October 17, 2018 Show with Mitch Tepper on “A Christian Witness to Israel”

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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,

00:16

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 Arntzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 17th day of October 2018.

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Before I introduce my guest for today, I've got some very exciting news. God willing, this

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Friday we are going to have as a guest one of the lead actors of the new

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Gosnell movie, Alonzo Rachel, who plays a major role as a detective in this movie, is going to be our guest, and the executive producer of the film,

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God willing, will also be joining us on the program as well this Friday, so you might want to mark your calendars for Friday, the 19th of October, as we have a special program discussing and promoting the

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Gosnell movie. But today we have, in studio, I always love it the best when my guests are right here face -to -face in the studio with me, today we have joining us for the very first time ever

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Mitch Tepper. He is a Jewish believer in Christ, and he is the new missionary for the

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North American Division of Christian Witness to Israel, also known as CWI. Many of you may be familiar with Stephen Atkinson, who is a native of Northern Ireland, who's been a guest on this program a number of times.

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He is the current executive director of the North American Division of Christian Witness to Israel, and in fact

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Stephen Atkinson, I believe he was my very first pastor's luncheon speaker here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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We began it many years ago in New York in the 1990s, but when I relocated to Pennsylvania, I believe

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Stephen may have been the very first speaker that I had at the Iron Trip and Zion pastor's luncheon a number of years ago.

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But he urged me to get Christian Witness to Israel's new missionary on the program,

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Mitch Tepper, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Trip and Zion radio, Mitch Tepper.

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Thank you, and it is a privilege to be here. I am so happy I've heard the program. I've always wanted to have the opportunity, and here

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I am. Amen, and it's always great to have a New Yorker. A New Yorker from Brooklyn.

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Brooklyn in the house, everyone. Yeah, it's not too often that I have native

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New Yorkers, because I am, many of our listeners already know this because the show began out of New York from 2005 to 2011, but I am a native

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New Yorker. Amityville, Long Island, New York, actually. But it's always good to hear a familiar accent.

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Yours isn't familiar anymore. You lost it somewhere along the line. Yeah, well, you know, it's funny. I was in alcohol rehab in a

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Christian rehab ministry a number of years ago in Boone, North Carolina. Hebron Colony Ministries.

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The vast majority of the people there were from North and South Carolina and Mississippi and Tennessee and Kentucky.

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I was the only Yankee. Actually, there's one other Yankee there when I was there, and the thing

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I kept hearing over and over again is, you don't sound like you're from New York. So I said, you want me to talk like this, don't you?

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Oh yeah, that's it. And it actually would come out when I would say, you have any more coffee?

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Ah, coffee! Yeah, there you go. But anyway, Mitch, before we get into your personal testimony, which is in and of itself fascinating,

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I want you to let our listeners know who have missed our previous interviews with Stephen Atkinson, I want you to tell our listeners something about Christian Witness to Israel and specifically the

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North American Division. Oh, definitely. Christian Witness to Israel started in the

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UK, believe it or not, in 1842 by Robert Murray McShane.

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Now, he started, it used to be called the Propagation of the Jews back then, and the reason he started, he noticed all the antisemitism that was taking place pretty much from the beginning of time, since Abraham, all the way through past the

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Reformation, and obviously we know since McShane got on the scene, how much antisemitism has continued.

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But he started, like I said, in 1843, over 175 years ago, because he said, it's time loving on the

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Jews. He took a trip to Israel, which changed his life, changed his life to the point we started, obviously, the

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CWI, and he got Spurgeon on board, to believe it or not,

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Spurgeon was the one who, as far as I know, preached the first sermon.

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I think, like I said, it was called the Propagation of the Jews back then. Yes, I've heard that from Stephen, that Spurgeon was the first.

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Yep, was the first, and also Horatio Bonar was also a big part of it.

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There's many others. You can hear some amazing statements. If you look at the website, which is

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CWINA .org, there's some amazing quotations from Jonathan Edwards, and these three men as well, on how we need to be loving on the

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Jews, and I guess the big thing for me, being a

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Jewish Christian, my wife and I are both Messianic Jews, is the fact that we realize how much assimilation has took place, and as I've been studying

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Romans 9 to 11, the thing that really got me is to realize

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Paul's just urgent appeal, an emotional appeal, to the

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Gentile Church, that everything that you now have, everything now that you believe in, has come from the

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Jews, whether it's the patriarchs, whether it's the law, the covenants, everything up to, and obviously very much concluding with the

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Mashiach, Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus Christ, is also coming from the

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Jewish race, and it's that appeal that we are still making 175 years after McShane, to get

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Jews excited about Jewish evangelism, and being involved through their prayers, through some of them wanting to hit the streets, and obviously others who want to support financially, which they can do all three, and we'd love all three.

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Amen, and I know the North American division is a lot more recent in its establishment than the

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UK. Seven years? Seven years, I think he wrote that this year, the article, but he wrote his, it's his seventh year, he might be starting his eighth year soon.

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Stephen Atkinson. Stephen Atkinson started it seven years ago, Stephen Atkinson used to be with the UK, he pretty much had to quit the

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UK to start the North America branch. There was one other missionary, right now

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I'm the only missionary for North America, there's another one they're trying to get through on a visa, and obviously another reason for funding is we're trying to get more missionaries.

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I mean, it's kind of hard for me to go back and forth all over the country, you know. It was hard enough for you to make it to lunch today, with all the traffic.

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Well, I don't know if we want to talk about it, but if anybody out there, hopefully it's open, but 76 east of 99 was closed,

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I don't know if it's open, but man, that was not fun, but here I am! I made it in time.

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Praise God. Okay, well, we're going to be repeating the contact information for Christian Visas to Israel later on, but if anybody is interested in finding out more information, it's

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CWINA .org, CWINA .org, and as I said, we'll be repeating that later as well,

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God willing. But now, it's time to hear about your personal testimony, something about the religious atmosphere of your upbringing as a child, and what were the circumstances that our sovereign

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Lord providentially rose up in your life to draw you to himself and save you? Yeah, I do love telling my testimony, and the bottom line is the reason is because it's really the gospel of Christ, you know, all over, and it should be in anyone's testimony.

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Yeah, I was born in the

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Brooklyn Jewish Hospital in 1955, so if you got your math, I am 63 and a half right now, on April 8th, and you know,

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I remember the first time I had to write my testimony. It's like, who of those back then knew that I would be writing and giving a testimony to meeting my

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Lord, Yeshua HaMashiach? But here I am, and growing up, my parents, you know,

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I guess I would call them secular Jews. I will say that what's interesting is the background of my parents.

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My dad was an Orthodox Jew until he went away to the war. Obviously, after that, things changed, and he is still alive at 93, living in Delray Beach, and I'm going to be visiting him,

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Lord in the beginning of December. I have been to that area.

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Delray, yeah. My mom just passed away on Mother's Day, and it's amazing how things that have happened to me, traumatic things that have happened to me, have always happened on dates that I can't forget, because I'm pretty forgetful when it comes to my dates.

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My wife used to have to remind me all the time, you know, today's your birthday, did you call?

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And of course, every wife has to remind her husband about their anniversary. Yeah, well, no, no, it was on Labor Day, so I'll never forget it.

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I know, I know, I know, I know, Labor Day, right? Laborious. Yeah, yeah, and very interesting that, yeah, my mom died on this

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Mother's Day, and I'll tell you, one of the biggest reasons that I'm doing what I'm doing, just to sidetrack a little bit, is my mom died without knowing the

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Lord. It hurts. Didn't have a great relationship with her, I admit to that, but still loved her.

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She still loved me, and when you see somebody that you love go into eternity, and you wish you just had one more opportunity to share, and so that is a big reason why

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I am doing what I am. But back to my story, my mom had a strange upbringing.

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Her dad was Catholic, and in fact, she has a whole half of the family that's

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Roman Catholic, but she always considered herself Jewish, and then I'm not sure how old my mom was when her mother converted to Christian science.

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Wow. So here, my mom, who got together with my dad, who I think when they first met, he was still living an

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Orthodox life. I'm not really positive about that, but I think he was. So she wanted so much to get, you know, like Ruth, she wanted to have those

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Jewish roots, but the crazy thing is, it was pretty much just secular Judaism, which is just people, and I shouldn't call it

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Judaism, just being a secular Jewish person, which is someone who identifies with being

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Jewish, but just doesn't want to be involved with any of the religious aspects of it, you know, and that's pretty much what

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I would say I grew up with. I was bar mitzvahed at 13, like any good

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Jewish boy was, and the funny thing is, I had opportunities,

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I think about it now, it's so funny, I wish I knew Hebrew, and I could care less back then.

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All I wanted was the big party and the money that came, which we had when I was 13, and that was wonderful, but after that bar mitzvah, that 13th birthday,

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I pretty much slipped away from Judaism, and it didn't take long before, you know, if you work out my age, obviously

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I grew up in the 70s, so that was the, you know, sex, drugs, rock and roll, you know, age in the 70s, and that's pretty much where I headed.

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And as I grew up, even though you're a little bit older than me, I still experienced those days of the 70s.

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Yes, didn't we all? Yeah, yeah, yeah, my kids used to ask me about the 70s all the time.

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The one thing I will say that they have, they did find out, what I've been telling them for a long time, the best music came from the 70s, except for the worship music nowadays.

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But yeah, so after my bar mitzvah,

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I just slowly went into that phase, was not a good student going through school and high school, but I did graduate, and I guess

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I would call myself, slowly became an atheist over those years, I just didn't understand how there could be a

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God, you know, it's that old, look at all this evil, look at the world, the world's a mess, there's no way.

