March 8, 2016 Show with Chris Moles on “The Heart of Domestic Abuse”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this eighth day of March 2016.

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Domestic abuse and violence are on the rise in our culture today and just as prevalent in the church of Jesus Christ as it is in the population at large.

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With an estimated one -fourth of women in the church living with abuse and violence, pastors and biblical counselors need to have the resources to offer hope and help from his past experience in batterer intervention and his training in biblical counseling.

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Chris Moles encourages godly men in the church to call abusive men to repentance and accountability through the power of the

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Holy Spirit. And he is our guest today, Chris Moles, and he is the author of The Heart of Domestic Abuse, Gospel Solutions for Men Who Use Control and Violence in the

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My honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Chris Moles.

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My pleasure to be here. And Chris Moles is a certified counselor with the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, also known as ACBC, and a certified batterer intervention group facilitator.

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He works with local criminal corrections and statewide agencies as an instructor and contributor.

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He is a regular conference speaker on the topics of abuse and men's issues. Chris is the pastor of Grace Community Chapel in Eleanor, West Virginia, which is a congregation within the

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Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. And he serves there with his wife,

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Kathleen, and two sons. And I'm very, very intrigued about what you have to say today because of the startling statistics that you offer here.

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And first of all, let me also introduce you to my co -host who is in studio with me once again,

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Reverend Buzz Taylor. Hello, Chris. Good to meet you. Hey, Buzz. You too, buddy. And I'm going to give our email address right away.

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If anybody listening has a question that you'd like to ask on this very sensitive and controversial and very important issue, our email address is

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ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. And, of course, with a topic like this, it's only natural that there may be listeners who would prefer remaining anonymous.

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So, to keep you more comfortable, if you have a personal question involving this topic that necessitates that you be anonymous, feel free to remain so when you email your question.

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That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Now, this may sound like a silly question, but I think that definitions are important because there are people that may accuse others.

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Perhaps there are own spouses of domestic abuse.

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So, what would you believe is within the parameters of what is rightly identified as domestic abuse?

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That's a great question. I think the umbrella is probably a little larger than maybe we in the church have really allowed it to be.

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I typically use a simple definition along the lines of domestic abuse is, first of all, an abuse of power through selfishly motivated patterns of behavior designed to exercise or maintain control over one's partner.

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And so, when I'm interviewing or when I'm working with individuals who are in destructive relationships, I'm looking for a dynamic in which power is being used in such a way to coercively control one's partner.

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Now, that certainly could be physical, but in the years I've been working with men, in particular men convicted of domestic violence crimes, we find that it's obviously a much more heart -centered issue and men will use varieties of tactics that may not be physical, such as emotional or mental abuse that are designed to control their partner.

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So, I'm typically looking for that use of power and that manifestation of selfishly motivated patterns of control.

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Now, I'm assuming from what you just said that your book does primarily deal with spousal abuse.

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I accidentally, when I was chiming in there, said child abuse, but would that be under the umbrella of domestic abuse, since those things happen in the home?

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Sure. I think you've got a, there's kind of a fine line between legality and philosophy, and then, of course, theology would fall into that as well.

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Legally speaking, family violence or domestic violence usually involves cohabitation or familial relationships.

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So, a lot of times if you hear someone who's convicted of domestic violence, it could be with their spouse, more than likely their spouse, but it may involve mother -in -laws who are living there or siblings who are in the house.

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So, the legal terms are a little bit confusing, but for the purpose of teaching pastors and biblical counselors and the purpose of the book,

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I deal specifically with men's violence against women or husband's violence against lots.

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And why did you get involved in this study to begin with, even in your own career, it seems?

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This has been an integral part of your studies and your counseling and so on.

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How did this all come about? Well, I'd say that it's a three -pronged reality.

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God's providence, my friend's persistence, and then my greed. Here's how

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I lay that out. I was working in corrections. I have no background in criminal justice, but there was a need in our community for educators in juvenile crime and then eventually in our alternative sentencing, our day reporting program.

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And so, at the time, I had been teaching life skills and parenting, primarily to drug offenders in our day report system, when my now co -facilitator and friend came to me and asked if I would be willing to help her start this batterer intervention program, this program for men convicted of domestic abuse.

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And I had denied her, like, I think three times. I said I wasn't interested. And then she told me how much they'd pay me per hour.

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And I said, I think the Lord's calling me into this. And that's where I think

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God used my friend's persistence and then, of course, his providence to guide me into this. And I'm so glad that he did.

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Obviously, it's been a tremendous part of who I am now. I've been doing this for nearly a decade.

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And at the same time began my studies, graduate studies in biblical counseling. And so it allowed me to do my papers and research and projects on domestic abuse.

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And that's when I became aware how little the church has offered by way of research or study or books or literature on the topic.

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And so it was just a real blessing to be placed in that by God's hand.

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And I accept that and I'm excited now to be a part of it, even though I was hesitant at the beginning. I just want to read an endorsement for this book by Dr.

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Stuart Scott, professor of biblical counseling at the Master's College and adjunct faculty at Southern Seminary.

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And many of our listeners would know immediately both of those institutions. In the heart of domestic abuse,

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Chris has provided a much needed resource for ministers and counselors that is both biblical and practical.

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It is a great resource for our times. He addresses the heart and behavior, giving solid hope and practical instruction for change through the gospel and biblical principles.

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In this great work, Chris has done much to help women who suffer because of controlling and angry men, for the man who is overtaken by the sin, and for those who want to help.

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I will make good use of this resource in counseling and will recommend it in my counseling training.

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And as I said, that's Dr. Stuart Scott, professor of biblical counseling at the Master's College and adjunct faculty at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

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And what are some of the signs that not only, well, let's start with some of the signs, the initial signs that a man, a husband, should recognize in himself that he is abusing his wife because she may be even too frightened to make that charge against him.

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And that may sound also like a ridiculous question, but I think that when we are involved in sin ourselves, we are often blinded to what we are doing.

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And a man, a Christian man, may think that he is just following his biblical mandate to, you know, be head of his household.

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He, you know, maybe because he has never physically hurt his spouse, he doesn't think he would be guilty of such a charge.

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And I think this is a good question, especially since he may be able to, by God's mercy, nip this in the bud before it develops into something physically violent.

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But what would be some initial signs that a man could recognize in himself? You're right on in that self -reflection is necessary for,

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I think, repentance to take place in that men in particular are so blind for a number of reasons.

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And so that's one avenue that I would challenge. It's something we call minimization, denial, and blame.

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And so as I interact with, am I participating in these? And I'll try to give you a list of tactics here in a moment.

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Am I participating in this activity? If I'm quick to offer a defense, if I'm quick to give justification, if I minimize my behavior and highlight my wife's behavior, those are some check engine lights, as it were, on our heart that say, hey, back up for a second.

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This may be something to reflect on a little bit more if I'm quick to minimize my own behavior.

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Because I get a lot of pushback from some of my friends in the work who are not believers, who claim that hierarchy is really the cause of all of our ills.

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And to the extent I understand, I do think that headship, as biblically understood, is not demeaning, demoralizing in any regard.

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Christ did not treat us that way. But at the same time, there is a hierarchy, and I think it's a hierarchy of responsibility.

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And so that's where that self -reflection comes into play. Now, one of the things I'll often highlight, Chris, is I'll draw attention to Jesus' words in Matthew when he says, a good man brings good from the good stored up in his heart.

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The evil man, evil from the evil stored up in his heart. From the overflow of the heart, the man speaks.

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And in the book, I highlight several tactics of power and control. And I equate it back to my grandparents having an apple tree in their backyard.

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I know it's an apple tree because my mom made apple pie for them. Why don't you go through those tactics?

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You know, yeah. So if I took all the apples off the apple tree and stapled bananas in their place, it wouldn't be a banana tree.

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And so we have to see the tactics as a revealer of the heart, not necessarily the end game.

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And so some of those tactics include physical and sexual violence, which are pretty readily identifiable, but others include things like name -calling and put -downs, sexually demoralizing language.

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I think about an Ephesians 4 type of principle or a Colossians 3 principle of husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

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This is kind of eye -opening to a lot of guys I work with who haven't thought about their words as having power, but we're told that the words pierce like swords.

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And so we want to draw attention to that. Other avenues are things like controlling finances. That's a way that we manipulate or denigrate our partners.

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Isolation is a tactic, such as removing our spouse from family and friends.

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We may justify it as, well, you're different around them, or your parents are trying to control you, but we don't really have the authority to remove our spouse from influences like we do our children.

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We're not parenting our spouse. We're loving our spouse, which I think is one of the reasons why when Paul says in Ephesians 5 .21

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to submit to each other out of reverence for Christ, he then explains what that looks like in those three different relationships, husband, wife, parent, children, slave, and master.

