When a Rabbi Met the Messiah- Greg Hershberg's transformation

A honeymoon trip to Israel changed everything.

Initially raised as an Orthodox Jew in New York, Rabbi Greg Hershberg never imagined he would come to believe Jesus was Israel's promised Messiah. But an unforgettable encounter on Mount Tabor set him on a completely new path.

Years later, after building a thriving Messianic Jewish ministry, Greg found himself fighting for his life. A devastating infection led to multiple surgeries, 50 days between life and death, and moments when even this seasoned man of faith wondered where God was.

In this deeply honest conversation, Greg shares:

• His remarkable encounter with Jesus in Israel
 • Why he remains proudly Jewish while following Jesus
 • What really happened during his life-threatening illness
 • The doubts he wrestled with
 • The hope he discovered when God seemed silent

Whether you're walking through suffering yourself or simply wondering where God is in difficult seasons, this conversation offers encouragement that God is often closest when He feels farthest away.

"Amazing Greats"  is a library of interviews with highly successful people who have amazing career and life stories and who share how God has impacted their journey.  Hosted by broadcaster Ric Hansen & produced by Klem Daniels.   Available on Apple,  Spotify, iHeart, Google and our  YouTube Channel. 
Please help us grow our audience by "liking", "subscribing and "Sharing".   Thanks so much. 

Transcript

Welcome And Why Greg’s Here

Ric 0:38

Well, what a great afternoon it is. We're miles and miles apart from one another, but here we are by the the uh incredible technology of Zoom, talking with Greg Hirschbrug, uh, who is a uh a Jewish rabbi, but you're a messianic Jewish rabbi, and we want to make that very clear. So uh first off, Greg, you wrote a book, and that's what we're gonna talk about here in a little bit. Uh, we're gonna find about find out about you. What the amazing greats podcast is all about is learning people's amazing stories. And so that's what we're here to do today. First of all, um thank you for being here. Thank you for being an incredible representative of Jesus and of the whole faith, the way. Uh, and thank you for being here with us today. And we're gonna talk about the book, which is called At Death's Door, which I think will give it a kind of a way of where we're headed in this conversation. So, Greg Kirschberg, it is good to see you. Tell us about you. You were you were born into a Jewish family, you were raised in a Jewish environment. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Well, you know, today it's almost in vogue, you know. Ever ever since Madonna started studying Kabbalah, it was it's almost in vogue, it was in vogue there for a while to be Jewish. So people like, well, my grandmother, you know, on my father's side. I I was very Jewish. And when I'm not proud of that, I'm just stating a fact. My father was Jewish, his parents were Jewish, mother Jewish, her parents were Jewish, my three sisters Jewish, they married three Jewish guys, raised their kids Jewish. We're a very Jewish family, and not just cultural, because 80% of Jews today are culturally Jewish, which means they have some affiliation nationally with Judaism, but not religiously.

SPEAKER_04 2:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Um, I was raised Orthodox, and it was that's austere. We were raised in the Bronx in the projects. In the 70s, the Jews became very affluent, so they were moving to the suburbs. Why? Houses, land, better schools, better, better, you know, better culture. And so my father was poor. I don't know how I managed to be born in the only poor Jewish house. Yeah. But but I but I was. So we stayed. So the only Jews that stayed in the Bronx were the octogenarians on fixed income. And I have to tell you, and I'm I'm not pointing fingers, but I experienced a ton of anti-Semitism growing up. And a lot of times it was I was embarrassed for the people because I'd be over a friend's house and they'd have a Jewish slur. And then my friend would say, Oh, mom, you know, Greg's Jewish, and they go, Well, he's not that kind of a Jew.

Orthodox Upbringing And Walking Away

SPEAKER_02 3:20

I guess I'm a good Jew. So I experienced a lot of that. So I went to synagogue three days a week, and and I never really connected, Rick. I I I'm not blaming the rabbi, and I'm not blaming Judaism. It it I it was a lot of religiosity, it was a lot of external religious ritual. Now I know there's many Jews that love the Lord, revere God. I don't want to be disrespectful in any way. My experience was it was external. And so after my bomb mitzvah at 13 and after my father died at 15, I walked away and became very secular.

