 is a day to celebrate the goodness of God and make sure that we spread the light into the darkness. Welcome to Hope Today. We're so glad that you're with us. I'm Anna, and I'm here with Sydney and Tom. And Tom, we have a great guest today. Yeah, I mean, most of us grew up in families where we would be very encouraged to follow after Jesus. But what if you grew up in a family where that was not looked on as a good thing? Well, Jeff Siegel, I had a chance to talk to him earlier and he grew up Jewish. And when he found Jesus, it was not all happiness and sweetness in his family. But you're gonna hear his story. And you're also gonna hear about his ministry, Go Global Ministries. I've had the opportunity to go on a trip with them and they do some fantastic things around the world. And guys, but his story is powerful. It's a great one. I always love hearing people's stories because, you know, there's so many, I think a lot of times we take for granted with our Christian faith that, you know, we've received Jesus, we're walking with Jesus. But a lot of people can be very, very controversial, like, you know, here in America and around the world. So really looking forward to hearing Jeff's story today. Yeah, absolutely. Same. I just think, you know, we all have people in our lives where we think, gosh, I mean, they weren't brought up in the Christian faith. What have they heard about Jesus? Is it possible for them to come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior? And truly, you were called to do the works that God calls us to do and share the love of Jesus. But it is the Holy Spirit's job, the Father, God, the Father's job to draw his people to himself. And I just love that Jeff, somebody who didn't believe that Jesus was Lord and Savior, ultimately came to know him. Yeah, absolutely. And you know what, we just have to give a shout out to Yukon, Connecticut University men's team. I wish someone else would have won, but congratulations Yukon. I mean, they're not really a Cinderella, they're a fourth seed, but you know, they weren't expected to win, but it's like their fifth championship or something. You know what's in sports sometimes, so they talk with Jake, my husband about this, is where I feel like, you know, the brackets and all this stuff, and I'm like, if I'm like a top seed, I'm gonna dominate and win. I'm very competitive, so I'm just like, you know what, go ahead Yukon, good for you. What about the girl's basketball? Yes, we gotta talk for that for a minute, LSU. Yeah, Iowa, of course, Jeans from Iowa. So Iowa was, I think, expected to win, and LSU won, and they're all about this now. Angel Reese, I was just saying, I'm like for it, I was like the great competition, I know there's all this controversy right now, people are like, bad sportsmanship, but this background story is, is that, Kate Litt, I can't remember her last day right now, it's like I'm drawing a blank, but she did some, from Iowa, like did the same thing to another player, so Angel did it the same thing. I think it's all in good fun, and it's great. I just, see me, now you see me, now you don't. You can't see me. It's all, it's all in good fun competition. Yeah, we'll be having a trash talk, do you? I am the terrible trash talker. I can't imagine you trash talking. I try, people just laugh at me, and they're like, Anna, just don't. Stay in your lane. Well, we're going to something else, we're going to trash talk on in a second here, right? We are going to trash talk on, because you guys might trash talk on about us, but it's time for Stump the Host. So our producer, Neal, said all these questions today are based on the Resurrection Sunday, and here we go, help us Jesus. Okay, after being resurrected, Jesus shows himself to the disciples beside which sea? Sea of Galilee, right? Oh, yeah, I was going to say the Sea of Galilee, because right, I don't know what others, or Red Sea, where there's Galilee. Wait a minute, is it the Dead Sea, or the Dead Sea? The Sea of Galilee, I think. I'm saying Sea of Galilee. Yep. Yay! Come on. It has two names, Tiberius or the Sea of Galilee. 21. All right, here comes our next one. Again, we haven't seen these, so play along. What did Jesus say would cry out as he rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday? Oh, yeah. It was the rocks, because the children were praising him, and the Pharisees didn't like that, and because he was accepting worship, by the way, which shows you that he was God. But anyway, we're going to say rocks. We're saying rocks. All right, all right. Rock stones. Yeah. So here we go. Tom, you're on fire today. So we're going to, like, we need you out right now. Okay, according to the Gospel of John, which High Priest was Christ led away to first? Okay. It was a Caiaphas. I'm just, that's the first thing that Caiaphas. I think we have, this might be a trick question. So Pontius