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And that's pretty much what I came out of high school thinking, did go to college for a couple of years at American University, flunked out because obviously partying and the whole, like I said, sex, drugs, rock and roll life was much more important than education when

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I was 19, 20, and moved back to Brooklyn, and it was at that time that I, and thank

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God, you know, some people stay, and I still know some of my friends who are still doing drugs, they still do them, and I'm talking about,

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I was 20, now I'm 60, so for 40 some odd years, these friends that I had still doing them, but I realized in my young 20s,

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I just didn't want to do it anymore, I wanted to get out of it, and that's when the spiritual journey started, and it started maybe, and it's probably what a lot of secular

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Jews would say that they got involved with Eastern religions, you know, Idrik, Hell Cabran stuff, and the prophet, also believed in,

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Gandhi was a great man, and I started going that Eastern way, even did TM, Transcendental Meditation was real big, you know, the

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Beatles did it, how bad could it be, right? So I was doing Transcendental Meditation until I found out that you are over and over again repeating the name of a

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Hindu god, and I said, I don't think I want to do that anymore, so I knew

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I had to just keep searching, and I knew I didn't want to get be involved with the drug life, even though it was difficult to give that up, and this is the thing, this is amazing,

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I do not believe in just fire brimstone someone into the kingdom, but when

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I was at a mall, and it's called King Plaza, it was like one of the first big or great big malls in the country, it was in Brooklyn, and I remember we went to King's Plaza, and as I was in King's Plaza, they must have saw my profile, but this

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Jews for Jesus beelined me when I was in King's Plaza, he beelined right for me, and he started talking to me, and obviously

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I was giving in to Hell Cabron, and all my Eastern stuff, and he said, all those guys have pride, and I'm going, yeah, whatever, so we're going back and forth, and finally it was like, okay,

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I don't want to talk anymore, and as I turned to walk away from this gentleman, this Jews for Jesus who handed me a track, said to me,

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I know somebody who didn't accept Jesus, and died the same night, right, not exactly the, you know,

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I would call the gentleman way to witness, or to preach the gospel to somebody, or evangelize, but man, did it have an effect,

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I got in my car with my friend, I left him off, I ran home, I read that prayer, read the track, read the prayer, and then the next day went on with my life, you know, and still doing the drugs, trying to get off, and all this, but knew that something really shook me that night, which is amazing,

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I did not get saved that night, Chris, but I still remember that, and that happened, think about that, that happened over 43 years ago now, that happened, and I still remember it like it was yesterday, when that Jews for Jesus gentleman came up to me,

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I wouldn't suggest that anyone in the audience go about it that way, but it did have an effect on me, so I went on with things,

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I realized I got to get out of New York, you know, I went back home, tried school, and nothing was working, and I just knew

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I had to get out, so I literally packed everything up, and I drove,

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I got some other people from newspaper ads, I got some other people to drive across the country, made some stops that ended up going to the

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Mardi Gras, the Bicentennial Mardi Gras, so this is like 1976, I'm trying to remember if it was like,

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I guess we left about February, March, something like that, and got to California, thought

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I was going to go up to Frisco, you know, and the funny thing is I never ended up in Frisco, Frisco was like,

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I was a deadhead at one time, any deadheads out there? I still listen to them sometimes, but I was like a deadhead, loved the

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Frisco scene, I thought it was the best music in the world, right, so here I am, never got up to Frisco, I ended up in LA, and just trying to make my way through LA, and it was just not easy, there were times that I slept in my car, had some money saved before I left

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New York, and it was very strange, I'm trying to, it was at Universal Studios, I met a

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Persian gentleman who was a non -practicing Muslim, now Persia is Iran now, yeah, but back then it was still called

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Persia in the 70s, and so he was from Persia, and here I am, the non -practicing

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Jew, and the non -practicing Muslim, decide to become roommates, say let's become roommates, you know, what the heck, you know, we both wanted to be actors, we go, hey, makes sense, right, you know, your non -practicing attitudes kept you alive, there you go, yes, we were not at each other's throat, no, we, and you know, we both wanted to be actors at that time, that was my thing, oh,

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I think, I think that's what I should be doing, I become an actor, I'm a theatrical guy, you know, so I remember he came home with a list of theaters, and the first one on the list said

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Hollywood Free Theater, and the words Hollywood and free appeal to me, you know, you could say it's because I was

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Jewish, I'm allowed, I'm allowed to say it's because I was Jewish, you can't say, self -deprecating humor is allowed, yeah, always, you're always going to get it from me, big

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Woody Allen fan, so here I am, we go to this place, this non -practicing

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Muslim, he sees the place and goes, uh -oh, this is in Jesus' name,

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I'm out of here, okay, so I'm pretty sure he drove me that night, and the other guy said, don't worry, we'll drive you home, there were people

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I recognized there, there were names I recognized there, and this was like really cool, I get to Hollywood, these people

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I recognized, some of these are the kids of famous people, I was just like, whoa, this is cool, and they took me down, and they were doing this bicentennial play at Angela's Temple, I don't know if you know what

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Angela's Temple, well, Amy Sample McPherson, you might remember her from, I think it was the turn of the 20th century, she was in the 1920s, but she started the four square movement, and it was in this temple or church, it was the first mega church

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I found out in the country, so we were going to do it there on July 4th, this play, and they just gave me the part, they said, go ahead, we're giving you the part, and they knew

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I was the only non -Christian there, but these guys love on me, unlike the Jews for Jesus in the

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King's Plaza, who tried to scare me, these guys were just loving on me, and there was a

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Jewish woman who would watch, she lived right around the corner, and she would watch the rehearsals, and she was a believer, and she would start witnessing, and loving, all these people would love, they'd ask me to go out,

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I realized that was the big thing, after we did rehearsal, we go out and eat, that's what we do, so there was a lot of that, these guys loved on me, and loved on me, and we went out to eat, and we were getting closer to the play, and I was getting nervous, because I knew we were going to be performing in front of thousands of people at Angelus Temple for the bicentennial, so the night of the play, and obviously this

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Jewish woman has still been witnessing to me, and I said, man,

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I need to relax, I'm going to do the play, and it was Friday night, the play was going to be Saturday, which was July 4th, and on Friday night, there was a movie that opened called

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The Omen, remember that one, the original? Oh yeah, Gregory Peck. Yes, that's the one, and it opened,

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I guess, on July 3rd, and back then in LA, these theaters were like 24 -7,

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I don't know if it was like that, seven days, but at least on the weekends, so we went to a show,

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I couldn't get to sleep, and I was nervous, went to a show, had to be two, three in the morning, we got out at like five in the morning, she's explaining to me what's off the wall, what's right on, even though pretty much the whole movie's off the wall, but it was entertaining, come on, it was an entertaining film.

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Not to interrupt you too much, but The Omen, when I was a teenager, actually triggered an interest in the

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Bible in me that all my years of Catholic school did not, because of the mark of the beast in the whole thing, because it was like a sensationalistic thing.

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Yeah, eschatology, come on, everybody wants to hear that. I mean, one of the people that were involved that I went to church, his church, he used to have a,

24:00

Hal Lindsey used to have a church on Venice Beach that I used to go to, you know, and it was just real interesting, but talk about eschatology in the end times, it's all they ever talked about, but back to the story, so we went to see the play, must have got out,

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I guess it was like five in the morning or something, four or five in the morning, and we were doing the play that Saturday night, so she said, look, you know, let's have some coffee and talk, so I went to her apartment, we had coffee, we talked, and she said, would you like to accept

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Jesus, and I'm going, look, I did that, you know, I told her the story in the mall,

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I don't want to go through that again, she says, look, it's just you and me here, is I only ask one thing, if you're praying, just be sincere in your heart, all right, what the heck,

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I did, and I'm telling you, I knew that I felt the spirit dive inside of me,

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I felt Yeshua Hamashiach just come in and change my life at that moment, wow, it was just, it was fascinating,

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I remember everything changed at that moment, so here I am, I got saved on the morning of July 4th, 1976,

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I would never remember the date if it wasn't the bicentennial date, so I got saved on the bicentennial date, Independence Day has a new meaning, independent, and yes, yes, the nice Jewish boy went bananas on Independence Day and accepted

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Yeshua, so that day changed my life, and you know,

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I mean, it hasn't been easy, it's been a rollercoaster, but it's, since that moment on July 4th,

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I knew where I was going, I knew that I was his, and I've been his now for what, it's 42 and, you know, years now, 42 and a half years.

25:47

Praise God, we're going to our first station break, and when you come back, I want you to tell our listeners a story about Bob Dylan and Keith Green.

25:56

Ah, there we go. All right, if anybody would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

26:03

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. If you have a question, we already have several of you waiting to have your questions asked and answered, and we'll get to you as soon as we can.

26:13

If anybody would like to join them, it's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

26:21

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away.

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We'll be right back after these messages. And World provides clarity to the news stories that really matter.

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today. Also check out World News Group's podcast, The World and Everything in It, at wng .org

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forward slash podcast. That's W for world, N for news,

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G for group .org forward slash podcast. Hi, Phil Johnson here.

28:02

I'm executive director of John MacArthur's media ministry, Grace to You, and I'm also an occasional guest on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

28:10

So I'm delighted that my friend Chris Arnzen and I will be heading down to Atlanta for the

28:16

G3 conference, where I'll be joining James White, Steve Lawson, Vodie Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, Todd Friel, Josh Bice, and a host of other speakers to address the topic of biblical understanding of missions.

28:31

Chris Arnzen and I hope to see you all at this very important conference, from January 17th through the 19th.

28:39

Make sure you stop by the Iron Sharpen's Iron exhibitors booth to say hi to Chris. For more details, go to g3conference .com.