Ric 3:57

Yeah. And I think, you know, that's a uh a continuing story that I get, not just with Judaism, but also with uh Christianity. You know, when we're young, we're kind of forced into this hole where this is this is what we do and this is who we are, but it doesn't mean anything for us. And and that's exactly what you're talking about. But it did come to mean something for you uh at one point down the road. So you were um living a secular life, life was good. You fell in love with Bernadette, your wife, and then you decided to get married. And tell us about that honeymoon experience. Well, we were both we were both secular.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

She was raised very strictly Catholic. Yeah, you know, in New York City, there were no Baptists, there were no Pentecostals when I was young. It was it was the little synagogue and the big Catholic Church. And you were either Roman Catholic or Irish Catholic or you were Jewish. That's it, nothing else. Uh-yeah, and Jesus, Jesus was their guy, and Moses was our guy. And I didn't have anything against them. My parents never, nobody disparaged them in the Jewish community. They just said that he's not part of us. And again, like you said earlier, I just accepted that. You know, I was I was being influenced by my parents. I was a little boy, and I said, okay, he has nothing to do with me. At least that's what I thought. And um, you know, I was I was called Christ killer and all this, and and it was it was yeah, DSI, you know, it's been going on for a long time. And that, and that, you know, so when I became secular and I was just trying to uh make a good living and make my father proud. My father, I was the youngest of four, three older sisters. I really just wanted to make them proud. I wanted to do well so I could look up and go, I did it, Dad. That's all. I was really doing it to him. And I did, I was accomplished. I had an executive search term in the city placing people in the banking finance. It was very lucrative. I was making money. Burned that was a swimsuit model because I fell in lust at first sight. I was very external, I was very lustful, and you know, she was very, very attractive. And I I didn't look within it wasn't it wasn't part of my uh persona. Yeah, and um I think there's something in all of us. Ecclesiastes speaks about this, that eternal life is planted in our heart. I think even people that believe in aliens and extraterrestrials and these apocalyptic movies that are so popular, they I think deep down inside they know there's something more than just this. They can't bind to the fact that this is it, you die and it's over. Yeah, they they they don't know what it is, but they they have a sense. Yeah, and I had that sense. And as a Jew, I think a Jew is a Yehuda. You know, we're a people that were created. Nobody was born, nobody was born Jewish until Abraham was called out. He wasn't Jewish, he was from Mesopotamia, mom de Harak. And then he had Isaac, the son of promise, and then he had Jacob, and Jacob had a son called Judah, and Yehuda in Hebrew means appraiser of God. And the Jewish people were created by God to be model citizens of his kingdom. It was supposed to show what it looked like to have a relationship with Almighty God, and so Jews are always searching, and that's why it's notorious that Jews find their way into occults because they're looking for something, and I found my way into an occult, and I really did. It was an occult, a lot of transcendental meditation, a lot of ethereal planes, a lot of wacky stuff, but it feeds your ego, and it shallowly fills that need that you instinctively have. You think all of a sudden I'm spiritual. You say I'm not religious, I'm but I'm spiritual, whatever that means. And so I was spiritual and I was deeply spiritual and committed. And this guru, who he was a guru, and um he happened to be a doctor too, so he had credentials. He said to us, he loved Bernard that he said, you guys have to go to Israel on on your honeymoon. And inside my head, Rick, I just heard wah wah wah wah wah. There was no way I was going to Israel. Honestly, we were going to the Caribbean every three months. I was making money, we were partying. Yeah, we were drinking, we were doing some recreational drugging, we were dancing. I'm not proud, but that's who we were. So I'm thinking Jamaica. I'm thinking Blue Mountain Coffee. I'm thinking, you know, they they have the best marijuana in in the world, pretty much, um, at the time, anyway. And I'm thinking Israel, no. But something happened the next day when I got on the train to go to work. I sat next to somebody who said, Have you ever thought about going to Israel? And I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but like you went back. I went back. I was like, oh whoa. Because I just committed, I'm not going there. And they said, My father-in-law has a travel agency in Manhattan, and he specialized in Israel travel. If you ever want to go, here's his card. I was like, I guess we're going to Israel. But I was so confident that it was going to be lousy that I put a week of the Greek Isles on the back end. There you go. Yeah. Went to Israel, started in a lot. I don't know if you're familiar, but you know, I take uh tours there, I take people there. So I've been there about 21 times. So a lot is in the southern Sinai Peninsula, gorgeous. You see three countries. It's on the Red Sea, beautiful hotels, bars, restaurants. Um, I kid tongue in cheek, but I say when I got there, I liked a lot, a lot. It was it was it was perfect for me. And we're partying, we're having a good time, and I'm saying this is great. We're sunning and funning, and I'm Israel's okay. I'm water skiing, I'm I'm scuba diving in the Red Sea. It's one of the greatest places to scuba dive. And then we went to Jerusalem and I hated it. Hated it. I didn't know about spiritual warfare, but I was I was visibly bothered by what was in the air. It was palpable. You have Jerusalem in quarters. You have an Armenian quarter, a Christian quarter, a Muslim quarter, and a Jewish quarter, and none of the quarters got together. They and I was like, I don't like this. And again, I also thought that the old Jews, you know, when I went to Spain, there's Spanish people. And in Greece, there's Greek people, and Israel has people from all over the

