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

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio

platform on which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues

facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one

man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, 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.

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.

Now here's.

Our host, Chris Arnson.

Good afternoon, 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.

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

October 2018.

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

God willing, this Friday, we are going to have as a guest one of the lead actors

of the new 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, 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 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 Mitch Tepper.

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

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

fact Stephen Atkinson, I believe he was my very first pastor's luncheon speaker

here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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

But he urged me to get Christian Witness to Israel's new

missionary on the program, 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.

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 I am.

Amen, and it's always great to have.

A New Yorker.

A New Yorker from Brooklyn.

Brooklyn in the house, everyone.

Yeah, it's not too often that I have native 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 New Yorker.

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

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 Christian rehab ministry a number of years ago in

Boone, North Carolina.

Hebron Colony Ministries.

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

Kentucky.

I was the only Yankee.

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

Oh, yeah, that's it.

And it actually would come out when I would say, you have any more coffee?

Ah, coffee.

There you go.

But anyway, Mitch, before we get into your personal testimony, which is in and of

itself fascinating, 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 North American Division.

Oh, definitely.

Christian Witness to Israel started in the UK, believe it or not,

in 1842 by Robert Murray McShane.

Now, he started what used to be called the propagation of the Jews back then.

And the reason he started, he noticed all the anti -Semitism that was taking place pretty

much from the beginning of time since Abraham all the way

through past the Reformation.

And obviously we know since McShane got on the scene, how much anti

-Semitism has continued.

But he started, like I said, in 1843, over 175 years ago,

because he said it's time to start loving on the Jews.

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

the CWI, and he got Spurgeon on board to,

believe it or not, Spurgeon was the one who, as far as I know, preached the first

sermon.

I think, like I said,.

It was called the propagation of the Jews back then.

I've heard that from Stephen that Spurgeon.

Was the first.

Yep, was the first.

And also Horatio Bonar was also a big part of it.

There's many others.

You can hear some amazing statements if you look at the website, which is 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 Jews.

And I guess the big thing for me, being a 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 Romans 9 to 11, the thing that

really got me is to realize Paul's just urgent appeal

and emotional appeal to the Gentile church, that everything that you

now have, everything now that you believe in, has come from the Jews, whether it's the patriarchs, whether

it's the law, the covenants, everything

up to and obviously very much concluding with the Mashiach,

Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus Christ, is also coming from the Jewish race.

And it's that appeal that we are still making 175 years after

McShane to get 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.

Amen.

And I know that the North American division is a lot more recent.

In its establishment than the UK.

Seven years.

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.

Stephen Atkinson.

Stephen Atkinson started it seven years ago.

Stephen Atkinson used to be with the UK.

He pretty much had to quit the UK to start the North America branch.

There was one other missionary.

Right now 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.

I mean, it's kind of hard for me to go back and.

Forth all over the country.

It was hard enough for you to make it to lunch today with all the traffic.

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.

I don't know if it's open, but man, that was not fun.

But here I am.

Amen.

I made it in time.

Praise God.

Okay.

Well, we're going to be repeating the contact information for Christians to

Israel later on.

But if anybody is interested in finding out more information, it's CWINA

.org.

CWINA .org.

And as I said, we'll be repeating that later as well, 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 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 all over.

And it should be in anyone's testimony.

Yeah, I was born in the

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, 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 Lord, Yeshua HaMashiach.

But here I am.

And growing up, my parents, you know, I guess I would

call them secular Jews.

I will say that what's interesting is the background of my parents.

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, Lord willing, in the beginning of December.

I have been to that area.

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.

My wife used to have to remind me all the time, you know, today's your mom's birthday.

Did you call?

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.

I know, I know, I know, I know.

Labor Day, right?

Laborious.

Yeah, yeah.

And, yeah, very interesting that, yeah, my mom died on this 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 Lord.

It hurts.

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

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 I am doing what I am.

But back to my story.

My mom has a strange upbringing.

Her dad was Catholic.

And, in fact, she has a whole half family that is 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.

Wow.

So here my mom, who got together with my dad, who I think when they first met, he was

still living an 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 Jewish roots.

But the crazy thing is, it was pretty much just secular Judaism, which is just people, and I

shouldn't call it Judaism, just being a secular Jewish person, which is someone who

identifies with being 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 I would say I grew up with.

I was bar mitzvahed at 13, like any good Jewish boy was.

And the funny thing is, I had opportunities, I think about it now, it's so funny, I wish I knew Hebrew.

And I could care less back then.

All I wanted was the big party and the money that came, which we had when I was 13.

And it was, that was wonderful.

But after that, the mitzvah, that 13th birthday, I pretty much

slipped away from Judaism.

And it didn't take long before, you know, if you work out my age, obviously, 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 had it.

And as I, even though you're a little bit older than me, I still.

Experienced those days of the 70s.

Yes, didn't we all?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My kids just ask me about the 70s all the time.

The one thing I will say that they have, they did find out what I've been telling for a long time, the best

music came from the 70s, except for the worship music nowadays.

But yeah, so yeah, so after my, my mitzvah, I just

slowly went into that that phase was not a good student going through

school and high school, but I did graduate.

And I would gay, I guess I would call myself slowly became an atheist over those years.

I just didn't understand how they could be a God, you know, it's that old, look at all this evil, look at the world, the world is a mess,

there's no way.

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 I was when I was 1920, and moved back to Brooklyn.

And it was at that time that I, and thank 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 I was 20.

Now my 60.

So for 40, some odd years, these friends that I had still doing them.

But I realized in my young 20s, 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, and maybe and it's probably what a lot of secular

Jews would say that they got involved with Eastern religions, you know, it'd read to hell, cabron stuff.

And, and the prophet also believed in Gandhi was a great

man.

