August 17, 2016 Show with Ron Elkin on “Biblical Answers to Jewish Questions”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 17th day of August 2016 and I'm delighted to have back on the program,

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Ron Elkin, who began a discussion on Monday in regard to evangelizing our

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Jewish neighbors. Today, Ron Elkin is going to be focusing on biblical answers to Jewish questions and Ron Elkin is founder and director of AMI ministry, which brings the gospel to the

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Jewish people. Their website is amiministry .org, A -M as in Michael, M as in Michael, I, ministry .org

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and Ron himself is a Jewish believer in Jesus Christ, also known as Yeshua HaMashiach and it's my honor and privilege to have you back on Iron Sharpens Iron, Ron Elkin.

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It is a privilege to be here. Think about all the wonderful theologians you have on your show and the different subjects that are raised and I'm glad that I have an opportunity to be part of that and talk about today how to witness the

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Jewish people or raise some of the answers to some of the normal objections that most

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Jewish people have when you start talking to them about Jesus. You know, it just occurred to me that I have to introduce you to someone who's a friend of mine and I don't know if you've ever met him, but I have to introduce you to Stephen Atkinson, who is the

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North American director for a Christian witness to Israel and he is also in the PCA, Presbyterian Church in America, just as you are.

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Right. I believe we have talked on the phone and I think it may have been him or one of the people who works with their group who was working with the suburban church in Philadelphia and there was some talk about me coming and helping get involved with the direct outreach part of our ministry and so that's not happened, but I hope it will and that would be great to work together.

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I love working with other ministries. And Stephen's from Northern Ireland originally and now lives here in Arkansas in the

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United States. And tell our listeners, I know that you've already done this every time you've come on, but for those of our listeners who just tuned in for the first time perhaps, or at least are discovering you for the first time, tell our listeners a little bit about AMI ministry.

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Sure. AMI is the word my people from Isaiah 40 verse 1 that says comfort, comfort my people, sayeth the

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Lord. And as a group of believers that help form AMI, a 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Center City, Philadelphia, we took that because we can't think of any greater comfort to any human being than to come into a relationship with the living

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God. And so our heart desire is to share the gospel with Jewish people because many

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Jewish people are not seeking the Lord. You never know, there's a lot of different testaments of how

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God has drawn Jewish people. But our goal is to bring the gospel of Jewish people in a way that's done in love, but yet to bring up the issue of Jesus in a very clear way.

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And then to train Christians how to share their faith with Jewish people and to fight against the increase of anti -Semitism in the world through Christians, that Christians would develop a greater awareness and prayer life for God to intervene in this situation, or that God would use persecution, which he can do, to bring people to himself among the

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Jewish people. But for sure that the Christian should give a witness of love for the

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Jewish person by speaking out against this evil prejudice that exists in the world against the

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Jews in many cases. And for those of you who want to find out more about Ron Elkin's own personal testimony, you can not only go to AMIministry .org,

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that's A -M -I -M -I -N -I -M -I -N -I -N -I -S -T -R -E -Y .org, and that's ministry singular with a

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Y at the end. And you can also go to the Iron Sharpens Iron Archive and look up past interviews that we've had with Ron on his personal testimony and also other areas in regard to Jewish evangelism, including the one that we just had this past Monday on the 15th of August following our interview with Todd Friel of Wretched Radio.

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And today, as I said, we are going to be focusing our time on biblical answers to Jewish questions because there is a lot, according to our brother, that basically there is a wall of confusion perhaps regarding biblical truth when it comes to bringing the gospel to the

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Jews because many of our Jewish friends, loved ones, and colleagues, and neighbors, they are mistakenly adopting rabbinical tradition outside of the canon of scripture, perhaps naively so, and thinking that this is truly a part of the

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Tanakh or the Torah, and where it is just really a part of the

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Talmud or rabbinical tradition. But if you could start off with basically some of those definitions regarding the

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Tanakh versus the Talmud. Okay, sure. The Tanakh is the complete

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Bible, the Jewish Bible. It's the Torah and the writings and the prophets and the

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Hebrew names for those first parts of each Hebrew name forms the word

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Tanakh. So it's the whole Jewish scriptures. The Talmud was a, over a period of several hundred years, was written particularly after the

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Temple was destroyed and the focus was on keeping the commandments of God as a substitute for the animal sacrifices.

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Not that they didn't try to keep the commandments before, but they could no longer have the animal sacrifices because God had ordained that that would take place only at the spot that He would choose, which turned out to be in that hill in Jerusalem where the

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Temple was built. And so the focus became now even more focused on the aspect of keeping the law.

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And the Talmud was written to explain how to keep the 613 laws that God gave

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Israel, as well as the feasts and the auxiliary things that God gave

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Israel to conduct themselves and how to conduct themselves. And they get very nuanced into every aspect of life.

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And there was two portions of it in the

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Talmud, and it's a very, very complex book. And if you think about the size of the 613 laws or the

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Torah, and this would be at least 20 times larger than the Talmud. And so it's what the very orthodox

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Jews study. And in some ways, because it is so detailed and so involved, and some of it is myth, some of it is subjective ideas relating to what was given by God.

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And some of it is just looking at what was given by God. It's very easy for those that are caught up in this to lose the actual meaning of the

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Word of God and focus on minutia. And so that is one of the problems that those who become involved with yeshivas, the higher education, fall into and become very religious and practice many of the traditions as defined by the rabbis.

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So what happened is you have, for example, let me give you an example of what I mean. God gave them the commandment to not mix the meat of an animal with milk.

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And it wasn't meant as a commandment to not eat milk and meat at the same time, but it was a practice of the pagan tribes around Israel that they would sacrifice a young animal and cook it in the milk of that animal's mother and then put that over the fields.

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And it was praying to pagan gods that that field would have a fertile harvest.

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And so God was forbidding them from practicing this idolatry practice of the people in that area.

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And so what the rabbis said is, well, if God doesn't want us to do that, let's make it even better.

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Let's put a fence around the law so that we will be sure not to break it.

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And what they came up with was the idea that a Jew could not eat meat and milk at the same time.

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That's why they don't have cheeseburgers at Jewish delis. Not if they can help it. No, that's exactly right.

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So the idea here was to go beyond what God commanded so that we wouldn't break that inner law.

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Of course, that was not God's idea. That was man's. So in Israel, some of the wealthy people may even have two kitchens, one for meat and one for dairy.

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My mother was kosher and she had two sets of silverware, two sets of dishes, and so on. Now, it's a deep religious practice, but it has nothing to do with what

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God was talking about. So unfortunately, there are things that are clear, you know, to not commit adultery, do not steal, do not lie, but then they got into the other performance type of duties.

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And that's where it gets very complicated and very compounded by rabbinical traditions over the century.

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Well, you know, it might actually be good to define this may sound like a silly question for many people listening, but define who is a

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Jew. And of course, the Bible may have a different answer to that question than the rabbinic custom would.

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But if you could, sure, sure. Yes, it's very, it's very important to Jewish people, this question, because it has to do with now, particularly being a citizen in Israel.

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The Orthodox believe that a Jew is one is born from a Jewish mother, or has converted to Judaism.

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They believe this because over the centuries, the Jewish people had so many problems. And there untragically, that the

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Gentile community would rape the women in the Jewish community. And so they can never really be clear, even though it seems like they should be in most cases, but they couldn't be clear who the father was.

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So they know that this person was born from a Jewish mother. And so therefore, that was one of their, you know, litmus test, reform believe, and there's different divisions within Judaism, you have the

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Orthodox conservative, who are somewhat like the Orthodox in their beliefs, but their lifestyle is more liberal, and they may be fine to go out and have a cheeseburger, or they might keep keep strictly kosher, then the reform group is very liberal, and sees the laws only in metaphysical kind of example kind of way and does not have any problem going out and have eggs and bacon, for the most part.

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But anyway, every form believes anyone who is has been raised

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Jewish, regardless of whether their parents were Jewish or not, they're considered Jewish. And as far as Israel is concerned, anyone who is one quarter

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Jewish, or married to a Jewish person can come to Israel and automatically become a citizen.

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However, a Jewish person who believes in Jesus, as I mentioned in the last show, the

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Israel Supreme Court ruled is non Jewish. And so just shows you sometimes you can't trust the courts, right?

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Now would would a person who is a complete atheist, but ethnically Jewish, be welcome as a

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Jew in Israel? Oh, yeah. That doesn't make any sense, does it? No, it doesn't. That's what human race is like, where you have the

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Christian, who is ethnically Jewish, embracing as truth, what the prophets of the of the old covenant of the

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Hebrew scriptures taught, whereas an agnostic would think that they were laughable fairy tales and mock them.