Secular Success And The Occult Detour

SPEAKER_02 10:10

world. It's it's one of the most international cities. I just I just didn't feel it. We went out, we did, and it was the last day. And I said to Bernadette, let's see if we can get a car and go up north. I was so far removed from my Jewish roots. I didn't even realize it was the High Holy days. It was Yom Kippur. And yeah, and I managed to get a car because there was a secular person in the agency. Everything shut down in Israel in Yom Kippur. It's the high holiest day of the year, the day of atonement. And she realized my last name is Hirschberg. I must be secular too. So she gave me a car. Drove up north. It's very easy to get up there. King's Highway goes straight up. It's a small area, 23 miles around the Galilee. That's it. And I was looking for the Transfiguration Mount because this guru told us this story about the Transfiguration Mount.

Ric 10:57

You're listening to Amazing Greats. I'm Rick Hansen, and today I'm talking with Rabbi Greg Hirschberg about his incredible journey through 50 days between life and death, and the God who never left him.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

And he said, he said, Jesus appears. You know, he he believed in Jesus, not as the Messiah, as the Son of God, the only way to the Father, but as a great teacher, like a guru himself. And Moses appeared and Elijah appeared, and he told us the story, and I remembered it. So I said, let's go there. That's like kind of special. Those are those are my guys, not Jesus, but Elijah and Moses are my guys, they're pillars. And um, we couldn't find it because nobody knows up there. The Jewish people don't know the Transfiguration Mount, they know it as Mount Tabor. That's its geographical name. Yeah. The Transfiguration Mount was what Bible scholars deemed it, so they could find it in Matthew 17, right? So we go, I drop him off. He says he's going to Tabor, I drop him off, I look to the left, and there's a very beautiful round mountain. And I don't know how to explain this to you except to say it was absolutely calling my name. I felt like somebody casted a rod off the top, the hook went in my heart, and they were reeling me in very, very fast. And I drove up, Bernadette said a couple of choice words, you know, because I was driving like a maniac. I jumped out of the car, I saw a plaque. It said the plaque to the transfiguration. I heard a voice. I know this sounds crazy. I'm sorry, um, but I can't deny it. The voice said, Come away and pray with me. I'm embarrassed to say, Rick, I didn't know how to pray. So I only knew some rote Jewish prayers like the Shema, the Via Haftar, and others. I found a three-tiered rock, I closed my eyes, I figured I'd do some transcendental meditation, and all of a sudden, I see the eastern sky open up, and I see a uh a figure come out of it, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes was white as light. And he came down, he descended, and he pressed his chest against me, and the first words he said to me is, I love you.

SPEAKER_03 13:02

And um, I was loved by my mom, I was loved by my dad, um, I was loved by my three sisters.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

I had good friends, but this was otherworldly. I I never heard it like this, ever. And he said, I'm the one that you're reading about in the Old Testament.

SPEAKER_03 13:22

He said, All you have to do, Greg, is believe. Nothing more. I don't know why I did, but I did. And then he ascended, I opened up my eyes, I started weeping.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Bernard would tell you if she was, yeah, I went for about 20 minutes. I couldn't stop. And I couldn't get my composure.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Finally said, What the heck happened? And I said, I think I met Jesus, and I don't know what to do with it, Bern. She said, Well, okay, what we do have to do, we have to leave because we have to pack because we're going to Greece in the morning.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

And I said, I know this sounds nuts, but I promise you, I said this, I said, I I can't go. I can't leave here because see, I thought God was on the mountain. And if you leave the mountain, you leave the Lord, I would leave that feeling. And you know, once I read the narrative, I realized that's what the disciples thought. James, John, and Peter said, Let's build tabernacles. So I said, Okay, give me give me a little time.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

And I said to the Lord, I said, Um I don't want to go. But I guess I can't just camp up here, right? I'm married now and I have a job. So I promise I'll come back to see you. And then I said, I only have one question.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Because Judaism is is it's not a religion, just it's a nationality. When I was around my friends in the Bronx, and somebody said I'm Puerto Rican, you know, I'm Italian, I'd say I'm Jewish. But it's supposed to be a religion. How did it become a nationality? It is, and so I I said, and I I was I just knew about the Holocaust and the programs, and my father was a proud Jew, and I I I just thought, oh my god, I guess I'm not Jewish anymore. And so so I said, Jesus, do I have to stop being Jewish? And I heard him say, I didn't. And I shelled it. I didn't know what that meant. You didn't. Of course you did. You're the head of the Catholic church. What do you mean? I left it alone, and then I figured out when I started to read the gospels when I got home. I, you know, turned over the page and started reading Matthew 1.1. I was like, wow, this genealogy is incredibly Jewish.