28:47

That's g3conference .com. See you there. Hi, I'm Stephan Lindblad, assistant professor of systematic theology at IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

29:03

I accepted this call to teach at the seminary because I'm firmly convinced that the people of God in the churches of our

29:11

Lord Jesus Christ need to be firmly grounded in the truth of Holy Scripture. I'm excited to be teaching such subjects as the nature of theology and the doctrine of Scripture, and even the doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

29:27

Our churches and our people need to be well grounded in these truths. Indeed, future ministers of the gospel need to understand these truths in order to proclaim them to all of God's people.

29:40

If you want to learn more about our program, visit us online at irbsseminary .org.

29:48

My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

29:55

I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the doctor of ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

30:01

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

30:07

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in midtown

30:12

Manhattan. You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc

30:20

.nyc. They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

30:28

If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

30:37

New Covenant Church NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc

30:44

.nyc. Have a great day. Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

30:55

I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years. His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

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Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

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Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently, he wrote a book titled Consider the

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Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword. Dan also has a master's degree in theology.

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Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states. He represents many

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Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

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He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for $1 million or more, and in approximately 10 different states.

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In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history. In New York, his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the law journal.

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If you have a serious personal injury or medical malpractice claim in any state, I recommend that you call

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Dan. Consultations are free. There is no fee unless you win. Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878.

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1 -800 -669 -4878. Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

32:23

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,

32:35

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

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back, and please don't forget to continue praying for Mike Gaydosch, who is still recovering from very serious, dangerous, complicated, and deadly open -heart surgery that he experienced.

33:47

He is recovering just well. He's not completely out of the woods, but he is recovering and continues to thank

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God for all of the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners who prayed for him before and during and after that surgery.

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Please order as much as you can from Solid Ground Christian Books, because while he was laid up in the hospital, he did suffer a setback in his sales and his income.

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and order as much as you can from Solid Ground Christian Books, including books that are available by the founder of Christian Witness to Israel, Robert Murray McShane, by the first pastor who preached for their conference, that was

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That's solid -ground -books .com. We are back now with our interview with Mitch Tepper, missionary for the

34:54

North American division of Christian Witness to Israel. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrizarnsen at gmail .com,

35:03

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

35:09

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal private matter. Before we go to your story about Bob Dylan and Keith Green, we have a listener who you know, that is

35:21

George Cipioni, who I've had on the program fairly recently, adjunct professor and the president or the director of the

35:32

Biblical Counseling Institute at Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

35:38

His question is, does Mitch have a new appreciation for the Psalms after attending

35:44

Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary? Oh, that is so, so true, so, so, so true.

35:51

One of the things I remember, one of the professors shared in a worship class... You might want to lift up your microphone because it keeps brushing against your...

35:58

Uh -oh, my bad. There you go, that's okay. Okay, one of the things that I loved learning, and it's helped me look at the

36:05

Psalms differently, other than singing in which I loved, was the fact that when

36:11

I look at a Psalm, realize that they were written by Jesus, they were written for Jesus, and they were written about Jesus.

36:22

Amen. Oh, that opened up a world to me to be able to look at a Psalm and to see that.

36:28

And another thing we would always, I'd love to do is see the Trinity in the Psalms. Amen. You know, seeing the

36:34

Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit in Psalms. And now the singing part, I love that. I've been trying...

36:40

My wife is a worship leader and has been for, you know, many, many years, probably 25, 30 years.

36:46

And during the time that she's been a worship leader, I've always... Well, since I've been to RPTS, I've tried to get her to incorporate those because I loved the acapella

36:55

Psalms that we would sing at the seminary. The thing that amazed me about them is how many people in most congregations don't, really know how to sing, period.

37:07

Sorry, guys. But these in the RP churches and in the seminary, they all knew the three -part harmonies.

37:15

And it was the most beautiful thing to listen to sing in acapella

37:20

Psalms. And yes, I do have an appreciation I haven't had before. And, you know, and I also have an appreciation for counseling because he used

37:28

Skip. And I... Hey, when am I getting my certification? That's what

37:33

I want. I want that certification. No, I'm kidding. And you know what

37:39

I love about the Psalms? My... Well, I shouldn't say my. I have a friend, Bill Shishko, Orthodox Presbyterian pastor, who always rebukes me every time

37:48

I say, my church. It's not your church. It's the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The church where I'm a member,

37:53

Grace Baptist Church, although we are not exclusive psalmody, we do have psalters in the pews, and we frequently sing psalms.

38:04

And the thing that I love about it is that it is a connection to the church, not only to the new covenant church, but even the old covenant church, going all the way back to the beginning, where we are reunited singing the same psalms, obviously, in different languages, but with the universal church in both the old and new covenant.

38:26

So I love that. Real quick, I just wanted to mention this because I was wearing a

38:33

Pray for Andrew Brunton bracelet. And for those of you who might know, and maybe some don't know, he was an

38:42

EPC pastor that was in Turkey. I didn't know he was EPC. He was an EPC... That's what you are. Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

38:49

I am under care with the EPC. That is not where I am currently. I'm kind of a staff member, even almost a full -time

38:57

CWI at a church called Intersection in Butler, PA, which my wife is the worship leader, and we attend.

39:05

But yes, I'm under care at the EPC. I would love sometime to be ordained in the world outreach, which means

39:12

I would have access to all 700 EPC churches, and that's something I'm looking to do. But Andrew Brunton, was an

39:17

EPC pastor, and he was freed. I think it was last week he was freed. And do you know how long he was in the

39:25

Turkish prison? He was there for a long time, but we weren't sure if he was going to get out alive. But yes, thank everybody for all the prayers.

39:34

He's now out. But don't stop praying for him because it's not easy. As he puts his bracelet back on to pray for Pastor Brunton.

39:41

Yeah, I realized, well, I don't need to pray for him anymore. And I'm going, yes, I do. He still needs our prayers, believe me.

39:48

Getting back into regular life. Especially since he is going to have opportunities that he probably never had before.

39:54

Oh, yeah. You know, to have an audience of millions. In fact, if you have any connections with getting him on this show,

40:00

I would love to interview him. Oh, that'd be great. Yeah, and you can even co -host with me if you want. I'd love to.

40:07

Look at this. I got a new gig. I'm Chris's co -host. So cool. Well, thank you,

40:13

Dr. Scipioni. And we look forward to having you back on the show as well. Love you, Skip. Let's go into the, before we go to any of our other listener questions, let's go to the story about Bob Dylan and Keith Green.

40:26

Okay. All right. I told you I got saved on the Bicentennial. Where I got saved was a place called the

40:34

Vineyard. I'm sure most of you know, but do you know that in 1976, there was one

40:39

Vineyard. It was before John Wimber was even involved with the Vineyard. He became the church planter later, but Ken Gullickson started the

40:47

Vineyard. Was it always that extreme and too charismatic? There was more of a, well, there are some that still have very balanced.

40:55

I know that the guy who married me from a Vineyard in upstate New York, Fishkill, his name is

41:02

Louis Lepidus, Louis loved Calvin. He considered himself like a charismatic

41:09

Calvinist. Believe it or not, I was interviewed years ago on the Trinity Broadcasting Network's affiliate in Fishkill.

41:16

Yeah. Isn't that something? But yeah, we would talk about that because he knew about my reform theology and RPTS, and we spoke about Calvin a lot, and he really was well -read on Calvin.

41:29

But yeah, back to that. Some of them are very balanced. In fact, the book that John Wimber, I think it's not an autobiography, but a biography on John Wimber, the title was

41:41

In Search of the Radical Middle. When I mentioned that title to Mia, she loves that idea of In Search of the

41:47

Radical Middle. That's something that's been a mission statement for me. I'm trying to live that In Search of the

41:54

Radical Middle in my life now, which is obviously, there was no one radical in him.

42:03

But back to Keith. When I went to the Vineyard, and I said,

42:09

Ken Gullickson started the Vineyard. Now, just so you know, the roots of the Vineyard is Ken came out of Calvary Chapel, which was

42:15

Chuck Smith's church. Greg Laurie, before he started

42:21

Harvest, he used to do the Saturday night concerts. I used to see him, and I used to see all these acts go down there.

42:28

But he pulled out and said, I want to go to West LA, Ken. That's how the Vineyard started in West LA.

42:35

Now, you know, there's probably thousands of vineyards in the world. It was pretty balanced at that time.

42:41

I still think there are some vineyards that are balanced. Same thing, you look at EPC, a lot of the others, there's a lot of different beliefs.

42:48

Some are complimentary, and some are equalitarianism, and there's just a lot of different thinking there.

42:53

I was at a pastor's gathering years ago in Long Island, and a vineyard pastor was there, and he broke down and wept because of his embarrassment by the extreme, unbiblical, charismatic extent that he went into, and evidently recovered from and was delivered from.

43:16

Yeah. I'll be very honest. I cannot refute some of the things

43:23

I've seen. I went to Mexico with the Vineyard. We were building a church, and there's things I saw that I can't deny.

43:29

I mean, some stuff I go, man, God still does miracles. I can't deny that. I'm trying to really be balanced in that.

43:39

I've read a lot of Grudem, so I like Grudem, even though I've heard he's gotten a little off the wall. Okay, well, we don't have to talk about that.

43:48

My favorite systematic book. Yeah, right, right. A lot of non -charismatics love

43:55

Wayne Grudem. Oh, he's great. I mean, he's just, man, he knows his systematics. So Keith was the worship leader when there was one vineyard, and man, the first time that I heard

44:07

Keith after I was saved, I was blown away. I have never seen anybody who was so convicting.

44:14

You could not listen to a Keith Green worship service or a concert or a preaching or anything without feeling,

44:22

I've got to go up front again. He just tore at you.

44:28

He was a Finney fan and Leonard Ravenhill fan and stuff. Obviously, nowadays,

44:35

I wouldn't agree with a lot of that. Well, especially Finney. Well, yeah, yeah. Let's just get him in a tent, and you can't leave until you accept

44:42

Jesus. And it's all up to you. Yeah, that's right.