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And in many ways, ironically, be an anti Semites, not ethnically, but religiously.

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You have a Christian who is embracing much of these things, or all of them actually, as as true, other than, of course, as we were saying,

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Talmudic, rabbinical custom, but things that are actually canonical, who would have much more in common with an

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Orthodox Jew than an atheist. And yet, the atheist is welcomed as a true

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Jew, and the Christian is rejected. It's like many human situations, you know, you have to scratch your head and imagine how

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God feels about it, you know, puzzling to us, I understand. And this is true for many human situations, the sin nature wins out, and public pressure and social, you know, things come in the way of reality, you know, what should be what's a fair, you know, many things are not fair.

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But as believers, that's one of our struggles is to live in a world that is not living in any way fair, as we understand what justice should be in truth.

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So it is one of our struggles, one of the painful things we have to go through here until we get to be with the

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Lord. So yeah, it is unfair, and it is, but it has been ruled that way.

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Now, that is obviously what you're talking about is has to do with tradition and customs invented by men.

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Was there a litmus test in the Old Covenant, regard to what made someone a

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Jew? I mean, obviously, to be a faithful member of Israel, you had to be circumcised and keep the law and so on.

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But was there anything else that was a litmus test to somebody truly being a

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Jew in the Old Covenant? If we look at the scriptures, the ascendance is usually seen as coming from the male.

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And so I think the people in the community knew if the father of this person was

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Jewish and so on. I don't think it was. I think it became pretty obvious that this person was born in a

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Jewish home, was Jewish, you know, and then you had other people who were, you know, coming into the community who were obviously not

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Jewish as far as ethnically, but they have then become one of the God -fearers and converted to Judaism.

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Now, were the laws prohibiting interracial marriage in the

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Old Covenant? Was that purely in regard to one's faith?

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Because we did have Moses and someone who married a woman who was not ethnically

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Jewish. Yeah, and God got angry with him for not circumcising the child, too. And he also, though, got angry with Moses' sister and struck her with leprosy for her bigotry against the woman.

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That's right. Yes, see, God's no respecter of any person, you know. Mm -hmm.

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And I'm sure the sister was not... the attitude of her heart was not exactly something that was pleasing to God.

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But it's true. The way I explain it to people about God's continuation of the

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Jewish people is that it's got a number of features. One, I mentioned at the end of Jeremiah 31, verses 35 to 37, that the

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Jewish people remained a people before God in spite of all they've done as a visible witness of God's faithfulness.

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Of His word upon who they are doesn't mean that they're saved.

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It doesn't mean that they're not experiencing chastisement at different times or blessings. But the main point was to keep the community pure so that the

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Messiah would come forth, and also that they would continue to worship the God of Israel, the true God of Israel.

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So this was probably, my understanding, looking at everything, the main reason that God said, do not intermingle with the tribes around you.

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And so that was a very strong impression upon the Jewish people. And when they strayed from that, the prophets would come and, you know, give them a hard time and say, you're doing the wrong thing.

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And so the thing was to keep pure, keep that faithful in the way God gave it through Moses, and particularly until the

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Messiah would come. And so that he would come in that community that was practicing or trying to practice some of the things that God gave.

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And he had to interact with the Temple of Jesus, and it had to be there for him to be able to do that.

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And the Jews had to remain Jewish in order for that to be happening. Now, one of the things that there seems to be a departure in regard to theology with the

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Jews, a departure from their own Hebrew scriptures, is the nature of man.

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As we who are Christians believe, if we are biblically sound, that is, and not

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Pelagian, but we who are Christians agree with David that we come out of the womb with a lying tongue.

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We believe that humans are born with the sin of Adam, which is called historically original sin, that they are born with.

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And we who are theologically reformed would even go further and say that they are totally depraved apart from a miracle of regeneration from the

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Holy Spirit. But if you could tell us how the Jewish understanding has departed from their own

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Hebrew scriptures in regard to the nature of man. The rabbis have come up with the understanding that we're born pure.

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And so, in other words, they reject this issue that we are instinctively sinful, but they acknowledge that there is sin, and that people have the capacity to reject the tendency towards doing the wrong thing and choose to do the right thing.

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So it becomes a works religion. In other words, that the person can become, through their lifestyle and through their choosing, righteous enough to be pleasing to God and be accepted by God.

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And so this is a big difference. And one of the things that I point out to Jewish people is some of the major figures within Judaism.

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For example, in Exodus chapter 3, verses 2 through 8, it talks about Moses seeing an angel in a bush that's in the midst of a fire.

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And as he approaches this, he says, I'll go over and take a look at this. When the

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Lord saw, I'm reading now directly from the ESV, when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see,

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God called him out of the bush, called from out of the bush, Moses, you are standing on holy ground.

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Then he said, do not come near, take your sandals off your feet, for the place in which you are standing is holy ground.

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And he said, I am the Lord, your God, your father, the God of Abraham, the

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God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And Moses hit his face where he was afraid to look at God.

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And so I point out to a Jewish person, what does that mean that God is holy?

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And the word holy means unique, totally different than anything else. And why did he have to take his sandals off?

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Well, there was an understanding that Moses was not holy, that Moses was unclean. And he had to recognize that before the holy

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God. And he was, he was instinctively afraid to look at God because in his heart, he realized that he was before the

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Almighty, to whom he had to give an account. And he was afraid. And then we have the same thing in Isaiah, Isaiah chapter six, where Isaiah is confronted with a vision and the smoke fills the temple and the temple is shaking.

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And the foundations, it says, shook and the voice who called in the house was filled with smoke.

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And I said, and here's Isaiah saying, speaking first person, woe is me for I am lost from a man of unclean lips and dwell in the midst of the people of unclean lips.

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For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. So again, when we explain what the

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Bible teaches, it says that God looks down from heaven in Psalm 14 and sees that nobody is righteous, no, not one.

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And so there's many verses to refute what the rabbis are teaching.

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And so this is a major obstacle. Jewish people believe that those who have any idea that there is a

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God and they need to obey God, that they can be righteous enough through their works. And of course, that's one of the things that we have to explain is not really true.

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Yeah. And how, how do they view the Gentile, all of the

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Gentile nations who are not practicing Judaism? And I'm talking specifically about Orthodox Judaism.

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And I know that there are even differences amongst Orthodox Jews. And not only that, there are even differences, radical differences among the

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Hasidic Jews. You know, they have the different traditions within even

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Hasidic Judaism that have radically opposed views of the nation of Israel and that kind of thing.

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But that's true. But obviously, you know, if we if we were to include reform

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Judaism in every question, that would just, we would have to have a program that's like, you know, 12 hours long because but as far as like your average

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Orthodox Jew or perhaps even a conservative Jew, how how would how do they view the

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Gentiles? Is there a hope for heaven for those who are doing things that in the old covenant would have perhaps been or not even perhaps would have certainly been an abomination?

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Those that, for instance, within the Roman Catholic Church that have erected idols, those even within Bible believing evangelicalism, who worship the

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Messiah as God, which they view as blasphemy because they don't believe the

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Messiah is God. And so how do they view us? Well, confused.

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They really honestly, of course, they believe they have the ultimate truth, like any other religion.

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But there is a there is a way for Gentiles to enter the world to come.

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They call heaven the world to come. And that's through keeping the Noahic laws, the basic and basic things that you would find in the

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Ten Commandments, and that they would strive to follow

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God, even, you know, to the best of their understanding. But they certainly believe that a strong Bible believing

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Christian who believes Jesus is deity would be rejected because that's idolatry.

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That's moving into territory that God absolutely forbids and hates. And that's one of the reasons that the

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Jews went through the Exodus and chastisement when they got involved with all this idolatry. God really got angry with them and made it clear to the prophets.

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So they're very much opposed. However, when you get to the individual person, individual

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Jew who sees the good behavior of a Christian and sees the love that that Christian may express towards them and senses, here's a man who

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I can trust. That's somebody who's a mensch, right? Isn't that what it is? That's the right word.

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It's a German word for meaning a good person. Mm -hmm. Yeah, so as a mensch, then they, for that person, they say, well, they're just not really taught the right way, and this is how they were raised, but they're really okay, they're a nice person, and they may even believe somewhere along the way that God would be okay towards them.

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But, you know, there's a great anger because of the persecution that happened through the centuries at the hands of people who call themselves

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Christians. This is another obstacle. And so if you're approaching a Jewish person who's somewhat open, or you could talk with them about the

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Lord, always be ready to acknowledge that this history that took place has nothing to do with the teaching of Jesus.