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And so we need to understand that our relationship's not a controlling, demeaning one, and so it can happen too with things like manipulation or coercion.

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Throughout the book, I give that list of fruit, and what I call pastors and biblical counselors to do is to realize that abuse is not simply an event, but it's a pattern or a series of events.

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And so just because an individual has stopped hitting his partner, that doesn't mean that he's repentant of the hard issue of abuse if he continues manipulating, isolating, or using what we might call more polite means of demeaning or dominating his partner.

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And unfortunately, as you no doubt are aware, there's the old story of the boy who cried wolf, and it is tragic that there are some women out there who fake charges of domestic violence or abuse just because they're either getting vengeance or they are trying to manipulate a relationship in a certain way to gain power, knowing that the police may frighten her spouse or what have you.

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And unfortunately, that undermines the real cases where women are truly being brutally savaged at times, being not only physically tortured and beaten, but even raped, and all kinds of horrific things.

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And I'm sure that women who are the true victims are more angry about those things, those false accusations, than anybody else.

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But if you could comment on how often or what percentage, if there is a way of telling such a thing, are these cases of false accusation and slander?

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To my knowledge, there's not significant research that can actually point to it. Other than that provided, unfortunately, there are several groups in our world who provide some of that as a narrative to undermine actual victims.

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In fact, abusing abusers are incredibly manipulative, and so sometimes statistics that maybe the

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Department of Justice or the World Health Organization would look at and say they're not legitimate, they carry a lot of weight.

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To my knowledge, there's not been significant research on that, other than to say if a victim has gotten to a place where they're courageous enough to disclose abuse, it's not an easy thing for them to do.

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It's a very difficult and risky thing for them to do. And so I always encourage people that I train to believe what's being told.

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And so I go back to Proverbs 18. I hear this a lot, Proverbs 18 .17, that one person presents their case and it sounds great until someone cross -examines.

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But the conclusion of Proverbs 18 is to cast lots and leave the results up to God, because if you get in a situation where you don't know who to trust, then we should trust

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God. And so I encourage our folks who are hearing disclosures to believe them and to trust

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God with the outcome. And I think if we do our work well, we should be able to determine those.

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I would say statistically, they're fairly insignificant. When you consider one in four women, and that being probably an under -reported statistic.

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And just so we can obviously acknowledge that it exists, what percentage that you are aware of is the situation where the husband in the household is the one who's being abused?

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There are, I mean, obviously the woman is a weaker vessel, and that is typically the case physically, but it's not always the case.

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You may even have a husband who has some kind of disability, or he may be older than his wife, a lot older than his wife, or all kinds of scenarios.

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In fact, I even knew of a case that had some television attention.

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In fact, even a movie was made about it where there was a husband who was a victim of spousal abuse because he really took seriously the moral teachings of his upbringing that you never hit a woman.

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And he was basically a punching bag because his wife knew that he would not retaliate physically.

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And I know that that is not the focus of your book, but I was just curious if you knew anything statistically about that.

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Yes. Statistically speaking, and again, it's estimated that about 85 % of victims are women, leaving about 15 % men.

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And the studies I've read that include same -sex relationships, most of those studies are secular. But that doesn't mean that men are not victims.

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Here's the way I look at it. I think there are men who are victims of domestic violence and domestic abuse, just as with elder abuse, which is a very serious problem in our culture, elderly people being abused by their caregivers.

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In the same regard, there are elderly people being cared for who are physically assaulting their caregivers.

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But when we say elder abuse, we don't give it the same level of mutuality that we tip to with domestic abuse.

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And I think it's not just fair, but it's somewhat just to say, yes, there are men who are victims.

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But at the same time, just like when we say elder abuse, everyone knows what we're talking about. I think domestic abuse, we should have that same standard for the most part we're talking about husbands abusing their wives.

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About 95 % of emergency room visits related to domestic abuse are women.

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And again, while there are male victims, I always like to highlight too that the majority of male victims of violence are actually violent of other men, about 70 % into 70%.

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I can't remember the exact rate, especially when you consider childhood sexual assault, men are by and large the perpetrators.

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That's why I say this is a men's issue. Men should be talking to men. Because if we close our eyes and we imagine a world without men's violence,

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I think it's a vastly different world. And if we close our eyes and imagine a world without women's violence,

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I don't think it's that vastly different. Certainly, it's not right. And we want all family violence to stop, especially in the

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Christian home. We want those to be the safest places on the planet. But yeah, that's why I address men in particular.

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I think if we address this as a men's issue, we'll have far greater rate of success than if we just should address it as a mutual issue.

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We do have a listener in San Antonio, Texas. Jeremy, who says,

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I am beginning counseling with a 16 -year -old boy who has sexually abused his sisters.

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Does Chris have thoughts on where I should begin? And I know that this is not the subject also of your book, the heart of your book, but very good question.

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Very chilling circumstance there. Well, I would say that not knowing the circumstance,

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I couldn't do an entire, obviously, I'm not telling an entire case review on it, but the dynamics of power and control will probably be significant.

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And the understanding of responsibility will probably be significant as well.

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This young man has a responsibility to his family members. I often call it the Spider -Man principle.

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With great power comes great responsibility. Understanding who we are as men, and men created in the image of God, that we've been given a certain amount of power, both physically, as you alluded to earlier, but also socially, when you consider that the old song is somewhat correct, that it's a man's world.

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So I would begin with questions of power and control and take as thorough an inventory as I can of this young man's behavior.

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Not just the sexual assault, it's the shiniest, it's the most glaring, and so it draws our attention in.

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But I would also want to broaden my scope to see all the fruit of the tree and then look for any avenue in which

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I can get him to acknowledge this thing and then draw him into a conversation about the heart of pride, entitlement that leads us to control.

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Now, just out of curiosity, I don't even know if it's the same in every state in the

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Union, but is this counselor, he actually describes himself as a pastor in his note to me, is he legally bound to report this child, or are the parents, and is there an age where that might be required, and so on?

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I always encourage people to develop a working relationship with social workers in their community, because we as pastors are not given legal instruction in Bible college and seminary, but yes, when it comes to elderly folks and when it comes to children, we do have an obligation to report.

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So I would encourage anyone dealing with children under the age of 18 to contact whatever their local agency is and ask questions about what they are mandated to report.

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One of the interesting things is a lot of pastors that I've talked with think that they're obligated to report domestic abuse, but in most places that's not the case.

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Reporting a disclosure can actually put the victim in more harm. That's why we always encourage pastors and biblical counselors to follow the victim's lead, to give them options, but to understand that if they report it, unless someone's in immediate danger, their life is in danger, certainly we want you to intervene.

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But if you've been given a disclosure, the best thing you can do is listen, believe, and provide options, because sometimes if we go to the authorities, in the case of domestic child children or elder abuse, we could actually put the victim in more danger.

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If no charges are filed, if the police do not intervene, or if they simply give up a restraining or protective order, that could actually put the victim in more danger.

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I guess it would magnify the problem of a spousal abuse situation if the husband is not a member of the church, where the woman may be a member, if the husband is not even a believer and does not have any regard for the authority of the elders of the church that the wife might be a part of, has no respect for their counsel, and so on, and has really isolated himself from that kind of discipline.

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What would be some of the advice for a church and an abused spouse in a situation like that?

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One of my favorite things about Romans chapter 12 is Romans 13, that when we're called to, as much as it depends on us to live at peace, that God has given an agent to carry the sword, an agent of God's wrath, and so there are social systems in place that can be of help.

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In fact, a Harvard Divinity School newsletter a few years ago cited that clergy were the most turned to for help by domestic violence victims, but after their situations were over, that same clergy was rated as least helpful, and so I think we need to really grow in our understanding of the problem and get connected to agencies that are dealing with this on a regular basis, and so I don't see anything wrong with a church partnering with social services and with the government.

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My caution is to not do an in -ground victim and anything without her permission, unless of course someone's in immediate danger, but certainly

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I think you want to utilize the resources available to you, like victim's advocates, prosecutor's office, law enforcement.

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I often encourage pastors to find someone in law enforcement and just take them out to lunch and ask them questions, because police officers tend to be connected to every agency because they're in the field, and they can at least point you in the right direction of who to ask questions to.

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And of course, it would create a whole new subject for a different program, but unfortunately you also have the leftist agenda of government having more and more of a foothold where you could have people getting their children removed from them by getting social services involved in problems in the home when there may be, depending upon what state you're in, issues of a child being a homosexual or at least having a proclivity that way and parents being

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Christian who oppose that view, but obviously that's a whole different topic for another time.

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Going over to the other situation where you have a couple that are both members of a church, where do you think actual discipline is necessary in regard to a husband and his being guilty of being an abuser?