SPEAKER_04 15:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

And and so that I I came home rick 180, stopped listening to the music, stopped parting. I went to my friends and said, I'm sorry, I can't, I can't hang out anymore. It's not that I'm better than you, I'm worse than you, really, but I'm trying to do something here, and I don't, I just can't be pulled back. I've got to go forward with this. I I have to. And and that started my journey with the Lord.

Ric 16:03

Yeah, and time passes. Uh uh as I'll just throw in also that Bernadette uh had a a conversion story as well. And the both of you are uh and her hers was as interesting as yours, you know, is this in in Capernaum.

Israel Honeymoon And A Mountain Encounter

SPEAKER_02 16:20

We went to the it we saw this, we were going down, we were leaving, and there was a sign that said the town of Jesus. And of course, that's where his ministry hub was. He was born in Nazareth, but Gefarnachum, Capernaum, was where his ministry was stationed. And in these towns, Rick, if you've ever been there, there's one synagogue to a town. So if you don't get along with the people in your synagogue, you have nowhere else to go. It's not like the church in America, you can go down the street. Yeah, you have to learn how to get along. So there's we know that there's a synagogue there they uncovered. We know what it says in the Bible, and Jesus taught at the synagogue in Capernaum. We're we're there. So I'm standing there with her. We went in, I'm standing there with her, and I have my back to her, and I said, This is crazy. Like we're on holy ground. This is where the Messiah ministry and taught, and I hear knees hit the ground, and I I hear weeping, and I turn around, and I'm trying to communicate with her, and she said, I saw him, Greg.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

I was we were in garb, he was teaching, and he walked over to me, and he put his hand on my hair and said, Be healed.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

And you know, I thought that when we would get home, everything would be great. I thought that okay, I I was pretty much not a great guy, and I was living the life of Riley, so now that I've given my life to the Lord, it's gonna be even better. And it didn't happen that way. Um, it didn't. It was hard, um, it was difficult. The enemy came after us like nobody's business still does. And um I think what happened was I I had built this house, like the Tower of Babel. Uh the line of Judah had to come along and tear it down. It did need a renovation, it needed to be demolished, and then he had to become my foundation, and little by little he's been building my tabernacle back up.

Ric 18:24

So time, so time passes. You you uh start found a very successful messianic Jewish uh congregation, uh Beth uh Yeshua.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Yeah, it's a house, house of Jesus. House of Jesus, yeah. Beth Yeshua, you know, house of Jesus.

Ric 18:42

That's what a secular uh our our Christians would call it, yes.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Well, Bethlehem is Hebrew, it's Bethlehem, house of bread. So it makes sense for the bread of life to be born in the house of bread. Yeah.

Ric 18:56

So and that's uh that's uh and things are going good at that point, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:59

Well, messianic synagogues are small, Rick. I mean, you know, first of all, Saturday's the day that kids play baseball and soccer. It's not the day people worship, it's it's a big inconvenience. And um, you know, we're just looked upon as strange just because we worship on Saturday. I think if somebody worshipped on Tuesday in a coal mining town, because that was the only day available, nobody would look at them weird. But because I'm I'm trying to honor the Sabbath, no big deal. I don't push on anybody. So they're small. They they're 30, 40, 50, 60 people, but this grew. This kept growing and growing, you know, 50, 100, 300, 500. And then people started watching online. They begged me to get a camera. I said, Who will watch? My mother doesn't want to watch. Who's gonna watch? And then thousands of people started live streaming with us. I didn't understand what was happening. Then the next thing I know that we're we're planting congregations. We have 200 congregations in India. And I don't say this to brag, because because anybody who knows God has no business bragging, right? It's it's not possible. Every now and then we feel like we're doing well, but it it it it it has no place with the Lord. You know, he won't share his glory with another, right? It's it's just taboo. But but it kept on going crazy. And I think part of the reason was there's probably a lot of reasons I don't know. There's a lot I don't know, a lot I don't know. But one thing was I was very real and transparent. I didn't give three-point sermons. I didn't say if you do this and you don't do this, you're gonna get that. Because it's not true. Life is messy, life is ugly, life is dirty. And and when you try to sanitize the faith, I think in the pulpit, you're doing people a great disservice. You're not helping them, you're not seeing them. It's like Job's friends. You know, they didn't want a God who could allow suffering. They didn't, right? No, no, that wouldn't happen. So you have to be in sin. I mean, this is insanity. We've got a whole book of Job on suffering. Yeah, we got a whole book of lamentations, half the Psalms, they're crying out, How long I'm gonna sleep, the sleep of death if you don't deliver me. Yeah, and then you have Jesus himself saying, Father, why have you forsaken me? That sounds Shakespearean, but what he was saying is, we've never been apart. I'm in the most pain I've ever been in. I need you right now more than ever, and you're nowhere to be found. Hmm. So if Jesus could feel that, you're telling me Greg Hirschberg and Rick Hansen can't?