44:48

And we don't care where your life goes after you're out of the tent. I kid.

44:56

But Keith was the worship leader, and he just had such a heart for God. And if anyone in the audience has ever had a chance to read his diaries, man, he never thought he did enough.

45:09

He always thought he was just not doing enough, and he was not a good Christian, and he was sinning too much.

45:16

But obviously, without even knowing it, he was understanding too much, right?

45:22

But, oh, man, what a heart this guy had. One of the very few people that was that popular who was honest enough about the heresies of Roman Catholicism and the differences between the false gospel of Rome and the true gospel of the

45:40

Reformation. Yes, yes. He was a lot more like Calvin than he even knew. But Keith was just amazing.

45:49

Keith, when I was—I told you that the woman who brought me to the

45:54

Lord, I was living with her. She said, in the Lord's eyes, we're married.

46:00

And Keith caught wind and came to the house where we were living. And this is after Keith baptized—because he and Cain Gellickson were the ones who baptized me in the

46:11

Pacific Ocean sometime in July of 76. But he came, heard about it, and I said,

46:17

I got nowhere to go. He said, you can't live like this. I said, I got nowhere to go. He says, I'm here.

46:23

Pack your bags, get some stuff, and you come live with me. And that was a life -changing experience because this guy, all he wanted to do was get people saved.

46:33

And unlike with the Finney thing, he discipled every one of these people. He wanted to make sure that they grew.

46:40

And that's when he left. I'm trying to remember the year he left, but it was near or right before 87.

46:48

There might be someone out there who knows the dates. But he started Last Days Ministry in Texas, and we would only see him when he would come for a concert.

46:59

And obviously, he died in that tragic plane crash with the Smallies, who I was really good friends with the first time.

47:05

When I got married to this girl that I was telling about, that I was living with, we did it in this

47:10

Christian nightclub that John Smalley took over, and his whole family died in that plane crash as well.

47:18

Oh, man, I'll never forget when we were—I don't remember the first time I heard it, but when we heard it, it was just devastating that he was gone.

47:27

And he just meant so much to so many people. And what's great is his music still means—I still try to turn people on to his music.

47:36

His music—I just don't know anybody who just cuts to the quick the way his music does, even to this day.

47:43

And he died at 28. Imagine, you know? Just like Robert Murray McShane died at 29, the founder of Christian Witness to Israel.

47:51

I didn't realize he died before 32. That's amazing. So just if you don't mind,

47:56

I'll take one Keith Green story that I love that just tells you the kind of heart man had.

48:03

He went to the president of Murr Records, you know, Word Records or Murr Records back then, and he said,

48:10

I just don't feel comfortable selling albums. For Jesus, it just doesn't make sense.

48:18

I should be selling these. And the president let him out. I don't know who the president was at that time of Murr Word, but he let him out of his contract.

48:28

What else could he do? He went down to Last Day, started his own record label, and he would just give the albums away.

48:34

And he got more than he would have got if he sold them at Murr. And all this money was going into this ranch that he had in Last Day's ministry.

48:43

You know, his wife and a couple of his children are still alive. And I guess they're still down there.

48:49

Melody, I think, was—and I would love to hear from her—but I think that she took it over, and I don't know exactly if one of the kids took it over, but what a great ministry that was down there that was really trying to disciple people, you know, whether it was addictions, whatever.

49:06

But that's my Keith Green thing. So I did love him, and he was an amazing man of God.

49:13

He went too early, but I'm looking forward to seeing him sometime. Now the Bob Dylan story. Bob Dylan, Bob!

49:19

Yeah, the Bob Dylan story, yeah! Could you imagine

49:26

Bob Dylan today being a contestant on America's Got Talent?

49:33

If they just heard him go, the answer, my friends! Because they don't care about the artistic end of it.

49:43

But anyway. Let me tell you, like everybody else that was in my generation, you know, whether you thought he had the worst voice in the world, you loved

49:54

Bob Dylan's music. I mean, his lyrics. Who wrote better lyrics than Bob Dylan?

50:00

You know, if you were a child of the 70s or even now listening to his music from the 60s, 70s, and all the way through now.

50:07

Great stuff. But yeah, I love Dylan, and I think it was around 82.

50:16

I'll go through roommate story, because the roommate story, it's hilarious to me that I had this, you know, and we talked about it.

50:22

We all had these kind of roommates who just told fish stories, like tall tales. You're going, yeah, right, whatever.

50:29

And he told me this tale that he had to leave.

50:36

He's passed on. He's now with the Lord, but so I can talk all about him now. I don't know if he's got a wife out there.

50:44

Where he is, he doesn't care about. He doesn't care about this story. Yeah. So, but I loved him.

50:51

And, you know, the name is Michael, and I loved him. He was my roommate. And he would tell the story how he wrote this book he had on coup d 'etat about the

51:00

President Kennedy assassination, and because he knew the truth, he had to run away, you know, and I'm going, yeah, whatever.

51:08

Okay. So here he is in California. We're roommates in California.

51:14

And at this time, I'm now married to that woman I was speaking about.

51:20

And so I wasn't his roommate anymore. And he comes to me one day at this

51:26

Bible study. I used to teach this Bible study. I was about 22, 23 in Hollywood. We taught this big Bible study where it was halfway houses.

51:33

So there was a lot of people that had to go plus people who wanted to go. You know, if they were staying in the house, they had to go and other people would come from Hollywood and even the valley.

51:44

And it was a large study. I remember the night I spoke on Matthew 23, okay, which was on the

51:50

Pharisees. And after I spoke, my ex -roommate

51:55

Mike comes up and says, someone wants to meet you. Okay. It was Bob Dylan. He wants to meet me.

52:02

And I'm going, what's this all about? And well, obviously, speaking on Matthew 23 was interesting enough.

52:08

And he just wanted to talk and he just apparently became a Christian. And he did tell me,

52:13

I think, Mike, a week before that, that he led Bob to the Lord, which wasn't exactly true, but still he brought him to the study and Bob spoke to me at the study.

52:27

And I told him about the Vineyard School Discipleship, which I attended the year before. And it's a wonderful place to get grounded because I got grounded there.

52:36

There were some really great teachers and pastors. And I guess some of them became professors that were at that Vineyard.

52:43

It was really good people. And I had really good teaching other than some of the off the wall stuff. It was good teaching.

52:49

But no, I loved it. And I talked him in to do it. We talked for like an hour and a half.

52:55

And the funny thing is, he needed a ride to his car because we spoke so long, everybody was gone except for us.

53:00

So I took him in my blue Gremlin. Could you imagine putting Bob Dylan in a blue Gremlin? Actually, yes.

53:06

I could picture Bob Dylan in a blue Gremlin. I'm going, oh, Lord. So I drove him to his car and he ended up going to school discipleship with my ex -wife.

53:18

So they became good friends. So he was able to come over the house one time and do music with my ex.

53:25

And that was like awesome. I couldn't believe that. And she became good friends with his fiance.

53:35

And they got real close. And then one day she came crying because Bob just left.

53:42

And I don't know how many years. Left the faith. Well, no. I'm not going to say, I have no idea that.

53:48

But I do know he left. He could not take any more the pressure he was feeling.

53:53

Do this concert, do that concert. Whatever it was that he was feeling, he couldn't handle it anymore.

53:59

Oh, left the business. Left. In other words, left the church. Oh, okay. Left the church. He obviously never got married to this woman.

54:06

And she was devastated by it. But the bottom line is, I have no idea where Bob's at in terms spiritually right now.

54:14

I know he went, I think he was with a little bovvish. He tried to do the Jewish. I have no idea. Somebody. Someone knows.

54:21

Bob, you know where you're at. Right. I remember seeing him receiving one.

54:26

I can't remember. What do they call those awards? The presidential awards for the arts or something? Yes. And in DC, you talk about, right?

54:32

Yes. And I remember, and I can't remember the woman's name, but she's a very famous black gospel singer.

54:40

And she was singing, you got to serve somebody. Oh, really? Bob Dylan's song to him. He was in the balcony as the artists are.

54:46

That's right. And she was saying to him, you got to serve somebody,

54:52

Bob Dylan, you got to serve somebody. It was like she was preaching to him, singing his own song to him.

54:58

Now, I always wondered what he was going through inside if he was thinking, man,

55:03

I have abandoned the truth or if he was just being entertained by her voice. I don't know. Oh, and that's the thing.

55:09

The thing of the story is I have no idea. He just, he left the vineyard. He left his fiance.

55:17

I have no idea if they ever got together in any way and spoke about things, but I remember how devastated a lot of people were.

55:25

And apparently, a lot of those people don't know where Bob is spiritually now. And I would love to think that if I don't see him in this life, that I'd see him in the next life, but only

55:36

God knows that. Yeah, we can pray that he returns to the truth or if he never truly embraced the truth that he comes for the first time.

55:43

Oh, but his songs are awesome. Oh, yeah. Three beautiful albums. And if you listen to him, if you haven't listened to all three, anybody out there, they're awesome albums.

55:51

Awesome albums. Well, we're going to go to, after our midway break, we're going to go to some of our listener questions. Okay. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

56:00

chrisarnson at gmail .com. If you have a question that you'd like to join those already waiting, this is our longer than normal break.

56:07

It's over 12 minutes, and that's because Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida requires this time to air their own commercials and public service announcements to localize

56:17

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to Lake City, Florida. So please be patient with us.

56:24

Write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can patronize them and subsequently causing them,

56:30

God willing, to remain as our advertisers, which subsequently will help us remain on the air because we depend upon their advertising dollars.

56:38

But also write in questions to our guest, Mitch Tepper at chrisarnson at gmail .com,

56:45

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, God willing, we will be right back right after these messages from our sponsors.