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Because obviously this kind of a thing may develop in increments, and if he's just had occasion to yell at his wife or something, that may not be grounds for church discipline, but where do you draw the line where you say, all right, enough is enough.

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You have got to be under church discipline, and if you don't stop this, you may be excommunicated from the fellowship of this church.

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Yeah, I strongly encourage elders and church leaders to develop statements and to have conversations.

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Nothing would thrill me more than to hear that our conversation sparked a group of elders or a group of church leaders to sit down and just talk about this.

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I had a conversation with a pastor friend of mine in the Cleveland area recently who had heard me speak and had told me he sat down with his elders.

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They were developing a statement regarding homosexuality and some things in their bylaws, and he said, while we're here, we've got to talk about this.

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He brought up a statement by Bethlehem Baptist in Minnesota that just really has blessed me in the last year.

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If your listeners get an opportunity, don't have it in front of me, but the elders at Bethlehem released a statement about domestic abuse, and it kind of put people on notice.

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So, I think the first thing you do is have a conversation about it, because one of the pitfalls hadn't hit, and we talk about, you know, the failure of the government, which is so true, but the church has showed this area many times as well, just countless times that we see a disclosure brought forth and in the process of discipline treating it as a marriage problem rather than a heart problem, and when there's no restitution, no real movement made,

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I've seen victims be disciplined for pursuing divorce in the end as they dealt with it as a marriage problem.

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So, I highly recommend the elders define the topic, define their terms, bring in a consultant, wink wink, who can help you all through that process and be prepared.

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And then the second thing I think on discipline is if you're in a situation where there hasn't been physical violence, like you were saying, things always escalate.

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That's one thing I love about, I think it's Jeffrey Black from CCDF said, I've never met a non -escalating sinner, but when you're at a point where it seems containable,

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Matthew 18 might be a good prospect for church discipline where he's confronted, the elders come alongside him, they work on change, but in some cases you may get to the point,

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I think this is a conversation for your elders and leaders to have, where the second Corinthians 5 type of discipline comes into place, maybe something so grievous has happened so often that we pull an immediate disciplinary action.

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But those are things that need to happen in a board meeting, this conversation needs to happen before we're just thrust into it.

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But certainly I'm a big fan of using discipline as a restorative process, not just restoring the marriage,

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I think that's secondary to restoring a man's heart from where it's rebellious to an opportunity of serving

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Christ, and then that will restore the marriage. And by the way,

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Jeremy in San Antonio, Texas, you're getting a free copy of Chris Mull's book,

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The Heart of Domestic Abuse, Gospel Solutions for Men Who Use Control and Violence in the

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Home, compliments of Focus Publishing, so get us your full mailing address and we will send that to you right away.

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I know Chris, one of the, Chris is, one of the, I would hate to be in a position in a church of counseling a woman, for example, to separate from her husband, but I imagine there are situations for her safety where that has to be done, even if divorce isn't an issue.

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Could you address that? Sure, I think that's another discussion that the elders,

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I think, and the leaders of the church need to have so that we have clear understanding of where we stand. And I have a personal position, and then

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I have a denominational position that I follow when it comes to our church's denomination. But there are some churches that have more rigid positions, some that have more loose positions, and I think that's a discussion that has got to happen.

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One of the things I've in training with pastors, and I alluded to it earlier, that this is not a marriage problem.

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When we throw marriage -focused solutions at abuse, we tend to make things worse, and I try to imagine it with my trainees as a hurdle race in trapping field, that you have to clear each hurdle in the process of finishing the race.

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And what we have a tendency to do is we avoid hurdle one, which is his use, of course, of control, and split for hurdle seven, or whatever, which is marriage rather than restoration.

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And I'm convinced that true restoration will never happen until we deal with his abuse. And for the sake of those that we pastor, that may require separation.

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For instance, many of our churches, and I know the Biblical Counseling Movement, we love the theology of suffering.

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It's been an incredible blessing, I think, to the church to really revisit that in recent years, to understand that there's purpose in pain, and that God is doing great things even in our suffering.

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But in this case, I believe we need to balance that theology of suffering with a theology of obsession that understands that while a victim's suffering can conform them, help them conform to the image of Christ, and that perseverance and endurance will be part of that in the sanctifying process, the church is still obliged to stand with the sufferer, so to speak, and to oppose the oppressor.

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And so that will require us sometimes putting ourselves between the oppressive individual and those being oppressed, and that may require separation.

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Now, to what extent the church is willing to go will be a discussion that the elders can have, but there are some thoughtful works out there, such as Barbara Roberts' book,

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Not Under Bondage, and a small booklet by Our Daily Bread, the

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Discovery Series, called God's Protection for Women, that can help us think through that.

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Whether we agree wholeheartedly or not, it's a healthy discussion that we can be having as leaders. We do have an anonymous listener who says,

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My husband loves me, I know it, but he is very abusive mentally.

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He controls everything that occurs in our home, including the selection of furniture and decor that we purchase.

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I feel like nothing more than his sexual companion, and I don't know if he is really violating any biblical mandate where he could be put under discipline because he has not physically abused me and does demonstrate love in other ways.

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What should I do about this circumstance? Well, not knowing the entire case,

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I think it would be somewhat inappropriate for me to give here's your do's and here's your don'ts.

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You obviously know your husband better than I do. I would want to encourage you, though, just to consider that the dynamics of abuse that are not physical are no less damaging in many ways than those that are physical, and that certainly he's violating many of the ways that God has called us.

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Even when we think about physical abuse, we think about a violation of the image of God, how God has created each of his images.

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But the image of God is not just the physical body that we have. It's also relational.

36:23

It's emotional. We emote because God emotes, and when another person coercively and aggressively controls that and puts us in a place where we're walking on eggshells, where we're not free, that's not really reflective,

36:38

I don't think, of what God's called us to as husbands. So, yeah, I would hope and pray that someone would be able to confront in a loving and gracious way your husband and hold him accountable to some of these realities that we see in Ephesians 5,

36:54

Colossians 3, 1 Peter 3, what have you, these ideas of living with you in an understanding way.

37:03

And, anonymous listener, if you give me your mailing address, I will send you a free copy of this book by our guest,

37:12

The Heart of Domestic Abuse, and in fact, a thought just occurred to me, if you would prefer

37:17

I mail it to your pastor, because I don't know what would happen if her husband got this in the mail, that might be a wise thing too, but I'll leave that decision up to you if you want to email me your mailing address for this free book.

37:33

Is it statistically more often that a spousal abuser either witnessed his own father abusing his mother or, in fact, maybe was just an abused child himself?

37:51

The jury's still out on that. What we find, this is interesting,

37:57

I'm not sure if your listener will find it as interesting as I do, but the groups, like the ones

38:03

I lead, all around the country, especially the secular groups do a lot more research, and they found that 80 % of the men in the groups will claim to have been abused in a group setting or have witnessed abuse, but that statistic, that number will drop significantly when it's a private interview or a written interview, which just goes to show how manipulative the men in the group tend to be, because they're using that as a means to try to collude or to gain sympathy.

38:33

It's really interesting how that dynamic shifts. What I like to say is that abuse is a learned behavior.

38:41

We can learn it from an outside source, or we can learn it through trial and error, but at the end of the day, it's a learned behavior that should be unlearned.

38:50

Now, if I'm walking in the woods, which is something we do quite frequently down here in West Virginia, if I'm walking in the woods, the well -worn path is the easiest to take, but it's not the only way to get you home.

39:03

In other words, if I was exposed to abuse, coercive control, and that worldview of entitlement and pride, yeah, the odds are pretty good

39:12

I'll follow that well -worn path, but there are other individuals who never experience abuse, and yet they learn through trial and error that it works to get them what they want.

39:23

In fact, our groups, we often use that James 4 paradigm of what causes fights and quarrels among you.

39:30

It's your evil desires that work within you. We do what we do because we want what we want, and so we often highlight our behaviors in line with our motives.

39:41

And I really, before the time runs out, because I know you have to leave us early, I really want you to make sure that you leave our listeners with what you most want etched in their hearts and minds before the broadcast, or at least before your interview is over.

39:54

Well, I can tell you right now the catchphrase that I use most often is, the most effective means of reducing violence against women is addressing the hearts of men.

40:06

And I know that you do offer in your book hope for the abuser, the violent man.

40:15

Of course, since Saul of Tarsus was a murderer of men and women, and he was rescued from that by God himself and made into the great apostle that he became, writing more of the

40:32

New Testament than any other author biblically and inspired by the Holy Ghost, of course.

40:39

But obviously, if there was hope for the Saul of Tarsus, there is hope for even the most violent of husbands out there.

40:49

I often ask the question, did Jesus die for violent men? And the answer is quite literally, he hung on a cross that was designed for violence.

40:58

And it's not to say that it's not hard work and we're not going to be swimming upstream a lot, but if we lose hope in the redemptive power of the gospel, then what do we have?