Ric 21:31

This is amazing. Great. So with Rick Hansen, my guest is Rabbi Greg Hirschberg, author of At Death's Door, sharing the remarkable story of how Jesus met him in the darkest days of his life. Now, I totally on board with that. That is so amazing. And and he showed you in real life, uh, with your life, how suffering can uh take its toll. And that started with a trip to St. Louis. Lewis. With you and Bernadette going, your kids are grown. You have four great kids. The church is doing well. And you head off to a weekend to see Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Gaffigan.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

She surprised me. You know, I I Jerry Seinfeld is a contemporary of mine. You know, he's he's from Queens. I'm from the Bronx. He was raised by the same parents, the same culture. I find his comedy clean. You know, you know, you could bring your grandkid with you. Jim Gaffigan's changing, but at the time we saw him, you know, he's super duper clean.

Building A Messianic Congregation With Honesty

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Um, and we were thinking about, you know, I'm turning 65. Maybe I should step away a little bit from pulpit ministry and just stay stick with you know evangelism and helping the poor little woman the orphan, which is what I love to do. But my illness started in 2005. I didn't know it till recently, till till this last illness, but I have a connective tissue disorder, which means that I'm missing a collagen marker in my DNA, which means that my connective tissue doesn't work. So I would play sports like a maniac when I was young, and I constantly get hurt. Tendon strains and and sprains, constantly. I thought, okay, you're weak. You just got to go at it harder. And I go at it harder and get hurt and get hurt. So my connective tissue and my arteries are weak, so I get what's called aneurysms, where it's it's a bulge, a little weakness in the wall of the artery. And you know, when that bursts, 90 seconds. 90 seconds, it's the silent killer because nobody knows. Nobody knows they have an aneurysm. There's no symptoms, it's totally asymptomatic.