And I started going that Eastern way even did TM transcendental meditation was real big, you know, the

Beatles did it, how bad could it be?

Right?

So I did.

So I was doing transcendental meditation until I, I found out that you are

over and over again, repeating the name of a Hindu God.

And I said, I don't think I want to do that anymore.

So I knew I had to just keep searching.

And, and I knew I didn't want to get be involved with with the drug life, even though it was difficult to to give

that up.

And this is this is the thing.

This is amazing.

I do not believe in just fire brimstone someone into the kingdom.

But when I was at a mall, and it's called King Plaza, it was like one of the first big or great

big malls in in the country 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 juice for Jesus be lines me.

When I was in, in King's Plaza, he be lying right for me.

And he started talking to me.

And obviously, I was given into hell cabron and all my Eastern stuff.

And he said, Oh, all those guys have pride.

And I'm going Yeah, whatever.

So we're going back and forth.

And finally, it was like, Okay, I don't want to talk anymore.

And as I turned to walk away from this gentleman, this juice for Jesus who handed me a track said to me,

I know somebody who didn't accept Jesus and died the same night.

Right?

Not not exactly the you know, I would call the the gentleman way to to, to

witness or to preach the gospel to somebody or evangelize.

But man, did it have an effect I got in my car with my friend.

I left him off.

I ran home.

I read that prayer read the 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 but knew

that something really shook me that which is amazing.

I did not get saved that night, Chris, but I still remember that.

And that happened.

Think about that happened over 43 years ago.

Now that happened.

And I still remember like it was yesterday when when that juice for Jesus gentleman came up to me.

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 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 I had to get out.

So I literally packed everything up.

And I drove I got some other people from from newspaper ads, I got some other people drive across

the country made some stops that ended up going to the Mardi Gras, the Bicentennial Mardi Gras.

So this is like 1976.

I'm trying to remember if it was I guess we left about February, March, something like that and

got to California thought I was going to go up to Frisco.

You know, and the funny thing is I never ended up in Frisco.

Frisco is like I was a deadhead at one time.

And he deadheads out there.

I still listen to him sometimes.

But I was like a deadhead love the 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 New York.

And it was very strange.

I'm trying to I was at Universal Studios, I met a Persian gentleman who was a non

practicing Muslim now, Persian, Persian, Iran, Iran now.

Yeah.

But back then it was still called Persia in 70s.

And so he was from Persia.

And here I am, the non practicing Jew, and the non practicing Muslim decide become roommates, say

let's become roommates.

You know, what the heck?

You know, we both wanted to be actors.

We go, hey, it makes sense, right?

Your non practicing attitudes kept you alive.

There you go.

Yes, we were not at each other's throat.

No, we did.

And you know, we both wanted to be actors at that time.

That's that was my thing.

Oh, I think I think that's what I should be doing.

I become an actor.

I'm theatrical guy, you know.

So I remember he came home with a list of theaters.

And the first one on the list said, Hollywood, free theater.

And the words Hollywood and free appeal to me.

You know, you could say it's because I was Jewish.

I'm allowed.

I'm allowed to say it's because I was Jewish.

You can't self deprecating.

Yes.

Yeah.

Always.

You're always gonna get it from me.

Big Woody Allen fan.

So.

So here I am.

We go to this place.

This non practicing Muslim, he sees the place and goes, Oh, this is in Jesus

name.

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 I recognize there.

There were names I recognize there.

And this was like, really cool.

I get to Hollywood, these people I recognize.

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 Angeles Temple.

I don't know if you know what Angeles Temple?

No.

Well, Amy Sample McPherson, you might remember her from I think it was the turn of the 20th century.

She was 1920s.

But she started the four square movement.

And it was in this temple or church.

It was the first mega church 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, you're good.

We're giving you the part.

And they knew I was the only non Christian there.

But these guys love on me, unlike the Jews for Jesus in the King's Plaza, who tried to scare me.

And these guys were just loving on me.

And there was a 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.

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 play.

And I was getting nervous because I knew we were going to be performing in front of thousands of people of Angelus Temple

for the bicentennial.

So the night of the play, and obviously this Jewish woman has still been witnessing to me.

And I said, I mean, 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 The Omen.

Remember that one?

The original Omen.

Oh, yeah.

Gregory Peck.

Yes, that's the one.

And it opened, I guess, on July 3rd.

And back then in LA, these theaters were like 24 -7.

I don't know if it was like that seven days, but at least on the weekends.

So we went to a show.

I couldn't get to sleep.

And I was nervous.

Went to a show.

Had to be 2, 3 in the morning.

We got out at like 5 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.

Well, not to interrupt you too much, but the Omen, when I was a teenager,

actually triggered an interest in the Bible in me that all my years of Catholic school

did.

Not, because of the mark of the beast and the whole thing, because it was.

A sensationalistic thing.

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,

Hal Lindsey used to have a church on Venice Beach that I used to go to.

And it was just real interesting.

But talk about eschatology in the end times, that's all they ever talked about.

But back to the story.

So we went to see the play, must have got out, I guess it was like 5 in the morning or something, 4 or 5 in the morning, and

we were doing the play that Saturday night.

So she said, look, 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 Jesus?

And I'm going, look, I did that.

I told her the story in the mall.

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 pray, just be sincere in your heart.

All right, what the heck?

I did.

And I'm telling you, I knew that I felt the spirit dive inside of me.

I felt Yeshua Hamashiach just come in and change my life at that moment.

Wow.

It was just it was fascinating.

I remember everything changed at that moment.

So here I am.

I got saved on the morning of July 4th, 1976.

I would never remember the date if it wasn't the Bicentennial Day.

So I got saved on the Bicentennial Day.

Independence Day has a new meaning.

Independent.

And yes, yes, the nice Jewish boy went bananas on Independence Day and accepted Yeshua.