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It was a sinful nature. Matter of fact, you can use it as a springboard. I was witnessing to a 84 -year -old man who had hung out with Christians, but it was rejecting the

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Gospel, and he really was being called by God, but he was upset about the...he

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was an iron worker, actually, one of the few Jewish people in the trades, and he received all kind of heavy anti -Semitic activity against him, and so he was really feeling the need to be loyal by not believing in Jesus, and yet he was drawn to it.

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So, you know, basically, I used to when speaking to him, and it could be done with many other people, use it as a springboard to show that the sin nature of human race, you know, why is there prejudice in the world to begin with?

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Not only against Jews, but, you know, between Jews in this group, and between that group and this group, and it's the way it's explained, and the sin nature is so obvious in the sin of prejudice, and that helped him actually get to the point where he received the

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Lord. It was a great blessing. And I'm glad that God gave me some wisdom, at least, to explain that part of it, but that's how it can be used.

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But the horrible things that happened, you know, I can't go into...there was just so many bad things that happened in the name of Jesus, in the

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Europe area particularly, that there's a strong desire to not become a traitor to one's people by believing in Jesus.

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Well, that even...that type of hostility even existed in Jesus's day towards the

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Gentiles, not that they were identified as Christian, but the Gentiles who had treated the

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Jewish people for centuries in a very savage way, and brutal way, and so on, they had a bigotry towards the

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Gentiles, that even, as we know, Peter, the apostle, had a struggle with that bigotry.

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Well, it's really...see, the Greek world, prior to the birth of Jesus, had a lot of prejudiced ideas against the

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Jewish people, particularly in North Africa, there was actually a war between the Jews and the

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Gentile community. The Gentiles saw the Jews as atheists because they wouldn't come and worship all the many gods they were worshiping, they wouldn't celebrate the feast days that involved all this pagan worship, they wouldn't come and eat in their homes and interact socially, and then they wouldn't work on Saturday, and Cicero, this famous lawyer from that part of the time, taught all kinds of horrible things about the

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Jewish people, so there was a pre...it was already within the Greek world, a dislike and a prejudice towards the

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Jewish people, and they believed there were lepers who came out, the

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Gentiles believed the Jews were lepers who came out of Egypt, and so a lot of negative things, and then when

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Jesus came to the Jewish people, and then the gospel spread to the non -Jews, they began this seabed of antagonism towards the

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Jewish people really brought out the idea that how horrible the Jews were, they killed our

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Lord, and yet the lack of understanding that where Jesus said that he was coming to die, he was ordained to die, and that he had both the

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Jews, the God arranged that both Jews and Gentiles were involved with the actual death of Jesus, and he says this in Mark chapter 10, he says, see we're going up to Jerusalem, and the

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Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, then they will hand him over to the

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Gentiles, and they will mock him and spit upon him, flock him and kill him, and after three days he'll rise again, so God ordained that the actual death of Jesus was done for everyone, and of course the

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Gentiles, we don't know who's descended from those soldiers who whipped Jesus and put the crown of thorn on his head, so the

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Roman soldiers were from many nations around the world, so I mean not around the world, but through that whole area, the known world, and so God purposed that, and so when we, the thing is, when the church grew more and more

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Gentile, came into it, it's kind of astonishing that they didn't see this and say, well wait a minute, you know, they're just sinners like we are, and we're sinners like they are, but this human nature gets in there, and all kinds of problems develop, so yes, there were

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Jewish people who definitely were not thinking, they definitely were thinking themselves superior to the

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Gentile world, but then the Gentile world was antagonistic towards them even before Jesus came in, and it only got compounded, so I see this as Satan's attempt to weaken the church, because God called the church to be made up of both

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Jews and Gentiles, because in a way God has gifted different people in different groups with different gifts, and the church is supposed to be using all those gifts to his glory, and for the edification of one another,

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Jewish people are, as you notice, they're not invisible. They do inventions, they do science, they do good media as far as, you know, it isn't necessarily moral, but they do ability to communicate, and of course

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God used the Jews to write the Bible and to spread his word, and then he used the apostles to bring his word to the

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Gentile nation, so if Satan wanted to weaken that type of activity and get the

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Gentile community to be hostile towards the Jewish community so that the witness for Jesus would be weakened, and then you'd have less and less of the skills and the talent of the

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Jewish people operating within the church world. Yeah, I've heard it put very well by one of my former pastors years ago in a sermon where he went through all of those who basically killed

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Jesus, and he said the Jews killed Jesus when they turned him over to Pilate, and the

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Romans killed Jesus because they were the ones that physically nailed him to the cross, and God the

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Father killed Jesus to satisfy his wrath, and Jesus laid down his own life as a sacrifice for the sins of his people, and all those for whom

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Christ died, the sins of his elect killed

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Jesus because they were the very reason that he had to die.

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Isn't that, that is really a great teaching, because it kind of reminds us of who we are, that we are sinners saved by grace, and that we have much to be thankful to God for, that somehow our eyes saw the truth.

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And we have to get a break right now, and if you'd like to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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

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USA. In fact, let me read Tyler from Mastic Beach, Long Island's question to you, and you can think about it and answer it when we return from the break.

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Tyler from Mastic Beach asks, is a good passage of scripture to show a

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Jewish person the first five verses in Romans 9 where Paul clearly lays out the heart for the

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Jewish people? And you could think about that and answer it when we return, and we'll be right back after these messages with Ron Elkin of AMI Ministries, so do not go away.

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That's the Thrivent story. This is

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Chris Arns and our guest today for the full two hours, with an hour to go, is actually more than an hour, about an hour and 20 minutes to go, is

40:45

Ron Elkin, who is founder and director of AMI Ministry. And that website is amiministry .org.

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That's A -M -M as in Michael I, ministry .org. Ron Elkin is a

40:58

Jewish believer in Jesus Christ, also known in Hebrew as Yeshua Mashiach.

41:04

And by the way, how is my Hebrew pronunciation of that? It sounded correct. And we are talking about biblical answers to Jewish questions.

41:17

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

41:23

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Before we return to Tyler from Aztec Beaches' question for you,

41:31

Ron, I just wanted to make a quick announcement. For those of you who live near or in Atlanta, Georgia, or are capable of traveling there this

41:40

January, I strongly urge you to go to the G3 conference. And thanks be to the grace and mercy of God, I will be going, unless he has other plans that I don't know about yet.

41:53

But I have been enabled to go to this conference through the generosity of Brethren in Christ in New York, and also through the generosity of those running the

42:08

G3 conference, like Pastor Josh Bice of Praise Mill Baptist Church. And I am looking forward with great anticipation to this conference.

42:18

It's got one of the largest lineups or rosters of speakers I've ever seen at a conference, and they're all extraordinary.

42:27

I mean, Paul Washer, Stephen J. Lawson, D .A. Carson, Bodhi Baucom, Dr. James R.

42:33

White of Alpha Omega Ministries, Tim Challies, Conrad M. Bayway, who I've often said may very well be the most powerful preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the planet

42:44

Earth, Conrad M. Bayway, who is the pastor of Kibwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa.

42:51

Phil Johnson, who is the executive director of Grace to You Ministries, the teaching and preaching ministry of John MacArthur.

43:00

And Rosaria Butterfield, who is a former leftist lesbian and a professor at Syracuse University who came to Christ and renounced the wickedness of her past and actually is now married to a

43:15

Presbyterian pastor, a male Presbyterian pastor. And she is the author of two books.

43:22

She's going to be giving her testimony, and she's coming back on Iron Sharpens Iron this coming

43:27

Monday, the 22nd of August. This will be her second interview with us. And a number of other wonderful brethren in Christ will be speaking at this conference.

43:40

And for more details, go to g3conference .com. That's g3conference .com.

43:48

And please, if you go, make sure you look me up at one of the exhibitors' booths. I will have,

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God willing, an Iron Sharpens Iron banner hanging on my table or above my table.

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And I should be right next to the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals table who have asked me to assist them in passing out literature as well.

44:11

And I'm really looking forward to this very much. I've never been to Atlanta, Georgia before either, so it's going to be,

44:19

I'm expecting a wonderful time. And since I've interviewed most of these speakers and only met face -to -face a few of them,

44:29

I am really even doubly looking forward to getting to actually meet face -to -face some of these folks.

44:36

But that's g3conference .com, g3conference .com. Please register and please come and spend a few days learning and worshiping and fellowshipping with me.

44:51

And I hope to see you there. Before the break, I read a question to you from one of our listeners.

45:00

That's Tyler, who says, is a good passage of scripture to show a Jewish person, the first five verses in Romans 9, where Paul clearly lays out his heart for the

45:11

Jewish people. And let me read those. Excuse me, I have to cough myself. And the

45:18

Apostle Paul starts off this chapter in Romans 9,

45:24

I am telling the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscious testifies with me in the

45:29

Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart.