57:08

James White here, co -founder of Alvin Omega Ministries and occasional guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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I'm so delighted that my friend Chris Arnson will be heading down to Atlanta for the next G3 Conference from January 17th to the 19th, 2019, where I'll be joining a very impressive lineup of speakers on the theme,

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A Biblical Understanding of Missions. Speakers include John Piper, Steve Lawson, Vody Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, Phil Johnson, Josh Weiss, yours truly, and many more.

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I hope you all join Chris and me for this phenomenal event. For more details, go to g3conference .com.

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That's g3conference .com. Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is sponsored by Harvey Cedars, a year -round

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If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity.

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Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

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I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the doctor of ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

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I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

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It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

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You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc .nyc.

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They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

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If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

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.nyc. Have a great day. Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

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1 -800 -669 -4878. Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:03:38

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. I'm excited to be teaching such subjects as the nature of theology and the doctrine of Scripture, and even the doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

01:04:18

Our churches and our people need to be well grounded in these truths. Indeed, future ministers of the gospel need to understand these truths in order to proclaim them to all of God's people.

01:04:31

If you want to learn more about our program, visit us online at irbsseminary .org.

01:04:41

Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnson on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

01:04:47

I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

01:04:55

Todd and Patty specialize in supplying Reformed and Puritan books and Bibles at discount prices that make them affordable to everyone.

01:05:03

Since 1987, the family owned and operated book service has sought to bring you the best available

01:05:08

Christian books and Bibles at the best possible prices. Unlike other book sites, they make no effort to provide every book that is available because frankly, much of what is being printed is not worth your time.

01:05:21

That means you can get to the good stuff faster. It also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical and otherwise faith insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors.

01:05:34

Their website is cvbbs .com. Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work in service to you, the church and to Christ.

01:05:47

That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at cvbbs .com. That's cvbbs .com.

01:05:55

Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. And you could also call their toll -free number at 800 -656 -0231.

01:06:04

800 -656 -0231 if you order at least $50 worth of merchandise. And you mentioned

01:06:10

Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. Not only will you receive free shipping on your entire order of $50 or more, but you will also receive for free the journalable

01:06:19

Psalm 119 published by Reformation Heritage Books. And that is a lot harder to pronounce than you may think.

01:06:26

Journalable Psalm 119, if you mentioned Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. We just have a few announcements to make before we return to our guest today,

01:06:37

Mitch Tepper, the new missionary for the North American Division of Christian Witness to Israel, otherwise known as CWI.

01:06:44

First of all, someone that my guest knows, Rich Gamble.

01:06:50

He will be on the program tomorrow, Rich Gamble, who is on the faculty of Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

01:06:59

He is also author of The Whole Council of God, and we are going to be discussing that two -volume book tomorrow.

01:07:07

So make sure you write in your questions to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Also, not only for our guest today, but also for tomorrow's guest,

01:07:16

Richard Gamble. And mark that down on your calendar so you don't miss it. That's tomorrow,

01:07:22

Thursday, the 18th of October. We have some events that we don't want you to forget about as well.

01:07:30

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology at the

01:07:36

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania. I will be there manning an exhibitor's booth for Iron Trip and Zion Radio, God willing.

01:07:43

The theme is the glory of the cross. The speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Winn.

01:07:51

If you'd like to register, go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org, click on events, and then scroll down to Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology.

01:08:00

That's November 9th and the 10th at Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania. And then coming up in January, the

01:08:10

G3 Conference returns to College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, the

01:08:17

Georgia International Convention Center, to be more specific. The theme this

01:08:22

January is the mission of God, a biblical understanding of missions. I will be there for the third year in a row,

01:08:27

God willing, manning an Iron Trip and exhibitor's booth. And I strongly urge you to register for your own exhibitor's booth if you have a business or church or parachurch ministry that you want to promote to the crowd there.

01:08:42

They are expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people to be present at this conference.

01:08:49

Perhaps Mitch Tepper will join me at my exhibitor's booth and help promote Christian witness to Israel as well.

01:08:56

But this has got an enormous roster of speakers once again.

01:09:04

I almost said Christian witness to Israel. The G3 Conference roster of speakers this

01:09:11

January include Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, John Piper, Todd Freel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, Phil Johnson, Conrad M.

01:09:22

Bayway, Voti Baucom, the list goes on and on. Stephen J.

01:09:27

Nichols, who is the president of the Reformation Bible College, which is the college founded by the late

01:09:33

R .C. Sproul of Ligonier Ministries. It's a really enormous roster of names, a lot longer than the names

01:09:39

I've just included in this ad. So please go to g3conference .com

01:09:45

if you'd like to attend, g3conference .com. The conference is from Thursday, January 17th through Saturday, January 19th at the

01:09:53

Georgia International Convention Center, College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. And by the way, if you have

01:09:59

Spanish speaking and bilingual friends, there is an exclusively Spanish speaking edition of the conference on Wednesday, January 16th.

01:10:07

So you can tell them about that as well. Go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com. Last but not least, if you love

01:10:13

Iron Trump and Zion Radio, you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, if you love sharing the free

01:10:18

MP3s, if you love the guests and topics that we cover that are rarely heard anywhere else, please go to g3conference, not g3conference, go to irontrumpandzionradio .com,

01:10:31

irontrumpandzionradio .com, and then click support, then click, click to donate now, and you can donate instantly with a debit or credit card.

01:10:40

Remember my caveats that I try to remember every day, never siphon money away from your regular giving to your local church where you are a member.

01:10:48

Never do that, and never put your family in financial jeopardy by giving to Iron Trump and Zion Radio. Those two things are commands of God providing for your church and your home.

01:10:58

Providing for Iron Trump and Zion Radio is not a command of God, but if you are blessed financially above and beyond your ability to obey those two biblical commands, then please give as often as you can and as much as you can to Iron Trump and Zion Radio, irontrumpandzionradio .com,

01:11:15

click support, then click, click to donate now, and you could also mail in a check snail mail style to the address that will appear on your screen if you prefer doing snail mail.

01:11:26

Also, if you want to advertise with us, send us an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:11:33

put advertising in the subject line, and that's also the email address where you can send in a question to our guest

01:11:40

Mitch Tepper on his testimony on Jewish evangelism or specifically on Christian Witness to Israel.

01:11:47

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. By the way, if you are without a church home, if you're not prayerfully seeking for one, you are living in rebellion against God.

01:11:56

It is a clear biblical command for you to be under the submission of elders in a local church, and so therefore if you cannot find one, please send me an email.

01:12:08

I can help you find one, God willing. I have already helped a number of Iron Trump and Zion Radio listeners find church homes all over the world, from places here in the

01:12:17

United States all the way into Perth, Australia. I've helped find people church homes.

01:12:23

I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the world. So send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:12:31

and put I need a church home or something similar in the subject line. But now we are taking questions again for Mitch Tepper at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:12:41

Before we go to the listener questions, I just had to ask you how you as a

01:12:47

Jewish believer who did not begin your Christian journey in Calvinism or Sovereign Grace teaching or Reform theology, how did you discover and embrace and then even seek ordination in this theological wing of the church known as the

01:13:03

Reform faith? Very interesting. Yeah, that's funny.

01:13:08

You know, so many of us were looking for a church, and I remember going through that certain times in my life.

01:13:17

In fact, when I first got saved back in Hollywood, I went to a

01:13:24

Seventh -day Adventist church because they worshipped Saturday and ate kosher, and I did that.

01:13:30

Beyond kosher. Wait a minute. I did that. It was right around the corner from where I lived. I did that until they had this revival where they said they preached on why millions of Christians will go to hell because they're not worshipping on Saturdays and ate kosher, and that's when

01:13:46

I waved bye -bye to that church. But their view of hell is short -tripped though.

01:13:53

Yeah, it's annihilation. Yeah, I knew about that. But that was one of the places.

01:14:01

I mainly was at a lot of non -denominational, independent churches, a lot of charismatic churches, until I got to Pennsylvania with Mia, and the reason that we moved back here, we met in New York on a

01:14:19

Christian dating line. She was from Batlapea, but was living in Staten Island at the time, and we met online.

01:14:32

She is the reason that I started going to some of the denominational churches.

01:14:39

At the time, she wasn't even really walking with the Lord that much. She got out of a church that she was heard in.

01:14:46

I was going to a very charismatic church, and when we got close and started dating, she said that she wanted to be close to her mom because her mom was getting sick.

01:14:56

So we moved back to Butler. We literally got married and moved back to Butler. So when we went to Butler, there was a gentleman who was a friend of us for years that was going to a

01:15:09

Methodist church. So she said, this is a pretty popular church. So we went to a Methodist church.

01:15:15

I worked there for a while, believe it or not, as the adult minister.

01:15:22

I also worked with the CCO, if you know the CCO, the Coalition Christian Outreach, where they work with kids from the ages of 18 to 30, who is the largest group that's missing from churches.

01:15:36

After they're 18, they finish their youth groups and they leave.

01:15:45

Luckily, some of them come back, but a lot of them never come back. So I did that for a while.

01:15:51

When that ended, my wife Mia got a job in another church that this guy started, who was a pastor at a

01:16:08

Presbyterian church and started his own church. We were there for a while. Then out of nowhere, Mia got a call from a

01:16:15

Presbyterian church, which was still PCUSA at the time. So I followed her to this

01:16:21

PCUSA church, and they tried to be reformed in this church, and they left the

01:16:28

PCUSA, like many PCUSA churches are doing, and joined the

01:16:34

EPC. When they joined the EPC, they gave me the job of teaching Michael Horton's book,

01:16:41

You Know What's So Amazing About Grace. A great book. In fact, I interviewed Michael on that book. I think

01:16:47

I saw that on the site. I read the book, and things

01:16:53

I never thought about, Tulip and the Five Solas and all this stuff. Teaching it makes you really have to take it in a little deeper than most people who are students there.

