Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. -- Romans 10:1.

Edith Schaeffer's special love for the Jews motivated her to write Christianity Is Jewish. And later, when she wrote Forever Music, she prayed and hoped it would help many Jewish people in the artistic community. In answer to her prayers, people gave copies to such legendary musicians as Horowitz and Serkin among others. Just two amazing stories will encourage each of us to continue praying for the Jews and look for opportunities to tell them and others about Jesus the Messiah whenever possible.

After one year in Switzerland, little Priscilla Schaeffer knew French well enough to act as a translator in their boarding house for prospective renters. One evening, Priscilla rushed to tell her family that she had just translated from English into French so a German Jewish woman from Jerusalem could rent a room from Madame Turrian. When Fran and Edith met the woman later, she bubbled over with excitement as she spoke about the reestablishment of Israel. She told about the great expectations of those who believed God might be doing something new in their midst.

In the coming days, God used the perfect timing of these events in Israel to give her a receptive mind for what the Schaeffer family had to tell her about Jesus the Messiah. And as the time for her return to Israel approached, the Schaeffers longed to give her a gift, a special Prophecy Edition of the New Testament. However, they did not know where to find one in Switzerland, and they knew they could not send to America and get one back in time. So they prayed fervently for a Bible to give, and trusted in God as they went about their daily tasks.

A few days later, on the last afternoon of a conference, Edith heard a man from the Million Testaments Campaigns give a lecture. Afterward, she hurried to the platform and asked him, "Do you have a Prophecy New Testament?" He smiled, reached into his coat pocket, pulled out and gave her exactly what she wanted. What a wonderful, specific answer to their prayers.

The day the Jewish woman left, the Schaeffers gave her some gifts, including the Prophecy New Testament. They showed her why she should study it, and with a glowing face she accepted the Bible and promised to read it. The Schaeffers continued to pray for her, but they never saw her again. Because of God's perfect timing for her to meet the Schaeffers and receive her Bible at that time in Israel's history, we can presume that she eventually accepted Jesus as the Messiah and her personal Savior.

Edith learned about the other amazing answer to prayer fourteen years after she and Fran witnessed to and prayed for a woman they met in an alley. In 1978, Francis Schaeffer was working on his book and film Whatever Happened To The Human Race? and Edith was writing Affliction. On the warm sunny days in the Alps, they wrote in their back yard and visited with the neighbors who stopped to chat over the fence. They got to know one such neighbor very well, a Jewish woman. She told them how she and her husband fled Germany in 1938 to escape the persecution. First, they went to South Africa and worked there many years, and then they moved to Switzerland, where her husband had died. Fran and Edith told her about their faith in God. They prayed for her, and Fran gave her a copy of The God Who Is There. But after Fran began treatments for cancer in Rochester, Minnesota in late 1978, they did not think they would see her again.

In July of 1992, Edith returned to Switzerland to work with Swiss L'Abri and take a rest from her work in America. One Sunday in August, she attended an English speaking church and after the service the pastor asked her to stay and meet a woman who had come to believe in Jesus just six months before in their church. To her amazement and delight, Edith met the Jewish woman Fran had given The God Who Is There. In answer to their many prayers, the woman told how God had motivated her to read the book, and then later how she had found and read Edith's book L'Abri, and then many years later she had accepted Jesus as the Messiah.

Edith can tell many stories about people who have come to the Savior in answer to their prayers and through the truths people have learned from their books. Over the years, the Holy Spirit has graciously brought people to the Schaeffers, or gotten the Schaeffers' books into their hands, and then much later the Schaeffers have met these people in unexpected places and have heard their testimony.

Our prayers are one means God has ordained to use in the salvation of sinners. By His grace, God leads people to pray for those who need to know His Son. Sometimes He inspires people to pray by name for someone they know personally or for someone they have only heard about. At other times He will inspire people to pray for an opportunity to tell some known (or not yet known) person about God's provision for salvation through faith in Jesus. We might pray for these opportunities as we ride on a bus or train. Edith always does this, and God usually honors her request. For example, a few years after Fran died, as she was flying back to America from Europe, a woman from an Arabic country called her over to her seat and angrily demanded, "Why are you so different from everybody else?" Edith calmly explained that she looked at things differently, and before they reached America the woman had turned from being a Moslem to accepting Jesus as her Savior. In the coming months, Edith very carefully sent her books that she hoped would get through the censors, and not get the woman arrested. And then she followed them with letters asking about specific pages in ways that would not incriminate her new Christian friend. She prayed for the Lord to protect and defend her, and open doors for her to safely witness at home. As we faithfully obey God's leading in teaching us how to pray, we will see God using us to change people's lives in many different ways, and then we may need to pray for the Lord's protection as they live out their faith.

Many times the Schaeffers saw the fruit of their prayers and teaching, and God used them personally as His harvest workers to reap the results of their labors. On other occasions, they only shared God's Word, and then watered their witness with their tears as they prayed for the individual. They always rejoiced when they learned that someone else had been able to follow through from their beginning and lead someone to receive Jesus as their Savior and Lord. In heaven, all the faithful followers of Jesus will meet those who came to believe because they cared, prayed, shared, and taught them the truth about God.

Prayer

Dear Father, thank you for loving your people, the Jews, as a faithful Parent. Thank you for preparing them to be the nation that would teach others about your way of salvation through the Messiah. Help me to pray for Jews and others with an understanding of how much you love them and of how much they mean to you. Help me to teach others about your wonderful love for all peoples, and show them you have a purpose for each of our lives. Keep me from being personally offended when others challenge my Christian attitude or demeanor, and help me share with them the joy that knowing you makes so some may come to follow you. For the sake of Jesus' Kingdom, I pray. Amen.

© Copyright L. G. Parkhurst, Jr. Revised Edition 2008
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