Pilate was not a High Priest then. No. So Caiaphas. Oh, Anas. Anas is like Anas, I was kidding. I don't know that name. I better go back and read my mind. See, there were, Anas was the father, and he had been the High Priest before. They took him to, oh, well, all right. So anyway, thanks for playing along with us, and we're going to take a quick break, and then we'll be back to talk to Jeff Siegel and how he found Jesus. Cornerstone Television has believed in the power of prayer since insinception 44 years ago. We invest heavily in our prayer line to provide you with 24-7 personal prayer, knowing it brings breakthrough, healing, and wisdom. Last year alone, we received over 65,000 prayer calls, and if you had partnered with us, thank you so very much. And when you give this month, I am so excited to share with you my new book, Praying On Another Level. It's a 30-day journal to take your prayer life to a new dimension in God. You see prayer as how we separate good ideas from God ideas. It's how we unlock the door to revelation, and it's where we get our strength to build up our spirit man to hear from God throughout our day. All that and so much more. So call us now at 888-665-4483, or give at ctvn.org forward slash donate to request your copy. It is time to take your prayer life to another level. As believers in Jesus Christ were all called to go into the world and make disciples. Do you ever think about making disciples? How can you ever do that? Well, somebody who is really doing that is our next guest, Jeff Siegel. He's the founder and president of Go Global Ministries, touching lives all around the world. I've been with Jeff. I've seen him in action. Jeff, so good to have you here on Hope Today. Good to see you. Wonderful. So tell me, we're gonna talk about your ministry and we're gonna talk about how people can be involved in just a minute. But here you are, a Jewish fellow, grew up Jewish. Now you're a follower of Christ. You gotta let us in on that story. Well, I had the privilege to play baseball at the University of Illinois. And from 1973 through 1977, I was challenged by a group of people from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Teammates on the baseball team and other sports teams began sharing with me the gospel. At the University of New Mexico Spring Trip, my friend went to hear Billy Graham speak and invited me to go too. Well, and he was my roommate. He also played on the football team and said, "'Hey, Siegs, why don't you come with me?' I said to myself, "'Jewish kids from Chicago don't do this kind of thing. "'That's a Gentile gathering. "'Hey, I'll take a rain check. "'Tell me what Mr. Graham had to say.'" He comes back to the room that night and said, "'Siegs, you really missed it.'" I said, "'What did I miss?' He said, "'I got saved tonight.'" I said, "'What did you get saved from?' He says, "'Well, I became a Christian.'" And I said, "'Now I'm really confused.'" You've been going to the church building every Sunday and now you tell me you're a Christian. I said, "'How does a Christian become a Christian?' He said, "'Well, Mr. Graham made me realize "'just because a mouse is in a cookie jar "'doesn't make him a cookie.'" My senior year, through the fellowship of Christian athletes, my same friend said, "'I'm going to the FCA gathering.'" He said, "'I'd like you to come with.'" I said to myself, "'Jewish kids from Chicago don't go "'to these kind of gatherings.'" I went out with my Gentile buddies on the baseball team, disco dance in the night away, but this Gentile, we really liked him. We asked him if he would be in our Jewish fraternity house. We grafted him in. He came back that night and said, "'Sigs, you really missed it.'" I said, "'What did I miss?' He said, "'A famous Christian woman "'was invited to our huddle. "'Her name was Corey Ten Boom.'" And she was hiding Jewish people during the Holocaust. They got caught, the whole family. She ended up in a prison or a concentration camp sharing the love of Jesus with Jewish people. I said to myself, "'Why would a Gentile, during the Holocaust, "'want to risk their neck for a Jew?' I said to myself, "'Whatever the real deal is, "'whatever the real Christian is, she's it.'" Well, then I'm getting ready to pitch against the University of Michigan State, my last day of college, my Jewish roommate, my best friend since we were little boys, nine years old, comes and tells me that he became a Christian and I said, "'Neil, you're not Jewish anymore.'" And he said, "'No, no, he said I'm a completed Jew.'" And he said, "'I've read the complete Hebrew scriptures "'and I've come to the conclusion "'that the only one who could have fulfilled this "'is Jesus.'" I got away from my Jewish friends, I got away from my Christian friends and I had a Tanakh Bible that was given to my brother as a present. So I borrowed it, I took that Bible and I held it up