Sid: My guest in the studio is Co Producer of It’s Supernatural Television and Messianic Radio, Janie DuVall who’s also a Jewish Believer in Jesus and on yesterday’s broad cast you found out about what happened when I became radical, Red Hot, normal believer in Jesus. And you found out about how we started one of the first Messianic Jewish Synagogues in the United States and we bumped into a major revival. Janie, it is so wonderful to be in revival, every week Jewish people were coming to know Jesus.
Janie: And you said that was a freedom there, you said that you knew nothing. The two keys to me were that you were hungry and you were like little children that didn’t know anything and you just wanted Jesus, so you saw miracles.
Sid: And then, they realized I didn’t know much and so we got a Messianic Jewish Rabbi, a wonderful man of God, Manny Brotman who was ahead of an organization called the Messianic office so we shared office space and I have found, I would like to say that God’s Spirit lead me into the most significant things I’ve ever done. But that would be a lie, and I can’t say that. I have been literally pushed into the most significant things.
Janie: Is that including being on the radio?
Sid: Including being on the radio; I’ll tell you how it happened. I was in the oil business as I said sharing office space with Manny Brotman and I was able to supernaturally able to do my job so I devoted most of my time as a volunteer for Manny doing Jewish Ministry with him. And he really mentored me in understanding Jewish ministry. One day, a man from a Christian radio station comes in and says, “Manny you should do a radio show,” and then Manny said, “Well, I want you involved in this Sid.” And I said, “Sure, and I’ll be the behind the scenes person.” He said, “No, no you’ll be the announcer.” And I said, “I don’t want to be at a microphone.” And I mean, that was the last thing I wanted to do.
Janie: So you were pushed.
Sid: He forced me. So I was the announcer, I have to tell you Janie, my first radio show I thought that I could wing it; I could not…
Janie: What was it like; no really what was it like?
Sid: It was awful.
Janie: Ha-ha-ha-ha.
Sid: I mean I was awful, it was awful and so the next day, I wrote every word down. I’m just the announcer mind you; I’m not doing anything beyond announcing. I wrote every word down and I read it and it came out okay. But then an amazing thing happened; every time Manny had to interview someone for the radio show something would happen. Every single time and so if I didn’t do the job the show wouldn’t be done!
Janie: Oh, you mean something would happen, he would be not there and you would have to do it for him.
Sid: Oh, that’s what I meant.
Janie: Oh, so you replaced, oh wow, how interesting you really were pushed into this!
Sid: I know and I found out that I had a gift to interview, I would have never known that in a zillion years; and then TV was even more amazing. Now you at that time, you’d been working for me what eighteen years?
Janie: Well, basically I started in 1988 and then in 1995 I knew that you were supposed to be on TV; I knew that the world needed to see the miracles that we’ve been talking about on the radio; but they needed to see it. And so in 1995 that’s when we started the TV.
Sid: Well, the way we started it was supernatural.
Janie: It’s very amazing.
Sid: A women, a friend of mine, a Jewish believer in the Messiah called me up and said, “Sid, I’ve just deposited $25,000 in your name at a Christian Television Studio in Canada, go do your television show. And of course before I could tell her that I didn’t have a TV Show; and then when I told you about it. You said, “Oh, I’ve always wanted you to do it,” and so I got into TV because someone called me and that’s what I’m saying; “I’ve been pushed into everything that I’ve ever done for the Lord.” But you know, as I go back in time I see God’s hand even as a young Jewish boy when I was very, very young.
Janie: When you were young did you; okay you were brought up in Orthodox Jewish home.
Sid: Right.
Janie: Did you think about God at all?
Sid: God was a fire to me; I got that from my Father who got that from Moses and the burning bush and so no, God was not in my thoughts. I probably would have said, “I think that there’s a God; I believe there’s a God.” But He just wasn’t relevant to me.
Janie: Now, when you were six years old you had, I mean you were very afraid and what was that; you had these reoccurring thoughts; what was that?
Sid: Well, my Mother and Father use to be away at night; they use to gamble, they’d play poker and so I would be alone at night and I remember saying to myself, “I wish they’d come home, I wish they’d come home.” Somehow I thought as a little kid, if I said it enough, they might come home and then a thought popped into my head; now I know where the thought came from. At the time; the thought was. I mean just out of the blue this thought pops into my head. “What happens when you die?” And as a little child; and of course Judaism believes in life after death but we never talked about it.
Janie: So you didn’t know about Heaven.
Sid: No, I didn’t know about anything, so I figured my logical mind was well, in this was the progression; “When you die that’s the end of you.” So, then as a little child, I began to try to imagine, “What life would be like if I no longer existed.”
Janie: Oooo
Sid: And Janie, the thought was worse than ooo, it was so bad; whatever was me I wanted to continue living I didn’t want it to stop. And so I did the only logical thing I could do; I block it from my mind until many years later.
Janie: “Now, did you ever hear the name Jesus, did anyone ever say anything to you about Jesus growing up?”
Sid: I do remember a little anti-Semitism, I remember someone threatening me because I was Jewish, but I’ve had very little anti-Semitism, Jesus wasn’t relevant, I’m Jewish. Jewish people don’t believe in Jesus, so therefore he was totally irrelevant, I was happy with my religion, to be candid, with you although I was happy with my religion, I didn’t like going to synagogue because it was very boring. I went to an Orthodox Jewish Synagogue; everything was in Hebrew; I didn’t understand a word of what was.
Janie: So it wasn’t relevant,
Sid: It was agony is what it was and I remember I had a goal in life and I think it came from my great mentor, television. And the goal in life was to become a millionaire before I was age thirty. And I remember I blinked my eyes a few times and I graduated college; I blinked my eyes a few more times I was married; I blinked my eyes a few times I had a child; I blinked my eyes a few more times I had a wonderful job as a an account executive with at the time with the largest stock brokerage firm in the world, Meryl Lynch.
Janie: So did it look like you were getting close to being that millionaire?
Sid: By age twenty-nine, I knew I would not be a millionaire by thirty, I would have been a millionaire when I retired, I had a wonderful career ahead of myself, but it dawned on me I’m not going to be a millionaire and therefore I’m not going to be happy. And so therefore I have to do something about it; and I had what’s known as an early midlife crisis; I’m not proud of it, but I left my job; I Ieft my wife; I left my daughter and I went searching for happiness. But you know if you don’t know what you’re looking for it’s a big world out there.
Janie: “So what were you, so when you finally got out there in the world was anything making you even happy that you thought was making you happy or did you know that you were miserable?”
Sid: Well, to be candid with you I got married when I was young and I figured I missed the whole singles scene and I got involved in that and I felt that it was awful. I mean it was absolutely the pits. And so almost a year went by and things weren’t better, things were worse; I had been involved in an investment company, I had some employees working for me and one day one of my employees said, “Sid, I have a friend that had no physic ability and he took this meditation course and now he knows things that he never could have known before.” And it was almost a compulsion on my part, I said, “I’ve got to meet your friend and I was in Washington, DC and his friend was in New Jersey. And I drove to New Jersey to meet his friend and his friend told me all about this and so I immediately took this course because I figured if I could know things that my mind hadn’t been programmed, I then could make money, if I made money, I still might be a millionaire before age thirty and I could be happy.
Janie: But, you were such a logical guy, how could you even believe in that supernatural, even that kind of supernatural or were you desperate?
Sid: No, it wasn’t even that, I was actually always interested in the supernatural. I would go to fortune tellers and people that would tell you your fortune through reading cards. So and what I found is most of these New Age groups are loaded with Jewish people.
Janie: It’s true,
Sid: It says in the Bible we have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. And so if people won’t tell us about Jesus and they don’t, well then we’re going to end up in the counterfeit.
Janie: That’s right, the wrong supernatural.