SPEAKER_04 23:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

So when you hear about hundreds of thousands of people dying of aneurysms every year in our country, it's the silent killer. Oh, she died of a brain aneurysm. Oh, a heart aneurysm. They don't know. Unless you go in for something else and they do a CT scan, and by the grace of God, they find it, it goes totally undetected. So it started in 2005. I had the largest aneurysm, the Guinness book. I could have been in the Guinness book. I chose not to because I didn't want Rick saying, hey, I have this friend of mine who's in the Guinness book for the largest aneurysm. Not anything to be proud of, right? So yeah, I wasn't interested. So um it started and I started getting more aneurysm. So I had major surgery in 2005, ICU 18 days, life support, major surgery in 2009, major surgery in 2019, major surgery in 2020. And then we're in St. Louis and we're we're we're just like, hey, we've worked really hard. Bernadette sacrificed. I sacrificed, I really did. It was a labor of love, but our life was not our own. No shot, no-how. We've got congregations in Ethiopia, in Kenya, in Australia, in Germany, and India. Your life's not your own. And uh so much going on in Israel. And we were just thinking, hey, we've made it like high five. We're not divorced, you know, our kids are well, and and let's just celebrate. Let's think about freeing up, let's think about maybe taking a walk together. That would be nice. And uh we're you know, it's the last day we're in St. Louis, and I was very sick. I never felt like this before. I couldn't explain it. And um we got to the airport and I didn't feel right, and I said to Bernard, I'm gonna go sit down. And as I was going toward the chairs, I I I couldn't make it. And um, I fainted. And the NTs were over me, and they said, Look, it's protocol. We have to take you to the hospital. I said, Please let me go back to Macon. My two best friends are doctors there. Please, they know my situation. I've had so many surgeries, please. And they said, you know, we can't do that because if something happens to you on the plane, it will come back on us. I'm sorry, it's protocol. I begged them, and for some reason he let me go, got in a wheelchair. I'm like, this is this is insane. You know, we went for a weekend. It was supposed to be special, finally. And you actually didn't go to the concert. No, yeah, terrible. So get home, still sick, call up my friend who's in the doctor. He's there. He says, Come on by. He tests me for all kinds of things, and he says, You have a blood staff infection. I said, infection? I thought, that's minor. What are we talking here? Z pack? Like, and he said, Greg, you don't understand. 20% of people die from blood staff, and I'm pretty good with numbers. So I said, that's one out of five. That's big. And he said, Yeah, you better take it seriously. And I said, I am. So he gave me vancomycin until the cultures came back, and my kidneys didn't like vancomycin, so they decide to shut down. So now I have blood staff, and now I'm on dialysis. Oh and my body's swelling, and I'm turning yellow, and I'm thinking, this is, you know, it hits you, and it's not like you scream, you just sit there and like in a daze, you're like numb. You're like, hmm, this is this is happening to me. This is happening. And then it got out of hand, and that's when they had to shove me off to Emory because that's where I had all my vascular surgeries, and they just had to, you know, really wash their hands of me. It was it was beyond their skill set in the local regional hospital. Thanksgiving day, I'm in an ambulance, and I'm thinking, you know, there's so many people in traffic on I-75 at bumper to bumper, and they're probably cursing and carrying on because of the traffic. I'd give anything to be in their car. Yeah, I'd give anything right now. Got to the hospital, and you know, the surgeon came to see me and he says, you know, after about a week, he said, Greg, we don't know what it is. All the CT scans are inconclusive. We're just gonna have to open you up. And they open you up from your sternum to your symphysis pubis, they move apart your to get your arteries, you gotta take out your intestines. And um when I finally came to um after three days, he told me that he had to remove my aorta and my iliac arteries. He said, I'm 66 years old. I'm Harvard trained. Um, he's excellent at what he does. He's one of the best surgeons in the nation. And he said, I never did what I had to do on you. Those stents got infected and they became part of your arteries, so I had to remove your arteries. He said, I've never done it. I said, How did you know how to do it? He goes, I didn't. I just depended on some of my training. They had to reroute everything. I was in there for 12 and a half hours. And he said, But I want you to know something. He he likes me because he doesn't have a lot of respect for preachers, but I'm not the guy in the pulpit. Um I'm trying to be like Jesus. He's out in the streets, he's helping the poor, the world, and the orphan, he's building schools. That's what I do. Yeah. I uh preaching to the choir is boring. I mean, it's boring.

Ric 28:31

So even going into that surgery, if I so I read the I read the book in like a day. It's not a big book, but it's and it's very captivating right from the very get-go. Uh, you did an amazing job of capturing the story. Thank you and sharing your wisdom along the way. But uh, as I understand it, uh, so this is we're talking 50 days total that we're dealing with, but the surgery itself had like a one in five uh chance of surviving.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Not even one in five. I wish it was 20 percent. He told me when he came in the night before he he likes me because of what what I do. He's fairly agnostic and um worked on him, but kindly and lovingly. You know, I'm not a I'm not a thumper. I mean, that's not the good way to be. Yeah, I I am who I am, I can't deny it, and I care about a soul, it's that simple. And um, I said tongue in cheek, I said, Dr. Dobler, um, do you think I should say goodbye to your kids, my kids? I was kidding. And I thought he was gonna go, no, Greg will be fine. He goes, absolutely. He said, Greg, you you have a very little chance to survive. Now, Rick, I'm not gifted. I I can't hold a note uh artistically, I'm more autistically. I I don't have any mechanical uh expertise, and I don't say that to make you think I'm humble. I'm telling you facts. I don't have any gifting. The one gift I had was to be a father. I was determined to be an excellent father and to leave my kids with a great memory of me because I lost my dad when I was young. So calling my kids and saying goodbye was the most excruciating torture I've ever experienced and will ever experience. My first son I called was super close. I said, Jeremy, I was just told by Dr. Dobley, he knows him well, that it doesn't look good for me. There's a very little chance I'm gonna come out on in the recovery room. I'm probably gonna come out in the resurrection room. And I want you to know I had to give him my last words. These are my last words to you.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

Um you never made me sad. I'm not saying this to make you feel good. I'm telling you, you never made me sad.

SPEAKER_02 30:54

Every time I looked at you or thought of you, I was happy. When I was with you, I was 10 feet tall.