45:35

For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh, who are

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Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons. And the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the temple service and the promises, who are the fathers, and from whom is the

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Christ, according to the flesh, who is overall God blessed forever.

46:07

Amen. And Tyler wants to know if that is a good group of verses to bring up the

46:14

Jewish people. Well, I think it is showing the heart of Paul, as he said, his concern for the

46:20

Jewish people. But I think that you would then go on to the further verses, which

46:26

I think could be even more helpful in some ways, where he goes on to say that not all descended from Israel are

46:35

Israel. And then he goes on in verse 8 to say, in other words, it is not the children by physical descent that are

46:42

God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring.

46:48

So the question to the Jewish person that may raise up that idea in his mind, what does that mean?

46:56

You know, I can think of, in a way, greater verses to show as far as the deity of Jesus or the messiahship of Jesus or the need to repent because of our sin nature.

47:08

But this is a good way to, in a way, talk about this question of, who is a

47:14

Jew? I mean, spiritually speaking, you know, how are we pleasing to God? And when he says here that not all are by physical descent, but the promise, and to speak about the need for a spiritual relationship, that if the person is believing that their

47:34

Jewishness gets them in good with God, this would be a curveball for them to think about, well, how do

47:42

I really know that God has accepted me, just because I'm Jewish? And some Jewish people believe that.

47:48

So this would be good, I think, as far as going much further with that verse 8, put a little puzzle in their minds about, what is this promise?

47:58

And of course, that would be the ultimate promise was that God would send the messiah, and who would then reconcile both

48:06

Jews and Gentiles into one new man. And so that could be brought in as well.

48:12

And then, of course, the messianic prophecies are very important to start. Well, yeah,

48:17

I'd like you to go through those, because that would probably be clearly the most important things to bring up biblically to a

48:28

Jewish person. The prophecies of the messiah from the Old Testament, or their Hebrew scriptures.

48:35

But before we leave what Tyler brought up, I think that it would probably be good to show a

48:45

Jewish person the great love and compassion that the

48:53

Apostle Paul, who was a Jew, who was a Hebrew of Hebrews, who not only was a

49:01

Hebrew of Hebrews, but he was a persecutor of Christians initially, and in actuality, round up men and women for their execution.

49:12

And who later, after his conversion, was so dedicated to Jesus the messiah, and so much loved his own kinsmen, the

49:26

Jewish people, that he said that, I wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren.

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And I think that that may be at least something that startles some

49:42

Jewish individuals, if they could grasp the fact that this was a true historic figure.

49:55

Very rarely in literature do we see such a profound statement of one's love for his kinsmen than this.

50:05

A variety of Jewish people out there who would respond to that in a variety of ways.

50:10

There could be one who would see it as you're saying, and see the humanist, the love, the concern, but many of them would just say, well, you know, he just had a belief that I don't believe, and he had a, we're fine, you know,

50:25

I'm glad that he felt this passion for us, but it has nothing to do with us, and doesn't persuade us.

50:31

And then others might say, well, yeah, I see, I see that he was a mensch in some ways, that he cared about us, but he was just confused and wrong.

50:39

Right. Obviously, it takes a miracle of the Holy Spirit before somebody actually embraces this.

50:45

You're right, and that's why I'm glad I'm reformed, that it gives me a peace to know that ultimately, no matter what efforts we make, that God's overseeing this, and that we must be clear in the gospel and not compromise it.

50:59

We must make it clear that there is atonement for our sins, we need to repent, and otherwise there are also consequences for rejecting

51:08

God's truth. And I just, before you go on to the Messianic Scripture, I think of one of the other important areas, if you don't mind, is the idea of salvation by works versus grace.

51:20

That's a very critical thing, because Judaism is a works religion, and it's ultimate, it does have faith in God, those that are truly, you know, they're

51:29

God -fearers, and they believe in Him, they cry out for God to forgive them, even Yom Kippur, they will fast, and even leading up to Yom Kippur, they will, you know, prepare for that, and fast, and pray for God to forgive them.

51:43

And so there's definitely some sense of the need to be right with God, but they believe it's, again, attainable through their efforts, and so this issue of the fact of a bloodless religion, you know, there's no longer any blood around to make that intercession for our sins is important.

52:05

The thing we want to point out to a Jewish person is a couple things. Number one, in Genesis 15, 6, it says,

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Abraham believed God and was counted as righteous. In other words, the faith of Abraham and God's promise, and that goes back to this

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Scripture we just were looking at, in verse 8. It was by this promise of faith, in what

52:30

God was saying, that Abraham was made righteous, and then we have Leviticus 16 and 17, the

52:37

Yom Kippur service, where there had to be the sacrifice of an animal on the altar, and then later in 17,

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God forbid the eating of blood, because blood was used to be used on the sacrificial altar for forgiveness of sin.

52:54

So it's really clear how important the blood atonement is, and then we have an example of grace in Isaiah 6, verse 6 -7, where Isaiah had seen the vision of God as far as he could see it, and he was repenting before God, and then it says, one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

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So this is part of the sacrificial system that he's taking the coal from, it's part of the animal sacrifice, and he touched my mouth and said, behold, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, and your sins are atoned for.

53:41

And one of the things I've mentioned to Jewish people when I go through this Isaiah chapter 6, is

53:47

Isaiah obviously was coming to the right understanding that he was sinful before a

53:54

Holy God, and he was repenting by mentioning that and saying that, and not only that, but lumping himself with all the people as well, and here instead of him saying to God, now

54:06

I'm going to go do a bunch of good deeds, I'm going to try to obey you, I'm going to try to do my best, God touches him with part of the sacrifice and cleanses him.

54:18

And then of course after that, Isaiah goes and serves the Lord. When God calls, who can

54:23

I send? He says, here am I, Lord. So that's when I explain the gospel in a nutshell to a

54:29

Jewish person right there from that section, that this is what Jesus does for us when we trust in him. He's that living coal that's ever there for us to take away our sins, and what we must do is repent and believe in him, and it'll be applied to us just like it was to Isaiah.

54:46

And so another question to Jewish people is, where in the scriptures does it say

54:53

God would accept a bloodless atonement? And another question is, why did God allow the

54:58

Temple in Jerusalem to be destroyed only 35 years after the death of Jesus? Mm -hmm.

55:04

Having rescued it from through the Maccabees about 160 years before, from the

55:09

Syrian king Antiochus Epiphany, who had defiled the Temple, and then Hanukkah means dedication, they were able to defeat the

55:20

Syrians, and the Syrians were actually self -defeated by some of the problems that were back in their home country, had to go back there, and they cleansed the

55:30

Temple, and then they resumed the sacrifices. And so God went through all that trouble to protect the

55:36

Temple, but then only shortly after the death of Jesus, it was destroyed by the Romans. And so these are questions you can put before Jewish people and say, you know, it's hard for them to look at this honestly, because it may mean antagonism from their family, and this is where we need that miracle that you mentioned, you know, for God to come in.

56:00

Another subject to look at is the idea of the deity of Jesus. You know, the fact that the way

56:08

God talks about himself in the scripture, like in Genesis 1, he says, let us make man in our image, is a plural.

56:18

To show the Trinity is very, you can't easily show the

56:24

Trinity, but what you can do is show evidence that there's a plurality in the Godhead. Isn't even the word

56:30

Elohim, doesn't that imply a plurality of some kind? Yes, what the rabbis say is it's like majesty, it's the term of majesty for a singular

56:40

God. So, like Queen Victoria used to think about, talk about herself in the third person plural, you know, we, this, that's how she talked.

56:52

They say it's a plural of majesty, so they have answers, but if somebody is a truth seeker, there's certainly things we can show them.

57:01

There's a word, a singular absolute one is yachid, the

57:06

Hebrew word yachid, and the Hebrew word for a one is achad, and for example, in Genesis 22,

57:17

Abraham's told to take his son, your only son, who you love, Isaac, and go to the region of Moriah.

57:25

That word there is yachad, it means an absolute singular one, and yet in Genesis chapter 2, or chapter 3, where it says, or 2, where the man shall leave his home and join his wife and become one flesh, you got two becoming one.

57:42

That's where the word achad is, and one of the most important prayers in the synagogue is the shema, which means hear.

57:51

Hear O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is one, and that word one there is not yachid, but it's achad.

58:01

It gives the indication of plural unity, and in Genesis 11, 6, it says, come let us go down, and there confuse their language, and at least they become one people, and again the word there, one, is plural unity.