41:10

And I just want to, we do have an anonymous listener.

41:17

I want to make sure I get her question in before the program is over, before our interview is over.

41:23

She wants to know, what is the best type of a hotline for victims of abuse to call when they may not even be members of a church or have

41:34

Christian friends they can rely upon? Something that is not going to be steering that person in the wrong direction with pop psychology or other secular resolutions to these very serious problems?

41:52

Yeah, as far as finding a Christian resource for domestic violence intervention, we're just not quite there yet, to be honest with you.

42:03

There are some good books that are out there now. There are some ministries that are starting to pop up, but for the most part, needing immediate intervention or someone to talk to, the

42:14

National Domestic Violence Hotline is still the best place to reach out.

42:20

And I believe, and I could be wrong, so I don't have it in front of me, but I believe it's 1 -800 -799 -SAFE,

42:27

S -A -F -E. And I believe the website is hotline .com. Of course, if you use either of those vehicles, a phone call or your computer, be aware that a common tactic of an abusive person is to check your phone, check your computer history.

42:45

If that's the type of situation you're in, then please take precautions before you reach out.

42:51

But do reach out. And what contact information do you care to provide for yourself today to our listeners?

42:58

Oh yeah, so you can go to my website, chrismoules .org, and that's the best way to keep in touch with me.

43:08

I do pastor a very, very small church in a small town. So I guess you disagree radically with what

43:15

Andy Stanley said recently. The statement was mentioned from the pulpit on Sunday, but I did not mention his name.

43:27

But I will say very briefly that I hope and pray that our children at our little church are prepared to lead the church of the future, because I believe the church of the future will look a lot more like the one that we're presently leading.

43:43

I think small, noble, stealthy congregations will be the wave of the future, and hopefully our children will be prepared to lead that church because they're used to it.

43:56

I don't give out my phone number because we don't have a church landline or a secretary, and I've done that in the past, and I usually get bombarded with calls on my cell phone.

44:06

So the best way to contact me is through my website. And if anyone is interested, I'm just now launching some online courses in domestic violence prevention and intervention, and you can find all of that at chrismals .org.

44:20

Well, I appreciate that very much, and there are some other people whose questions we did not have time to get to because you had to leave early today.

44:30

We understand that, but we are going to give the number that has been allotted to us away to you who are waiting for your questions to be answered.

44:41

So make sure you give us your mailing addresses. And for other people who are interested in this book,

44:49

The Heart of Domestic Abuse by Chris Moles, go to focuspublishing .com.

44:56

I was a delight to have you on to discuss a very sensitive but vital issue,

45:03

Chris Moles, and we hope to have you back on Iron Trump and Zion in the future. Great. I'd love to come back.

45:09

Thank you, guys. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you. And I just want to let everybody know that we're going to be back after these words from our sponsors, and it's going to be an interesting development here what we are going to do for the next hour because my second guest has had to postpone his interview with us,

45:33

Joe Thorne. Many of you are looking forward to his defense of the use of confessions of faith and catechisms and so on and creeds.

45:44

In the Christian church, there are many evangelicals and fundamentalists who look at that as either adding to the

45:55

God -breathed words of Scripture and then violating, therefore, that Scripture alone is our only source of authority, our only source of infallible authority, that is, inerrant authority, and there are others that just view a confession or a creed or catechisms as too binding and rigid because they want more freedom amongst the congregation to have differences of opinion or what have you, but we are definitely going to revisit that subject at some point very soon because it is a vital one.

46:36

Joe and I misunderstood each other as to what time he was going to be on because of him being in the

46:43

Central Standard Time and me being in Eastern Time, so we will have

46:49

Joe back on the program when the Lord enables, but I urge you to look up his website joethorn .net,

46:58

joethorn, and there's no e at the end, joethorn .net, and we're going to be right back after these messages, so we will have most likely a rerun that we're going to air for you, but don't go away, we're going to be right back after these messages and let you know what we're going to do today.

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52:15

This is Chris Arnsen, and I just determined what I'm going to do when we fill out the remainder of this hour.

52:23

We've only got about 10 minutes left or less, but I want to pay tribute to a friend of mine that went home to be with the

52:30

Lord last year in 2015, I believe. It was when my friend

52:37

Marty Fromm, pastor of Beth Yeshua, House of Jesus on Long Island, New York, a born -again

52:48

Jew who served his Messiah very faithfully for probably close to 50 years.

53:04

He was a dear friend. He was somebody that was with me through thick and thin, somebody I could call and really open up my heart and share with him trials and tribulations that I had gone through, and he was such a gentle soul, a wise soul, and we had disagreements over matters of theology here and there.

53:28

Marty was a dispensationalist. I am not, and although Marty might say that he was not theologically

53:37

Reformed or Calvinist, there was very rarely a word that came out of his mouth when he was teaching that I didn't believe was in full harmony with the things that I believed, especially in regard to soteriology.

53:53

I'm not necessarily talking about eschatology here, but soteriologically, things that are involving salvation and the fact that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone and the heart of the gospel and God's sovereignty and so on, those things were really a strong part of Marty's gospel presentations and his own personal belief.

54:21

So in just about seven or eight minutes,

54:26

I'm going to play an interview that I had with Marty a number of years ago.

54:31

In fact, it was in 2010, March 10th of 2010, which really, providentially, is not far from the day that we are, the date that we are in now today, just two days away.

54:46

That was just completely providential. I didn't plan that at all, as you heard before when

54:52

I said that my guest had to bail out today and offer to come back because of a scheduling mix -up that we were both confused about the time.

55:03

But in the next five minutes or so, I know that my co -host,

55:10

Reverend Buzz Taylor, has been itching to interview me, so perhaps I'll let him do that for five minutes or so, and if I have to pull the plug on it quicker than that.

55:23

I'll try to keep it clean. What else would it be?

55:31

Anyway, go ahead, Buzz. Well, first of all, there may be some people wondering where did this guy come from?

55:38

Not you. I'm talking about who is this co -host thing, and I just want to bring people up to speed on what's been going on here that Chris graciously allowed me to co -host with him because of some temporary things in my schedule where I am employed but not working due to some medical things that are almost over now.

56:00

I've been able to have the time available to be here on the program, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it.

56:07

I spent some time in radio locally, and it's just great to get back behind the mic, but it's great to talk to God's people, and it has been a learning experience for me.

56:18

But the thing that people might, you know, from what I've heard of your program up to this point for the last few weeks, we've had a wonderful time talking to our guests, but I'm not sure people know a lot about what you do.

56:32

You do a lot more than this. I do. Sure, he's a connoisseur of the finer culinary arts in the local restaurants.

56:45

Yeah, and believe it or not, those of you who have never been to Coral Isle, if you never thought that would be possible, especially those in New York City, you've got some of the finest restaurants on the planet

56:57

Earth there. Coral Isle has a number of really fine eating establishments that rival

57:02

New York City. But anyway, Chris is always comparing them. They don't have it like this in New York, or they have it better than this in New York.

57:10

But anyway, everybody knows you do Iron Sharpens Iron. Of course, you've been doing this for how long now?

57:16

Well, I started the show in approximately 2006. Sometime, I can't give you the exact month, but the show ran until 2011.

57:29

My wife, Julie, went home to Glory at the age of 56.

57:36

And that was such a devastating thing for me that I put my program on hiatus.

57:42

I stepped away from the mic. As many of my listeners already know, because I've been pretty transparent about this,

57:52

I fell back into the sin of perpetual drunkenness, habitual drunkenness.

58:00

Some people call that alcoholism. Well, I'm not going to go bananas or be overly critical of people using certain terms, but I always found that that was too clinical sounding.

58:14

So I just prefer to call it what the Bible calls it, drunkenness. And I went to a ministry in Boone, North Carolina, called

58:25

Hebron Colony Ministries, the oldest, I believe it's the oldest ministry for men suffering with addiction problems that is still in existence.

58:45

And the Lord used that ministry,

58:53

Hebron Colony Ministry, mightily in my life, restored me not only to sobriety, but also to a right relationship with my church that had very appropriately put me under church discipline.

59:05

And I even interviewed my own pastor on the subject of church discipline. And I don't know if that had ever been done in the history of radio before, but I, who was under discipline and after being restored to fellowship, interviewed my own pastor who placed me under discipline.

59:25

And because people have a misconception that this is some kind of a mean spirited, cruel, or harsh thing, or that that's the end of the story.

59:36

And people automatically think that they're never going to have a right relationship with the church again after such a thing.

59:44

The whole purpose of that is restoration, as I'm sure you agree. And then after moving here to...

59:53

Well, I wanted to put a few little, fill in a few of those blanks too, because Chris had called my former pastor needing a ride from a train station when he was coming to Carlisle to visit family here.