SPEAKER_03 31:01

And I said, I'm I'm gonna miss you. But we'll see each other again. He said, Dad, I really tried to never lie to you. I said, I know. He said, So I'm gonna tell you

Aneurysms, Staph Infection, Dialysis, And Emory

SPEAKER_03 31:10

something. I'm not gonna go to your funeral. And I said, Why wouldn't you go to my funeral? And he said, Because a world without you is a world I don't want to live in. So I'm just gonna make believe you went away. And that's the way it went with the other three. Same thing. And my final one, Lily. She goes, but you can't die. And I said, Well, I don't have much of a choice, Lily. She goes, but but you're my best friend. How how am I supposed to you know have a life without my best friend? That's why life is messy, Rick.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

It's not it's just not need. I'm sorry. There's too many people hurting. And and when God told me to write it down last year, I thought it was gonna be a memoir for my kids. I never knew it was gonna be read by so many, and I'm already getting emails. I have stage four metastatic breast cancer, it's in my lymph nodes, I have no chance of survival. You gave me hope. And and people are writing to me and saying, you know, I I I thought it was taboo to question God, but I was questioning him in my heart, and I felt so guilty, so I had the pain of my illness plus the pain of the guilt. And when you shared you being such a spiritual giant, and you shared that you were struggling in your faith, it it gave me ability to struggle, and I didn't feel guilty anymore. So if the book has redemptive value, then praise the Lord. I'm happy I went through it. But if there's no redemption, then it's for naught. It was just suffering. Jesus suffered, but look at the redemption. Yeah, it has to be that's what it's all about. Redemption, redeeming what was lost.

Ric 33:02

So these 50 days, um, and and you know, when you think about it, that's uh a short amount of time, but for you, it was a tremendously long period of time of being in that position of suffering, not knowing or wondering where this is all going to end. Um, so how was how was your relationship with God during all that? How did how did you pray? What did you say?

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Well, I think it got really bad at the end. Um, I had gotten out of the hospital for a short time and I went home. I begged the doctors to sign me out, and they said, in good conscience, we can't, Greg. Nephrologist, cardiologist, fastal surgeon goes, we can't. You're not ready to go home. I said, Listen, guys, it looks like I'm gonna die, right? You know that, I know that. I know you're not allowed to say that, but come on, let's call a spade a spade. I don't want to die here. I want to die on my couch. I'm begging you. So they finally signed me out. I went home, and within a couple of days, I'm throwing up blood. Bernadette calls the ER doctor. He says, Bernadette, Greg's dying. He's in congestive heart failure, his lungs are filled with fluid and blood. He has minutes to live. I don't care what you're wearing. Get him here. I'll have life support waiting. And they put me on life support. I came off life support after a week. I couldn't move, not a finger. I could barely blink. And I said to Bernabette, has this been a farce? Am I have I been duped? Did I believe in something that's not real? Did I give my whole life to spreading the gospel all over the world? Did I sacrifice for nothing? I think I was losing my mind. And I wasn't I wasn't really crying out at the beginning in faithlessness. I was crying out in exhaustion and depletion. And there is a huge difference, Rick. Huge. And on day 47, I said to Bernadette, I said, was I a good husband?

SPEAKER_03 35:14

She goes, you know you are. I said, was I a good father?

SPEAKER_02 35:20

She said, the best. I said, did did I wince when God told me to go places? When He told me to go to India or Africa, did I even question? Did I sit there and pray? Did I fast or did I go? I said, Do you love me? She goes, Don't ask me that. I said, I need to. I said, I'm 65 today. And I need you to do something for me. I need you to take that pillow.

SPEAKER_03 35:45

I said, just please help me and I can't take the pain no more. I can't. I can't take 20-year-old kids coming in here and and and wiping my bottom.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

I can't burn. I can't. I'm not getting any better. I'm only getting worse. This is not the way I want to live. Let me go. I really want to go. And she of course did oblige. And I feel I'll tell you how I felt. I remember my son Jeremy when he was about three years old at the end of our block in Florida. There was like a little underground forest that was about five feet below sea level. And I would take him in there and we'd explore and have fun. And one day I hid behind the tree because I wanted to see his reaction.

SPEAKER_03 36:31

And Jeremy turned around. And he said, Daddy, where are you? And that's what I felt. Daddy, where are you?

SPEAKER_02 36:44

And sometimes the most faithful prayer a person can utter is simply, Father, I have nothing left. The wolf's caving in. It's hellacious. I don't know what to do. I don't know where to turn. But if I give up on you, then I give up on the only hope I have. It's such a quandary. It's such a miserable place to be as a believer. I don't have to teach Rick Hansen how to praise the Lord when everything's going well for Rick Hansen. But when somebody says it's inoperable, that's where the rubber meets the road.