58:18

So here in the very heart of the shema, the greatest prayer in the synagogue, is a vision of the fact that, or an indication that God is plural, and that that's about as far as he can go in talking, and so it opens the door to the possibilities that we don't necessarily have to think of God as only an absolute singular one.

58:43

As Maimonides is taught, one of the greatest rabbis that is revered by the Jewish community, he was opposing

58:49

Christianity, and he said God is an absolute singular one, and he was coming against the idea of the possibility of Jesus being deity.

59:02

I want to give one example. In fact, could you do that when we come back from a break? Sure, sure.

59:08

All right, and don't forget where you were leaving off there. Sure. And we're going to be right back after these messages with more of Ron Elkin, and biblical answers for Jewish questions, so don't go away.

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That's the Thrivent Story. Warren Zinn of Iron Sharpens Iron.

01:03:49

Our guest today for the full two hours, for an hour to go from now as well, is

01:03:55

Ron Elkin. And he is the founder and director of AMI Ministry. That's A -M -I -M -I -M -I -N -I -S -T -R -Y.

01:04:05

And the website is amiministry .org. AMI Ministry brings the gospel of Jesus Christ to the

01:04:15

Jewish people. Ron Elkin himself is a Jewish believer in Jesus Christ, also known as Yeshua HaMashiach in Hebrew.

01:04:25

And we are discussing today the biblical answers to Jewish questions.

01:04:31

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

01:04:38

That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. We do have a few people waiting to have their questions asked and answered.

01:04:47

Before we do that, Ron, you were in mid -thought when we went to our break. If you could continue where we left off.

01:04:54

Yeah. First of all, this is getting me a real workout. But, and also one other thing

01:05:01

I wanted to say, I'm going to look into that G3 conference. It sounds really, really great. Good. Maybe we can get up there and shake your hand.

01:05:09

Oh, great. I love that. The idea, of course, is not clearly presented about the plurality of God, but there are aspects that we just mentioned before.

01:05:20

And that really, the point is we have to just show the possibility. In other words, when people out and out reject something with a lack of knowledge, and you can show that this is a possibility, then it opens their eyes to see that maybe there is something more to this.

01:05:37

But one of the examples of plural unity of God is the ability to love another person. When you think about the

01:05:43

Godhead, the plural Godhead, there is absolute harmony and love between each other within that Godhead, between the personalities there.

01:05:53

They have the same purpose. They have a certain absolute respect and harmony and love for one another.

01:06:00

And, of course, we seek that as humans. If we're normal, we seek a other connection with other people, because we're made in God's image.

01:06:11

And that's where a capacity to love comes from, because God is love. There's a scripture, obviously, that says

01:06:16

God is love. Well, He's love within Himself, and there's also joy, peace, and so on from within God.

01:06:26

And the love between these personalities is why we, as people made in His image, seek a mate, and seek to have family, and seek to be in community.

01:06:38

It's a rare person that doesn't want fellowship, or friendship, or intimate love, because that would be sort of going away from what they were actually created to be.

01:06:49

So it's an example, a very living example, that you can share with a person about, you know, what does it mean that God is a...

01:06:57

They think, in many ways, we're worshiping three separate, distinct gods. There's a need to show that God is absolute harmony and unity within Himself, and it's the greatest expression of the way that we're actually at the height of normality, of joy, is to be able to express that with other people.

01:07:23

Um, something else we got to deal with is the deity of Jesus. But did you have, you said you had some other people asking questions?

01:07:34

Yes, well, we have CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, who says, is not the most profound messianic prophecy found in the

01:07:45

Hebrew scriptures, Isaiah 53? And if you don't mind,

01:07:51

Ron, let me read that. It's a long, well, it's not that long, but I'd like to read it because, as you know,

01:07:58

God's word is the instrument that He uses to open the eyes and unstop the ears of those who are lost, and perhaps some

01:08:11

Jewish listeners, either through this live broadcast now or in the future, when they listen to the recording,

01:08:18

God may use these words to open their eyes to the truth of the

01:08:23

Messiah. But Isaiah said, Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the

01:08:32

Lord been revealed? For He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of a parched ground.

01:08:41

He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.

01:08:50

He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hide their face,

01:09:00

He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs

01:09:06

He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed

01:09:13

Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through our transgressions.

01:09:20

He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening of our well -being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.

01:09:32

All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the

01:09:39

Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.

01:09:46

He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth.

01:09:52

Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open

01:10:00

His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away, and as for His generation who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people for whom the stroke was due,

01:10:19

His grave was assigned with wicked men.

01:10:25

Yet He was with a rich man in His death, because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

01:10:35

But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief. If He would render

01:10:43

Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong

01:10:48

His days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul,

01:10:57

He will see it and be satisfied. By His knowledge the righteous one, my servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities.

01:11:09

Therefore I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty with the strong, because He poured out

01:11:17

Himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet He Himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors."

01:11:32

Now, I understand, I have heard that the typical

01:11:38

Jewish response to this is that this is supposed to be a symbol of Israel, rather than the

01:11:43

Messiah, or am I getting that wrong? No, no, if they look at the word, actually this starts in Isaiah 52, starting with verse 13, it says,

01:11:54

Behold, my servant will prosper. He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted.

01:11:59

And so, there is a mention of Israel being a servant in previous sections of Isaiah, and they see this as the fourth mention of that.

01:12:11

There's a lot of problems with this interpretation, because there's a number, the way the man is described here, first of all, it's a singular pronoun, and a plural people that he is interceding, dying for, taking their sins on, so it would be grammatically very strange to try to make the servant

01:12:34

He, singular, apply to a whole people called Israel. The second thing is, there's the issue of this suffering servant is portrayed as innocent, particularly in verse 9.

01:12:47

If you look at the reading of the rest of Isaiah, the beginning of Isaiah and throughout it, he's calling the people how sinful they are, and how unrighteous they are.

01:12:59

And so, there's no indication throughout Scripture that Israel was ever innocent. Think about all the prophets and all, even the people who rebelled against Moses, and you know, they're just like any other group of people, they're sinners.

01:13:11

And so, to portray them as innocent somehow, and being able to die for others by, because they're innocent, and there's no deceit in their mouth, is absurd when you look at the rest of Scripture describing the

01:13:26

Jewish people. So, there are some of the things that you, and the idea that the rabbis reject the idea that somebody could die for another person's sins.

01:13:37

There must be another way, they're looking for another way to interpret this passage. But it's a very, very profound passage, and what

01:13:45

I recommend people do is they take it out of the Bible, type it out, or get it where you don't have the verses, numbers, and all that, and just show it to them and say, who do you think this is talking about?

01:13:59

I've done that with a number of Jewish people, or I've even taken the Jewish Scriptures, which pretty much leave this alone, the

01:14:07

English versions, because some of the Messianic Scriptures, they kind of play around with a little bit to weaken it.

01:14:13

No, when you say they leave it alone, do you mean that they leave it out of the English translation?

01:14:18

No, they don't monkey with it too much. There are some verses, some Messianic verses, where they kind of weaken the

01:14:27

English, from what the Hebrew says, to kind of weaken it as far as pointing towards Jesus.

01:14:33

But in this particular one, you can take the Jewish Scriptures and point to it and say, well, just read this, please, and who do you think it's talking about?

01:14:44

And I've had Jewish people read it and say, it's talking about Jesus, and then because of their fear of all the things that would mean to believe in Him and to become an outsider in their community and so on, they stuff that down and deny it.

01:15:02

But it's there. Its seed's been planted, and we pray that God will help them develop the courage and have the desire to please

01:15:10

God more than man. You know, it says the fear of man is a great problem. So, it's a wonderful Scripture.

01:15:19

There's a very good, gently written book that I recommend. I believe

01:15:25

Mitch Glazer and some others wrote it. He's with Chosen People called Isaiah 53

01:15:31

Explained, and it's a wonderful book because it goes into the nuances of the blood atonement, why was there a need of the blood atonement, what was the blood atonement, and then...

01:15:42

So, he covers basic things that an unbeliever would not be familiar with, and then he, you know, gets, of course, into these verses.

01:15:50

So, I suggest that book, if you could give it to a Jewish person who's open, Isaiah 53

01:15:56

Explained, and just do a Google on it, and you'll come up with that. There's another, before we go to the other question, if you don't mind if I talk about the deity aspect of Jesus.

01:16:12

In the most profound section of Scripture that points to this is in Daniel chapter 7, the title that Jesus spoke about himself the most was, he called himself the

01:16:24

Son of Man, and he was referring back to this portion of Scripture, and it starts in Daniel.

01:16:32

I'm just going to start here. I'm going to read from Daniel 7, verse 9. As I looked, thrones were placed, and the ancient of days took his seat.

01:16:42

His clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool. His throne was fiery flames, its wheels were burning fire.