01:00:06

And it fell on me to go get him from the train station. That's where I met him.

01:00:12

And I've been his, what do you call it, designated driver ever since. But we've become friends since then.

01:00:20

And of course, we're not talking about that. We're talking about you. You do more than Iron Sherpa's Iron now.

01:00:27

You sell radio programs. I sell radio programs to other individuals, ministries, and churches on various radio stations throughout the country.

01:00:40

And I sell advertising. That has actually been my primary career for nearly 30 years, selling advertising and block program time.

01:00:50

And you also organize debates and whatnot and speaking tours for certain friends.

01:01:01

I mean, you keep quite active in these kinds of things. Yeah, I organize live public events that include theological debates.

01:01:11

I have orchestrated probably 20 or more live public moderated theological debates between most of them, between my friend,

01:01:22

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, who is a world renowned apologist and author and scholar,

01:01:28

New Testament Greek scholar, the best debater I have ever heard, because it takes a very specific skill to be a debater.

01:01:38

It is not enough to be brilliant, because there are many brilliant articulate people who are prolific writers and so on, and maybe good preachers.

01:01:48

But debating is a very unique skill unto itself.

01:01:54

And so the debates began as primarily, well actually they began exclusively as evangelical versus Roman Catholic debates, and then began to include in that debates that Dr.

01:02:10

White had with Muslims and anti -Trinitarians, like a womanist Pentecostal, for instance, one of the leaders in that movement,

01:02:19

Art Sabin, and I believe I said

01:02:24

Muslims already, and liberal Protestants, homosexual activists, or pro -homosexual individuals like Barry Lynn of the

01:02:38

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, he is the president of that organization, and is an ordained

01:02:47

United Church of Christ minister, which is the most liberal of all the Protestant denominations, unless of course you include

01:02:53

Unitarian Universalists, I don't know if you could really consider that Protestant, but they would be fairly neck and neck when it comes to leftist theology, ideology, and of course

01:03:06

I would consider them to be both apostate groups. But so that is the primary thing that I am doing outside of my own radio program, as far as church activity or spiritual, theological activity would be the organizing of conferences and debates.

01:03:28

And I'm glad that our friendship has lasted these six years, and although I think it's probably going to come to an abrupt end any minute now,

01:03:43

I believe it's been five or six years, but I really value your sitting in with me on the program as a co -host, and I hope that the

01:03:54

Lord, when your own vocation kicks up again and you have less time available to do this,

01:04:03

I hope that we still find time on occasion for you to get behind the mic and co -host with me.

01:04:10

I will look for it. And right now, as I said, I am going to play an interview that I conducted with my dear friend

01:04:21

Marty Fromm, who is now in heaven. Marty Fromm, a Jewish believer of the founder, actually he wasn't the founder, but he was a leader in a ministry called

01:04:33

Beth Yeshua. It was founded by someone before him, but he had been operating it as a leader for quite a number of years on Long Island.

01:04:43

And a dear friend interviewed him a number of times, always had such fun doing so.

01:04:50

And without further ado, here is a blast from the past, from the

01:04:55

Iron Trump and Zion Archive from 2010, Marty Fromm on the subject, Jews with no temple, where is their sacrifice?

01:05:03

Where is their hope? And I hope that you are blessed by this program that I said was providentially recorded on March 10th of 2010, which is only two days away from the anniversary date of that interview.

01:05:28

So here we are with Marty Fromm, and God bless you folks, and I hope that you join us tomorrow.

01:05:35

Today we are going to be addressing a very, very important theme. We're going to be addressing

01:05:41

Jews with no temple. Where is their sacrifice? Where is their hope? This is to prepare us to discuss very important matters with our

01:05:53

Jewish friends, loved ones, and neighbors as Passover approaches. Passover begins on sundown on March 29th, and to discuss this very vital theme with us tonight is

01:06:06

Marty Fromm. He is no stranger to the Iron Trump and Zion audience. He's a frequent guest in our program.

01:06:13

Marty Fromm is the founder of Beth Yeshua Ministries, currently worshiping in Plainview, Long Island at the

01:06:20

Olive Tree Congregation, and this is a congregation of Jew and Gentile who worship the one true

01:06:29

Lord, God, and Savior, Jesus Christ in spirit and truth, and they are going to be having their own

01:06:38

Passover demonstration the day before Passover, Sunday, March 28th, and we're going to be giving you details about how you can attend this

01:06:50

Passover demonstration at the Manor East in Massapequa, Long Island. The Manor East is a catering hall in Massapequa, Long Island, New York on the borderline of Suffolk and Nassau County.

01:07:02

We would love to hear from you and your questions for Marty Fromm regarding the question,

01:07:07

Jews with no temple, where is their sacrifice? Where is their hope? You want to pick up the phone during the station break.

01:07:13

Call your family, friends, and loved ones, especially if they're Jewish, and perhaps even if they are

01:07:19

Gentiles who have a passion to evangelize the

01:07:25

Jewish people with the gospel of Messiah, Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the

01:07:30

Christ, and have them tune in to hear this program anywhere on the planet earth via live streaming.

01:07:37

We would love to hear from you and your questions about Passover, about Jesus Christ, fulfilling the prophecies of the

01:07:46

Messiah, about what is a Jew with no temple to do. Don't go away.

01:07:51

We'll be right back after these messages. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, give yourself unto reading.

01:08:08

The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted.

01:08:14

He will not use the thoughts of other men's brains, proves he has no brains of his own.

01:08:20

You need to read. Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the

01:08:26

Prince of Preachers to heart. The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future, and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

01:08:39

Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered, Christ -exalting books for all ages.

01:08:46

We invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com. That's solid -ground -books .com,

01:08:54

and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from Solid Ground.

01:09:01

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back.

01:09:09

This is Chris Orens and your host of Iron Sharpens Iron. If you just tuned us in tonight, our guest tonight is

01:09:15

Marty Fromm. He is the founder of Beth Yeshua Ministries, located in Plainview, Long Island.

01:09:20

They meet at the facilities of the Olive Tree Congregation on 88

01:09:25

Southern Parkway in Plainview, and they are going to be having a Passover demonstration two

01:09:32

Sundays from now, and tonight we are going to be addressing the theme as we prepare to intelligently interact, evangelize, and discuss the most important questions of life with our

01:09:46

Jewish friends, family, and loved ones, and neighbors. What is a

01:09:51

Jew to do with no temple, no sacrifice? Where is his hope? And it's my honor and privilege to have you back on Iron Sharpens Iron, my dear friend of many years,

01:10:01

Marty Fromm. Hey, Chris. How are you doing tonight? I'm doing great. The only thing that I am lamenting is that you're not sitting right next to me as you usually are when you do the program.

01:10:10

I just love the fellowship. Yeah, I would have loved it, but I'm a little incapacitated.

01:10:16

By the way, you know, your introduction, you mentioned that it's a show where you have theologians and scholars, and that we're going to intelligently discuss something.

01:10:30

You should also tell your audience, or warn them, I'm once in a while a little Jew from the Bronx. I'm not quite in the same league.

01:10:41

Well, I think you're in the same league, Marty. And first of all, we will repeat this towards the end of the program, but tell us about the event you are having on Sunday, March 28th at the

01:10:53

Manor East Catering Hall in Massapequa, Long Island. Yeah, you know, the first thing, and I hate to contradict you in any way, you know,

01:11:02

I appreciate your faithfulness and your support and everything over, you know, many, many years, but it's really a

01:11:09

Passover Seder more than a demonstration, because we actually sit down to the

01:11:16

Passover meal. We read from the Haggadah, which is the traditional book that explains the story of the

01:11:24

Passover, and we, you know, do everything basically that Jewish people have been doing for centuries, but then we demonstrate the fulfillment of those practices that we've been doing all these years in a spiritual sense to show how this points ultimately to our faith in Messiah Yeshua, the

01:11:49

Lord Jesus. In fact, the book that we use, Haggadah, for your listening audience, the book

01:11:58

Haggadah actually means the telling, and it is a book that draws many, many, many scripture verses that relate or tell the story of the

01:12:10

Passover. So Lord willing, we'll be doing that on the 28th.

01:12:15

It's open to everybody. It's at a beautiful catering called the

01:12:21

Manor East, and we subsidize the cost of the

01:12:27

Passover dinner and music and everything so that it's only $20 per person, but we have to get commitments this week because we obviously have to let the caterer know, you know, what the headcount is to be and, you know, the set of the tables and everything else.

