to tell you about Jesus had said, no, I'm not going to bother. I don't want to ruin our friendship. I don't want to ruin our family. I don't want to lose another friend or get fired. What would happen? You would be destined to the worst.
lack of fire for all eternity. But somebody took the time and said, I care about this person. I want them to be spending eternity on the right side in God's presence. And so there's nothing more important. You know, and people, all you can do is share the news. You can't shove it down somebody's throat. You cannot save people. You can only lead them to salvation. Exactly right. All right. All right. Now there's another person listening. I have no doubt.
who has yet to make that decision, who has yet to put their faith in Christ. Let's take a few minutes and speak to that person. For me, as a Jew who had not been exposed to the Bible at all, I mean, if we're speaking of somebody who's Jewish and who has really a lot of... They don't want to mess with it, I would say start with the Jewish Bible and start looking for the Redeemer, the Messiah in the Jewish Bible. And it looks...
That every Messianic prophecy, the prophecies about the Messiah from Genesis 3 all the way down to the end of the Old Testament, they're all pointing to Jesus. If you have an open mind and open heart, you will see like you've been missing this all along. And it works for Jews and Gentiles. But I like it for Jewish people because it's our Bible. It's our Jewish Bible. The Messianic prophecies are undeniable. Yeah.
Take us to Scripture. Help us understand the decision that we need to make. Well, the way I like to look at it, and I currently teach that Bible study on Monday nights on Zoom. I do a Messianic prophecy study every Monday nights. The way I look at it is I take the Jewish Bible in the order of the Jewish Bible, not the Old Testament. Same books, different order.
And I paint a picture. I'm an artist. I like to paint. So, I take a picture and I say, we have a blank canvas. And in Genesis 3.15, we hear about a human being, the seed of the woman. And that's the first Messianic prophecy. Then down...
As we continue, later in Genesis, we find out that he's from the tribe of the family of Abraham. Then in Genesis 49:10, "The scepter shall not depart from Judah until the one to whom it belongs," which is another name of the Messiah, Shiloh in Hebrew. And we find out that the Messiah is going to come in the future, he'll be from the tribe of Judah.
And then so we go on and on. He will be a prophet like Moses, Deuteronomy 18. And then so as you go through the prophecies of the Jewish Bible, you get more and more detail, additional revelation about the person of the Messiah. By the time you're done with the Jewish Bible, you have a crisp revelation.
4K HD picture in color of only one person, Yeshua of Nazareth. Pete And ask God to open your eyes as you do that. Dr. Michael Smith That's it. That's it. Absolutely. And it's, but you got to take the time to look for those. You can't just say, I mean, some people, some people pray and then they have a revelation, they have a, they just say, well, I know that Jesus is right. I didn't
I'm going to read a lot of, I just knew it happened, but it happens in different ways. But if you want to get, you know, the proof is in the pudding, you know, you look at the messianic prophecies. Isaiah 53 speaks of his crucifixion in ways that are very, very graphic and that actually crucifixion did not even exist before.
700 years prior. I mean, it was 700 years before crucifixion would even exist. Isaiah 53 is what the Lord used in my teenage life to open my eyes. So I think very highly of that. All right. Olivier, thank you for telling us this story today. It's been very powerful to hear.
and challenging to us to reach out into other people's lives as well. Thank you, brother. Thank you. My pleasure. Shalom. And I thank you for listening to part two of our conversation with Olivier Melnick of Chosen People Ministries. If you joined us late, please know that you'll find part one of his testimony in the archive from last week at FirstPersonInterview.com.
And to visit our Facebook page, go to facebook.com slash firstpersoninterview. I'm grateful to our broadcast partner who makes First Person possible, the Far East Broadcasting Company. FEBC takes Christ to the world through radio and new technology, and millions respond after hearing God's Word, many for the first time. Show your thanks for First Person by supporting FEBC and listen to the podcast until all have heard at febc.org.
Now, with thanks to my friend and producer, Joe Carlson, I'm Wayne Shepherd. Thank you for listening to First Person.