Thought for the week
You Don’t Know Me
I don’t know about you but I like to reminisce about old times, look up old names and faces using Google.com. Sometime ago I became curious about whatever happened to Helen Shapiro (born East End district of London, 28 Sept., 1946), a dark haired 14 year old Jewish girl who in 1961 had two memorable hits called, You Don’t Know
and Walkin’ Back To Happiness. Her husky voice for one so young was of exquisite timbre. I well remember at the time, saying to my mother, that she surely could not be a girl for her voice was, to me, very boy-like.
It appears Helen is alive and well but has changed in a number of ways. It seems her fame of the early ‘sixties diminished being supplanted by the warm-up group in her entourage, none other than The Beatles. She turned to Jazz and eventually Gospel. Helen, a girl born of a Polish immigrant family and raised in the strict confines of the Hackney, London synagogue eventually heard about Jesus. I will let her tell you the story: “The State school I attended taught the Bible and I loved the Bible stories very much. However, because my school had a Jewish Headmaster and a large Jewish contingency among the pupils, we Jewish kids had separate R.E. (religious education) classes and assemblies. As a consequence, I never heard of a New Testament or a Jesus until I was around six years of age. One day, a non-Jewish girl came up to me in the [school] playground in quite some distress and blurted out, “You killed Jesus Christ!” I was devastated and confused by this accusation. I had never killed anyone in my life, and who was this person with the strange name, Jesus Christ?”
Helen drifts through life wondering about this man called Jesus even supposing as most Jews do that he and his New Testament is a conspiracy of the gentiles. She lurches from Judaism to New Age confusion, praying for God to show her the way until one day in the 1980’s her musical director Bob Cranham proclaimed “He was a Christian and more than once he had spoken of what his ‘Lord’ had done in his life.” It seems he planned to spend the rest of his life being a preacher. Helen is curious to know who Jesus really is. She finds a book entitled “Betrayed” by Stan Telchin. She says, “The book was a total shock…Here was a book by a normal, successful Jewish businessman who believed in Jesus and I couldn’t ignore it.”
She eventually meets Stan and asks him to explain Jesus. He responds by quoting Isaiah 9:6, where it’s written “unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given”. I had always thought that verse was in the New Testament as I’d only ever seen it on Christmas cards. But there it was in Isaiah! One of ours!” He further enlightens this Jewish mind about other Old Testament (Tenarch) verses such as Isaiah 7:14 a child (Jesus) born to a virgin; Micah 5:2 the child’s birth place – Bethlehem; Psalm 22 prophesying the child’s final words on the cross; Isaiah 53 of the suffering, redeeming Jesus and she says, “All of these prophecies seemed to be painting a picture that I wasn’t sure I wanted to see. How come nobody ever showed me these things before? How come all I got was ‘You Killed Jesus Christ!’?
August 1987 Helen is finally convinced that Jesus Christ is genuine. She says, “I telephoned Bob [Cranham] and said, “I think I’m on the verge of becoming a believer.” He and his wife asked me over… I told Bob and his wife that I believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God and God the Son. I believed that He died on the cross, was buried and rose from the dead on the third day… They explained that I needed to repent – to turn from my sin back to God. I learned that I was a sinner. We all are. Bob asked me if I would like to respond by praying and asking God to forgive me on the basis of what Jesus has done. Only He can forgive me and only the Blood of Jesus can atone for me. I could then commit my life to Him as my Lord and Saviour.”
However, as interesting and rich the story may be, have you noticed that Helen has still fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)? She has been duped by denominational mischief, for they miss out what the 3000 plus were told they must do on Pentecost (Acts 2:38); what Jesus said Ananias would tell Saul what he “must do” (Acts 9:6 and 22:16); what the Philippian Jailer and household were told to do in answer to, “What must I do to be saved” (Acts 16:30); what Paul said the Galatians had done, i.e., “clothed themselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27) and finally what Peter says is an action that appeals to God for a “good conscience” (1 Peter 3:21) – yes, she has not been baptized for the acquittal of her sins and subsequently be added to Christ’s church (Acts 2:47) and as a consequence, salvation wise, Christ, sadly, does not know her (Matthew 7:23).
I pray that Helen to discover this vital link between now and eternity.
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