Ric 37:17

You've got amazing greats with Rick Hansen. And I'm talking with Rabbi Greg Hirschberg as he shares what suffering taught him about the faithfulness of God and the hope that's available for every one of us. I know you're here today. So you are you came through that and are on the other side, and you have the amazing opportunity for uh redemptive help for our audience. What you know, somebody else is going through this right now, not the exact same thing. But some there are people who are struggling and at that point where you know, is it all worth it? What do you say to them?

SPEAKER_02 38:12

I tell them that it's very normal to cry out and to be confused and have doubts because we are frail and God knows that. If my son has doubts, I wouldn't chastise him. And if me, who am basically evil, wouldn't give my son a stone if he asked for a piece of bread, how much more would our father in heaven give good gifts? So that's first and foremost they have to know. God's not disappointed, he understands, he's a man of sorrows, he's acquainted with illness. People say Jesus must have laughed. Well, if he did, it's not recorded. Do I think he had some laughter? Yeah, but but death was crouching in his crib. He had a horrible life. He was born to die, mocked, ridiculed by his own. It wasn't fun. It wasn't a party for him. It was a hard life. And I think it's a hard life for believers. You know, Rick, I'm a I'm a big fan of believing in the enemy. I believe in Satan very much, as much as I believe in God. I believe in the reality of the enemy and the demons and the principalities very much. And I don't think Satan has a problem with Rick Hansen going to church. Go to church. Listen to a ceremony. Sing a few songs. Sing them in the car on the way there. He doesn't care. If Rick goes to a Bible study, he doesn't care. Get more educated on theology. Knock yourself out. You're already saved, you're redeemed. But if Rick shares the gospel, now you went over the line.

Goodbye Calls And The Cost Of Suffering

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Because now you're trying to take something that's his. They're his children, and he doesn't want to give them up. So if you are evangelistic, he's coming after you, buddy. He's coming after you, guns blazing. And I'm just evangelistic. That's all I care about. I wrote a book called Don't Die in Your Sins. Never sold it. It's given away this 715,000 copies out so far today in 14 languages. And think about that number. I'm not big on you know nickels and noses, but if 5% of those people who read it get saved, that's 35,000 souls. Yeah, it's a big number. Yeah. So he he hates me, but I would tell these people that it's okay to say, God, I don't know what to do. And God, I don't know where to turn. But my eyes are on you. Don't buy into what I did, divine betrayal. That's Satan's greatest weapon. Look at all you did for the Lord, and he's nowhere to be found. Well, finally, on that day after Bernadette left after my birthday, and I was alone, I said, Lord, please let me know this wasn't for nothing. Please let me know you're here. I'm not asking for healing. I'm asking for presents. Knock my bedpan off the bed. Flick the lights on and off.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

Something. And that's when I heard him say, Greg. Every procedure. Every scan. Every surgery. I never left you. What I want to tell those people out there is leave.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

And we might not get our reward in this life. And we might not get our healing in this life. But it's all about the afterlife. Eternity is a long time. That's when you hear, enter the joy of your salvation. Enter the joy of your rest. That's when the work is over. That's when it's joy personified. Nothing but joy in this life. Somebody said, You'll have tribulation. But take heart. I've overcome. Because you're in me, you'll overcome as well.

Ric 42:04

Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, we've uh exhausted our our time here, and I and it's been such a great opportunity to get to the heart of Greg Hirschberg and to find the story so um redemptive. You're still not out of the woods. You I I saw online where you'd just gotten uh an issue happened in June. Um rushed to the hospital. Yeah. Rush to the hospital. So it's not over.

SPEAKER_02 42:34

It's not over, but I'm limping, but Jacob limped, right? So it's uh it's it's my reminder. It's my reminder, yeah, that you know, God is good.

Ric 42:43

God bless you. The the name of the book is at Death's Door, and then the 50 Days of Um, if you will. And it is, I can say, just a wonderful book, an eye-opener, and a blessing for me. And I don't want to be for the story as well. So thank

Prayer In The Dark And Final Hope

Ric 43:05

you so much for doing your store and telling this story and being so wonderful and opened.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

Um seemed like a super great guy to be honest with you. Uh really, uh just uh a lover of God, and I can tell you a lover of people. So it's been my pleasure to be with you today. Thank you.

Ric 43:28

God bless you, God bless you too. Whatever you're facing today, a great story reminds you that God is present even in life's practice. Great, thank you for joining us on amazing great. And thank you, our audience, for spreading the word and sharing with friends. God bless.