The team members at One For Israel have been at the forefront of online evangelism in Hebrew and, because of the coronavirus lockdown, they have seen a spike in visits on igod.co.il – their Hebrew evangelism website – and on their YouTube channel.
During this time, they have seen 40 percent more Israeli visitors than usual, they told KNI. This has led to more people contacting them and asking questions.
“I was sure the Messiah would arrive this Passover, so I made a search and ran across one of your YouTube videos,” one person wrote. “The penny dropped, and I realized this is the truth. I feel like I’ve been cheated all my life. I don’t dare to tell my girlfriend, we have been together for five years. I have no idea how she will react.”
Another person wrote: “I have been keeping the Jewish traditions all my life, but lately I have been binging your YouTube videos every night until 4 a.m. Everything has changed now. I’m keeping a low profile with my newfound faith and haven’t told anyone. I don’t really know what to do next. I am writing to you, because I really don’t have anyone else to talk to about this.”
When the staff from igod published some of these messages in a closed forum for Israeli believers, one person commented: “That’s how I got saved. Those people remind me of where I was a few years ago.”
“We have received a lot of messages like these,” Eitan Bar comfirmed to KNI. “In a few weeks we will go through them and pick out some that we can publish, without identifying details. Right now we are busy answering them and following up.”
Moti Vaknin, who appears alongside Bar in many of the YouTube videos, has a heart for online evangelism – that’s how he got saved himself. In his personal testimony on their website, he shares how he was searching for the truth and found very little information about Yeshua in Hebrew online. The little he found was enough to make him a believer. Now he wants to create the material that would have helped him better: solid, relevant material in Hebrew, created by Israelis.
As of today, igod’s Hebrew YouTube channel has hundreds of videos and over 42,000 subscribers. The videos, ranging from three to 47 minutes long, include answers to common rabbinic objections to Yeshua, personal testimonies, short sermons on key concepts, answers to atheists’ objections to God, explanations of Messianic prophecies, worship songs, interviews in media and even a full online audio New Testament in Hebrew.
God is changing hearts in Israel. Pray for these people who live with a hidden faith, that God will give them the courage to join a fellowship of believers and learn to know the Messiah of Israel.