01:12:47

Well, we will repeat that information towards the end of the program, and you can also go to Marty's website, which is

01:12:55

BethYeshuaNY .org. That's Beth Yeshua, B -E -T -H -Y -E -S -H -A,

01:13:02

I'm sorry, Y -E -S -H -U -A, N -Y for New York, dot

01:13:07

O -R -G, B -E -T -H -Y -E -S -H -U -A, N -Y dot

01:13:13

O -R -G. Marty, before we even go into the crucial question of our program tonight, what is a

01:13:21

Jew to do with no temple and no sacrifice? Tell us, first of all, what that Passover, that first Passover, was all about and why it was necessary.

01:13:32

Well, you know, God had called out a people unto himself, and we are not elitist in thinking for one moment that the

01:13:45

Jewish people or the people of Israel are any better or different or worthier or smarter, maybe better looking, than any other people on the face of the earth.

01:13:59

But God singled out a people who were the least of all the nations to demonstrate to the world what could happen in the lives of people, no matter how small and insignificant, when

01:14:13

God takes control of that people, gives them his law, his word, brings them to an understanding of who he is and how that impacts our lives, so that there's a difference between holy and profane, a difference between informed and uninformed, a difference between people who have a spiritual thirst and those who are totally without God or without any understanding.

01:14:44

So, he chose to start the nation in a very dramatic way, responding to 420 years of slavery in Egypt to bring them out en masse and to make it that dramatic through the miracle of various plagues that he brought upon Pharaoh and the

01:15:10

Egyptian people, ultimately to the slaying of the firstborn, to the parting of the sea where the power of the

01:15:18

Egyptian army drowned in that sea, and then brought them into a land of promise and hope after providing manna to sustain them through 40 years during the wilderness.

01:15:35

As I recall, Chris, 7 -Eleven didn't have any stores in the middle of the desert, so God had to intercede and provide for all our needs.

01:15:50

So, all these things were done not only to be a testimony to Israel, to realize that their

01:15:58

God is an awesome God, but to demonstrate that same truth to all the nations in the land of Canaan and all over that the awesome

01:16:08

God of Israel kept his promises, preserved his people, did mighty and awesome acts in order to provoke those people to emulation so that ultimately not just the

01:16:26

Jew, but the Gentile, the pagan, the heathen, whatever, all would have the opportunity to come to the knowledge of the truth and the blessing of having a relationship with the

01:16:38

God of Israel. And obviously, as many folks can remember, even those that are not

01:16:44

Christian or typically religious in any way, those of you who may even remember something as simple as watching the classic movie,

01:16:55

The Ten Commandments, starring the late Charlton Heston, there was an angel of death involved in the first Seder, the first Passover meal.

01:17:07

And if you could explain that whole circumstance. Well, what God had indicated to Israel is that he wants obedience and not just lip service.

01:17:20

He indicated to the children of Israel that what we call the malach of us, the angel of death or the death angel was going to pass over all the houses within the land, including

01:17:33

Israel and all the land of Egypt. And he says, is that testimony is an understanding that they were obedient to the call of God.

01:17:42

He indicated that each family would be responsible to take a lamb, to slay it, to take the blood from that lamb and put it on the lintels and the doorposts of their homes.

01:17:58

And he indicated that wherever the malach of us, the death angel would see the blood as a token of the obedience of the people, he would

01:18:10

Pesach, which is the Hebrew for the word Passover, but literally to exempt, he passed over or exempted the homes that were marked or covered by the blood.

01:18:24

And wherever that blood was not, you know, plainly shown as God had demanded the firstborn in that home was to suffer the plague of death.

01:18:40

And of course, you know, a very devastating situation. But again,

01:18:47

God wants us to understand that we are responsible to follow his instruction, and he doesn't bring judgment without providing us with the opportunity to listen and to understand that there are dire consequences to disobedience and great blessings for our obedience.

01:19:08

And of course, you know, Chris, we always try to remind people in a little story that Rich Saxon, who used to pass the

01:19:18

Beth Yeshua out east for us, where there was a firstborn young man in the home who says,

01:19:29

Papa, are we going to take the lamb and slay it and put the blood on the doorpost?

01:19:36

And Papa says, you know, we don't have to do that. We're going to take the lamb, we'll tie him up outside, and God knows our intentions.

01:19:46

So it's really not necessary to literally go through, you know, the slaying of that poor little lamb.

01:19:56

And little Izzy looks up, Papa, is it okay if I sleep by Uncle Yonkel tonight?

01:20:04

I remember the first time he said that story. But this is serious, though, because, and we will even get more clear on how serious that is intended to be a joke, but there's serious point behind it.

01:20:18

Now, this Passover meal didn't end there. This was continued on for thousands of years, even until after the

01:20:28

Lord Jesus Christ himself was crucified, correct? Oh, absolutely, which is one of the reasons.

01:20:35

See, Chris, I want your audience who may not be familiar to be fully aware of the fact that Beth Yeshua is a messianic outreach, but we are not a legalistic outreach.

01:20:50

We are people who have come to faith in Yeshua. We understand completely why we are saved by faith through the grace, the unmerited favor of God.

01:21:01

It's not based upon any ordinances or acts of righteousness, what we call mitzvos, good deed.

01:21:10

It is strictly predicated upon God's grace. So we hold the

01:21:17

Passover not as a testimony to our faithfulness to the law, but as a reminder of what it represents, because the

01:21:29

Word of God said that it should be kept throughout our generations. When Jesus ultimately came to that point at the

01:21:39

Passover Seder, and let's remember, it was a Passover Seder that Jesus took the bread and the wine, and he says, this bread is my body which is broken for you, and he says, take this cup.

01:21:52

This is the blood of the new covenant, and the blood that is shed for you.

01:21:58

And he explained, therefore, as long as you do this, as oft as you do this, you do show the

01:22:06

Lord's death till he come. So therefore, the Passover became a demonstration of a real important spiritual fulfillment that we are now no longer under the law, but we want to show the

01:22:26

Lord's death. We want to recognize that it is the atoning death of Yeshua, Jesus, that gives us the promise of eternal life, the promise of the hope, and to realize that we will spend eternity with him because of the provision that he made, and we do not do something as an act of righteousness, as I said, but again, in total realization that this is

01:22:59

God's glorious plan to be that testimony to Israel and to the world, and to hopefully provoke people to that understanding that they would be partakers with us, and that's why we have a

01:23:15

Passover Seder for all people, both Jewish and non -Jewish people, so that, number one, for those who are already saved to believe in Jesus, received him as Lord and Savior, it reinforces the roots of what their faith represents, and it provides them with a greater opportunity to reach out to lost people to show the majesty and the magnitude of God's love and goodness in using this tool as a device to foster a better understanding and bring salvation.

01:23:57

Now, it's very clear, isn't it, Marty, that Jesus Christ fulfilled

01:24:03

Old Testament prophecy, and he was pictured in that lamb that was sacrificed every year by faithful Jewish homes.

01:24:13

He is that lamb, is he not? Well, without a doubt, and of course, you're playing the shill to give me an opportunity to respond to something that important, and I'm glad you do, but I just want to remind you, and perhaps some of the listening audience, a number of years back,

01:24:36

I wrote a book called Unto Us a Son is Given. The premise of that book,

01:24:42

Chris, was that, and let me just interject,

01:24:49

I was blessed with a beautiful twin sister who passed away some probably 12 years ago.

01:24:58

When she was dying, the Lord put this upon my heart to write a book to reach unsaved

01:25:06

Jewish people. Unfortunately, nobody in my family had ever made a profession of faith, and I wanted to really reach unsaved

01:25:21

Jewish people that they would not have that concern that I did.

01:25:28

So, the premise of the book is to prove, and I think, and Chris, I'm not being egotistical,

01:25:39

I hope you realize that in the audience, but I think it's an extremely well presented case for any person who is honestly and sincerely looking for the truth, whereby

01:25:54

I use only the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Tanakh, the

01:25:59

Torah, the Nevi 'im, the Ketuvim, the five books of Moses, the writings of the prophets, and the

01:26:10

Ketuvim, the various books that all testify and prophesy of the coming of the

01:26:19

Messiah. You know, let's say something, Chris. As Jewish people, we are told that we are a separated nation, and the

01:26:28

Mashiach is the hope for the eternity of Israel and for eternal life, and the

01:26:35

Mashiach is the deliverer, the redeemer, the one that is going to restore

01:26:41

Israel as the head and not the tail, to usher in the reign of peace, the days of Messiah, and there has to be a reason why are we told this, and how would we know and recognize a

01:26:57

Messiah if he indeed were to come? So, God did not leave us without a means of making that determination.

01:27:06

So, throughout the various books of the Tanakh, of the Hebrew Scriptures, he gives us more and more definitive explanation and understanding, so that we could understand the

01:27:22

Messiah in terms of his nature, his person, his attributes, his timing, his purpose, his objectives.