So that that day changed my life.

And, you know, I mean, it hasn't been easy.

It's been a roller coaster.

But it's since that moment on July 4th, 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.

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.

Ah, there we go.

All right.

If anybody would like to join us on the air, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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Hi,

Phil Johnson here.

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.

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

Chris Arnzen and I hope to see you all at this very important conference from January 17th

through the 19th.

Make sure you stop by the Iron Sharpen's Iron Exhibitor's booth to say hi to Chris.

For more details, go to g3conference .com.

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See you there.

Hi, I'm Stephan Lindblad, Assistant Professor of.

Systematic Theology at IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

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

God in the churches of our 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.

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.

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

My name is Steve Lawson, Founder and President of.

Unpassioned Ministries, as well as Teaching Fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

I serve as Professor of Preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

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

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC.

They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

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

.ncc .nyc.

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

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 New Covenant Church, NYC.

Again, their information can be found at www .ncc .nyc.

Have a great day.

Consider the evidence for the Bible.

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We are back now with our interview with Mitch Tepper, missionary for the

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 chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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Before we go to your story about Bob Dylan and Keith Green, we have a listener

who you know, that is George Cipioni, who I've had on the program fairly recently.

Skip!

Adjunct professor and the president or the director of the

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

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

Reformed Presbyterian.

Theological Seminary?

Oh, that is so, so true, so, so, so true.

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...

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 Psalms differently,

other than singing in which I loved, was the fact that when I look at a Psalm, realize

that they were written by Jesus, they were written for

Jesus, and they were written about Jesus.

Amen.

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

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

Amen.

You know, seeing the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit in the Psalms.

Now, the singing part, I love that.

I've been trying, my wife is a worship leader and has been for, you know, many, many years, probably

25, 30 years.

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 incorporate

those because I loved the acapella Psalms that we would sing at the seminary.

The thing that amazed me about them is how many people in most congregations don't, you know, really know

how to sing, period.

Sorry, guys.

But these, in the RP churches and in the seminary, they all knew the three -part

harmonies.

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

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 of you, Skip.

And I, hey, when am I getting my certification?

That's what I want.

I want that certification.

No, I'm kidding.

And you know what 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 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, Grace Baptist Church, although we are not exclusive psalmody, we do have psalters

in the pews, and we frequently sing psalms.

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 the New Covenant.

So I love that.

Real quick, I just wanted to mention this,.

Because I was wearing a Pray for Andrew Brunton

bracelet, and for those of you who might know, and maybe some don't know, he was an EPC

pastor that was in Turkey.

I didn't know he was EPC.

He was an EPC.

That's what you are.

Yeah.

I am under care.

Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

I am under care with the EPC.

That is not where I am currently.

I'm kind of a staff member, even though I'm a full -time CWI, at a church called Intersection

in Butler, PA, which my wife is the worship leader, and we attend.

But yes, I am under care at the EPC.

I would love sometime to be ordained in the world outreach, which means I would have

access to all 700 EPC churches, and that's something I'm looking to do.

But Andrew Brunton was an 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 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.

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.

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, getting back into regular life.

Especially since he is going to have opportunities that he probably never had before.

Oh, yeah.

To have an audience of millions.

That's right.

In fact, if you have any connections with getting him on this show, I would love to interview him.

Oh, that would be great.

Yeah, and you can even co -host with me if you want.

I'd love to.

Great.

Look at this.

I got a new gig.

I'm Chris's co -host.

So cool.

Well, thank you, 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.

Okay.

All right.

I told you I got saved on the Bicentennial.

Where I got saved was a place called The Vineyard.

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

It was before John Wimber was even involved with The Vineyard.

He became the church planter later, but Ken Gullickson started The Vineyard.

Was it always that extreme and too charismatic?

There was more of a, well, there are some that still have very balanced.

I know that the guy who married me from a vineyard in upstate New York, Fishkill,

his name is Louis Lepidus.

Pastor Louis loved Calvin.

He considered himself like a charismatic Calvinist.

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

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.

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 In Search of the Radical Middle.

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

That's something that's been a mission statement for me.

I'm trying to live that, In Search of the Radical Middle, in my life now,

which is obviously, there was no one more radical than him.

But back to Keith.

When I went to the vineyard, and I said Ken Gullickson started the vineyard now.

Just so you know, the roots of the vineyard is Ken came out of Calvary Chapel, which was Chuck Smith's

church.

Greg Laurie used to do, before he started 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.

He pulled out and said, I want to go to West LA, Ken, and that's how the vineyard started in West LA.

Now you know, there's probably thousands of vineyards in the world.

It was pretty balanced at that time, and I still think there are some vineyards that are balanced.

Same thing, you know, you look at EPC, a lot of the others, there's a lot of different beliefs.

Some are complementarian, some are equalitarian, and there's just a lot of different thinking there.

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,.

And so on.

Yeah, I mean, I'll be very honest.

I cannot refute some of the things 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.

I mean, some stuff I go, man, you know, God still does miracles.

I can't deny that.

You know, so I'm trying to really be balanced in that, and you know, 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, but you know, I love

my favorite systematic book.

A lot of non -charismatics love 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 Keith after I was saved, I was blown away.

I have never seen anybody who was so convicting.

You could not listen to a Keith Green worship service, or a concert, or a preaching, or

anything without feeling, I gotta go up front again.

You know, I mean, that kind of, he was, he just tore at you, and you know, he was, he was, he was

a Finney fan, and Leonard Ravenhill fan, and stuff.

You know, and obviously, nowadays, I wouldn't agree with a lot of that, but...

Well, especially Finney.

Well, yeah, yeah, let's just get him in a tent, and you can't leave until you accept Jesus.

And it's all up to you.