to heaven and I said, "'God, I have a problem with the Trinity." I think Gentiles believe in three gods, but my friend Neil said that the Trinity is one God. And I said, "'You gotta help me with this concept.'" And number two, I said, I know that Moses had a purpose in his life because a day came at a burning bush that you reveal to him who you are. I am the God of your fathers. I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Identity crisis in his life over. And God told him his purpose. I said, "'Was I born for a reason? "'And could my burning bush be Jesus?' So I started on the first page of the Hebrew scriptures and see the Hebrew language goes deeper than English. It said, "'Bereshis Barah Elohim.'" In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Eme at the end of the word could make it plural. Verse 26, "'Let us create man in our image.'" All of a sudden, like the Apostle Paul, spiritual scales were falling from my eyes. And I said, "'Who's up there with you, creating? "'Because you never created an angel in your image, "'although they could take the form of man. "'Who's up there with you?' And then I read the prophecies and I came to Isaiah 53, that a servant would die for them and all. And so even if you don't believe them as the Jews, the Jews are still part of all. And I said to myself, "'Well, wait a minute. "'This can't be the Jews in the Holocaust "'because the blood sacrifice has to be perfect.'" So the Jewish people, how could a people who need a sacrifice be the sacrifice? That's impossible. And I said, "'Well, the only one who's perfect is God. "'But the only way he could be that servant "'is to come in a physical body, "'I fell on my knees. "'I go, the only one who could have fulfilled this "'is Jesus.'" The book of Daniel chapter nine reveals the timeframe that the Messiah would come and go before the second temple was destroyed. The Messiah had to come before the second temple was destroyed. So even if people don't believe that's Jesus, he's the only one who could have fulfilled it. I fell on my knees. I said, God, I don't know how to do this. Dear Jesus, please come in my heart. I'm a sinner. Please forgive me. You are that sacrifice. You are the only one who could be my Lord and my Savior. And, well, I told my dad what I had done. And he said, but were you baptized? I said, yes. He said, you're not my son anymore. You're worst than Adolf Hitler. Don't ever come home again. 26 years later, my brother started, my baby brother, who's five years younger than me, began to go to Willow Creek Church with his wife. He said to me, when you gave your life to Jesus, I thought you were a Meshugana, a crazy person, but I realized today that you're not. He said, I'm sorry for having rejected you. Could you tell me your story? I did. He gave his life to Jesus. Three months later, he asked me if I would tell our dad. My dad had softened toward me what he had done. Dad, after a careful examination of the Hebrew scriptures, Bruce has made the same decision. My dad broke down and cried. He said, Jeff, I see the reality in Bruce's life. And he said, I realized today that you are more Jewish than me. Will you forgive me for what I have done? He said, will you pray for me? I said, Dad, do you wanna believe in Jesus? He said, yes. And so, Corey Ten Boom said, there is no pit so deep that Jesus Christ isn't deeper still. When I gave my life to Jesus and I cried out to my dad, God remembered my family. After doing missions all around the world, God circled back on me and my family and he began to return them to me. That is fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. I mean, I know we wanna talk about your ministry, but to hear where the heart of it is from, from your story, from your story to the world. So again, thank you. That just gives me the chills just hearing it. But let me ask you about your ministry. Go global, international, go global ministry. Okay, it was global baseball back a little bit. And I went with you in 2018 to Cuba. Had a fantastic time, saw people come to the Lord and did some teaching, we had a little women's conference my wife spoke at. So tell me about the ministry there and what God is doing. Well, go global ministry. So obviously we have transitioned from a baseball ministry to all sports, but God has given us multiple platforms that continue to include the sports. Go global ministries, we live to make disciples of Christ. Here's how we do it. Sports, medical, humanitarian aid and training pastors. So after the pandemic, couple weeks ago, we returned to Cuba with 20 people from all over the United States with various realms of influence. And Tom, one of the greatest needs in Cuba is they have no medicine. We bought, brought probably 30 bags of over the counter medicine and we had three days of medical clinics and 350 to 400 people came and heard the gospel through medical. We did baseball, we did basketball and soccer, home visits, street evangelism and speaking in the churches. We spoke in seven different house churches. That's fantastic. I mean, to remember the street evangelism with our group that you helped lead there and brought us there and to know that usually the police stopped by but it didn't stop what we were doing either. Well, when we were together, not only did the police stop by, you remember, but see a famous national baseball team player got saved. And I've been working to disciple that brother for over 20 years now. And when they saw Raul and also Victor were there, Raul went to the police and they were shaking hands, Raul, you know. Oh, these are my friends. Oh, no problem. Yeah, exactly. But thank God that Raul was there. So you're still gonna be back to reaching out into what God's doing in Cuba. What else is God doing? Well, through miracles, years ago when I was in the greater New York area, I met a Filipino pastor who at the time, we were doing outreach for three years in a row among the Jewish people. And this pastor so liked it, he invited me to speak at his church in Queens, the spring festivals, the first coming of Jesus, the fall festivals, the second coming. What I didn't know when he invited me to Grand Central Station in the year 2019 is that he was a bishop of 62 churches in the Philippines. He invited me to come January and February of 2020. I did what was called a grafted in conferences. He explained to me that the Philippine churches love Israel, Genesis 12. They were the tie breaking vote in 1948 for Israel to become a nation and they let Holocaust survivors in. You know, God doesn't forget his promises to any people group who bless Israel. God revealed to me at that time a great revival was coming to the Philippines than the pandemic hit. And through Zoom, we were doing Bible studies throughout the whole Philippines and Asia and Israel and other places. But in April of 2022, for three months, I went from city to city working with Filipino pastors involved in the very revival that God told me was coming. And so the Filipino said, Jeff, we want you here. And then November 19 on a Saturday, we held a large revival in the Cuneta Astrodome Stadium in Manila, 7,000 people showed up and were revived by the Holy Spirit. And you said the Lord had spoken to you while you were there that the revival was coming from the Philippines. God was gonna give the Philippine churches a great privilege that they, that revival would sweep through their first. It's a Christian nation and they love Israel and that God was going to unzip spiritual rain clouds over that country. But the revival would go from the Philippines to Asia into the Middle East and eventually Israel. But along with revival simultaneously, a great awakening is hitting. And so many people are giving their life to Jesus. It's like catching the fruit right off the trees. Yeah, wow, fantastic. Now, let's talk about opportunities for people to be involved. I know you have trips planned to Cuba and also to Israel. You take groups to Israel as well. Tell me how people, what are those like and how people can get involved? Well, through our website, Go Global Ministries, we have a trip June 23 through July 1 to Cuba, eight days. Another one November 2 through 10. And we have an incredible 11 day trip to Israel, October 9 through 21. That's going to be magnificent. Well, and so again, if you didn't catch that, what's the website again? Goglobalministries.com. Okay, goglobalministries.com. We will also have a link on ctvn.org to that. So you can take advantage of that there. And I just want to say, I went to Cuba, I got in, I got out, I didn't get arrested while I was there or anything. There was an opportunity to share in house churches. There was an opportunity to preach the gospel. I may mention through miracles in favor of the American government to go, we go fully legal, but the Cuban government, because I've never gotten involved in politics, we have religious visas of which you had. So there is no risk of getting arrested because they have fully approved. They said to me years ago, we don't have an issue with Jesus, we have an issue with people who want to overthrow our government. And I am not there for political purposes. Right, and I even got to play baseball for the first time in a long time, actual hard ball for the first time in a long time, and it was a lot of fun. But Jeff, thank you so much for all that you do. And thank you for sharing your story with us today. Yeah, you're welcome. Hey Tom, what you doing? Oh, I can't find anything good on YouTube to watch. The commentaries, the blogs, the tier videos, the gaming videos, it's all boring. Oh, have you thought about subscribing to Cornerstone's YouTube channel? Cornerstone has a YouTube channel? Of course it does. Hold on, taking a pause to remind you to subscribe to our channel. Hit that like button and ring that bell for notifications. Now back to the video. I'll show you how to subscribe. Just search for Cornerstone Television Network and hit the subscribe button so you can stay up to date getting filled with the Holy Spirit with consistent uploads every day. Keep up with your favorite moments and never miss a beat. Will you help us as we race to 100,000 subscribers? We can't do it without your help. The content is never ending with countless hours of entertainment. So subscribe to the Cornerstone YouTube channel today. Hope happens here. Well, welcome back to Hope Today. We're so glad that you're with us and hope that you enjoyed the conversation with Jeff Siegel. We always like to bring a scripture to you and then unpack just what we heard in that rich conversation with Jeff. So today our scripture comes from Matthew 28, 18 through 20. And it says this, Jesus came and told his disciples, I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth, therefore go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you and be sure of this. I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Oh, I just love this scripture and the great commission that Jesus gave to his disciples, which you are a disciple of Christ if he is your Lord and Savior and he has commanded you, he has empowered you through his Holy Spirit to go and tell the world about Jesus, to be that light in the darkness and to spread that hope, disciple others to grow up in Jesus who is the head as such a beautiful privilege that we have, Sid. We do, and even as you're talking, and I think sometimes we have to look introspectively, I'm like, am I really doing that right now? And just even taking the beautiful gift of the gospel and going out and sharing it with so many that I love. And I love Tom's conversation with Jeff Siegel about how he's even sharing about his family members of like that, you know, his brother and his dad and just being able to lead them to Christ. I think sometimes some of the greatest pain in the heartbreak is in our family. And I love that maybe today a simple step as you know, people are getting ready to celebrate with their families this weekend as we are celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Maybe you take a time to talk to that family member or to just share your testimony and your story to that loved one because I think those, Tom, are those little seeds that we can plant that go a long way. Well, and think of what his father is first reaction. You're no longer my son, you're worse than Adolf Hitler. I mean, the horrible things that would cause pain. And it was not like an instantaneous transformation of his father and his brother. It's, I think if I got the timeline right, it was like 25 years later before they came to the Lord and that's the thing though. He took a stand. It's interesting, his father asked him, were you baptized? That verse, we kind of go right over that verse and where it says, baptizing them because that is the statement, the statement of I am following after Christ when you're baptized. And I was just hearing about the Jesus Revolution movie. I was listening to a podcast about it today. There's people that would walk out of the theater. They were baptizing people in the fountain outside the theater because people were so affected by that, but that's the commitment, the public commitment to follow Christ. Yeah, absolutely. And whenever you're with somebody who experiences that baptism so often, you hear the testimony of them saying what a powerful experience that was where when they're put down into the water that represents being buried with Christ that all the sin, everything that they're carrying, the bondage, it goes down into the grave to stay there. And then when they're lifted back up out of the water, they are that new creation. It's like when Jesus rose from the grave and he conquered all sin and death. Do you know the great story of Jesus Christ who left heaven to come to earth to be a man fully God and fully man to rescue you? Everything that holds you captive today, the sin that so easily entangles, Jesus took it all on and he took it to the grave and only Jesus came back up. And when you accept him as your Lord and Savior, you are that new creation clothed in robes of righteousness and new life in Christ to become who he made you to be. We love you. Thank you so much for being with us today. And if you need prayer, remember that our prayer partners are always here at 888-665-4483. Have a great day. Tomorrow on Hope Today, learn how to release anxiety and encounter God's extravagant grace. Bible teacher and author Crystal Ward encourages us with biblical examples and prayers on how to resist anxious thoughts and receive the gift of God's abundant grace. That's tomorrow on Hope Today. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.