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A Life Changed by the Messianic Prophecies

A Life Changed by the Messianic Prophecies

Last updated on: August 8, 2025 at 10:59 am by Richard E. Simmons III

A Life Changed by the Messianic Prophecies 2025-08-08T10:59:21-06:00 Richard E. Simmons III

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Back in 2019 I wrote a book titled, Reflections on the Existence of God. It is a series of short, easy-to-read essays, laying out the compelling evidence for the existence of God.

In the last section of the book, I lay out all the evidence that Jesus was the Son of God. A very powerful argument is that Jesus fulfilled all the Old Testament Messianic Prophecies. Then, I look at the life of a Jewish man whose life was spiritually transformed when he took the time to examine these prophecies.

*****

Barry Leventhal, a young Jewish man, was on top of the world back in 1966. He was the offensive captain of the UCLA football team. In the pre-season, they were predicted to finish last in the Pacific Eight Conference. However, the team stunned everyone by winning their conference championship and then went on to win the Rose Bowl. Not only was Barry the captain of the team, he was the star of the Rose Bowl. This was the first Rose Bowl championship UCLA had ever won. Reflecting back on that period in his life, Leventhal recalled:

“My life was great…I was a hero, people loved me. My Jewish fraternity chose me as the National Athlete of the Year, and I basked in the glory of it all…But soon after that victory, my very best friend, Kent, came to me and said, Barry, I’ve become a Christian and, as my best friend, I just wanted you to know that….I had no idea what Kent was talking about. I thought he’d always been a Christian.”

However, Barry was intrigued by the change he began to notice in Kent’s life. And so, several weeks later, Kent introduced Barry to a man named Hal who was a campus minister. One day they were in the student lounge and began a discussion of the issue of the Messianic prophecies. At one point the conversation grew tense as Hal was showing Barry how the predictions of the Messiah taken directly from the Old Testament had been fulfilled by Jesus. Finally, Barry blurted out:

“How could you do this?”

“Do what?” Hal asked.

“Use a trick Bible,” Barry charged. “You’ve got a trick Bible to fool the Jews.”

Hal responded, “What do you mean by a ‘trick Bible’?”

Barry said, “You Christians took those so-called Messianic predictions from your own New Testament and then rewrote them into your edition of the Old Testament in order to fool the Jews, but I guarantee you those Messianic prophecies are not in the Jewish Bible.”

“Now hold on, Barry. Do you happen to have a copy of the Tanakh? Do you have your own copy?”

“Well, I’ve got one from my Bar Mitzvah. So what?”

Then Hal said, “I’m going to give you some verses. I want you to write them down, and I want you to go read them in your own Tanakh and we’ll just leave it at that.”

The two men went back and forth, until finally Barry, wanting to get Hal off his back, agreed to check them out. Barry hurriedly wrote down the references and then got up and left. He really had no desire to meet with Hal again.

However, Barry was intrigued by their conversation, and that night found his old Tanakh that he had not opened since he was thirteen. He was shocked at what he read. Every prophecy that Hal had given him was indeed in the Tanakh. He began to think the unthinkable, what if Jesus really is the Jewish Messiah? And if He really is the Messiah, what should he do?

“It was April now, more than three months after the glorious Rose Bowl victory, and I suddenly realized that I had nothing that withstood the test of time, let alone the test of eternity.” Barry recalls. “This was most graphically demonstrated to me by the Rose Bowl victory itself. Just a few mere months after the most significant event in my life…all the glory, everything involved, was now slowly fading away into a distant memory. Is that all there is to life?”

As he continued to study, as he continued to seek, he came to the conclusion that Jesus was the Messiah. And on the afternoon of April 24, 1966, Barry knelt down by his bed, humbled himself before God, acknowledging that Jesus was the Messiah of the world and that he needed God’s forgiveness that came only through the Christ. And he surrendered himself. He says:

“There was no lightning or thunder, only God’s personal presence and peace as Jesus has promised.”

And since his remarkable discovery, Barry has been reaching the Jewish people with the truth that the Messiah has come. And that the evidence for this truth is in the Old Testament. And teaching others this evidence is the focus of Southern Evangelical seminary near Charlotte, North Carolina, where Barry served as the academic dean and professor until his retirement.

This excerpt was taken from Reflections on the Existence of God and is available on Amazon and our website. Get your special discount code on CapitolOne’s Amazon store page.

Richard E Simmons III is the founder and Executive Director of The Center for Executive Leadership and a best-selling author.

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