Yeah, we don't care, yeah, that's right, and we don't care where your life goes after you're out of the tent.

But, I kid, but Keith was the worship leader, and he just had such a heart for God, and

if you've ever, or anyone in the audience has ever had a chance to read his diaries, man, he

never thought he did enough.

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

too much, you know, and, but obviously, without even knowing it, he was understanding, you

know, too much, right?

But, 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 gospel, the false

gospel of Rome, and the true.

Gospel.

Yes, yes, he was a lot more like Calvin than he even knew.

But, but, but Keith was just amazing.

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

we, I was living with her.

She said, in the Lord's eyes, we're married, and Keith caught wind, and came to the house where we were living,

and, you know, and this is after Keith baptized, because he, he and one, and Cain Gellickson, the ones who baptized me in the Pacific

Ocean sometime in July 76, but he came, heard about it, and, and I said,

I got nowhere to go.

He said, you can't live like this.

I said, I got nowhere to go.

He says, he says, I'm here, pack your bags, get some stuff, and you come live with me, and that was,

that was a life -changing experience, because this guy, all he wanted to do was get people saved,

and unlike with the Finney thing, he discipled every one of these people.

He wanted to make sure that they grew, and that's when he, he left.

I'm trying to remember the year he left, but it was, it was near, right before 87.

There might be someone out there who knows the date, the dates, but he, he started Last Days Ministry

in, in Texas, and we would only see him when he would come for a concert, and obviously, he died in that

tragic plane crash with the Smallies, who, who I was really good friends with the first time.

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

nightclub that John Smalley was kind of like, took over, and his whole family died in that plane

crash as well, and oh man, that was, I'll never forget when we were, I don't remember the first time I heard it, but when we

heard it, it was, it was just devastating that, that he was gone, 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 onto his music.

His music, I just don't know anybody who just cuts to the quick the way his music

does, even to this day, and he died at 28.

Imagine, you know.

Just like Robert Murray McShane died at 29, the founder.

Wow, yeah, the founder.

Christian witness to Israel.

I didn't realize he died before 32.

That, that's, that's amazing.

So my, just if you don't mind, I'll take one Keith Green story that I love that, that, that

just tells you the kind of heart the man had.

He, he went to the president of Murr Records, you know, Word Records, or Murr Records

back then, and he said, I just don't feel comfortable selling, you know, albums,

you know, for Jesus, it just doesn't make sense, you know, I should be selling these, and

the president let him out.

I don't know who the president was at that time of, of, of Murr, Word, but let him out of his contract.

What else could he do?

He went down to Last Day, started his own record label, and he would just give the albums away, and

he got more than he would have got if he sold them with Murr, and all this money was going into this

ranch that he had in Last Day's ministry.

You know, his, his, his wife and his couple of his children are still alive, and I, I guess they're still

down, and Melody, I think was, was, and I would love to hear from her, but I think that she took it over,

and I, 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, and you know, whether it was addictions, whatever, but that's, that's my

Keith Green thing, so I, I did love him, and he, he was a, an amazing man of God, and he went too

early, but I'm, I'm looking forward to seeing him sometime.

Now the Bob Dylan story.

Bob Dylan, Bob.

Yeah, the Bob Dylan story, yeah.

Okay.

Can you imagine, can you imagine Bob Dylan today being a contestant on

America's Got Talent?

If they just heard him go, the answer my friends, because

they don't care about the artistic end of it, but anyway.

Oh, let me tell you, I, like everybody else that was in my generation, you know,

whether you thought he had the worst voice in the world, you loved Bob Dylan's music, I mean, his, his lyrics, who,

who wrote better lyrics than, than Bob Dylan?

You, 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, great stuff, but yeah, I, I love Dylan, and, and

I think it was around 82, I had, and I'll, I'll go through roommate story, because the roommate

stories, it's hilarious to me that I had this, you know, and then we talked about it, we all had these kind of roommates

who just told fish stories, like tall tales, are you going, yeah, right, whatever, and he used, he told me

this, this tale that he had to leave, 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.

Where he is, he doesn't care about.

He.

Doesn't care about this story, yeah, so, but, but I loved him, and, you know, the name is

Michael, and I loved him, he was my roommate, and, and he would tell the story how he wrote this book, he

had on coup d 'etat about the President Kennedy assassination, and because he knew the truth, he had to run

away, you know, and I'm going, yeah, whatever, and, okay, so,

so here he is in California, we're, we're roommates in California, and

at this, at this time, I'm, I'm now married to that, that woman I was speaking about, and so I wasn't

his roommate anymore, and he comes to me one day at this 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, 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, and it was a large study.

I remember the night I, I spoke on Matthew 23, okay, which was on the Pharisees, and

after I spoke, I, my ex -roommate Mike comes up and says, someone wants to meet you,

okay, it was Bob Dylan, he wants to meet me, and I'm going, what's this

all about, and well, obviously, speaking on Matthew 23 was interesting enough, and he just wanted to

talk, and he just apparently became a Christian, and he did tell me, I think, Mike, a week

before that, that he led Bob to the Lord, which I, it wasn't exactly true, but, you know,

but, but still, still, he, he brought him to the study, and, and Bob spoke to me at the study,

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, there were some really great teachers and pastors,

and I guess some of them became professors that were at that Vineyard, really good people, and I had really good teaching,

other than, you know, some of the off -the -wall stuff, it was good teaching, but, but no, it was, I loved, I loved it,

and I talked him in to do it, we talked for like an hour and a half, and the funny thing is, he needed a ride to his

car, because we spoke so long, everybody was gone, except for us, so I, I took him in my blue gremlin, could you imagine putting Bob

Dylan in a blue gremlin?

Actually, yes, I could picture, I could picture Bob Dylan in a blue gremlin, an old blue gremlin,.

I'm going, oh the Lord, so, you know, I drove him to his car, and he ended up going to school discipleship

with my ex -wife, you know, my ex -wife, so they, they became good friends, so he came, was able to come over

the house one time, and do music with, with my ex, and that was like, awesome, I couldn't believe that,

you know, and she became good friends with his fiance,

and they got real close, and then one day, she came crying, because Bob just left, and I,

I don't know how many years, well, no, no, I wouldn't say, I'm not going to say, I have no idea that, but I do know he

left, he could not, he could not take anymore the pressure he was feeling, you know, do this

concert, do that concert, you know, whatever it was that he was feeling, he couldn't handle it, oh, left the business, left,

in other words, left the church, oh, okay, left the church, he obviously never got married to this woman,

and she was devastated by it, but the bottom line is, as I, I have no idea where Bob's

at, in terms, spiritually, right now, I know he went, I think he was with a little bovitch, he tried to do the Jewish, I, I have no

idea, somebody, someone knows,.

Bob, you know where you're at, right, I remember seeing him receiving one, I can't remember, what do they

call those awards, the presidential awards for the arts, or something, yes, and in D .C. you talk about, right, yes, yeah,

and I remember, and I can't remember the woman's name, but she's a very famous black

gospel singer, and she was singing, You Gotta Serve Somebody, Bob Dylan's song to him,

he was in the balcony, as the artists are, that's right, and she was saying to him,

you gotta serve somebody, Bob Dylan, you gotta serve somebody, it was like she was preaching to him, singing his own song

to him, now I always wondered what was, what he was going through inside, if he was thinking, man,

I have abandoned the truth, or if he was just being entertained by.

Her voice, I don't know.

Oh, you know, and that's the thing, the thing of the story is, I, I have no idea, he just, he left the

vineyard, he left his, his fiancee, I have no idea what, if they ever

got together in any way, and spoke about things, but, but I remember how devastated a lot of people were, and

apparently, you know, 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 God knows.

Yeah, we could pray that he returns to the truth, or if he never truly embraced the truth, that he

comes for the first time.

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, awesome albums.

Well, we're gonna go to,.

After our midway break, we're gonna go to some of our listener questions.

Okay.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, if you have a question, you'd like to

join those already waiting.

This is our longer than normal break, it's over 12 minutes, and that's because Lakes, Grace Life

Radio in Lake City, Florida, requires this time to air their own commercials and public service announcements

to localize Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to Lake City, Florida.

So, please be patient with us, write down the information provided by our advertisers, so that you can patronize them,

and subsequently causing them, God willing, to remain as our advertisers, which subsequently

will help us remain on the air, because we depend upon their advertising dollars.

But also, write in questions to our guest, Mitch Tepper, at

chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away, God willing, we will be right back, right after these messages from our

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James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

If you've watched my Dividing.

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My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries,.

As well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

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

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

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC.

They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in Midtown Manhattan.

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

.ncc .nyc.

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

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 New Covenant Church, NYC.

Again, their information can be found at www .ncc .nyc.

Have a great day.

Chris Sorensen, host of Iron.

Sharpens Iron Radio here.

I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years.

His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

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

Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself.

Recently, he wrote a book titled, Consider the Evidence for the Bible.

Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword.

Dan also has a master's degree in theology.

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

He represents many Christians in serious injury matters all over the country.

Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

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.

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.

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

call Dan.

Consultations are free.

There is no fee unless you win.

Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878, 1 -800

-669 -4878, or email me for Dan's contact information

at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Hi, I'm Stephan Lindblad, Assistant Professor of Systematic.

Theology at IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

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

God in the churches of our 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.

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.

If you want to learn more about.

Our program, visit us online at irbsseminary .org.

Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris.

Arnson on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

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

Bible Book Service.

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

affordable to everyone.

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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.

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.

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.

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

That's cvbbs .com.

Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron.

Sharpen's Iron Radio.

And you can also call their toll -free number at 800 -656 -0231.

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

And you mentioned 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 Psalm 119 published by Reformation Heritage Books.

And that is a lot harder to pronounce than you may think.

Journalable Psalm 119 if you mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

We just have a few announcements to make before we return to our guest today, Mitch Tepper, the new

missionary for the North American Division of Christian Witness to Israel, otherwise known as

CWI.

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

He will be on the program tomorrow, Rich Gamble, who is on the faculty of Reformed

Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He is also author of The Whole Council of God, and we are going to be discussing that two

-volume book tomorrow.

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, Richard Gamble.

And mark that down on your calendar so you don't miss it.

That's tomorrow, Thursday the 18th of October.

We have some events that we don't want you to forget about as well.

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

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania.

I will be there manning an exhibitor's booth for Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, God willing.

The theme is The Glory of the Cross.

The speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortlund, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Nguyen.

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.

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

And then, coming up in January, the G3 Conference

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

International Convention Center, to be more specific.

The theme this January is The Mission of God, A Biblical Understanding of Missions.

I will be there for the third year in a row, God willing, manning an Iron Sharpen's Iron 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,

they are expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people to be present at this

conference.

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

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

I almost said Christian Witness to Israel.

The G3 Conference roster of speakers this January include Dr. James

R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, John Piper, Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched

Radio, Phil Johnson, Conrad M. Bayway, Voti Baucom.

The list goes on and on.

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

R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries.

It's a really enormous roster of names, a lot longer than the names I've just included

in this ad.

So please go to g3conference .com if you'd like to attend.

The conference is from Thursday, January 17th through Saturday, January 19th

at the Georgia International Convention Center, College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.

And by the way, if you have Spanish speaking and bilingual friends, there is an exclusively Spanish speaking edition of the

conference on Wednesday, January 16th.

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Go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com.

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But now we are taking questions again for Mitch Tepper at chrisarnsonatgmail .com.

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

Very interesting.

Yeah, that's.

Funny.

You know, so many of us were looking for a church and I remember going

through that certain times in my life and then one way, in fact, when I first

got saved back in Hollywood, I went to a Seventh -day Adventist church because they

worshipped on Saturday in a kosher and I did that.

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 in a kosher.

And that's when I waved bye -bye to that church.

Their view of hell is a very short trip though.

Yeah, it's annihilation.

Yeah, we knew about that.

But that was one of the places.

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

Christian dating line.

She was from Boutlepieu but was living in

Staten Island at the time and we met online and

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

At the time, she wasn't even really walking with the Lord that much.

She just got out of a church that she was heard in.

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.

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 hers for years that was going to a Methodist church.

So she said this is a pretty popular church.

So we went to a Methodist church.

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

and 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.

After they're 18, they finish their

youth groups and they leave.

Luckily, some of them come back, but a lot of them never come back.

So I did that for a while and when that ended,

my wife Mia got a job in another church

that this guy started who was a pastor at

a Presbyterian church and started his own church.

We were there for a while and then out of nowhere, Mia got a call from a Presbyterian

church, which was still PCUSA at the time.

So I followed her to this PCUSA church and they tried to be reformed in

this church and they left the PCUSA, like many PCUSA

churches are doing, and joined the EPC.

And when they joined the EPC, they gave me the job of teaching Michael Horton's book, You Know

What's So Amazing About Grace.

Great book.

In fact, I interviewed Michael on that book.

Yeah, I think I saw that on the site.

So I read the book and things 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.

So it really was a start.

Then after that, I was looking for a seminary.

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

I had an issue getting in there.

So I tried RPTS and the president of RPTS at the time, he's not the president anymore, Jerry O 'Neill,

if you've met him, Jerry O 'Neill said, we're going to get you in here.

And I started in 2013.

And by the time I graduated at the age of 61 in May,

2016, man, I was reformed.

I mean, three years of listening.

And I will tell you about Gamble.

Gamble is probably as good as any systematic guy alive today.

He's our guest tomorrow.

Oh, I know.

So 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.

So I'm looking forward to getting volume two.

Volume one is a great book.

So we look forward to hearing him.

We who are reformed, at least some of us, always love to hear

about Jewish believers, not only first and foremost, becoming Christians, but it's also a wonderful

bonus when they embrace the doctrines of reformed theology, because it's rarer than a Bigfoot

sighting.

Yeah, I saw him on the way here.

No, you're right.

Oh, man, it makes so much sense as a Jewish person and as a Jewish believer

to believe in reformed theology.

Yeah, I can never understand the hostility that some of the 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, but by any

stretch of the imagination, and that they were a covenant people to the exclusion of

the pagans and all the other folks, it's amazing to me how Jews would find

repulsive the concept of unconditional election, that his people from every tribe and

tongue and people and nation are elected and adopted by him, not because of things that they do

or believe.

You said it.

I mean, it should be obvious to anyone, but especially a Jewish person, that

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

Right.

It was they were the least, they were the weakest.

Everything about the choice of Jews and Israel, the 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.

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.

Murray in Kinross, Scotland.

Murray?

Yes, not Jewish.

It's not 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're trying to stop

them from being Jewish?

That's where education comes in.

That, you know, that statement we were talking about at lunch, that the 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.

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, 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, 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 in Romans to the Gentile church, everything you believe, every single

thing, and if you turn 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 Messiah comes from the Jewish faith.

It all comes from the Jewish faith.

So how, you know, if we have our education right, if we really study Romans,

especially 9 to 11, how could we not communicate to a Jewish person?

And not only that, but how could we not realize how Jewish it is, what we believe, how Jewish our

roots are.

That is what I'm all about.

And that's what CWI is all about.

And that's what all Jewish missions are all about, is to letting us all know, as a church,

we need to know that our roots are Jewish and that we have, and if you read on 10

and 11, we have an obligation to go back to the 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.

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.

I want to talk to the Jewish people about the Lord and all of it.

There's very few people that I know that don't have someone in their life that is

Jewish that they can talk to about them, 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 Josh McDowell apologetic.

It's the Stan Bonson apologetic, the Voss apologetic, which comes from presuppositional.

You mean Greg Bonson?

Greg Bonson.

Stan Bonson, I think, was a Yankee.

I've got Yankees in my mind, even though they're out of it.

But yeah, Greg Bonson, the whole idea of presuppositional apologetics, which is

really getting into the philosophy that people have.

And there's nothing more Jewish than what we in the church believe.

And we need to see it.

The problem is many evangelicals don't see the roots.

You know, I wrote a manuscript years ago called 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.

If you can witness to a Jewish person, you can witness to anybody.

And that includes Muslim.

That includes agnostic atheists.

And, you know, there's nothing like knowing your roots.

And I hope I answered the question with that.

But if I had to say the best way, relationship is the best way.

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.

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 are the one praying with them to accept Yeshua.

But wherever you are, you are part of the process.

And when we are at that, that bimashi, 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.

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.

Just plant the seeds and make relationships.

Of course, we know that the apostle Paul, when he came to embrace

Christ after his experience on the road to Damascus, he did not become a Gentile.

He was still a Jew of Jews, a Hebrew of Hebrews.

And Jesus Christ was, and always will be a Jew.

Jesus Christ, the God man.

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

Jewish.

He didn't become a Gentile in his flesh.

So the whole concept of a Jew stopping being a Jew is

nonsensical.

And as even 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 Orthodox and

the Hasidic, they view them as Jews.

But if somebody becomes a Christian, they're somehow a traitor and no longer...

We found that out.

I don't know how many more questions you have, but I wanted to be able to share Paris with you when I have some time.

We have some questions.

When you come back from our final break, we just have a couple of questions.

Yeah, we have Josh in Mechanicsburg.

Thank you again, Chris, for having another great guest on Iron Trip and Zion.

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

reformers were strongly anti -Semitic.

Could your guests speak to the truth of how the reformers desired for the Jews to be saved, especially the

early Puritans?

Oh, well, the Puritans, you're not going.

To have a problem with.

But you will see there were a lot of reformers.

People accuse Calvin, some of the

other reformers they're going to accuse.

Obviously, the biggest is going to be Luther.

And obviously, the things that Luther said in the end of his life, I cannot

make any excuses for what Luther said.

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

Against the Jews.

He didn't need that, though.

He would have used anything that he had his hands on.

Well, hey, you know, I mean, think about it.

If you're going to use something, why not use Luther.

As one of the great heroes in Germany?

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 I hit

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

Jews, speaking to secular Jews, speaking to agnostic Jews, when speaking to them, there

is a frustration that takes place when I could speak to anyone else in the street

and they're more open for a conversation.

Not that everybody is.

But in terms of percentages, there's only 16 million 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.

So there is that frustration.

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

Yes.

So your call or the question is correct.

And that's what, when we go back to the start of the CWI,

Robert Murray McShane knew there was a lot of anti -Semitism that was

all through history.

I mean, come on.

There's a great book Michael Brown wrote called Our Hands are Stained with Blood, which

speaks of all the blood that was shed in the name of Jesus.

OK?

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 Inquisition.

You can talk about the Crusades.

You can talk about the Holocaust, the pogrom, you know, and what happened in Russia.

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 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 Reformation.

And look, I'm not going to make excuses for Luther, but I will stand up and say I understand the frustration

that comes about, because think about what happened to Judaism.

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

honest, those who practice Biblical Judaism are

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

Gentile church and Evangelical church that do believe in Biblical Judaism.

The problem is Biblical Judaism left a long time ago.

I mean, you could look at when Israel left Egypt,

and 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.

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 Babylonians and Egypt and Assyrians, and then you go through time, and you

see with the Greek and with the 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 them, even now with all the

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

I mean, you talk about miracles.

Is that the greatest miracle in the world, that Israel is around, and that there's

probably, I think there are 30 ,000 messianic

believers in Israel today, where there used to be just hundreds back in, you

know, 46, when it first became a state, there were just hundreds, and now there's 30 ,000, so it is growing, and people are going back.

You know, on the other hand, half of the Jews in the world are either

secular Jews or agnostic or atheist Jews, so half of those

16 million, around 8 million, so that's amazing to me, but

we need to understand that anti -Semitism is

wrong, that the frustration of understanding once the temple was destroyed and

Judaism became Talmudic, it became rabbinical, okay, so when you look at a Jewish

person who's religious, we're just talking about religious Jews, they believe in the Tanakh.

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

They believe in that Tanakh.

That's what's really, really important to them.

They believe in Svillan, which 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.

They believe in that.

They believe in Misfits, which is good works and studying 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, the High

Holy Days, which is a wonderful thing that we should celebrate the 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 Jewish person believes and how far off the track they are because they're not even

close to biblical Judaism.

They have a rabbinical and 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, because when you do, it will not just help you speak to a Jewish person and

give you a passion to speak to a Jewish person.

It will give you a passion to evangelize everyone God puts you in contact with, and that is the bottom line.

God wants you to evangelize to every single person that

crossed your path in life, 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.

That's what we're all about, and yes, antisemitism is alive.

It's been alive from the beginning, and we need to fight against.

It with education.

Amen, and even though I would never try to excuse or excuse,

I should say, Luther's antisemitic ravings, at the same time, the

kind of antisemitism that he was guilty of was theological.

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

the 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.

Luther wanted Jews to come.

To Christ.

Yes, and that's the frustration, is they didn't, because there were no sacrifices, there was no

biblical Judaism, so he couldn't get through to them.

At the beginning, he thought, okay, no more indulgences, no more, you know, we're going to have a reformation, you don't have

all that Catholic stuff that happened to you, all that, none of that's going to happen, 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.

Think about it, the rabbinical Judaism started even before, with the Pharisees, even before the 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, we're talking about over a thousand years of being able to set in cement

what Judaism was to them, and it was totally wrong.

It was not biblical, like I said, Talmudic, and the Talmud is the interpretation of the law, and they believe in that

much more than they believe in the Tanakh.

And the Torah.

We have to go to our final break right now.

Oh, quite all right.

We have to go to our final break right now, and if you would like to join us during

this last break, please send your question very quickly, because we're rapidly running out of time.

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, Josh from Mechanicsburg just had one more question, and I'll read it to you now, and you can answer

it when we come back.

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

Romans and the rest of the Bible.

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

Jesus the Messiah.

And of course, that verse is even interpreted and exegeted differently,

even by reformed people.

Amillennialists, postmillennialists, and they all disagree to some extent.

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.

By the way, which are you, or do you have a settled position?

I'm still working on it.

We're going to our final break, so don't go away.

God willing, we will be right back right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Welcome back, and just another note from our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service

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We are now back with our guest Mitch Tepper for our last 20 minutes or so

of our interview.

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

the 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.

If you'd like to join us, do it now or forever hold your peace because we're running out of time very rapidly.

ChrisArnson at gmail .com, ChrisArnson at gmail .com, and please give us your first name, your city and

state, and country of residence.

We just heard before the second question from Josh in Mechanicsburg.

He basically wants to know what the Apostle Paul meant by all Israel shall be saved.

Okay, there you go.

Tough.

Stuff we're going to be dealing with.

One of the things that's obvious, Jesus, I was looking for the exact scripture.

I had it written in a sermon I just did a week or so ago.

In fact, it was on Romans where Jesus speaks.

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 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.