01:27:31

So, all these things are in the Scriptures, and as I said, Chris, I think it's indisputable for any honest seeker of truth using the

01:27:43

Hebrew Scriptures, and in fact, if any of the listening audience would like to purchase this book, we only charge $5 to cover our cost, plus another $2 .50

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for shipping and handling, and if anybody, you know, wants to send a check to Beth Yeshua at 88

01:28:04

Southern Parkway, Plainview 11803, they can order the book, and perhaps they'll find it helpful and informative in reinforcing what we're talking about this evening,

01:28:15

Chris. Yeah, in fact, we're going to go a break right now, and when we return, if you could further bolster the point that Jesus Christ is indeed the

01:28:24

Passover Lamb. Don't go away, we'll be right back with Marty Fromm. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

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01:30:10

This is Chris Sorensen. If you just tuned us in, our guest tonight is Marty Fromm, founder of Beth Yeshua Ministries in Plainview, Long Island, New York, a congregation of Jew and Gentile who worship the one true

01:30:22

Lord God and Savior, Jesus Christ, together in spirit and truth. And we are discussing the very important question, what is a

01:30:31

Jew to do with no temple and no sacrifice? Where is his hope? And as Marty was saying before the break,

01:30:38

Jesus Christ is clearly the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies for the

01:30:44

Messiah, in addition to being the one who was indeed pictured for those thousands of years in the slaying of a perfect spotless lamb during the

01:30:56

Passover meal. If you could pick up from there, Marty. Okay, Chris. You know, John the baptizer made a declaration, behold the

01:31:06

Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Well, John was a

01:31:11

Jew and John was making reference to Hebrew Scripture. There was no such thing as New Testament at that point in time.

01:31:22

So he obviously was referring to something to which Jews could relate.

01:31:28

There was a Messiah who was to come and that Messiah is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

01:31:36

Obviously, this goes all the way back to the Passover because Jesus is the Passover Lamb, the

01:31:43

Lamb without spot, without blemish, and the one whose blood sanctifies and brings us into that saving relationship.

01:31:51

Now, for example, Chris, in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, which was written, you know, more than 700 years before the coming of the

01:32:02

Messiah, it says that he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before Hashirah's dung, so he openeth not his mouth.

01:32:14

He is taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation?

01:32:20

For he is cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression of my people was he stricken, and he made his grave with the wicked and the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

01:32:35

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. God has put him to grief, and when you make his soul your offering for sin, he shall see his seed prolong his days, and the pleasure of the

01:32:47

Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of the soul and shall be satisfied.

01:32:55

So, clearly, Isaiah is prophetically indicating, hundreds of years prior to the actual event on Passover, that he would be led as a lamb to the slaughter, he would be cut off out of the land of the living, and that his soul was to be the offering for sin.

01:33:16

So, this also addresses the question that you started this evening with, when you talk about the need for the blood sacrifice, and we're a

01:33:30

Jews today, if there is no longer the Levitical system of the sacrifice, the shedding of the blood, the altar, and all of this.

01:33:43

Now, if your audience would stop and think, uh, David had it in his heart to build what we call the

01:33:51

Beis Mikdash, the holy house or the temple. Solomon, ultimately, was called upon by God, because he didn't have blood on his hands, that he would build this

01:34:03

Beis Mikdash, but Solomon used a very clear expression. He said, this is a

01:34:10

Zevach, a Beis Zevach, it's a house of sacrifice, that the sacrificial system was essential in order to provide reconciliation, redemption, atonement, what have you.

01:34:25

Now, in the Haggadah that we read on the occasion of the

01:34:31

Passover, if I will, if I may, Chris, it says, the Paschal Lamb, which our ancestors ate during the existence of the temple, for what reason was it eaten?

01:34:43

Because the omnipresent, blessed be he, passed over the houses of our ancestors in Egypt, as it is said, you shall say it is a sacrifice of the

01:34:56

Passover of the Lord. And in the Hebrew, it says, so in other words, where it says, it is a sacrifice, it is a

01:35:14

Zevach Pesach, so just as we had the Beis Zevach, the house of sacrifice, while the temple stood, and while they sacrificed the temple, it was again to point out that this temple was a house of sacrifice.

01:35:32

Since the destruction of the temple, and there no longer being an altar, there was the realization that all of these things were preordained and provided as a means of connecting the dots.

01:35:50

If you could, for one second, we'll pause there, because we do have a caller on the line, Marty. Sure, sure.

01:35:57

Please give us your first name and the city and state you're calling from. Welcome to Iron Sharpens Iron. Okay, my first name is

01:36:03

Stephen, and I'm calling from Deer Park, New York. Okay. What state is that in?

01:36:09

Deer Park, New York. I'm just going to say state of confusion. Well, actually, you know me,

01:36:17

Chris. I'm Steve Horowitz. Oh, yes. Hi, Steve. Yeah. How are you doing? Good. I hope you and your family are blessed and doing fine.

01:36:25

Thank you. I have a question as to the church's theology that's going around nowadays, which says there's a replacementism that the

01:36:34

Jews don't have to be preached to about Jesus, and that they have their own separate salvation.

01:36:41

Can Marty go through that and tell how important it is that that really is such a false theology going around that the

01:36:48

Jews nowadays, as far as it was many years ago, need to know who... Yeah, perhaps like towards the end of the program, we could have

01:36:55

Marty address that. Like, for instance, I know that Pastor Hagee, I believe, is telling people that they don't have to evangelize the

01:37:00

Jews. Yeah. But if we were kind of at a crucial point in the Passover story, so if you could have him explain that a little bit towards the end,

01:37:07

Steve. All right, I appreciate it, Steve. Thanks for calling. By the way, Steve, I know you were co -hosting here once, but did you ever win one of our

01:37:17

Genuine Leather Bibles? Actually, no. All right, why don't you go to my website, and you look for where it says

01:37:23

Contact Chris Arns on the right side of the screen. You have to scroll down and click on that, and if you give me your mailing address, we'll make sure you get a free

01:37:31

Genuine Leather New America Standard Bible. Oh, that'd be great. All right, thank you. Now, Marty, the destruction of the

01:37:39

Temple, before we just glide over that, that was something that Jesus Christ himself prophesied in the

01:37:44

New Testament, correct? Yes. Again, all of the provision in the

01:37:53

Hebrew Scriptures, what you call the Old Testament, was to, as Paul said, bring about an awareness that the

01:38:02

Lord is our schoolmaster to bring us to Messiah. So, in other words, the sacrificial system was a system where an innocent animal was put to death, and the blood of that innocent, pure animal was to shed its blood as a means of atonement.

01:38:30

Leviticus 17 .11 says, for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and it is the blood on the altar that makes atonement for the soul.

01:38:41

So, therefore, Paul was able to conclude, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.

01:38:48

Now, the Lord wanted us to know that that was a temporary provision, but to bring about an understanding that the innocent suffers for the guilty, so that the guilt is imputed to the innocent, and the innocence and purity of the sacrificed one is imputed to the one offering the sacrifice, who is, in fact, the sinner.

01:39:24

And this is the picture he wanted us to have of Yeshua, of Jesus. Jesus, who was without sin, and the scriptures are very, you know, clear to remind us,

01:39:37

He was in all points tempted as ourselves, but was without sin.

01:39:44

Even those who brought Him on trial, if you recall, it says, behold, we bring

01:39:51

Him forth so that ye shall know we find no sin in Him. So, He is the picture of the innocent lamb, the innocent sufferer, and, however,

01:40:06

He is put to death in our behalf. His blood is shed to cleanse us from our sin.

01:40:13

So, therefore, we see the concept of the vicarious suffering in the innocent animal is carried through to Yeshua.

01:40:25

This is also reflected, Chris, which you well know, in what we call the

01:40:31

Akedah, or the binding of Isaac. Isaac was innocent. He wasn't guilty of any sin, but he was to be brought to a mount that God told

01:40:46

Abraham that he was to be sacrificed. And let me just correct myself.

01:40:53

He wasn't being told to be sacrificed because of a specific sin.

01:40:59

He wasn't sinless. But ultimately, when Isaac said to his father,

01:41:06

I see the fire and the wood, where is the lamb for the offering?

01:41:14

And Abraham's response, of course, is, my son, the Lord will provide

01:41:20

Himself a lamb for the offering, or a ram for the offering. So, even there, we're shown very definitively that God will provide

01:41:31

Himself the lamb. So, He Himself had to be the vicarious sufferer, and through His vicarious atonement, there would be reconciliation with God, so that the object lesson here with Isaac is,

01:41:51

God doesn't want your physical death. He wants your spiritual death, your submission to His way.

01:42:00

And that's what Isaac was committed to live, because God provided the means through which the atonement could be made.

01:42:08

And that's why we're told by Paul that He says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to render your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto

01:42:21

God, which is your reasonable service. So, we are living sacrifices who are spiritually submissive, so that we crucify the flesh, so we are spiritually crucified and risen with Him and alive in Messiah on a spiritual level.

01:42:46

And the Roman armies destroyed the temple, and the

01:42:54

Jewish people were then left in a huge dilemma. This is a crucial point in history, because this sacrifice that they relied upon for centuries and centuries was now brought to an abrupt halt.

01:43:10

What did the Jews, where did they find their hope then, and where do they find their hope now?

01:43:20

Well, again, this can be very debatable, and you have to take the whole picture and go through the scriptures to lay a foundation.

01:43:32

But basically, we come back to the simple truth, without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin.

01:43:42

The consequence of that is that the Jewish people, to this day, have a tremendous dilemma.

01:43:52

Some of it is answered by those who foolishly, and without any substantiation whatsoever, they simply conclude, since there is no provision for the shedding of blood, for the sacrifice, for the provision for the altar in Jerusalem, etc.,

01:44:12

that it isn't that important to begin with. Well, again, that's a very nice theory.

01:44:18

It sounds very intellectual and clever, but we're in the scriptures. Can you support that?

01:44:25

The Word of God doesn't say, well, it's not so important. I'm giving you an ordinance throughout all your generations, but don't worry about it.

01:44:34

And you would have never said that as an Orthodox Jew prior to AD 70. You never would have said that.

01:44:40

No, absolutely not. So the dilemma is, how do we reconcile this?

01:44:46

And that's where we have to realize that the Word of God tells us, study to show thyself approved, the workman unto

01:44:54

God, who needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. So you go back to the

01:45:00

Word of God, and the Word of God says, there has to be a blood sacrifice, and this blood sacrifice brings us to the

01:45:08

Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. A Jew who meets all the messianic provision that is demanded by the scriptures.

01:45:22

Somebody who had to come, and incidentally, he had to come before the destruction of the temple.

01:45:30

That was essential. Why? Because who comes at this point after the destruction of the temple, there were no genealogical records, no means of proving what the scriptures indicate.

01:45:43

The Messiah must be born in Bethlehem. He must be from the house of David. He must be from the tribe of Judah.

01:45:50

So all these things are laid out in scripture to give us a means of making that identification.

01:45:58

Yeah, that's an excellent point, because how could you, if a future Messiah is expected or hoped for, how could that genealogical record be traced today?

01:46:11

Exactly, exactly. That's an excellent point. We have to go to our final break, and this is your final opportunity to call with a question about the

01:46:18

Passover, and we look forward to hearing from you after these messages, so don't go away. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am

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We have a caller on the line, Palmer in Bayshore, Long Island. Welcome to Iron Sharpens Iron. Hi, Chris.

01:50:30

My question is, there seems to be some confusion, even among Christian circles, as to the way of salvation.

01:50:37

Some say that a Jew can get to heaven or be saved by some other way than by the blood of the cross, by the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross.

01:50:52

My question is, could you state clearly and unequivocally how a person can be saved, and is it the same way for both a

01:51:03

Jew and a Gentile? Excellent question. Marty? Yeah, well, by all means.

01:51:08

Let me just finish my thought, because it will tie into that. Sure. As we said, the blood sacrifice is absolutely essential, originally in the sacrificial system, ultimately in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus.

01:51:28

So we have to understand, therefore, that the Word of God tells us without any equivocation that there is no difference between the

01:51:37

Jew and the Gentile. The same Lord over all is Lord unto all who call upon his name.

01:51:44

So he didn't say there's one rule for a Jew and another rule for the non -Jewish people.

01:51:49

The rule is the same for all, without the blood, without the concept of the atonement, without the realization that Jesus died for your sin.

01:52:01

We have to conclude that God means what he says, he says what he means, and he says the only way to the

01:52:09

Father is through the Son. So whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, you don't have a choice.

01:52:15

It's not all roads lead to Rome and that everybody's, you know, got their own way.

01:52:21

There's only one way. It's very exclusive. It's the Word of God. And like I said, he means what he says.

01:52:30

In fact, where I say that there are those Jewish people who deny the necessity of the shedding of the blood and that understanding, yet the great rabbis of the ages, they write, and in the maqsor, or in the prayer books for the holidays, it says that we first to diminish our blood in place of the blood that was shed upon the altar, for lo, we have no blood and we have no altar, we have no remission of sin.

01:53:03

So obviously, the great Jewish minds fully understood they needed the blood atonement.

01:53:10

And to say that a Jew could be saved outside of that relationship would be, you know, completely unscriptural.

01:53:20

And it also begs the question that if God says there's only one way, how do we conclude differently?

01:53:29

He says, all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. There is none that do us good. So if we are all sinners, as the

01:53:36

Word of God says, or since we are all sinners, then the only means of righteousness is the gift of God.

01:53:45

And Jesus is the gift of God. Grace is the gift of God. And that's the means that he has provided for both

01:53:53

Jew and Gentile. And to tie in Steve's earlier question, Pastor Hagee is one who professes to be a

01:54:01

Christian, and yet is denying the crucial truth of Christianity, the main truth of Christianity, that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.

01:54:10

No one comes to the Father but through him. And yet, Pastor Hagee is offering hope to Jews by being faithful to the law for their salvation.

01:54:19

Well, he's right. If they could keep the law, there is nobody who can keep it.

01:54:24

That's exactly right. Nobody can. And that's why Christ had to come and be crucified on Calvary 2 ,000 years ago.

01:54:32

A follow -up question is, what happens to Jew or Gentile who is not saved, who does not come to faith in Yeshua as the

01:54:41

Messiah, as God the Son? Very good question. It's the same fate, isn't it, Marty? Yeah, well, again, the word of...

01:54:48

See, you know, what Paul is alluding to, there are those people, even in evangelical circles, that have strayed from the truth and inerrancy of Scripture, and they say there isn't a hell, or hell isn't a place of torment forever and ever.

01:55:07

But what they're doing is they're taking license to take the clear teaching of the word of God and to apply a spiritual meaning where we understand what is the literal sense, and where it makes sense and God expresses it in that way, what right do we have to change it into symbolic or spiritual teaching?

01:55:35

It is strictly the understanding, he says, they will be tormented forever and ever. So there is a heaven, there is a hell, and God is merciful enough to bring us to an understanding that we have the choice which we will choose, but he does tell us which choice to make in order to be recipients of the glorious blessings that he has in store for us.

01:56:03

And to understand, if you choose differently, you have the right to make that choice, but that means you have the right to, you know, receive the punishment that comes from your disobedience, your arrogance, and your pride that keeps you from doing it the way

01:56:22

God had said. And it's like, you know, Frank Sinatra saying, I did it my way. Well, I don't expect to see

01:56:28

Mr. Sinatra in heaven, because he did it his way. You do it God's way, and then you could expect to see them in heaven.

01:56:36

Hey, Palmer, it's great to have you back in our audience. I haven't heard from you since we changed times, and please let everybody know that you know that Iron Sharpens Iron is now on at six o 'clock at night.

01:56:48

And I hope to hear from you again, Palmer. God bless you. Thank you,

01:56:53

Palmer. And we do have time for perhaps one more question, if you call quickly. And this brings us to another crucial question that C .S.

01:57:03

Lewis posed, the Christian fiction writer and philosopher in the earlier part of the earlier half of the 20th century.

01:57:17

C .S. Lewis said that if Jesus Christ made those profound claims about himself in the

01:57:26

New Testament and received worship, he is either a lunatic, a liar, or Lord.

01:57:36

There is no really alternative that many Jews today, perhaps mainly to be politically correct and to not get their

01:57:44

Gentile friends to dislike them or despise them, they'll say that Jesus, although he is not their

01:57:52

Messiah, he was a wonderful man, a good man, a good teacher, philosopher, etc.

01:57:58

You can't have that view of Jesus with the claims that he made unless he was, was and is the

01:58:07

Lord, God, and Messiah, correct? Absolutely. He holds us feet to the fire and you can't have it both ways.

01:58:15

Marty Fromm, it's been a pleasure as always to have you back on the program and please remind our listeners how they can attend this

01:58:23

Seder celebration two Sundays from now on March 28th in Mesa Piqua. Okay, just get in touch with Beth Yeshua 516 -513 -0964, 516 -513 -0964 or contact us at 887

01:58:40

Parkway in Plainview 11803. And the website, once again, is

01:58:45

BethYeshuaNY .org, B -E -T -H -Y -E -S -H -U -A -N -Y for New York dot

01:58:52

O -R -G. Marty, I look forward to having you back on the program. Brother, it's always a pleasure and a blessing to speak with you.

01:59:00

Same here, my friend. God bless. God bless you. And don't forget to go to that website also to investigate

01:59:06

Marty's books and to purchase them and you will be blessed,

01:59:11

I'm certain. I want to thank everybody who listened tonight, particularly those who called in. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater