Aug. 11, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Geoff Robinson & Ron Elkin on “Evangelism to Roman Catholics @ 2015 Papal Visit”

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Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth, listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on

this 11th day of August 2015 and I'm very excited about my

program today because it's going to be promoting a very important event

that will be taking place in the fall in regard to the papal visit

to Philadelphia and my guests today are Jeff Robinson and

also Ron Elkin who are both involved in a theologically

reformed evangelical outreach to Roman Catholics who will be gathering in mass,

not meeting their ceremony, but in their great numbers in the Philadelphia area

because of Pope Francis's visit here coming up in September.

But first of all, let me for the very first time welcome to Iron Sharpens Iron as my guest,

Jeff Robinson.

Hello, I'm in studio.

Yes, you are.

It's great to have you in studio.

And before we go to my second guest, let's hear something about your own testimony of

conversion to Christ and let's hear also why you have such a passion to reach

Roman Catholics with the gospel.

Well, I was raised Roman Catholic.

I grew up in the suburbs of South Jersey, which is where I live right now, the

suburbs of Philadelphia.

And I was alienated,

you know, a child of wrath like the rest of humanity.

And my mom was raised Catholic and my grandparents were

devout.

And what happened was, I guess the nuns beat a few too many

people.

So I wasn't raised Catholic right away.

But right around age five or so, I was kind of brought back to the Catholic Church

or my family was brought back.

My mom had married, well, my dad.

And he was he, I guess, was nominally Protestant.

So he was OK with me doing the Catholic thing, I guess, with my mom.

I hated going to church.

I was baptized when I was seven.

I always hated going to church because I guess I could remember before time and

when I didn't have to go and got confirmed.

So baptized at seven was different.

Then took communion, confirmed at 13, went very

rarely in between 13 and 16.

Through the influence of a friend at my public high school, I became a Christian

when I was 16.

Started reading the book of Acts, came under conviction by the time I hit Acts

chapter eight.

I just want to know, why did the apostles die for what they believed?

And by the time I got to, I guess, around Saul's conversion, I had become a Christian.

And then I stayed going to the Catholic Church for maybe a

year.

And then as soon as I could drive, by the time about a year was over, and it kind of coincided with the time

where I got my own driver's license, I was ready to not be a Catholic anymore.

I don't know if I was as

clear.

I knew there was stuff wrong with the Catholic Church.

I maybe didn't know how much was wrong vis -a -vis the gospel or that sort

of thing.

Just kind of progressed.

And then through the influence of R .C. Sproul and James White, I became

Calvinist in conviction.

And currently I'm married with three little boys, and I'm in a PCA church

in South Jersey.

And what church is that?

Covenant Presbyterian.

It's, well, you have to disambiguate because there's about, as I've learned in this outreach,

there's about 50 billion Covenant Presbyterians.

And so I go to a church

in the suburbs of.

South Jersey.

Okay.

And going back to your childhood as a Catholic,

obviously hating to go to church as a child is pretty universal.

I'm sure that that has no exclusivity connected to the Catholic Church, because even born -again believers

often who are parents fight with their children about church, especially if the

parents have come to faith later in life, and perhaps the children weren't weaned from infancy.

So when I had become a.

Christian, my mother thought I had joined a cult.

Because you actually enjoyed going to church.

Because I actually wanted to go to a church.

But when you were confirmed,.

Were you putting on an act for the church that you believed?

I don't know.

It's so much an act or that I disbelieved a lot of stuff.

It was just, you just kind of go through the motions.

It's not genuine.

You're not alive on the inside.

I guess it's different.

I don't know how to explain it to someone who maybe converted at a young age, but it always felt like I

was carrying a weight around.

And then after post -conversion, there was just, I wouldn't say

it's springing my step, or there was definitely a change in terms of...

You're like Pilgrim in Pilgrim's Progress.

Yeah, just in my inner man, it was definitely like a weight

had been lifted, and where there was a power to reject sin, where before even if I

wanted to reject sin, I, not to say I'm perfect now, but there was just no power

there to do anything.

And I wouldn't say about my Catholic upbringing, and I think this is true from everybody I've talked to,

especially in the last year, is it's not so much that day -to -day

the Catholic church is denying, say, justification by faith alone, which, I mean, they do

technically deny it.

But what the problem is, is that the gospel, they just assume if you're

there, if you're taking the sacraments, you're okay, and

you're in the system, you're okay.

I remember the bishop coming when I was for confirmation, and

he was telling everybody, like, you know, today is when you get the Holy Spirit, or

something along those lines.

And I was just kind of like, you know, I didn't feel any different pre - and post -confirmation.

I did feel different when I, when I say the 16 came to Christ, I felt a lot different.

I could feel the Spirit's influence very clearly inside.

But so I think it's just that is the problem for our Catholic family and neighbors, is

that they, the gospel is not so much denied practically, but just

not given.

So you just, you just don't, they're not given the gospel.

Right, right.

Yeah.

And this would be true in even nominal Protestant homes.

Yeah, absolutely.

And let's go to my guest, Ron Elkin, who I have had on

this broadcast before.

We were specifically discussing Jewish evangelism from a theologically reformed or

Calvinist perspective.

And I forgot to mention on the air, it just dawned on me after our program was over, Ron,

that I had met you years ago at the John Bunyan conference.

I believe it may have been in Louisburg, Pennsylvania at the time.

And I remember you getting up to the podium and giving a little presentation about your work

in Jewish evangelism coming from a Calvinist perspective.

And I remember being utterly fascinated by that.

But welcome back to the program.

Well, thank you.

Thank you, Chris.

And obviously, you have quite a different background than Jeff Robinson, your colleague and brother

who is involved in the upcoming papal outreach.

We've already heard a lengthy version of your conversion.

Why don't you give us an abbreviated one for this program for those of our listeners who didn't hear it?

I grew up in a school, but also

where I learned the tenets of Judaism and learned how to read

the Torah.

For me, as

I grew up

in the world where I

got involved with Eastern religion and

astrology and meditation and became convinced there's a...

I just wanted to be immersed.

That left me free not to worry

about a certain

amount of...

I mean, the God of the Torah.

There definitely wasn't to me feeling I

didn't have the power nor the understanding.

I got introduced to the gospel in a variety of different ways.

Windshield, when I was living in West

Philadelphia, did give them a hardly

Christian nation,

deeper

and deeper.

And they had beaten me up and getting me

to understand that I really needed to find some

peace with...

I began to pursue good works.

I set up some community organizations in Northern California that got funded by the government.

I purposely did that to a sense of the need to make atonement before God.

And I thought, well, by doing these good efforts, helping people, that I would be accepted.

And it turned out that the pressure of the Holy Spirit kept on going on me and that even when these works

were accomplished and thousands of people in the end have been helped by them, it was not

sufficient to give me peace.

And so I began to set up to God for understanding.

And the Lord in his wisdom brought different people in my life to share the gospel more.

And I became attracted to Jesus, the person of Jesus, and saw that his

teachings were wholesome and good.

There was nothing wrong in them.

And yet I rejected the idea that I had to believe in him in order to be in touch with God.

And then also there was a fear of what would I be as a Jew if I believe in Jesus?

So I will be betraying my people in the name of Jesus.

And so there's a Jewish word called kiskis, which means my guts, my inner...

You know, God is very merciful.

If you know, Jesus said, if you want to know the truth of who I am, then you have to be willing to obey

God.

And I was willing, I was seeking.

And so God eventually brought me to a point in my search for spiritual truth that I realized that

I had to believe in Jesus in order to be in a relationship

with God.

And acknowledge

God through Jesus' public call,

being born of God's spirit, being born again and truly

into me that has continued to change me

to believe in Jesus.

Well, praise God for that.

And it is interesting.

There is a similarity, and perhaps it exists even with other religions, but there's

a similarity between people that I have met who

leave the Jewish upbringing of their family,

of their upbringing, of their youth, even if it's nominal, even if it's purely cultural,

and become Christian.

Well, there is a direct parallel I have witnessed amongst folks, many

folks, not all, who leave the Roman Catholic Church and become, born again, evangelical

Christians.

It's kind of interesting how sometimes you will even hear Roman Catholics say, he left the Catholic Church and

became Christian.

It's kind of interesting how sometimes they even describe it that way.

Well, there's an interesting thing here.

The family of the gentleman who helped lead me to Christ,

his family was very Catholic.

His parents were the ones who converted to Protestantism, and his

extended family, for whatever reason, because they attended a

messianic congregation in Philly, they were more okay with that than they were

if they were just attending a straight -up Protestant.

I don't know what the Jewish connection made that okay in a more traditional Catholic mind.

It might be like a family -by -family situation, because there are, I know, messianic Jews who

have faced quite nasty reactions from their own family,

and they even view the messianic works as being more involved in charlatanism,

because they're pretending to be Jews in the minds of the cultural or

conservative or orthodox Jew.

But the thing I was going to say is that some of these families actually will disown the

member that becomes a Christian, whether it is from a Roman Catholic or

Jewish background.

Did you actually experience, like my friend Steve Sherman, who

is a Christian and evangelist and writer, the

thing that's fascinating about his story is that he was a male stripper when he was

a young adult and was a nominal Jew, and his Jewish family had zero

problem with it.

And when he became a Christian, his mother sat shiva for him and wrote him off for

dead, and his family basically disowned them.

They viewed that as more of a serious break from

their Jewishness than him being involved in something as vulgar and

distasteful and wicked as being involved in a male stripping club and so.

On.

What was your family's reaction, and has it changed at all?

Happy.

We

would gather to go be

there,

but it's

also a

culture.

It's also a sensation.

Yes, it's wrapped up in the ethnicity very often.

Oh, yeah.

It's also

seen as

being a

traitor

to your

family.

Actually, that was developed by chosen people to particularly reach out to the mixed marriage

couple and try to help them understand that in the Messiah, Yeshua, Jesus, that there

can be real unity because he makes us one.

And I want to make it clear that there are many Roman Catholic families also, and I'm sure

Jewish families, although I'm not as familiar with those situations, but I know that there are many Roman Catholic

families who are very happy when they see a loved one

turn to Christ merely because they see a radical improvement in

the person's life, or they're just perhaps happy if their loved one is happy or something

as trivial as that.

But in my case, my Roman Catholic family was very happy when I turned to Christ,

coming out of very serious alcoholism.

Unfortunately, after remaining sober for 18 years,

thankfully after my parents passed away and

were not alive to witness me return to alcoholism, I did return to the sin of drunkenness

for a number of years, but thankfully went to a Christian ministry

to once again let go of the shackles of that

wickedness and repent and so on, and was restored fully to the church and so on.

But my family, because they saw such a radical change for the better in my life, they were

nothing but pleased, and they would visit my church on occasion.

In fact, my father started visiting my church every Sunday night.

After he would go to his own church in the morning, he would come to my church for years every Sunday night, even if he knew I wasn't

there.

So you do have these different situations.

I didn't want to broad brush.

Oh no, Mike, just to clarify, that was kind of like an initial reaction from my mother,

that, you know, I was like, whoa, what's going on with Jeff?

But yeah, by and large, my extended Catholic family could care less.

Like, there's a lot of nominalism, even the people who, at least in my

circles, in my neck of the woods, I would say

white Anglo -ish Catholics

in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

Even those who are going to church regularly, they're, you wouldn't

consider them, say, the Catholic answers crowd, by and large.

Yeah, in fact, I have one funny story, very quick.

When I was a new believer, and there was an Italian -American couple in the church

who had left the Catholic church, and they were hosting a Bible

study in the Baptist church that I was a member of.

They were hosting a Bible study in their basement that our pastor led.

And the mother of the wife, who was still Roman Catholic, used to, on

occasion, visit the Bible study.

And I remember my pastor bringing up the fact that Jesus was

a Jew.

And this very sweet old Italian lady said, Jesus was Jewish?

And the pastor said, yes, he was.

And she said, and I always thought he was Catholic.

But anyway, you folks, I think it was you, Jeff, who spearheaded this outreach.

Yeah, well, the Jewish angle comes in where I've been involved

in Jewish ministry for years.

I was the founder of Jews for Jesus' intern one summer.

And I went to a messianic congregation in North Jersey for a couple years

when I was in college.

And so I've always had an interest in Jewish outreach.

And for whatever reason, probably Ron would probably have a better history of it than I,

Philadelphia has had Jewish reformed outreach to Jews for years and years and years.

And you mean reformed in the Christian aspect?

Not reform without the ED, which is the liberal Judaism.

Not the liberal Judaism, but the Calvinistic, especially like in Presbyterian circles

in Philadelphia.

So in 2005, I teamed up with Jews for Jesus as they did a

street campaign, evangelistic campaign.

And then that's where I kind of came into contact with Ron.

And then I was doing an evangelistic outreach with Ron last year around the 4th of July.

And one of my hobbies is to like scan news media and other

stuff and see who's coming to Philly and see if I can, you know, spring the gospel on them kind of thing.

And I started hearing rumbles that the Pope might be coming to Philly, but nothing really loud, nothing

confirmed.

So I mentioned it to Ron.

Ron was like, you know, I'm a Jewish ministry, but we'll, you know, see what we can do.

And so I had called Dr. James White early August of last year,

because I'm just a lay person.

I was just thinking, I have experience doing evangelism through work with Ron and with Jews for

Jesus.

So I was thinking to myself, maybe there's like a Catholic version of Jews for

Jesus.

Some evangelistic outreach group that is geared towards Catholics,

and we would invite them into Philly and then maybe we'd do stuff with them.

Couldn't find anybody.

Dr. White told me to call you.

So I was in contact.

There he goes passing the buck again.

So I essentially started cold calling a bunch of Reformed churches in the

area.

And I don't know whether the response has been good or bad or in between.

And I'm kind of surprised anybody kind of returned my call.

I was just kind of like, hey, I'm a random person who's doing evangelistic outreach.

If you're interested, come contact me.

And I got a few churches that were pretty interested in helping.

And so far, we have some volunteers especially coming in for the

weekend.

What the itinerary is, just to kind of let everybody know.

So every three years, I don't know if that's tri -annual or whatever that's called.

But every three years, there's the World Meeting of Families.

I believe it was, maybe that was in Denver a while back in the

90s or something like that.

And this year, it will be in Philadelphia.

So there's going to be a conference from Tuesday, September

22nd through the Friday, the 25th.

And then during that time, the Pope will be in Washington, D .C. and New York.

And we're not doing anything with him there.

But we'll be evangelizing during the conference in Center

City proper in Philadelphia.

And then on the weekends, we will be doing our best to evangelize.

And that's when the Pope will be arriving from New York, the Saturday morning, the

26th.

And he'll be holding mass on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

They're expecting a million plus people for that.

A million and a half, I think, is what they're expecting.

And we're going to try to reach people as they're going to that

event with the gospel.

We've created our own tracts that are kind of law gospel based.

We're not using the terminology because we don't want to talk over people's head.

But our tracts are going to be about justification by faith alone.

Essentially, we're telling people you need to trust in Christ alone.

But we're also using a law gospel paradigm, using the law

to convict of sin, and then giving them the gospel that if they trust in Christ alone,

they can have peace and forgiveness of sin.

And we're going to be going to a break right now.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question about evangelizing Roman Catholics, perhaps you even

have a question about evangelizing Jews, since one of our guests today is Ron Elkin, a

Jewish believer in Jesus Christ, please feel free to email us.

Even if you disagree with what's being spoken of, what's taking place, even if you're a Roman

Catholic or perhaps a Jewish person that is opposed to evangelizing Jews, whatever

you may believe or perhaps you don't know for certain what to believe, perhaps you're

puzzled by all this, send us an email at chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

That's chrisarnsen, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at

gmail .com.

And hopefully our guests will be able to answer your questions to the best of their ability.

Please include your first name, at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live

outside of the USA.

Chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Jeff Robinson and Ron Elkin and their evangelical

outreach to Catholics during the 2015 papal visit to Philadelphia.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arns.

And if you've just tuned us in, my guests today are Jeff Robinson and Ron Elkin.

And they are both involved in an evangelical outreach to Roman Catholics

who will be visiting or perhaps even coming from their own locations in the

Philadelphia area.

To visit the festivities that are going on with Pope Francis and

his visit to Philadelphia.

One of my guests, Jeff Robinson, is a former Roman Catholic who is currently a member of

a conservative Presbyterian church, which is in the Presbyterian Church in America denomination.

And the other guest is Ron Elkin, a Jewish believer who runs AMI

Ministry.

And the website for AMI Ministry is

amiministry .org.

A -M -M, as in Michael, I, ministry .org.

And you can find out more about AMI Ministry there.

And eventually, we're going to have a previous interview that Ron and I conducted on

Jewish evangelism from a reformed perspective that should be posted on the

website ironsharpensironradio .com within a week or two.

And we hope you enjoy that as well.

Our email address here, if you have a question for our guests, whether you agree with what they're saying, whether you disagree, or you're just not

certain, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

One of the things I wanted to bring up is that many Roman Catholics hearing this, or

hearing about this, and even, ironically, many evangelicals

will look at this and say, this is nothing but a demonstration of bigotry and

hatred towards Catholics.

Why don't you just leave them alone?

Let them enjoy the visit of their pope, and so on and so on.

Well, first of all, it is ironic that even evangelicals are

participating in this, because I think a lot of it stems from a lack of understanding about

what the gospel is.

And even Roman Catholics who would be more ecumenical and view this as

bigotry on the part of evangelicals or fundamentalists, they don't really understand

the seriousness of heresy that we would be involved in if

the Roman Catholic Church's dogma on the gospel.

Is true.

In fact, the Council of Trent in the 16th century, which is still a

binding document, the declarations of the Council of Trent are still binding

today as dogma.

They declared that we who have a gospel that is uniquely

evangelical, the things about the way that we present the gospel and believe in the good

news in regard to it, salvation being by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the

glory of God alone, we have been accursed, officially, by the Catholic Church.

So this is nothing to do with bigotry.

It's out of love to see people believe in the genuine gospel, isn't it, Jeff?

It's all about the gospel.

One thing I would also mention is that Ron and I have been doing Jewish evangelism for so long that you've got to come

at a better insult with us than that, because

there are so many people groups, whether it's evangelizing Muslims or Jews or

Catholics, you're going to run into flack if you're sharing the gospel.

The problem, I guess, that people have when we share the gospel with Catholics is

that there are, I think, a few Catholics who are not paying attention to their church.

So there may be, even I guess the Westminster Confessions would say,

after I was converted, I was a genuine Christian but still in the Catholic Church for a year or so.

Right, and there were martyrs in the Catholic Church centuries ago that were in the Catholic Church but didn't believe

in their gospel.

To me, it's all about the gospel.

That is all I have, okay?

If I have to rely on my works, I'm done and I'm going to hell,

right?

And of course, they would say that they're not Pelagian, they even denounce it.

Well, it's not the ghost of Pelagius I'm worried about, it's the ghost of semi -Pelagius.

So it's something that Dr.

White said on his dividing line, I think it was maybe a year and

a half or more ago now, it might be two years, where the central issue

in the Reformation was not the necessity of grace but the sufficiency of grace.

Amen, amen.

And as long as the book of Galatians is in my Bible, I

have to make this an issue.

Now, I read someone forwarded me an article a couple days ago from a Catholic newspaper

in United Kingdom that's saying basically Pope Francis is writing a

document for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation that basically says everything's cool.

Well, even if they don't condemn us anymore, even if they overturn Trent, they're still

not preaching the gospel, right?

And they could not overturn Trent without denying papal

infallibility, because those have been declared as dogma.

Well, I've seen, I'll mention this, Unum Sanctum

by Pope Boniface is a papal bull from like 1301 or something which says

that anyone who's not in submission to the pope is not a sheep of Christ.

And it specifically mentions the Greeks, hence the Eastern Orthodox.

Well, now today you have Eastern Orthodox in the catechism being

referred to as brothers and sisters in Christ.

So, I've seen all sorts of Roman

Catholic apologists bending themselves into pretzels to try to explain this.

I think once it comes down, eventually I think Rome is going to move this way,

where Trent will be denied, and I don't know how conservative

Catholics are going to react to it.

I think the only sane position would be to be a Sadie Vincuntus, or however you pronounce that.

And then once you're that, you might as well be, but people don't act rationally.

So, you're talking about like 30 people.

That's an exaggeration, of course.

I guess what I'm trying to say is people don't act completely rationally, where

they'll just say, oh, I know my Catholic friends and neighbors.

It would be, that was 500 years ago.

Whatever the Pope says, you live in the moment, right?

I, in the living memory of my family, basically Protestants were

going to hell, say, in the 1920s.

And then I remember, I think my grandfather, they weren't allowed to go to

Boy Scouts, or something like that, because it was in a Protestant church.

So, you go from that to today, where, if not the official position of

Trent, but essentially, you'd be hard pressed to find a bishop, or a cardinal, or even our

Pope, who wouldn't tell you that Protestants are going to heaven, or at least some of them, or most of them.

Yeah, of course, their catechism, their current catechism teaches that Muslims

adore the same one true God as they do, and that is obviously totally

false, because they don't, the Muslims do not worship a Trinitarian God, and Muslims do not believe they are

worshiping the same God.

So, I guess if I can kind of, this is a long way around the barn to say this, is that

it's not so much that they condemn us, it's that they are not preaching the

gospel to their flock.

So, if it was a liberal Protestant group, and there was a million and a half coming to Philadelphia, I

hope I would still be organizing an evangelistic outreach.

Right, and for you to accuse Jeff,

and Ron Elkin, and all these folks who are participating in this

outreach to Catholics, for you to accuse them of hatred and bigotry, just because they are doing

that, obviously there may be fundamentalist groups showing up that

are hateful, and nasty, and bigoted, and who may not even be truly born again

themselves, but the very fact that they are evangelizing

Catholics, and urging them to repent and convert,

that is viewed in and of itself as bigotry.

And for you to legitimately, and consistently, and logically accuse these

folks for bigotry, you would have to accuse the Apostle Paul of hatred and bigotry,

because just as Jeff brought up in the Book of Galatians, Paul's letter

to the church in Galatia, the only thing that we know of about the Judaizers is that they

were insisting that converts to Christianity also be

circumcised.

The faith alone was not enough.

They had to be circumcised.

That's all we know for certain about the differences they had.

They most likely, since Paul never mentions any other difference, they most likely believed in the deity of

Christ.

They most likely believed in the resurrection.

They most likely believed in most of the tenets of Christianity.

But they added that.

And that was enough for Paul to say they have another gospel, which is no gospel at all, and that they

should be accursed.

So in order for you to legitimately call men like Jeff

Robinson, and Ron Elkin, and others who are evangelizing Catholics, you would have to call the Apostle

Paul a hateful bigot as well.

I'm going to talk over Ron a little bit more.

Sorry, Ron.

One of the reasons why I got into Jewish evangelism was because

I was grateful that through the Jewish people, I got the Messiah, and I wanted to return

the favor.

And to me, it's also, someone was kind enough in my

life to give me the gospel, and then say, well, he's Catholic, he's okay.

So I would be completely ungrateful to God if I

received the gospel as a former Catholic, and didn't return the favor.

That's just how I view it.

And before I go to a listener question, Ron Elkin, you are a Jew and a Christian.

What has your experience been with Jews who have become Roman Catholic?

And I find it interesting that on a rare occasion, you will see on a Roman Catholic program like the Journey Home,

which is exclusively about people converting to Catholicism, whether

they are Protestants, which is the dominant makeup of their guests, who convert to Rome or

return to Rome.

But they can on occasion be Muslims and atheists, and

even Jews.

And it is rare that a Jew becomes a Roman Catholic, but you've experienced

that in your travels, haven't you?

You come out

of a Jewish background,

religious

life,

the

formal

educated and

both

among

Jewish believers in Jesus, church in

Willow

Grove, PA, Calvary,

PCA, and you have a...

The key thing

is eventually of God, knowledge of Jesus.

And of course...

It's hard to know.

But I wanted to add one more thing.

Sure.

It's like all of a sudden people claim that you're a bigot if you're trying to speak of an issue that's

controversial.

And what we do, I've been involved with Street of Five

years.

Um, we always pray for a spirit of love and recognize what we're doing, our

motivation to get people to come.

It's a lost art how much longer legally

we're going to be able to

go to condemns

scriptures.

It says, well, you can keep that in your building,

division among people.

So you really shouldn't...

Even though we have the...

Currently being ignored by many of these rulings.

So while we have the daylight, we

have to tell them the truth in a loving way.

And we say you can remain a

Catholic all you want

and not yours.

Well, perhaps I disagree with you on a philosophical issue there.

I don't believe that a Catholic who becomes born again should continue

partaking in an idolatrous and blasphemous ceremony like the mass where the

elements of the Eucharist are worshipped.

I think what Ron's saying and kind of what our focus is on this is that

I would definitely encourage anyone in the Catholic church to get out who is a genuine believer.

However, the main thing, especially as we're on the front lines of

evangelism, is talking to them about the gospel.

And then the other stuff...

You don't become born again by becoming Presbyterian or Baptist.

Right.

So there's a lot going on.

There's a lot of layers.

So to say I want to talk to someone about the gospel, about whether they're trusting in

Jesus alone, and if they're committed to Jesus.

If I found someone who says, you know, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Then I would say, okay, do you know that Rome officially

teaches the opposite of that?

And if they said no, I would say, well, yeah, so maybe you should go somewhere else.

If they said, you know, yes, I do know.

And then I would say, you know, you should really think about your position there.

Yeah, a lot of people are Catholic, and just like they are a lot of other religions and nominal

Protestant.

And dare I say, even Baptists, if they've been raised especially in

a Baptist or evangelical home that has a lineage of Baptists

for generations, and they really know nothing about the Bible or the gospel.

My neighbor across the street, he's currently Catholic, and he's an English

teacher.

So I gave him our tracts to read, to comment on, and say,

how's this read to you?

He read some of them, and he said, I think I'm Protestant.

And I said, okay, that's good.

Now, where I left that was I encouraged him to get out.

Now, he's definitely going to have issues, I think, with his wife or his

family, his extended family.

So my encouragement to him is to get out.

And I think he understands what the situation is, and you could definitely be praying for him.

So I think that's kind of where we leave it, is we give the gospel, and we let

God's word do the work.

There is just a fact of history and theology that the Church of

Rome has defined their gospel in a different way than Bible -believing evangelicals

define the gospel.

So therefore, we have two different gospels, and when you

compassionately and passionately want to see someone come to

what you believe the true gospel is so that they may inherit eternal life, that is

not hatred.

Now, there are, as I said earlier, there are idiots that show up at

different types of ceremonies that one group or another may be having to disrupt

these festivities or ceremonies.

One could think of even the God Hates Fags group, or even Dr.

James R. White, who you mentioned earlier.

He used to have an ongoing, for many years, an ongoing evangelistic outreach

at the different Mormon special events, both in the Mesa,

Arizona area and in Salt Lake City, Utah.

And then after years of having these respectful, loving, and

biblically -based outreaches, all these independent, fundamentalist, King James -only people showed

up with nothing but hate and venom in their speech, burning effigies of Joseph Smith, and

many of them don't even belong to local churches.

I definitely have found through many of the churches I've contacted, well, not many, but there's been a number of

churches that are wary of street evangelism, and I think one of the things that's in

their mind, and Ron can probably comment on this much more intelligently than me, but when we say, hey,

we're doing street evangelism, they think that I'm going to go around calling people papists

and just bad -mouthing the Catholic Church for no reason instead of keeping a

gospel focus, or just being, I don't know exactly what's in their head, but you can tell that

there's a fear that street evangelism is like a nuclear bomb or something,

and so there is definitely a fear within our churches about doing street evangelism,

and I think it's from a lot of those people who do it poorly.

Loyalty to

the

God,

of

course,

if

they

come

to

see

the

need

to

encourage

for young people, it's

presented four or five different Catholic churches in the Passover with

no hope for preaching the gospel of

grace and what the blood of Jesus accomplished, and there I had nuns and sisters,

priests and sisters sitting there along with the students, and some of the parents were there, and you

could see tears rolling down their eyes, and so that

stayed in the Catholic Church, enabled that to happen.

Now, whether they should eventually pull out, God has to wrestle with them on that,

but, and see, God's a big God.

He's a very...

I want to see people come to understand the basis of them

leaving the Catholic Church.

Yes, I agree.

I mean, obviously, God and his providence had that person there at that time, but

I cannot imagine a spirit -filled born -again believer

who really knows what is going on in things like the Mass, where

the Eucharist is being worshipped just as if it was a pagan idol,

and partaking of that Mass, which is believed to be a propitiatory

sacrifice, and on and on, and all the other things that they do, the bowing to idols,

and the seeking forgiveness from a priest in the sacrament of

penance, and on and on and on.

Obviously, I cannot imagine a truly born -again Christian going along with all of that for the sake

of evangelism, but obviously, perhaps they are just remaining there as spectators and

evangelizing people.

I'm not really certain.

We have to go to a break right now, and we will get to our first listener question.

Mike from Fort Myers, Florida, has a question that we will go to when we return.

If you do have questions, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h

-r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com, and whether you agree with our guests,

whether you disagree, whether you disagree with anything I said, whether you're just not certain, we would love to hear from

you, and please give us your first name, city and state, and country if you're outside of the USA,

and please only remain anonymous if this involves a personal and private matter where you

feel uncomfortable making your name publicly known.

We'll be right back after these messages, so we hope you keep listening to Iron

Sharpens Iron, and our guests Jeff Robinson and Ron Elkin

on the papal outreach to Catholics in Philadelphia during the papal visit in

September.

Don't go away.

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the 21st century.

Our church is far more than a Sunday worship service.

It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen.

If you've just tuned in to Iron Sharpens Iron, our guests today are Jeff Robinson and Ron Elkin.

They are theologically reformed Christians who are spearheading an outreach, an

evangelistic outreach to Roman Catholics as they gather to celebrate Pope Francis's visit

to the United States and in particular to Philadelphia this September.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnzen at

gmail .com.

That's chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

Please include your first name, city and state, and country if outside of the USA.

Before I return to our discussion, I just have a couple of announcements.

First of all, since Jeff Robinson had mentioned Dr. James R. White earlier, I just want to let you know that right

after this program at 6 p .m. Eastern time, Dr. White will be conducting his own broadcast, The

Dividing Line, which is not always on the same day or same time, but today it just happens to be

immediately following Iron Sharpens Iron, 6 p .m. Eastern time.

And Dr. White always has something extremely valuable to say on his broadcast.

That's at aomin .org.

A -O for Alpha and Omega.

M -I -N standing for ministry .org.

A -O -M -I -N .org, which is the website of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

I also want to alert you about an upcoming conference that starts this

Thursday in Portland, Maine at the Stroud Water Baptist Church.

I hope I am pronouncing that correctly.

It's actually starting on Thursday at the Stroud Water Baptist Church.

And on Friday and Saturday, it's at the Deering Center Community Church in Portland,

Maine.

And this is a theologically reformed conference that I hope that you all

who are living in that area or who are able to travel to that area

for the Fellowship Conference New England with Pastor Michael Morrow, Mack

Tomlinson, who many of you heard as a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron, Jesse Barrington,

and Tim Conway.

No, not the Tim Conway of the Carol Burnett Show, but a different Tim Conway.

And they are speaking on the goal, fellowship preaching and

singing that center on the glory of God.

That's fellowship preaching and singing that center on the glory of God.

For more details, visit I'llBeHonest .com, I -L -L -B

-E -Honest .com.

And if you click around to special events, you'll eventually find the specific

advertisement for this conference, which starts this Thursday and continues through

Saturday in Portland, Maine.

And I also want to welcome a new sponsor to Iron Sharpens Iron

that we thank God for, Providence Baptist Church in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

Their website is ProvidenceBaptistChurchMA, standing for Massachusetts, dot org.

ProvidenceBaptistChurchMA .org.

We thank Pastor Mark Lukens and the congregation for expressing how much they

enjoy and love and value Iron Sharpens Iron through their monthly sponsorship for one year, they've

committed to, to start with anyway.

And we thank them from the bottom of our hearts for helping us remain on the air.

And we look forward to having Mark Lukens back on this broadcast in the future.

And I also want to repeat one more time, our email address is ChrisArnzen

at gmail .com.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

And we do have a listener in Fort Myers, Florida.

Mike says, Greetings, gentlemen.

I very much appreciate your evangelistic outreach ministries.

Where I reside in Florida is ripe for outreach in the respective areas that both

of you are involved in and sad to say, very neglected.

Are there certain tracks that either of you could recommend for either Roman Catholics or for those

in the Jewish community?

Very good questions.

And let's start with Jeff.

Well, I guess what I would say is that eventually we're going to

put our tracks online for free.

So anybody can print them.

They're bilingual.

They'll be in English and Spanish.

And it's kind of fortuitous that you have Ron on because Ron is, I

think, looking in that part of the country on doing some stuff.

Maybe, Ron, you want to talk about that?

Or at least, I don't know if you were in the Fort Myers area, Ron, last winter.

But where were you?

Yes, I'm actually about 46 miles.

Great.

And once again, I just urge everybody listening who's sending in questions, please include your first

name, at least, in the city and state where you live or the country where you live,

if outside of the USA.

And that's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

I just want to put my two cents in about tracks.

Chapellibrary .org, chapellibrary .org is a theologically

reformed publishing ministry that has many things that are reprints

of the gems of old, people like Charles Haddon Spurgeon and a multitude of other

theologically reformed Christian writers.

These tracks are very inexpensive.

You would be amazed at the thousands of tracks you could purchase for a very

reasonable and affordable price, including, I know for certain that

they have tracks specifically meant for Roman Catholics.

And I believe I do recall at least one track version that they had for Jewish

evangelism, but I'm not an expert on their Jewish tracks that they may or may not have.

But chapellibrary .org is their website, so you can feel free to browse them as well.

They are a wonderful group of folks.

Pastor Jeff Pollard is the director of

Chapel Library who succeeded the late Leroy Shelton,

who is now in heaven, and we just thank them for their ministry.

We do have another listener from Tacoma, Washington.

David says, I would think that your guest is correct, that the focus should be on the

gospel and not on leaving the Catholic Church.

If they are truly convicted, the Spirit of God will drive them out.

If I found that someone was already converted but still remained for different reasons, then I might

address the issue of their position.

The Spirit of God does use the ordinary means of prompting from our fellow

brothers and sisters to convict us sometimes.

I mean, that's our basic strategy.

The main thing is the gospel.

Going back to the previous call, our website's not completely up.

Well, it's up, but it's not completely ready for prime time yet.

It will be, hopefully.

It's jesusplusnothing .info, I believe, is

our website.

We actually have a name, which we don't have to use too often.

We're calling our campaign Operation St. Cyprian, because St. Cyprian

was a bishop in Carthage, I believe, who pushed back a little bit against the Bishop of Rome.

So that's why we came up with that name.

Great.

And once again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Very quickly, just because it came up earlier, and I like to define terms that might

not be common terms to our listeners, Jeff Robinson brought up the term sativacantist before,

because of the fact that there are a very small minority of Catholics

who believe that the current pope, in fact, the pope going back through

prior to Vatican II, the popes have all been false popes.

They do not deny or reject the office of the papacy, but they do

reject that there have been legitimate popes since Vatican II,

and they get around that because of the fact that since when a pope dies,

or when a pope resigns, as Benedict did, there

is a Catholic church that exists without a pope, but usually very, very briefly,

the sativacantist said, well, it doesn't have to be briefly.

If there are people who are raised to the office of pope that don't belong there,

they should not be recognized.

But I still don't know how that could function.

I find them completely fascinating because...

Yes, they are fascinating.

It's fascinating from like a presuppositional and philosophical level where they see

the same historical problems that say Protestants in this area see.

We see how Rome has changed their views over time, even within the...

I was mentioning that my grandparents, Roman Catholic

theology, the church at that time is not the same as today.

They see this change and instead of saying to themselves,

oh, the claims of Rome are incorrect, they say they go the other way.

So it's something I think that we need to keep bear in mind, especially

as the Roman Catholic church gets more and more liberal, which I believe it will over time,

is that without God's spirit, the pope

could come out and condemn the Council of Trent tomorrow and the conservative Roman Catholics in there,

that does not mean they will embrace the gospel if they are not led by the spirit of God.

It won't mean that they might become Eastern Orthodox and who knows what's going to happen.

Or they may just say, hey, we're going to roll with the punches.

But without the spirit of God, that does not mean...

Just showing the errors of Rome, it's helpful apologetically to

help clear the way so that they can hear the gospel.

But even...

So you have a group of Catholics here who see the historical errors, but didn't go for the

gospel.

So I think it's good to keep in mind we need to pray.

This outreach, if it's just based on our own striving,

we're not going to convert a single person.

If the Holy Spirit is not convicting of sin and

of the word of God, if the word of God does not go out, we're not going to accomplish anything.

And just to put a well -known face to that group, Seda Vacantist, for a time, Mel

Gibson, the famous actor and producer and director,

he was raised in Seda Vacantism.

His father, I'm not sure his father is still alive, but his father never renounced it.

And Mel, I don't know where he is at all in the religious realm because he

doesn't seem to be doing anything overtly in public that would connect with

his Roman Catholic heritage.

But when he was creating the film, The Passion of the Christ, he was a Seda Vacantist

and, in fact, used considerable

monies to build a Seda Vacantist group in California a

new church building.

But anyway, that's just so people put a face on this group.

And as far as in the theological or apologetic realm, Jerry Manetix,

who is a very well -known person amongst those who are

involved in theological debate and apologetics and so on, or who enjoy

viewing the debates and so on, they'll know Jerry Manetix, who for years was a traditional

Catholic and then converted to Seda Vacantism after he debated a Seda Vacantist.

Anyway, the thing is that many people, if not most, who are not born of the

Spirit of God and who have some concept that there is a heaven and there is a hell,

whether they are Roman Catholic or whether they're nominal Protestant or whether they are Jewish,

they believe that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell.

And, of course, how they define what that even means, because there's a lot of gray areas there,

could make each man his own definer of his own destiny in his

mind anyway.

But, Ron Elkin, was your mindset growing up in a

Jewish home that if you were just good enough, you will go to heaven one

day?

And isn't that indeed a very false and damning hope for anyone to believe?

Yes,

it's a idea within Judaism that there's

major God, one

is to be the laws

that you can,

and the other

one is good deeds.

Along with many

months

-long

witnessing

that you could

eat this with

the Jewish,

a lot like the idea that anyone who does

good deeds is anathema,

people of unclean lips.

And, David,

that are not

God's

standards.

Yeah, I mean, I had a conversation online, I've been preparing online

in Facebook forums with a Catholic kind of debate group, Catholic -Protestant

debate group, and one thing that came up recently was about mortal venial sin.

So, we kind of just, me and this other Protestant gentleman just mentioned, has there

ever been a time that you have loved the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul,

all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself?

This is the greatest, these are the two greatest commandments.

Now, I mean, maybe, I mean, by a stretch, you could say you've done

that, like, in brief moments, but I don't think so.

And to me, you have to use the law of God to convict of sin.

And I think that is our primary evangelistic method, is that I can't go around

showing, giving people the good news.

The good news does not make sense if I don't bring the bad news.

And so, I have to show the law, say, you actually, if you think you can be good enough, and

that's kind of where Galatians comes in.

There are no half measures.

There's no, like, there's almost like, and sometimes in Catholicism,

it's kind of like, there's like a law that's just a little easier to do, right?

It's like law and gospel is kind of smushed together a little bit.

Or say, if you are going to add works, you got to go the whole way, and you got to be perfect.

And that's why you're under a condemnation.

And that's the basic message of Galatians, is that there is no half measures.

There's either perfection, or there's Jesus alone.

And it's when you are saying that your good deeds are helping you to earn

eternal life, you are speaking a mockery of what Christ has

perfectly completed on the cross at Calvary.

Right, right.

And you're saying that wasn't good enough.

But on the other hand, I'm sure since you are both theologically reformed and believe in the perseverance and preservation

of the saints, and I'm not talking about the saints that Catholics venerate, I'm talking

about Christians, true Christians.

You believe that a truly converted, a truly born -again individual

will, with certainty, produce good fruit.

Do you not?

I mean, we both subscribe to the Westminster Confession.

We're both in the PCA.

So we would both, you know, we are, as Ephesians says, we are, you know, saved by grace.

So we, no boasting, but we're saved unto good works.

And basically, the true gospel, the main elements are that

we are trusting in the finished work of Christ for the salvation of sinners.

And he is the only way that we have to eternal life.

And nothing that we could ever do could even add anything to that.

I would have to say my Catholic friends can't wrap their heads

around, at least the ones I've talked to.

So if we believe in faith plus works, and you believe in faith

alone, but that it produces works, like, what's the big deal?

I mean, that is a good question.

And ask the Apostle Paul.

And that was basically my answer.

It was just like, it was very important to the Apostle Paul.

I don't know what else to tell you.

And again, I have to repeat, I think it's an affront to Christ's work on the cross to say that you have

added to that.

Well, if you're trusting in yourself, the way I've meditated on it, and my answer

is generally, it mattered to Paul, so it's true.

But if I'm trying to think about it hard, the thing that I've kind of come up with is that

if you're trusting in yourself, it's saying, it is kind of along the lines of what you said.

It's like you're saying, we need the cross plus a dunghill.

Right.

Right.

And then that's what you're...

A righteousness is filthy rags, as these scriptures describe them.

Like the cross couldn't, either the cross paid for sin or it didn't,

you know, so anyway.

Right, right.

And we do have a listener.

Did you have something to add to that, Ron?

Yeah, just one of the hard things

in relation to God and

submission,

logic of the

gospel

and prayer for those around us who do not see the truth

is that God has to make them willing.

God has to open their beginning to fear.

And the fear factor of leaving community, the fear, the

cringer, the garden of Eden,

there needs to be a...

Yeah, Jeremiah Crime Ministries will be there too, just not working with us.

But please lift both us and them in prayer.

I mean, there's going to be a million to two million people there.

So as far as I'm concerned, it's all hands on deck.

There's probably churches that will be there that we don't even know about.

So please...

And I'm also...

There's going to be a lot of Hispanics.

That's why our tracks are going to be bilingual, especially because he comes from Argentina.

Argentina.

And I think there's more of that old school kind of cultural

bondage, even in a way, that I didn't experience as

like, essentially, like a white kid from a mixed,

you know, Anglo, Welsh, Scottish, you know, German sort of background

that I didn't experience as a white American.

So please, we need a lot of prayers.

The people we're talking to need a lot of prayers.

And our ministry and other ministries need a lot of prayers.

And also, the other thing I've kind of noticed is that it's...

Before running an outreach, you know, I was not really sensitive enough is that there are so many

ministries out there that need support, that evangelistic or otherwise.

So Ron and I are on the same page that as the society grows darker, and we're not

allowed, you know, who knows what we'll be allowed to do in 10 or 20 years.

Let's strike while the iron's hot.

No pun intended for your show's name.

But yeah.

Would you share a bit of...

Yeah, Covenant Fellowship Church in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, is holding

a Connecting with Catholics seminar.

And Ron is teaching a breakout session about how to do

street evangelism.

So there's going to be kind of three sections, and there will be a few other breakout sections.

So anybody in the greater Philadelphia area who would like to join us, or even people who don't want to join us, but

want to learn about how to share the gospel of Catholics, or how to do street evangelism in general.

Because street evangelism, especially if you haven't done it, is scary.

We've done it, Ron and I have done it enough, especially Ron way more than I have, that we don't have

quite the butterflies that we used to.

But especially when you're new at street evangelism, you might as...

It produces a lot of fear in people.

And the training, we hope, will help people to get over that fear, and to talk

with your neighbors.

Without the contact information here, I would just say look up Covenant Fellowship in Glen Mills,

Pennsylvania, and call them.

It's on the morning of Saturday, August 22nd.

And come on out, and come to the seminar.

It'll be between 9 a .m. and 12 noon.

And

you'll

be coming to be

with

people

and really light doors.

And so it'll be a very, very good weekend, but we

have more chance.

And since the official website is not really complete yet, I'll give Ron's

website.

It's omniministry .org.

A. Emerson Michael Emerson Michael I. ministry .org.

And you could get the information on how to contact Ron Elkin and Jeff Robinson and

those who were involved in this outreach to Roman Catholics during the papal visit.

We are going to our final break right now.

And please, if you have an email, send it in now, because we're running out of time.

And our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back after these messages.

Financial consultant at 717 -254 -6433.

Again, 717 -254 -6433.

To learn more about the thriving difference.

Lending faith, finances and generosity.

That's the thriving story.

Lynnbrook Baptist Church on 225 Earl Avenue in Lynnbrook, Long Island, is teaching God's timeless truths in

the 21st century.

Our church is far more than a Sunday worship service.

It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement.

It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people and healing.

We're a diverse family of all ages.

Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ.

In fellowship, play and together.

Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Lynnbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can

be.

Call Lynnbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402.

That's 516 -599 -9402 or visit lynnbrookbaptist .org.

That's lynnbrookbaptist .org.

Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnsen from Iron Sharpens Iron.

If you have just tuned us in for the last 90 minutes or so, we have been interviewing Jeff Robinson

and Ron Elkin, who are spearheading an evangelical outreach to Roman Catholics in

the Philadelphia area during the visit of Pope Francis this September to that

area.

And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

We do have an email from Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who writes that we have come a long way

since the days of the Spanish Inquisition, where the Church of Rome is taking

the opposite view of the Jewish people as being one with

them and venerating and worshiping the same true God.

And the fact is that the Roman Catholic Church is viewed in the

minds of many as a more loving group of Christians because of

this and do not require one to believe in Jesus to

inherit eternal life and to be spared from eternal hell.

My question is, especially to Ron Elkin, but both men can answer,

how do you overcome that type of bias where even the

unbelieving Jew may view Roman Catholics as more loving, kind, tender, and compassionate?

Well, my kids don't like it when I make them eat vegetables.

You know, people don't like it when you, you know, the most loving thing you can do is not

share the gospel, right?

No.

In Romans 10, where it says, like, Paul's chain of logic is, to me,

inescapable, is that you believe with your heart and you're justified.

And then, you know, so someone needs to be sent, someone needs to hear, someone needs to believe.

I mean, it cuts off all the Roman Catholic anonymous Christianity sort of

positions.

And to me, there is a huge irony here.

If it wasn't involving people's souls, it would be really funny, which is that they

claim the Pope is the successor of Peter and that they inhabit this

office.

Well, what is Peter's role that we see in the New Testament?

He was the apostle to the Jews.

And what is the one thing the Roman Catholic Church is not doing today?

Evangelizing Jews.

So, and we're the Jewish outreach, we're, you know, essentially, Ron and I have a Jewish evangelism background,

so we're the Jewish outreach to Catholics.

It's very funny.

In my mind, it's ironic.

God has a sense of humor, I think.

So anyway, that's, Ron can definitely speak more on it than me, but that's kind of my position.

The way, the truth, the life, and that

is my base.

Part of

the

idea

is that,

and

that,

to

present

the

information,

we're educated

that

Jesus

is the

churches

and within...

I would have to add that the Reformed world and the evangelical world in general needs to be on guard, too.

Because the general way the society is telling, not just our young

people, but us, is that to be nice and not to share the gospel.

And people are trying to outnice God.

And it's, and that is not good for a bold proclamation of the gospel.

Yeah, nobody complains when people very seriously

and passionately disagree on health and nutrition and exercise.

They don't complain when people seriously and passionately disagree on politics.

For some reason, when matters that are infinitely more important than that, that involve

eternal life, are disagreed upon, all of a sudden you're a hate monger and a mean

-spirited bigot.

They just want you to shut down, though.

Yes.

That's really what it is, is that they're looking for an emotional...

It's kind of like when they're complaining about pro -lifers, like,

oh, what are you doing with the baby after they're born?

That sort of stuff.

The real strategy is to just get you to be quiet and to be shamed.

And you can't...

If you really love your neighbor, not to guilt -trip people, but you have to

speak up.

And I know there's been times where I do not speak up because I don't want to be perceived as mean

or that sort of thing.

Or, you know, I often feel like even just in defending the gospel and in defending the

necessity of justification by faith alone, that I feel like

I farted in the room while everybody's looking at me.

You know, it's just like, you know, where previously where I'm saying like, you know, Galatians is still in

the New Testament, people.

So there are certain things, and then Ron will get it.

So we will get it so much with Jewish evangelism, where the pressures

for about Catholic evangelism pale in comparison to doing Jewish evangelism.

Because of the history of...

Anti -Semitism in the church and the Holocaust.

And anybody who had identified with a Christian church, even if they weren't truly a Christian, they

are broad -brushed as being within the pale of Christendom and Christianity.

Right, like so.

Hitler was a Christian.

Right, right, right.

But even, you know, not to derail the show

onto that topic, but if you're going to be serious about committed...

Now, it's one thing you have to share the gospel.

Now, it's one thing, though, is like if I present the gospel to you and you tell me like, stop, I'm going to stop.

That's just what I did my duty.

I, you know, shake the dust off my, you know, and move along.

So, but anyway, that's...

And of course, there is a smoke screen going on here with the Church of Rome.

They can call us separated brethren all they want.

Right.

But if you are not a communicant member of the Roman Catholic Church, you are in a

false church in their mind.

And there's a lot of smoke and mirrors with this whole ecumenism thing.

They have a show called The Journey Home.

They want us as Protestants to return to Rome or become Catholic for the

first time because that is the safe place where you're more likely to go to heaven.

Well, the lie is, especially for people who convert to Rome, is that Rome

makes everything clearer.

But when you actually look at the stuff, the bishops at

large are not on the same page as the conservative Catholics who are doing the apologetic

work.

And as my recent interview with Robert Syngenis that got some flack from,

for me, or against me, from some of my listeners...

Hey, join the club, man.

I think Robert made it clear that there is no less confusion

or disagreement amongst Catholics than there is amongst evangelicals because

they may claim to have an infallible interpreter of the Bible, but they

don't have an infallible interpreter for the infallible interpreter.

Right.

They have no way of defining without error what he says about the Bible.

So therefore, they are in no safer place than Christians who are trying to

understand what the Bible teaches.

It's very mushy.

Like, the modern Roman Catholic Church is not the Roman Catholic Church of the quote -unquote good old

days, as I mentioned before, 100 years ago or 400 years ago or 500 years ago,

where, you know, if you're outside of Rome, you're going to hell.

Outside the church, there's no salvation.

Clearly meant, like, what that sounds like to them.

Now it's very mushy.

And I think it's going to get mushier over time.

But as I said, is that whether they're condemning us or not, if they're not preaching

the gospel, we need to preach the gospel to them.

Yes.

And whereas some people say that even if they're not Catholic, that Vatican II was

such a blessing because it made the Catholic Church more welcoming to

Protestants and has defined us as separated brethren.

It actually confused the issue a lot more about what the difference is regarding the gospel.

Well, that's what I was saying before, was that you don't know how people are going to

react.

You would think, like, okay, like, if Rome does something really insane,

then the conservative Roman Catholics will come to their senses.

It might not work that way.

As I said, you need the Holy Spirit.

Again, and I think your point that you just made is very telling, is that if the mushiness

might just mean they're more comfortable.

And if they see also the mushy Protestants say, oh, it doesn't really matter.

You know, you do your thing.

I do my thing.

Whether, you know, Rick Warren is going to be at the world.

Maybe I can get a sit down with the Protestant pope while he's in Philly or whatever.

It's certainly not my pope.

Yeah, no, but.

And it's interesting how he identifies Pope Francis as our pope, but even though

he's a Southern Baptist.

I'm going to tell you this, Chris.

I'm not going to mention names, but I have run into people, even in our

conservative reform circles, they know that our confessions kind of

say, they know our confessions would say, hey, this is a defining issue.

But I honestly think, and again, I'm not going to mention names, and I'm not going to say it's like a high percentage of people,

but there are a number of people, especially I think people who

didn't convert from Catholicism to the reform world, which in my area of the world in South

Jersey, almost everybody who's an evangelical came from a Roman Catholic background just due to demographics.

But there are a lot of people who were raised reformed.

I don't think they kind of feel it.

I think to them, there's a certain number who do kind of

think Rome isn't as bad as kind of we say.

Right, I agree.

I agree with you 100%.

And as a reform Baptist, I think that, not to pat my own

group on the back, but I think that we have a little bit more clearly defined borders because, as

you may well know, there is a difference amongst the Presbyterian and reform groups on

how to view Rome, and many would call Rome a part of the visible church

or a true church with false beliefs rather than a false church with some true beliefs.

I would go more the R .C. Sproul, John MacArthur route, which is

that, no, I don't believe they're a true church.

Other people have different, like, is their baptism valid?

So to me, the debate over whether they're part of the visible church that is in need of

reformation or whether they're no longer a church, to me, I don't

really have time to figure that out.

What I do have time to know is that if they're not preaching the gospel, I need to preach the gospel to their members.

Jeff,

reform

turns out

to be

public proclamation of the gospel.

That is true.

You meet people

that you

could never meet

in any other, particularly among

reformers.

I don't think it's due to their, sorry for interrupting you, Ron, I don't think it's due to their Calvinism so much

as that it's, I've met, I've talked to a few people

who are into doing evangelism in the reform world, or at least in my local area.

And a lot of them, or at least the few that I've talked to, some of them are kind of

frustrated.

And I don't think it's due to the Calvinism that's holding them back.

I think it's, there is an aversion to doing street evangelism for whatever reason.

I attribute it to that they're from a Scottish background and don't like talking to

people or something like that.

I'm like, um, no, no, I just wanted to clarify that, that I don't think it,

yeah, it might exist in some Arminian circles too.

Try to, try to understand what I'm saying.

Yeah.

That they're not interested in it.

It's like, or let's say that

we go out and like,

George Whitefield was very reformed

of God's power.

The interaction

with,

Lord, give me a chance to

share the gospel with somebody as he went about his business.

And, and so there's a, there's a,.

They don't know what, they don't have any tools in the toolbox.

So they're scared.

Yeah.

And these minutes that we have left, Jeff and Ron, describe exactly what

will be taking place.

I know that you've already mentioned a lot of what will be happening, but if you could just really systematize what you're

actually doing there in Philadelphia.

Okay.

So a few things are still up in the air, but basically the conference is between

the 22nd and 25th.

People are going to start arriving on the 21st of September, which is a Monday.

So between Monday and Friday, we are going to be in the city.

Now, doing a street evangelism geared mainly towards the people attending the

conference and also areas around center city.

Just intervene there for one second.

Let me share the complete.

Well, if you could also give a more full description of this conference.

Well, it's the world meeting of families.

The conference is focused on, I guess, just kind of family issues and how the church

life relates to the family.

And it's every three years.

It's a major international conference that the church has.

I think it was in Milan previously or whatever.

And there's going to be a few hundred thousand just attending the conference.

Oh, so you're speaking about the Roman Catholic church is having a conference.

Yes, the Roman Catholic church is having conference and the Pope is coming to speak.

Essentially, he's coming because of the conference.

So he will be there on the Saturday and Sunday.

Now the logistics, please, everybody on the radio or podcast or whatever, keep this in prayer.

Logistics for when the Pope is there is going to be a nightmare.

So we've developed a strategy where we're going to actually try to get people as they're on the way in

as opposed to actually being in because there's not going to be allowed to have any cars or

there's not that many subway stops.

So we could send evangelists in, but then they would kind of be stranded.

So we're going to do from when the Pope's there, we're going to have a separate strategy of

going to the transportation hubs.

So we definitely need prayer for interaction with any police, transit police.

There are so many things you can pray about, but definitely keep

that in mind.

And I know I keep repeating a quote by Penn Teller or Penn

Jillette, I should say, on my program.

Penn Jillette, who is a part of the Penn and Teller Magic Act, Comedy Act, etc.

Penn Jillette is an atheist and he can be quite vulgar and can say

some very anti -Christian things.

But he recognizes, and I'm saying this for those who believe that what Jeff and

Ron are doing is motivated by hatred and bigotry or something.

Penn Jillette said that after a man watching his act in Vegas

gave him a Bible, Penn Jillette so appreciated this man's

compassion for him and his desire for him to go to heaven, that

he recognized that even though he rejects the existence of God and is an atheist, he recognizes

that that had nothing to do with hate or bigotry.

It had to do with love and a concern for his own soul.

And therefore, he said, if you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven, and I am

paraphrasing here, but this is the basic elements of what he was saying.

This is exactly what he said here.

How much do you have to hate someone not to tell them this?

And I think that that is something that we all should remember.

This has nothing to do with hatred and bigotry.

It's about love and compassion for souls.

And I would also, if I could add a shameless plug, if anybody wants to

help financially, just send some money over to AMI ministry

for this.

And also next year, we're going to do the really hard thing.

The Democratic National Convention is coming to Philly.

So in next July, I believe.

So July 25th.

Yeah.

So in that outreach, you're bringing exorcists with you?

That outreach.

Catholics are going to be easy, man, compared to that, in my estimation.

But anybody who wants to be involved in that should start talking to Ron as well.

And Ron Elkin's website for AMI ministry is

amiministry .org.

That's amiministry .org.

And in one minute, if each of you could just say goodbye to our listeners, and please don't go over a minute each because we

are running out of time.

You could become...

And Jeff?

I couldn't say it better.

I would just say, please pray.

There are so many things, not just our outreach.

Again, Jeremiah Cry Ministries is doing stuff too.

Just pray for the people, the Catholics that are coming, our

evangelists.

And pray for God to use us and to move through us.

We are definitely earthen vessels who are weak.

But we definitely need prayers for the spirit of God to move through us.

Well, I want to thank you, Jeff Robinson, not only for spearheading this outreach, but for being

my guest today for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron, for your diligence and remaining in contact with me.

I very much appreciate it.

I look forward to having you back on the program.

I'm not sure what about, but I guess...

I mean, in the beginning thing, it's like, I'm just a lay person.

So, but maybe for the Democratic National Convention next year, maybe we'll do it again.

Sure.

And Ron Elkin, it's such a pleasure to have you back on the program.

And I also eagerly look forward to your return to speak on Jewish evangelism.

Thank you, Chris.

And once again, the website for AMI ministry is amizonmichaeli

-ministry .org amiministry .org.

I want to give a prayer request for a very dear friend of mine, a Jewish believer who has heavily been involved

in Jewish evangelism for about 50 or 60 years, Marty, who is recovering

from brain surgery.

Please pray for him to rapidly return to good health so that he may

continue in his very vital ministry for years to come in the future.

And pray for Iron Sharpens Iron, that this radio program may

continue as well, and that we may be faithful to the word of God.

I want to thank all of you for listening, especially those who wrote 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.

God bless, and we hope you join us tomorrow and the rest of the week on Iron Sharpens Iron.