And when you look at Israel, you have to think of the priestly prayer that

everyone that it's, 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.

That is the remnant.

That is the elect.

That is what Israel is.

Israel and the Jews will always be the Jewish people in Israel.

But you have been grafted on if you're a Gentile, not replacement theology, you have been

grafted on.

And when the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled, what are we supposed to do?

We're supposed to make the 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 Jewish people jealous.

That's what we need to do.

We need to live a life and a life that understands true biblical Judaism and

are able to share that with our Jewish unbelieving brethren.

We need to share with them because that remnant is out there and God wants to use us.

OK, no one's got the mark in their head.

All right.

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.

So all of Israel being saved is whoever is elected, whoever is called, they

will be saved and that time will come.

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

that come to the Lord.

And we sense it.

As I spoke right before we ended, we went from 46 where just a couple of hundred to

thirty thousand messianic 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.

That's the problem.

Hey, look, my wife and I, Chris, we realize how assimilated both of us were into

the Gentile church and we forgot our Jewish roots.

That's why we do this.

We started a messianic fellowship called Beth Shalom.

Beth Shalom is the place I got bar mitzvahed at.

So we named it that.

We were going to name it Butler Messianic Fellowship.

Instead, we call it Beth Shalom Fellowship.

We had our first Jewish person who was not a believer who came last

Friday.

It was awesome.

You want tears to come to your eye.

You see an unbelieving Jewish person walk into this messianic fellowship that we had,

and they were excited that they saw the Jewishness in what we were doing.

But we also proclaim Mashiach the whole time.

It was all about Mashiach.

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

Ezekiel 37.

So I kind of took some of that and went with it.

So I hope I answer 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.

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

He will not save every Jewish person,.

Just like he will not save every Gentile person.

Those who are circumcised of the heart.

Circumcised.

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.

That is as simple as I could make that scripture.

And I think the problem is people try to tear it apart and say, what does he mean?

And it is, 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.

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

Oh, it was, like I was mentioning before, it was a life changing for both me and my wife.

My wife, Mia, was, I always let her tell, she always likes to let me know how

anxious she is about the stuff that we do.

She doesn't realize I'm anxious a lot of times too.

But by the way, do children call her Mama Mia?

Yes, yes, that's true.

My kids call her Step Mama Mia.

Step Mama Mia, you out there listening?

I hope so.

Okay.

If not, you know, you can listen to the archive.

But she was so nervous.

The first day she was like shadowing me, right?

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.

I mean, 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.

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.

Exactly what we're talking about before.

If you really want to get inside a person, develop a relationship where they trust you.

And she was doing that.

After, I guess it was 10, 11 days in the street.

I knew this was what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

I knew that I had, just like Jacob, I did some stupid stuff in my life, but I was going to finish

well.

And this is to me, the best way of finishing well is getting out there.

And look, you know, there's a great little vision that God gave me a long time ago, which is I am not a thief in the cross.

Thief in the cross, got to accept the Lord and die.

The rest of us have to live here.

Some of us for 10 years, some of us for 70 years after we know the Lord.

The point or the question you should be asking yourself, why am I still here?

Why did I not go up like a thief in the cross?

Well, it's an obvious answer.

He has you here to do work.

Well, what's the work?

Well, that's obvious too.

Find ways to share Yeshua with everybody God brings in contact with you.

Paris was an awesome thing.

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?

Shut me down?

No. We will, for the archive, have to edit out some ads.

That's fine.

So there was a Chabad center, a Lubavitch.

And in the Lubavitch, they had these

Jewish teenagers that were from Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Okay.

Now the story is absolutely amazing to me.

Then the reason I brought Zvillon in is these Chabadniks would

not speak to me unless I was Zvillon.

Okay.

My other leaders there, they spoke against it and I'm going, no, no.

If I could speak to them 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.

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, you know, 714, Psalm 22, Leviticus 17,

11, because most of these religious Jews pretty much believe in the Torah more than anything.

But Leviticus 17 says the life is in the blood.

There is only atonement through the shedding of blood.

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 and you tell me it's not in there.

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, Schneerson, who they believe is the Messiah.

He happened to die about 20 years ago, I think.

And he was from the Crown Heights.

Now, when I got saved, this is so interesting.

When I got saved 42 years ago, you know, my parents did, they pulled me out of California, brought me to

Schneerson back in Crown Heights.

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 there 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 Jews.

Oh, no.

That's because they would rather me be an orthodox Lubavitch than, 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.

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

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

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 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 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.

And that is so important.

And that's what the CWR is about.

And I want to close by asking you guys, I need, I need, I need, I need

your prayers very much.

If there are any people interested in training, hopefully 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.

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.

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

We need more missionaries.

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

.org is where you can press donate and donate there.

And the headquarters that Stephen Atkinson is in, is in Arkansas.

This has been an awesome experience for me, I got to tell you.

And I would do it again with you in a heartbeat.

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 Messianic congregation?

Okay.

It's 581 Hanson Avenue in Butler, PA.

That is, it's Beth Shalom Fellowship.

It's 7 p .m. every Friday.

And we do Messianic worship.

We do a Friday night Shabbat service with the candles and the challah

and the wine or grape juice, obviously we use.

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

you know, Jewish people to come because Butler is not filled with them.

The demographics aren't great.

And do you have a website for the Messianic synagogue, or should I say Messianic congregation?

No, right now everything is under Facebook, Broken Places.

We will start our own.

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

But right now it's under Broken Places on Facebook.

You can get to Broken Places on Facebook.

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.

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 New York Italians that I love so well, the New York Jews flail their arms around.

I got a little Italian in me.

Yes, I do.

You should have seen him flailing his arms around while he was conducting.

But anyway, thank you so much, Mitch.

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

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 Savior than you are a

sinner.