01:17:07

So it really was a start. Then after that, I was looking for a seminary.

01:17:13

I almost went to PTA, which is connected with the PCUSA, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

01:17:19

I had an issue getting in there, so I tried RPTS. The president of RPTS at the time, he's not the president anymore,

01:17:27

Jerry O 'Neill, if you've met him. Jerry O 'Neill said, we're going to get you in here. I started in 2013, and by the time

01:17:37

I graduated at the age of 61 in May 2016, man, I was reformed.

01:17:43

I mean, three years of listening. I will tell you about Gamble. Gamble is probably as good as any systematic guy alive today.

01:17:52

He's our guest tomorrow for our minor listeners. That is awesome. Guys, you've got to listen to him. We've been waiting probably five, six years to finish volume two, and it's finally done.

01:18:04

I'm looking forward to getting volume two. Volume one is a great book. I'm looking forward to hearing them.

01:18:10

We who are reformed, at least some of us, always love to hear about Jewish believers, not only first and foremost becoming

01:18:19

Christians, but it's also a wonderful bonus when they embrace the doctrines of reformed theology, because it's rarer than a

01:18:27

Bigfoot sighting. I saw him on the way here,

01:18:33

Ben. No, you're right. Oh, man. It makes so much sense as a

01:18:41

Jewish person and as a Jewish believer to believe in reformed theology. Yeah, I can never understand the hostility that some of the

01:18:47

Messianic Jews have against Calvin, because when you think about the whole concept of the elect and the old covenant, when you have a minority of people in the world being chosen by God from among the nations, not because of anything they believed or did, or of their goodness by any stretch of the imagination, and that they were a covenant people to the exclusion of the pagans and all the other folks.

01:19:17

It's amazing to me how Jews would find repulsive the concept of unconditional election, that his people from every tribe and people and nation are elected and adopted by him, not because of things that they do or believe.

01:19:32

You said it. I mean, it should be obvious to anyone, but especially a

01:19:37

Jewish person, that the Jews were God's chosen people, not because they were special.

01:19:42

They were the least, they were the weakest. Everything about the choice of Jews and Israel, the

01:19:49

Jewish people in Israel, points to predestination and Reformed theology, and everything that we learn about Reformed theology, it makes perfect sense with Israel and all the way from Abraham until now.

01:20:06

You're right, I don't understand it either. All right, let's go to our first, or not our first, but our next listener question.

01:20:14

Murray in Kinross, Scotland. Murray? Yes, not Jewish. It's not

01:20:20

John Murray? No, Murray's his first name. In Kinross, Scotland, what would you consider the most effective approach in evangelism for allaying the fears of Jewish people who instinctively think you are trying to stop them from being

01:20:38

Jewish? That's where education comes in. That, you know, that statement we were talking about at lunch, that the

01:20:48

Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. The more education that the church has, the more obvious it is that everything, and we were talking about it also at lunch today, about Romans 9, 1, 4, 5.

01:21:07

If you look at that, he starts off on the chapter with pleading that I'm telling you the truth, and then he continues by speaking about,

01:21:16

I would give my salvation. Even though you can't do it, I would, and I believe that he wants us to understand he would if he could, and there are many other men of God over the centuries that have said, if I would,

01:21:27

I would give my salvation to get this person saved. And then he continues from there in 4 and 5 to say that everything you believe, speaking to, in Romans, to the

01:21:40

Gentile church, everything you believe, every single thing, and if you return to those scriptures, you'll see it, whether it's the patriarchs, whether it's the law, whether it's the covenant, whether it's worship, we came from the priestly worship, all the way down to the most important, the

01:21:54

Messiah comes from the Jewish faith.

01:22:00

It all comes from the Jewish faith. So how, if we have our education right, if we really study

01:22:07

Romans, especially 9 to 11, how could we not communicate to a

01:22:13

Jewish person, and not only that, but how could we not realize how Jewish it is, what we believe, how

01:22:20

Jewish our roots are. That is what I'm all about, and that's what CWI is all about, and that's what all

01:22:25

Jewish missions are all about, is to letting us all know, as a church, we need to know that our roots are

01:22:33

Jewish, and that we have, and if you read on 10 and 11, we have an obligation to go back to the

01:22:41

Jewish race because everything we believe came from them, we have an obligation to give it back, and that is something we should get excited about.

01:22:50

We should get excited, whether it's through our prayers, we should get excited, whether we want to say, hey, let me hit the streets,

01:22:57

I want to talk to the Jewish people about the Lord, and all of, there's very few people that I know that don't have someone in their life that is

01:23:08

Jewish that they can talk to about him, whether it's sit down, have some coffee, as we say in New York, right, have some coffee, sit down, and explain, and you want to have a relationship, you want to have a relationship, and if my favorite apologetic now isn't the

01:23:25

Josh McDowell apologetic, it's the Stan Bonson apologetic, the Voss apologetic, which comes from presuppositional.

01:23:34

You mean Greg Bonson? Greg Bonson. I said Stan Bonson. Stan Bonson, I think, was a

01:23:40

Yankee. I got Yankees in my mind, even though they're out of it, but yeah, go

01:23:46

Greg Bonson. The whole idea of presuppositional apologetics, which is really getting into the philosophy that people have, and there's nothing more

01:23:55

Jewish than what we in the church believe, and we need to see it.

01:24:01

The problem is many evangelicals don't see the roots. I wrote a manuscript years ago called

01:24:09

The Roots of Christianity, Judaism Fulfilled. That's what it is, but more so to take it past that and see our own responsibility, not just in knowing, but in able to communicate.

01:24:21

If you can witness to a Jewish person, you can witness to anybody, and that includes

01:24:28

Muslim, that includes agnostic atheists, and there's nothing like knowing your roots.

01:24:36

I hope I answered the question with that, but if I had to say the best way, relationship is the best way.

01:24:42

You're not going to be able to just get someone saved in the street, but what you do realize when you talk to people on the street, or whether you talk to them in a coffee shop, is that you might just be someone on the line of them getting saved.

01:24:55

You could just be the one planting the seed. You could be the one watering it, or maybe God will put you in a place where you're the one praying with them to accept

01:25:02

Yeshua. But wherever you are, you are part of the process, and when we are at that bema seed, when we're up at that judgment where God's going to speak to us believers, we're going to realize that the seeds that we planted, how many people are in the kingdom because of the seeds we planted, not worrying about getting the glory and leading them in prayer, but just planting seeds, planting seeds, watering seeds.

01:25:26

And if you have that attitude, you'll touch a lot more people than if you say, I want to pray with somebody. Don't worry about that.

01:25:31

Just plant the seeds. And make relationships. Of course, we know that the

01:25:37

Apostle Paul, when he came to embrace Christ after his experience on the road to Damascus, he did not become a

01:25:45

Gentile. He was still a Jew of Jews, a Hebrew of Hebrews. And Jesus Christ was, and always will be, a

01:25:55

Jew. Jesus Christ, the God man. There was no,

01:26:01

I mean, Jesus Christ, of course, didn't convert to anything, but he never ceased being

01:26:08

Jewish. He didn't become a Gentile in his flesh. So the whole concept of a

01:26:13

Jew stopping being a Jew is nonsensical. And as even

01:26:19

Jews know, for some reason, they willingly and gladly view atheists and Buddhists and Hindus and those who are involved in all kinds of non -Christian religions as Jews, if they began as Jews, if they were born as Jews, for some reason, they are still viewed, even by the

01:26:43

Orthodox and the Hasidic, they view them as Jews. But if somebody becomes a Christian and they're somehow a traitor and no longer...

01:26:51

It's good. We found that out. I don't know how many more questions you have, but I wanted to be able to share

01:26:57

Paris with you when I have some time. Yeah, when we come back from our final break, we just have a couple of questions.

01:27:04

We have Josh in Mechanicsburg. Thank you again, Chris, for having another great guest on Iron Trippin's Iron.

01:27:12

I've heard many people, mainly those with a strong anti -Reform view, often mention that the

01:27:18

Reformers were strongly anti -Semitic. Could your guests speak to the truth of how the Reformers desired for the

01:27:24

Jews to be saved, especially the early Puritans? Well, the Puritans, you're not going to have a problem with, but you will see there were a lot of Reformers.

01:27:34

People accuse Calvin, some of the other

01:27:42

Reformers they're going to accuse. Obviously, the biggest is going to be Luther.

01:27:47

And obviously, the things that Luther said in the end of his life, I cannot make any excuses for what

01:27:55

Luther said. And we know that Hitler used what Luther said to incite the

01:28:01

Germans against the Jews. He didn't need that, though. He would have used anything if he had his hands on it.

01:28:07

Well, hey, you know, I mean, think about it. If you're going to use something, why not use Luther, one of the great heroes in Germany?

01:28:14

Especially since there were so many Lutherans in Germany. Yes, of course. I mean, the country was basically either Lutheran or Catholic. Yes. So when you look at that, and I'm going to be real honest, is when

01:28:23

I hit the streets, like I was talking about in Paris, speaking to religious

01:28:31

Jews, speaking to secular Jews, speaking to agnostic Jews, when speaking to them, there is a frustration that takes place when

01:28:40

I could speak to anyone else in the street, and they're more open for a conversation.

01:28:45

Not that everybody is, but in terms of percentages, there's only 16 million

01:28:51

Jews in the world, believe it or not. France is the third population in the world of Jewish people, you know, behind Israel and New York.

01:29:03

So there is that frustration. And I've spoken to enough Jewish people in my life to sense the frustration.

01:29:10

Yes. So your call or the question is correct. And that's what, when we go back to the start of the

01:29:19

CWI, Robert Murray McShane knew there was a lot of anti -Semitism that was all through history.

01:29:27

I mean, come on. There's a great book Michael Brown wrote called

01:29:32

Our Hands are Stained with Blood, which speaks of all the blood that was shed in the name of Jesus.

01:29:40

Okay. And it hasn't exactly stopped, but it's a little different now than it was then. So much blood, you can talk about the

01:29:47

Inquisition, you can talk about the Crusades, you can talk about the Holocaust, the pogroms, you know, what happened in Russia.

01:29:55

I mean, and when you look at all that, this is what a Jewish person sees. And we need to be sensitive to the fact that our hands are stained with blood, because obviously they weren't

01:30:08

Christians, but it was in his name that they did this. And we need to see that. And McShane realized that 175 years ago, all of this anti -Semitism that continued through the

01:30:19

Reformation. And look, I'm not going to make excuses for Luther, but I will stand up and say

01:30:24

I understand the frustration that comes about, because think about what happened to Judaism.

01:30:32

There used to be a Biblical Judaism, and there are very few, and well, let's be honest, those who practice

01:30:41

Biblical Judaism are Messianic Jews who understand that Judaism is part of the heritage, or there are obviously a lot in the

01:30:50

Gentile Church and Evangelical Church that do believe in Biblical Judaism. The problem is

01:30:56

Biblical Judaism left a long time ago. I mean, you could look at when

01:31:03

Israel left Egypt, and, you know, you're going to get as close to a theonomy as you're ever going to have back then, and it didn't really work.

01:31:13

These guys rebelled, rebelled, rebelled. So you realize that as you go through history and all the hatred, whether you want to look back then at the

01:31:23

Babylonians and Egypt and Assyrians, and then you go through time and you see with the Greek and with the

01:31:29

Roman, you know, and the Medo -Persians and all this, and you just go over and over, and you see all this anti -Semitism against this small group of people that God was going to make sure and still make sure that they're going to survive through all the hatred around him, even now with all the

01:31:44

Muslim countries that would like to destroy them. And God has kept them alive through all this.

01:31:51

I mean, you talk about miracles. Is that the greatest miracle in the world, that Israel is around and that there's probably,

01:31:58

I think there are 30 ,000 Messianic believers in Israel today?

01:32:05

Where there used to be just hundreds back in, you know, 46 when it first became a state, there were just hundreds.

01:32:11

And now there's 30 ,000, so it is growing and people are going back. You know, on the other hand, half of the

01:32:18

Jews in the world are either secular Jews or agnostic or atheist

01:32:25

Jews. So half of those 16 million, around 8 million. So that's amazing to me.

01:32:32

But we need to understand that anti -Semitism is wrong, that the frustration of understanding once the temple was destroyed and Judaism became

01:32:47

Talmudic, it became rabbinical. Okay. So when you look at a Jewish person who's religious, we're just talking about religious

01:32:53

Jews, they believe in the Tanakh. Most of them pretty much just believe in the first five books as being the important ones.

01:33:01

They believe in that Tanakh. That's what's really, really important to them. They believe in Svillin, which

01:33:07

I brought one for you to see. Remember I showed you that? Which is the box that they wear on their head and their arms.

01:33:13

They believe in that. They believe in Misfits, which is good works and studying

01:33:18

Torah. If you know those things, that's what they believe salvation is based on. And we just had Yom Kippur a month ago, right?

01:33:24

The High Holy Days, which is a wonderful thing that we should celebrate the

01:33:30

High Holy Days. Why don't we celebrate the High Holy Days? That's another thing. But if we celebrated it and got an education on this, we'd understand what a

01:33:39

Jewish person believes and how far off the track they are because they're not even close to biblical

01:33:44

Judaism. They have a rabbinical or Talmudic Judaism that we need to shake up. And the way to shake that up is understand it, is to want to be educated, to want to sit down and know, do your studies.

01:33:57

Because when you do, it will not just help you speak to a Jewish person and give you a passion to speak to a

01:34:04

Jewish person. It will give you a passion to evangelize everyone God put you in contact with.

01:34:09

And that is the bottom line. God wants you to evangelize to every single person that crossed your path in life.

01:34:18

And evangelism comes in many shapes and sizes. But the one thing is, in some way or another, you are leading a person towards Yeshua, towards Christ, towards Yeshua HaMashiach.

01:34:29

That's what we're all about. And yes, anti -Semitism is alive. It's been alive from the beginning.

01:34:35

And we need to fight against it with education. Amen. And even though I would never try to excuse or excuse,

01:34:46

I should say, Luther's anti -Semitic ravings, at the same time, the kind of anti -Semitism that he was guilty of was theological.

01:34:57

Unlike the Nazis that would arrive on the scene 500 years later, the

01:35:04

Nazis did not care if you converted to Christianity. If you had, quote -unquote, Jewish blood in you, generations back, they wanted you to die.

01:35:12

Luther wanted Jews to come to Christ. Yes. And that's the frustration, is they didn't, because there were no sacrifices.

01:35:19

There was no biblical Judaism. So he couldn't get through to them. At the beginning, he thought, okay, no more indulgences.

01:35:27

We're going to have a Reformation. All that Catholic stuff that happened. No more Inquisition. None of that's going to happen.

01:35:33

We're going to love on you now, and you're going to get it. But they didn't get it, because their rabbinical Judaism was so cemented.

01:35:39

Think about it. The rabbinical Judaism started even before, with the Pharisees, even before the

01:35:45

Temple was destroyed. Once the Temple was destroyed, that was in cement. So from the time of the Temple to Luther, think about all those years.

01:35:53

We're talking about over a thousand years of being able to set in cement what

01:35:58

Judaism was to them, and it was totally wrong. It was not biblical. Like I said,

01:36:03

Talmudic, and the Talmud is the interpretation of the law, and they believe in that much more than they believe in the

01:36:09

Tanakh and the Torah. We have to go to our final break right now. If you would like to join us during this last break, please send in your question very quickly, because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:36:27

ChrisArnson at gmail .com. ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Before we go to your Paris update, your trip to Paris, when we come back from the break,

01:36:38

Josh from Mechanicsburg just had one more question, and I'll read it to you now, and you can answer it when he comes back, when we come back.

01:36:43

Since Brother Mitch mentioned his recent study of Romans 9 through 11, please exegete and explain the meaning and interpretation of Romans 11, verse 25 to 26, specifically how we are to understand all

01:36:56

Israel will be saved within its immediate and broader context of the letter to the Romans and the rest of the

01:37:02

Bible. Thank you so much for your ministry to the Jews and leading others on mission of proclaiming

01:37:08

Jesus the Messiah. Of course, that verse is even interpreted and exegeted differently, even by Reformed people, amillennialists, postmillennialists, and they all disagree to some extent.

01:37:22

You'll even have postmillennialists disagreeing with each other and amillennialists disagreeing with their own fellow amillennialists over what that means, and even our premillennialist brethren disagree.

01:37:33

By the way, which are you, or do you have a settled position? I'm still working on it. Well, we're going to our final break, so don't go away,

01:37:42

God willing. We will be right back right after these messages from our sponsors. Gotta tell you, for my money,

01:37:49

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It's a great conference. I love it. And Chris Arnzen was there last year. He's been there, I think, every year.

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It's great to see him there. You and I actually did some recordings in the lobby at that place, which is a highlight.

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I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, Pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

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We are a Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689.

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We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how

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01:39:55

Apostles' priority, it must not be ours either. We believe, by God's grace, that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

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01:42:28

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01:42:44

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01:42:55

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01:43:04

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01:43:19

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01:43:32

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01:43:53

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01:44:08

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01:44:51

Spread the word about firstloveradio .org. Welcome back, and just another note from our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

01:45:11

If you order The Whole Council of God, which is a 1 ,800 -page two -volume set, it retails for $109 .98.

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01:45:30

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01:45:44

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01:46:03

I heard about you from Iron Trepans Iron Radio. We are now back with our guest, Mitch Tepper, for our last 20 minutes or so of our interview.

01:46:12

He is the new missionary for CWI, Christian Witness to Israel, specifically the

01:46:19

North American Division of Christian Witness to Israel. We're going to hear in a moment about his trip to France that just occurred very recently that he just returned home from, and so if you'd like to do it now or forever, hold your peace because we're running out of time very rapidly.

01:46:37

ChrisArnson at gmail .com, ChrisArnson at gmail .com, and please give us your first name, your city and state, and country of residence.

01:46:47

We just heard before the second question from Josh in Mechanicsburg. He basically wants to know what the

01:46:53

Apostle Paul meant by all Israel shall be saved. Okay, here you go.

01:47:00

Tough stuff we're going to be dealing with. One of the things that's obvious, Jesus, I was looking for the exact scripture.

01:47:05

I had it written in a sermon I just did a week or so ago. In fact, it was on Romans where Jesus speaks.

01:47:14

I know it's somewhere in Matthew between 11 and 14 chapter where he says not all from the house of Israel will be saved, and then we see what

01:47:25

Paul says here. So how do you put those two statements together? Well, the obvious thing is without believing in replacement theology, we have been grafted into Israel.

01:47:37

And when you look at Israel, you have to think of the priestly prayer that everyone that it's,

01:47:46

Jesus said this in the priest's prayer, there is not one that you have given to me, Father, that I have let go of.

01:47:52

That is the remnant. That is the elect. That is what Israel is.

01:47:59

Israel and the Jews will always be the Jewish people in Israel. But you have been grafted on if you're a

01:48:06

Gentile, not replacement theology. You have been grafted on. And when the time of the

01:48:12

Gentiles is fulfilled, what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to make the

01:48:17

Jewish people jealous. Are we doing that? Well, to me, that's what part of that prophecy is about, is we are supposed to make the

01:48:27

Jewish people jealous. That's what we need to do. We need to live a life and a life that understands true biblical

01:48:35

Judaism and are able to share that with our Jewish unbelieving brethren.

01:48:42

We need to share with them because that remnant is out there and God wants to use us. Okay, no one's got the mark in their head, all right?

01:48:49

Nobody, and hopefully we don't believe in the hyper -Calvinists that we don't have to worry about it. We need to get out there and speak to everybody.

01:48:58

So all of Israel being saved is whoever is elected, whoever is called, they will be saved and that time will come.

01:49:07

What the big thing is, there will be a revival of Jewish people that come to the

01:49:14

Lord and we sense it. As I spoke right before we ended, we went from 46 where there was just a couple of hundred to 30 ,000, okay, messianic

01:49:26

Jews that are in Israel right now and it's going to grow and it's going to continue to grow, especially if we as the evangelical church do our job, go through the education that we need.

01:49:40

That's the problem. Hey, look, my wife and I, Chris, we realized how assimilated both of us were into the

01:49:47

Gentile church and we forgot our Jewish roots. That's why we do this. We started a messianic fellowship called

01:49:53

Beth Shalom. Beth Shalom is the place I got permits for that. So we named it that. We were going to name it

01:49:58

Butler Messianic Fellowship. Instead, we call it Beth Shalom Fellowship. We had our first Jewish person who was not a believer who came last

01:50:09

Friday. It was awesome. You want tears to come to your eye? You see an unbelieving

01:50:15

Jewish person walk into this messianic fellowship that we had and they were excited that they saw the

01:50:22

Jewishness in what we were doing, but we also proclaimed Mashiach the whole time. It was all about Mashiach.

01:50:29

I preached on Ezekiel 37, which happened to be the first sermon that was preached by Spurgeon was on Ezekiel 37.

01:50:37

I took some of that and went with it. I hope I answered your question. I think we have to be that balance, that radical middle where you don't want to say it's all about replacement theology.

01:50:48

You don't want to say they come through the back door, but you want to understand God saves who he will save.

01:50:54

He will not save every Jewish person just like he will not save every Gentile person. Those who are circumcised of the heart.

01:51:00

That's it. The total Israel is every person that God has chosen and elected, the remnant that he's either grafted on or the original branches.

01:51:12

That is as simple as I could make that scripture. I think the problem is people try to tear it apart and say, what does he mean?

01:51:20

It's simple. God saves who he's going to save. He wants to hate Esau and love Jacob. That's his prerogative, not ours.

01:51:28

Well, I want you to have the final five minutes to talk about your trip to France.

01:51:34

Like I was mentioning before, it was a life changing for both me and my wife. My wife Mia was,

01:51:41

I always let her tell, she always likes to let me know how anxious she is about the stuff that we do.

01:51:48

She doesn't realize I'm anxious a lot of times too. By the way, do children call her Mama Mia?

01:51:54

Yes, that's true. My kids call her Step Mama Mia. Step Mama Mia, are you out there listening?

01:52:02

I hope so. Okay. If not, you can listen to the archive. But she was so nervous.

01:52:11

The first day she was shadowing me. After the first day when she got more training, because we train every morning before we go out in the streets, she was doing her thing.

01:52:22

She was better at it than me. You want to know why? Because she developed relationships. I'm like, I just want to hit, you know, okay.

01:52:28

Let me talk. Oh, you don't want to talk. Okay. There's someone else who might want to talk. I'm like that. She was developing relationships with people.

01:52:35

Exactly what we're talking about before. If you really want to get inside a person, develop a relationship where they trust you.

01:52:40

And she was doing that. After, I guess it was 10, 11 days in the street, I knew this was what

01:52:47

I was going to do for the rest of my life. I knew that just like Jacob, I did some stupid stuff in my life, but I was going to finish well.

01:52:55

And this is to me the best way of finishing well is getting out there. And look, there's a great little vision that God gave me a long time ago, which is

01:53:04

I am not a thief in the cross. Thief in the cross, got to accept the Lord and die.

01:53:10

The rest of us have to live here. Some of us for 10 years, some of us for 70 years after we know the

01:53:17

Lord. The point or the question you should be asking yourself, why am I still here? Why did I not go up like the thief in the cross?

01:53:23

Well, it's an obvious answer. He has you here to do work. Well, what's the work? Well, that's obvious too.

01:53:29

Find ways to share Yeshua with everybody God brings in contact with you. Paris was an awesome thing.

01:53:35

We got to speak to, I'll tell you one great story. Hopefully you'll let me have this. If we go over six, what are you going to do?

01:53:41

Shut me down? No, we will for the archive have to edit out some ads. Oh, that's fine.

01:53:47

So there was a Chabad center, a

01:53:53

Lubavitch. And in the Lubavitch, they had these

01:54:01

Jewish teenagers that were from Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Okay. Now the story is absolutely amazing to me.

01:54:10

Then the reason I brought Sfilon in is these Chabadniks would not speak to me unless I was

01:54:16

Sfilon. My other leaders there, they spoke against it and I'm going, no, if I could speak to them.

01:54:24

And as Stephen told me, he says, you were a Jew to Jews. You had to be who you are to whoever you're speaking to.

01:54:33

And I wore it. They spoke to me. I got to share with them things like Isaiah 53, which you all know is the messianic scripture, the suffering servant, 714,

01:54:45

Psalm 22, Leviticus 17, 11, because most of these religious Jews pretty much believe in the

01:54:51

Torah more than anything. But Leviticus 17 says the life is in the blood. There is only atonement through the shedding of blood.

01:54:58

You can't deny this. When I read it to these teenagers, they said, oh, that's not in the Bible. I said, you read it. You tell me it's not in there.

01:55:04

It's in there. Okay. So we went over that stuff and I spoke to this one gentleman three times and I was able to share with him, some of you might not know this, but there is a rabbi,

01:55:20

Schneerson, who they believe is the Messiah. He happened to die about 20 years ago,

01:55:26

I think. And he was from the Crown Heights. Now, when I got saved, this is so interesting.

01:55:31

When I got saved 42 years ago, you know what my parents did? They pulled me out of California, brought me to Schneerson back in Crown Heights.

01:55:40

So these guys that I was talking to were talking about a dead rabbi that I got to speak to 40 years ago when my parents sent me.

01:55:50

They had to deprogram me. I mean, it's like amazing. So I was able to share this and it was a connection. And your parents weren't even religious

01:55:56

Jews. Oh, no. That's because they would rather me be an orthodox Lubavitch than,

01:56:01

God forbid, a Christian. So there's other stories I can go on forever, but obviously you don't have time for me to go on forever.

01:56:09

But I do want you to know, I have a lot of Jewish friends I grew up with that,

01:56:15

I doubt any of them are listening, but in case they are, I have not been as intentional.

01:56:21

And I want to end by letting you know, I wasn't intentional enough with my mom. I have not been intentional enough with the

01:56:28

Jewish friends that I grew up with. We need to be intentional. Finish well. I don't know how many more years any of us have, but as long as I'm down here, as long as you are all down there, we need to be intentional about sharing

01:56:42

Yeshua. And the intentionality is know enough so you will be comfortable and have a desire not just to share with Gentiles, but to share with everyone, to share with Jewish people that might be in your life.

01:56:55

And that is so important. And that's what the CWR is about. And I want to close by asking you guys,

01:57:02

I need, I need, I need, I need your prayers very much. If there are any people interested in training, hopefully

01:57:10

I'm going to be at a lot of different churches in different states. Maybe I'll be in your city. I would love to be able to train people who would love to go out in the streets.

01:57:20

I would love to train people so they know how to have conversations, whether it's in a coffee house, an apartment or in the streets.

01:57:27

And obviously we need, we need financial support because I'm the only missionary and we need more than one. We need more missionaries.

01:57:34

So with that being said, you know, we're going to, I guess, give the information. CWINA .org

01:57:40

is where you can press donate and donate there. And the headquarters that Steven Atkinson is in, is in Arkansas.

01:57:50

This has been an awesome experience for me, I got to tell you, and I would do it again with you in a heartbeat.

01:57:55

Well, yeah, I'd love to have you come back whenever you're available to even co -host with me. And what is the contact information for the

01:58:03

Messianic congregation? Okay. It's 581

01:58:09

Hanson Avenue in Butler, PA. That is, it's

01:58:14

Beth Shalom Fellowship. It's 7 p .m. every Friday. And we do

01:58:20

Messianic worship. We do a Friday night Shabbat service with the candles and the challah and the wine or grape juice, obviously, we use.

01:58:31

And, you know, we preach a short sermon and hopefully we'll get more, you know,

01:58:37

Jewish people to come because Butler is not filled with them. The demographics aren't great. And do you have a website for the

01:58:46

Messianic synagogue, or should I say Messianic congregation? No, right now everything is under Facebook, Broken Places.

01:58:55

We will start our own. We just started three weeks ago, so it's been less than a month.

01:59:00

But right now it's under Broken Places on Facebook. You can get to Broken Places on Facebook.

01:59:06

You'll know it by the address, which is Hanson Avenue in Butler. We will have our own, which would be under Beth Shalom Fellowship, and we should be opening it up in the next couple of weeks.

01:59:17

Great. Well, I look forward to having you back, not only soon, but very frequently. I love interviewing you face to face because it's like watching a conductor conducting a symphony, just like the

01:59:29

New York Italians that I love so well, the New York Jews. I got a little Italian in me.

01:59:35

Yes, I do. You should have seen him flailing his arms around. But anyway, thank you so much,

01:59:42

Mitch. Thank you so much, Stephen Atkinson, for strongly urging me to invite Mitch onto the program.

01:59:48

Thank you, everybody who listened, especially those who sent in questions. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater