(DAN. 9:26)
WE are glad to give our readers the following interesting account of the conversion to God in 1868, as told by himself, of Mr. M. S. Bergmann, formerly a Jew (of the stock of Abraham), but now a Christian, a believer by the grace of God in the man-rejected, but God-exalted Messiah.
We are able to add that he is still living, and besides his ordinary labors in the gospel he has sedulously devoted his spare time for the last eighteen years in translating the Bible—both Old and New Testaments—into both German and Russian Yiddish, a task, we believe, now happily completed.
May God richly bless this work to the turning of many of Israel’s sons to believe in the only hope of Israel—the One whom they pierced, now exalted a Prince and a Saviour!
Here is his story:
“I came to this land of light and liberty in 1886 from that terrible land of Russia. We Jews only know the Christians of Russia as the persecutors of our people. As a young man the Lord spoke to me, as He spoke to Abraham, ‘Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred... unto a land that I will show thee.’ The Lord led me to this land. I came with the bitterest feelings in my heart, hating the very name of Christ, and those who worship Him. When I had been in London about two years, serving as a Rabbi in a small synagogue, the Lord laid me on a sick bed. Being alone in London, I was obliged to go to a German hospital. While there a dear Christian nurse came to my bedside, and said ‘Ich bete fur Sie-!’ (I am praying for you!) That broke my heart. I never thought a Christian could pray for a Jew!
“When I was able to be up I looked about the hospital for something to read. I found a Hebrew Bible, and for the first time I made up my mind I would read it right through. There are various passages which a Jew is never allowed to read passages pointing so directly to the Lord Jesus Christ that they are forbidden by the Rabbis under the penalty of a terrible curse. I began to read the ninth chapter of Daniel. I knew the first part by heart, but from the twenty-fourth verse onward, dealing with the seventy weeks, it is forbidden. The Rabbis say, ‘Their bones shall rot who compute the time of the end.’ I shook for fear as I read it. When I came to the words, ‘ Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself,’ I took the Bible, sacred Book as it was, and threw it away with a curse, for we Jews do not believe that Messiah is to be cut off. No, He is to reign forever and ever.
“But though I threw away the Book, I could not throw away that little sentence. Wherever I looked I seemed to see it in flaming letters ‘Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself,’ I could not eat or sleep, and got weaker and weaker. No one knew what was going on within. ‘Messiah, shall be cut off, but not for Himself.’ For whom then, if not for Himself? For whom shall Messiah be cut off? With this question burning within me I took up the Book again. I opened it at another forbidden passage, the fifty-third of Isaiah. With the exception of one verse both pages were completely blurred to my vision. The eighth verse alone stood out clear and distinct He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.’
“Here, direct from heaven, was the answer to my question, For whom was Messiah cut off? ‘For the transgression of my people.’ If He was cut off for God’s people, for the Jews, then He was cut off for me, for my transgression! These two passages have been the means of my conversion. Healed in body and in soul, I left the hospital a converted man.
“That was in January, 1868, and ever since God has kept me as a witness among my own people in London. I have suffered a great deal of persecution from my own people. At one time they charged me with being a thief, and got me shut up, for a night in a police cell. That was the happiest night in my life, the very night of my Lord’s own suffering and crucifixion, the first night of the Passover. My accuser has now himself become a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ in answer to prayer. I myself am here in answer to the prayer of that Christian nurse.
“When I ministered in the Synagogue I imagined that the people understood the prayers and the Scriptures which I read to them in Hebrew. But when I began to preach the gospel to my own people, I found that this is very far from being the case. The greater number of the people do not understand Hebrew, and they were absolutely without the Scriptures in a language that they could understand. For twenty-one years I prayed that God would raise up someone to translate the Bible into Yiddish. When the answer came it came most gloriously. I was pleading with the Lord alone. I seemed to hear quite audibly and distinctly the words, ‘ Write my word for my people that understand it not.’ This was repeated twice. I got up, and taking my Bible, opened it at random, and asked the Lord to give me a message from the page. My finger was upon Habakkuk 2:22And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. (Habakkuk 2:2)—'Write the vision, and make it plain... that he may run that readeth it.’ I took this as the Lord’s answer to my twenty-one years of prayer, and that morning I sat down to commence the stupendous task.”