01:16:51

A stream of fire issued and came out from before him. A thousand thousand served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.

01:17:02

And the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. And I saw in the night vision, and now

01:17:09

I'm in verse 13, skipped a couple verses. I saw in the night vision, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like the

01:17:18

Son of Man, and he came to the ancient of days, and was presented before him. And to him, this would be referring to the

01:17:26

Son of Man, was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.

01:17:36

His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed.

01:17:43

Well, interestingly, that word serve is an Arab make word. It means a plaque, and it's an

01:17:50

Arab word that is pronounced plaque, and that word is used predominantly, as far as I can understand from my studies, only in the book of Daniel.

01:18:00

It's used several times in the book of Daniel, and each time it's used, it's referring to serving God in the aspect of worship.

01:18:09

For example, in Daniel chapter 3, verses 8 through 18, pelak is actually the right pronouncing.

01:18:17

Pelak is used several times with the meaning to worship. You look through that section in Daniel chapter 3, and the word serve is mentioned many times in conjunction with worship.

01:18:28

So Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego said, we will not pelak your

01:18:34

God, your image. And so this is a remarkable scripture, because here, the

01:18:41

Ancient of Days is obviously God, is commissioning that the world, the nations, the people, should worship.

01:18:49

And as a matter of fact, the NIV translate this word worship in their translation here, and it's very profound that Jesus used this about himself as the most, as far as his title.

01:19:05

Praise God for what you are providing for our listeners today.

01:19:11

We have Robert in Great Neck, Long Island, New York, who asks, you ever heard of a

01:19:21

Hasidic Jew who has come to Christ? Yes, yes, there definitely has been, by God's grace, very religious

01:19:31

Jews. Some of them actually were rabbis. One of them is the one who started Chosen People Ministry Israel, his name is

01:19:37

Cohen, and he was going along the street in Brooklyn, he had come to that area, and he read, or he somehow got hold of a scripture relating to Isaiah 53, and he became a believer.

01:19:54

Yeah, it was through the evangelism of Presbyterians in Brooklyn. Yeah, exactly. A very big time, that was a very important part of, the

01:20:04

Presbyterians had Jewish evangelism stations in about 15 locations in America.

01:20:11

They particularly got involved with immigrants, like Ami did, when we got involved with ESL classes for the

01:20:18

Russian Jews that came here in the 90s. Well, they got involved with helping them learn

01:20:24

English as well, and trades, and very much came alongside the new immigrants, and that led to some people believing.

01:20:32

So, yes, there's other, there's actually a booklet, there's a booklet about rabbis who believed, and I need to dig it out and get copies of it, it's being published in a place where I'll just have to search it out again and get some copies, but the question that you can ask a

01:20:54

Jewish person when they say, well, Jews don't believe in Jesus, is say, well, if I show you a booklet where rabbis who are well -educated in Judaism believe in Jesus based on the scriptures, would you believe?

01:21:11

Sometimes people use excuses, but it's good to challenge people and say, well, you know, would this bring you closer to understand that it's a possibility?

01:21:22

And, by the way, have you ever read a book that I read years ago? I really enjoyed reading it a lot, it was a fascinating book, not by a

01:21:31

Christian, it was written, I'm almost certain he was a secular

01:21:37

Jew named Robert Eisenberg, and the book is called Boy Chicks in the

01:21:43

Hood, a takeoff on Boys in the Hood, the movie about African Americans in the city, and Boy Chicks in the

01:21:52

Hood, the subtitle is Travels in the

01:22:05

Hood, and he traveled the world to live with Hasidic Jews to find out more about their traditions and customs and way of life, and encountered stark contrasts in the different types of Hasidic Jews that he lived with, and he went to not only

01:22:26

Ukraine, but Poland and Minnesota and Brooklyn, New York, and all other places where there are a lot of Hasidic Jews, and it was quite a fascinating thing for me to read, because I knew nothing about Hasidic Jews before reading this book, and it was like a real eye -opener, that's where I first discovered that there were actually a great number of Hasidic Jews who were vehemently opposed to the current nation of Israel, and things like that, that I had no idea that people like that existed who were

01:23:03

Jews. They're wanting God to establish the nation of Israel in his way, with the

01:23:10

Mashiach. I haven't read it, but it sounds like a great book to read.

01:23:17

Yeah, I remember that there is, from time to time, I believe there is some profanity in it, because Robert Eisenberg is not a believer, but he writes very respectfully of the

01:23:28

Hasidic Jews, he's not mocking them, he's just, even though the book can be funny, he's just reporting about the circumstances that, you know, he's chronicling the experiences that he had with these folks, and some of the things are funny, just like you might have with your own family, some funny memories and so on.

01:23:48

Yeah. And there was also that excellent movie with Robbie Benson, do you know what

01:23:55

I'm speaking of, I think it was called The Chosen? Yes, yeah. Was that the title of it? Yes, I know,

01:24:02

I'm trying to think of the author's name, he's written a series of books, he's very popular in the

01:24:07

Jewish community, as well as among the people who like to learn and read. Yeah, that was, it's on DVD, and it's an excellent movie, starring

01:24:25

Robbie Benson, and Maximilian Schnell, and the individual who plays the

01:24:35

Rabbi, the Hasidic Rabbi, his name escapes me, but he is a world -renowned actor who

01:24:44

I think is deceased now, and for some reason I can't think of his name right now. But I highly recommend that movie, it's very clean, and it also shows you the stark contrast between somebody who is from a more,

01:25:05

I think, uh, the story of the two teenagers, one was a,

01:25:11

I think, more of a Reform Jew, whose father was a college professor, and the other,

01:25:17

Robbie Benson, was a Hasidic Jew, whose father was a Rabbi, and in fact, the main conflict that they had with one another is that the

01:25:24

Rabbi wanted his son to stop associating with his

01:25:30

Reform Jewish friend, or his non -Hasidic friend, because the father was a

01:25:35

Zionist, the college professor was a Zionist, and he, at one point, forbids his son from associating with the boy.

01:25:52

But it's a really remarkable movie, and I highly recommend it,

01:25:58

The Chosen. It's the author, by the way, is Chaim Potok. Oh, yeah, that's right, that's right.

01:26:05

And he's written several books, it's a very, it's a good way to get a view into the

01:26:11

Jewish community and understand certain things, yeah, it really is. So that passage in Daniel is outstanding as far as seeing the, you know, some of the imagery of God himself appointing one to be worshiped, which would be a conflict of the commandment, you should not have any other god before me.

01:26:35

And so how could that be? How could God commission the world to worship somebody unless they're

01:26:40

God, like himself, you know? It's a good picture of evidence of the deity of Jesus.

01:26:48

By the way, not to digress, but the name of the actor who portrayed the rabbi really masterfully was

01:26:55

Rod Steiger. There you go, that's right, that's right. I don't know if you're finished with that thought, but we do have another listener who has a question.

01:27:04

Sure, please. Okay, we have BB in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says, do

01:27:14

Jews typically believe in eternal damnation or hell?

01:27:21

I've heard that some do, some don't, and those that do are typically from the

01:27:27

Hasidic movement. Yeah, they call it the underworld, and basically it's more of not being part of the world to come, meaning

01:27:41

God's paradise to come. They don't get into specifics about burning and suffering, and it's just a matter of God rejecting them from the paradise that's to come.

01:27:55

I grew up in a synagogue and went to Hebrew school for many years before I was bar mitzvahed, and even after continued, and really the concept of hell was never mentioned in the synagogue life.

01:28:11

I think there are, you know, like I said before, there's a variety of Jewish people. I was in a conservative synagogue.

01:28:18

There's a whole mystical side of Jewish people involved with the

01:28:24

Kabbalah, more of the Hasidic, and that is really Gnosticism dressed up with a

01:28:31

Jewish clothing on it. Are there not even Orthodox Jews who are very opposed to the

01:28:37

Kabbalah? There are some. They won't be very verbal about it.

01:28:45

More of the very religious, and then there's become a pop version that Gentiles have gotten involved with.

01:28:53

Like Madonna? Madonna, exactly, and it was a hidden secret.

01:28:59

It was kept secret for a long time, and then it started to be more open as far as what it really was taught, and basically it's

01:29:08

Gnosticism. It comes from Platoism, where there's an emanation from the ultimate

01:29:14

Ein Shof, means the divine eye, that sends out rays from himself that become part of three main characteristics of God, who then descend into other characteristics, and this earth is the lowest level, and when the goal of a

01:29:38

Jew who believes this is to reclaim this physical world back to God by, let's say, when you eat, you eat in prayer to God and thankfulness to God, and so on, that you try to live a sanctified life, and everything you do kind of brings this back to the original state, but this is not the ultimate state here, but it's to be brought back to this

01:30:03

Ein Shof, so it's sort of coming from Platoism and Gnosticism, and so that's a part of Judaism.

01:30:12

They have Kabbalah centers set up, and I met a Russian family who bought the books.

01:30:19

They're pretty expensive. They're about $450 for a set of books, a very big amount of books, and they believed, this

01:30:26

Russian family believed, by just having the books in their home, that it would be a blessing to them, and so, and then they, the other thing that they do, it's really dangerous, is they spiritualize the scriptures so that if you talk about the blood atonement, they'll say, no, no, no, that's not really, not really what it really meant.

01:30:47

It was a higher meaning, and it wasn't the blood of animals, and that there was another meaning to it, and so they are very dangerous in that way.

01:30:58

Yeah, I can remember vividly my friend Marty Fromm, who is now in heaven,

01:31:04

Marty Fromm, who was the leader of a congregation, a Messianic congregation called

01:31:10

Beth Yeshua, which still exists on Long Island with new leadership.

01:31:17

Marty just went home to be with the Lord maybe six months ago, somewhere in that neighborhood. A very dear friend of mine who was on my program a lot, but he was, he was speaking about that kind of explanation for the blood atonement, and he was saying, can you imagine, back in the very day of the first Passover, where a little boy is saying to his father,

01:31:46

Papa, why aren't you putting the blood on the mantle of the doorway as we were commanded, so that the angel of death will not kill me?

01:31:55

And he said, well, that's really just a figure of speech, doesn't really mean that we have to put the blood on the doorpost, and he says,

01:32:03

Papa, can I spend the night at Uncle Moshe's house? Hey, that's right.

01:32:11

But anyway, we have to get our final break right now. And if you have any questions, we do have a couple of people still waiting.

01:32:19

But our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:32:26

And don't go away, we're gonna be right back with Ron Elkin and biblical answers to Jewish questions.

01:32:32

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01:32:38

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01:32:47

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01:32:53

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01:33:02

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01:35:20

Lindbergh Baptist Church on 225 Earl Avenue in Lindbergh, Long Island, is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century.

01:35:28

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.

01:35:35

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.

01:35:43

We're a diverse family of all ages, enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ in fellowship, play, and together.

01:35:49

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

01:35:55

Call Lindbergh Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402 or visit

01:36:03

Lindberghbaptist .org. That's Lindberghbaptist .org. Welcome back. This is Chris Arns.

01:36:08

And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with a half hour to go is

01:36:14

Ron Elkin. He is the founder and director of AMI Ministry. That's A -M as in Michael, M as in Michael, I, ministry .org.

01:36:24

And the theme or the goal of the ministry is to bring the gospel to the

01:36:31

Jewish people. Ron himself is a Jewish believer in Jesus Christ.

01:36:36

In Hebrew, Yeshua HaMashiach. And he has committed himself to this end of bringing the gospel to his kinsmen.

01:36:47

And we are always delighted to have him on the program. And our email address here is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:36:54

If you have a question, we are specifically addressing biblical answers to Jewish questions.

01:37:02

And we have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks, do

01:37:08

Jews often blur together Roman Catholicism with Christianity and see the violations that Roman Catholics are guilty of from the scriptures, including the worship of idols and things like that, and prayer to the saints that unnecessarily turn

01:37:32

Jews away from believing in biblical Christianity because they think that we all do that.

01:37:40

Um, yes. Yes, to some degree of, uh, there's a blurriness about who exactly is a

01:37:49

Christian. They believe if you're born in a home that in some way goes to a church that you're a

01:37:58

And so they associate Gentiles. Maybe it'll be less and less as time goes on.

01:38:04

But in the past and present, many Jewish people see a

01:38:10

Gentile automatically assume that they're a Christian. And we've had to explain, and they see

01:38:16

Catholicism in some of the practices. A lot of that is portrayed in movies often. So they assume that sometimes this is a general practice between Christians.

01:38:28

Some of the things such as Mary and other issues, and they're not clear on what we do.

01:38:37

Try to explain is that a person cannot be born a Christian. They could be born in a home that claims that they're

01:38:43

Christian, but there has to be a spiritual change in them that only God can perform that operation on the heart.

01:38:51

And that that's called being born of God's spirit, being born again, as Jesus put it. And so we go through that.

01:38:59

Yes, that can be a problem. But I don't see that necessarily keeping a

01:39:06

Jewish person from believing in Jesus as much as they say, well, where were the

01:39:12

Christians during the Holocaust, particularly our post -Holocaust generation? They say, why didn't the

01:39:20

Pope intercede more for the Jewish people? There was some evidence that of there being

01:39:27

Catholics who hid Jewish people, even in Rome and other places. And there was evidence where some of the leaders in the

01:39:35

Catholic Church in different European countries sort of went along to get along. They weren't really that concerned about the

01:39:43

Jewish people, and others were. So it's good where they were, and it's sad where they weren't.

01:39:50

Um, there are some things I want the people who are listening to be aware of on our website.

01:39:56

We will have all this material. There's a paper called Jewish evangelism, which will go through this systematically.

01:40:05

I'll be putting up a new bibliography because it's good to have for a

01:40:11

Jewish person who you've talked with, who's willing to look at evidence. There's books and testimonies of other

01:40:17

Jewish people. I remember when I was coming towards the Lord and beginning to believe,

01:40:24

I thought I was the only Jew in the world. And then I met, was interested in Jesus. And then

01:40:29

I met a man who picked me up. I was actually hitchhiking, who gave me a testimony as a

01:40:35

Jewish Christian. And that helped me move along. But there's several books out there that would be worthwhile giving to a

01:40:45

Jewish person. One is Jewish doctors who have believed in Jesus. And so that would be interesting.

01:40:51

Then there's other books that answer the Messianic, look at all the Messianic scriptures and explain them in detail how they point to Jesus.

01:41:01

And then there's other books that deal with other theological objections that Jewish people have. And probably one of the most profound set that's come out is by a

01:41:12

Jewish believer named Michael Brown, Dr. Michael Brown, the linguist. And he wrote a book called

01:41:18

Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus. And it's five volumes. And I would suggest getting the first one, the general.

01:41:25

And I believe it mixes historical with it. But it's very worthwhile reading because he's feisty in his answers.

01:41:32

He's not pulling any punches. It's like one Jew talking to another, you know, not playing around.

01:41:39

But you find you'll find great information there and great ways of talking to Jewish people.

01:41:46

And of course, and of course, even Christians are sinners.

01:41:53

And Christians can often demonstrate cowardice in regard to why weren't the

01:42:01

Christians helping the Jews during the Holocaust? Well, there were some you have

01:42:07

Corrie ten Boom, and you had many Christians throughout the world that did risk their lives and often give their lives to protect their

01:42:17

Jewish friends and neighbors, perhaps even particularly in Holland. But you have examples even in the

01:42:26

Bible of the fact that the disciples scattered, you know, when

01:42:33

Jesus was being executed, it was only John at the foot of the cross there. And Peter denied

01:42:41

Jesus three times, even to a young servant girl out of fear.

01:42:47

So we can't judge the genuineness of a teaching or faith or of Jesus Christ himself because of what sinful men do.

01:43:02

And when people even throw that in my face in regard to phony televangelists or any kind of a person that brings reproach upon the church,

01:43:15

I say you shouldn't reject Jesus because of Judas. Just because people do things who profess to be

01:43:26

Christian, people who profess to be often do things that contradict the

01:43:32

Christian faith doesn't mean that the faith itself is not genuine. Amen. I agree.

01:43:38

I'm thankful because there's examples of people in the scriptures who ran from God, who disobeyed

01:43:48

God, like David, you know, and Noah, you know, I mean, but all of a sudden my mind's gone blank after two hours of talking.

01:44:01

Oh Jonah, Jonah. Yes. But we have, in a way it's very encouraging to us as believers because we are weak and we are fleshly and we,

01:44:13

I never assumed that I'm going to be pristine if persecution gets in this country to that point.

01:44:19

You know, will I be able to stand the ground? Would I be able to willfully go to death and not compromise my faith?

01:44:29

And I, you know, it's something we need to pray. And I like what Corrie Ten Boom's father told her.

01:44:36

He said, if you, she was worried about, will she be able to keep her faith in the midst of severe persecution?

01:44:44

He says, well, you know, when you're going to take a trip, you don't get the ticket to the train months ahead of time.

01:44:51

You go to the station and then you get the ticket. Well, he said, if you're seeking to be helped by God and calling out to God, he said, he'll provide in that moment what you need.

01:45:03

And Jesus alluded to that when he said, don't, when they persecute you, don't worry about what you're going to say, that God will work through you at that time and speak, show you what to say.

01:45:15

So if our hearts are set on obeying God, I believe he will fulfill and enable us to be faithful.

01:45:21

And it may cost us our lives in some situations. And right now in America, we've not had to face that.

01:45:28

And I hope we don't, I'm not a masochist, but on the other hand, it's very possible. So we should prepare our hearts for what's happening here in the

01:45:37

States and how we're It's not looking very good right now, unless there's a revival. There's something else that you should learn if you're witnessing to a

01:45:47

Jewish person, how to use the Old Testament. And I would learn to say Jewish scriptures instead of Old Testament.

01:45:53

To them, it is their scriptures. And so just, you know, terminology can be helpful, but there's the basic things of that.

01:46:04

We're not, we're all sinners from Psalm 14, two and Jeremiah 17, nine says the heart of man is wicked.

01:46:11

Who can understand that? Psalm 51, you know, there were David talks about being conceived in sin.

01:46:17

And then Isaiah 59 verses one through two talks about our sin separators from God.

01:46:23

So he will not hear our prayers. And that's pretty frightening to people to bring that out. And there was a Baptist leader of the

01:46:30

Southern Baptist church who talked about God, not hearing the prayers of Jewish people. Well, I think he took on a little too much for himself, but there is clear scripture here that our sins interfere with our relationship with God.

01:46:45

And, and then there's Isaiah 64, six, and it's five in the

01:46:50

Jewish Bible says are good. These are not sufficient. That's not what it says, but what it's saying is our good. These are like filthy rags, literally meaning a woman's used menstrual rag.

01:47:01

So that's pretty profound. And that, in other words, that even when we try to do good deeds in the, in light of the holy and perfect God, if we're counting on that to be righteous, we're, we're in trouble.

01:47:15

And then there's the whole blood atonement issue that we talked about before, and particularly do a study of, of Leviticus 16, the day of atonement.

01:47:25

The issue about Jesus, about being the Messiah, there's the issue of peace.

01:47:31

You know, why I've had many Jewish people say, well, Messiah comes, there's going to be worldwide peace.

01:47:36

And how come when after the church, we've had nothing but the same conflicts, war, all kinds of problems.

01:47:42

On top of that, the persecution of my people. Well, one of the things that we can explain is that the rabbis looking at the scriptures see that there's two

01:47:52

Messiahs. There's the first Messiah, the suffering Messiah, Messiah Ben -Joseph.

01:47:58

And then they see the reigning King Messiah, Messiah Ben -David. And the suffering

01:48:04

Messiah is seen in Psalm 22 and 69 and Isaiah 53. And the reigning

01:48:10

King Messiah seen in Isaiah 9, 11. And so the question that we would, what we would explain is that we understand this, but it's not really two people.

01:48:21

It's one and the same person. That Jesus came to establish his kingdom when he came the first time.

01:48:29

And for those who trust in him, there is that peace that passes all understanding.

01:48:34

There is peace between us and God. And there's the presence of the Holy Spirit, which can give us a peace in the midst of difficulties and trouble.

01:48:43

And when he comes back is when there's going to be the worldwide establishment of God's kingdom.

01:48:50

Now, do you think that it might be helpful to familiarize yourself when you're speaking with your

01:48:58

Jewish friends, with the writings of Josephus, who was a

01:49:03

Jewish historian that lived not long after the crucifixion of Christ, because he affirms things that Christians believe historically, and yet he is not or was not someone who had any bias to defend or protect the teachings of Christianity because he wasn't

01:49:26

Christian. I mean, would you say that he is a reliable and not only a reliable source, but that it's worth taking your time to present some of these things to your

01:49:37

Jewish friends that he that he wrote about historically? Yes, it'd be good to take out the portions that refer, like it does mention there was a

01:49:44

Nazarene who was believed to be

01:49:50

Messiah and persecuted. Whatever portion of his writings would be useful to have copies of that and share that, that'd be very good.

01:50:03

Also, another thing to point out, because Isaiah is so full of prophecies that clearly point to Jesus, if a person is honest about him, like Isaiah 53 and others, mention that the

01:50:16

Dead Sea Scrolls, when they found them, that the book of Isaiah was included among these scrolls, and it's almost word for word what we have now in the

01:50:27

Hebrew as well as the, you know, close English translations. There's minor differences, but they do not in any way change the meaning of the scriptures, of that portion of scripture, where there's some variation, that these central ideas are the same.

01:50:43

And so it's remarkable that this was discovered, or this is timed back to at least 200 years before Jesus was born, and so it wasn't added to the

01:50:55

Bible later. You know, this was there, and so it's another testimony.

01:51:00

God has given testimonies all over the place. Going back to something, since we're running out of time, that we've already addressed, but wouldn't you say one of the key things that we have to remind our

01:51:17

Jewish friends about, especially those who take the Hebrew scriptures seriously, like an

01:51:23

Orthodox Jew, is that they do not have an atonement for their sins, because of the fact that there is no temple, and that the

01:51:36

Yom Kippur that they celebrate is really an empty celebration, because it has no atoning or redemptive value, since there is no blood, and that's why we need the atoning blood of the

01:51:51

Messiah, Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus Christ. Well, it's interesting, the very

01:51:56

Orthodox, some of the very Hasidim, on the eve before Yom Kippur, will take a chicken, and they will slaughter the chicken and swirl it above their children's heads.

01:52:10

I've heard that, yeah. Yes, and I have pictures of them doing that, in Brooklyn, matter of fact, and I'm sure it happens in Israel, and so they see what the

01:52:21

Bible teaches about the need of a blood atonement, and so they're kind of taking it upon themselves to do it in this way, instead of the way prescribed by God.

01:52:33

Matter of fact, according to God's Word, that would be a great sin, because God said the only place they could do this type of an animal substitute for sin would be at that spot that he chose, and there was no other spot, and that's what's so profound about the destruction of the

01:52:50

Temple after the death of Jesus. So, what Jewish people will say to you, if you said that to them about there's no blood and so on, they would say, what we're doing by our living the 613 laws, except for the

01:53:08

Temple laws that we can't do, but trying to keep all the rest of it, is we're living a sacrificial life, and through charity, prayer, and obedience to these laws, we are fulfilling the sacrifices.

01:53:25

They actually have synagogue services three times a day on a daily basis to duplicate the sacrifices that were done three times a day at the

01:53:35

Temple, and so there's this idea that, yes, the

01:53:41

Temple's destroyed, but God has given us, through the Rabbis' teachings, and through the

01:53:46

Talmud, and through the understanding of living these things, he's made a substitute through these efforts, and that's basically what their answer would be to you.

01:53:56

And obviously, you have to drive home to them that they cannot fulfill their duty to obedience every day, that every one of us is incapable of obeying

01:54:12

God's law perfectly, and therefore that's why we need the atoning blood of the Messiah, correct? Amen.

01:54:18

Preach it. That's true, and that's the point. That's where I point to the fact that Moses had to take his shoes off, that Isaiah cried out, woe is me, a man of unclean lips, and David cried out, so we have to hit home the understanding that man really is unrighteous, and there's a need for God's help to overcome that.

01:54:43

Not only what he gave us was the blood atonement, and so we're not changing away from Judaism.

01:54:52

What we're saying is what we're doing actually is being obedient to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by taking on that blood atonement through faith in Jesus.

01:55:01

We are fulfilling what God set up and concluded in Jesus, and the sacrificial system with animals is no longer needed.

01:55:10

Well, I really want you to spend the next four minutes just unburdening your heart with what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners, especially our

01:55:20

Jewish listeners, because no doubt I'm assuming that eventually, even if there are no

01:55:27

Jewish individuals listening, live right now, that the MP3 will be shared or the podcast and the archive will be shared by some of our

01:55:38

Christian listeners to their Jewish friends. So if you could speak to our Jewish listeners for the next three and a half minutes or so.

01:55:48

Okay, well, Jewish friend who may hear this, and I hope you will through your

01:55:54

Gentile friend or through somebody who has passed this on to you. The most important thing is not the fact that you may believe there is a

01:56:03

God or believe God exists and created the world. Most important thing is what does

01:56:08

God think of you? What is your relationship with God? Has God accepted you?

01:56:15

And I believe if you're honest with yourself, you know, in one way or another, that you, like all of us, has violated the

01:56:23

Ten Commandments. And one way or another, we've looked on opposite sex with lust in our heart when it was inappropriate for us to do that.

01:56:33

One way or another, we've lied, we've taken things that were not ours. And violation of one of these commandments is enough to bring separation between you and God for all eternity.

01:56:45

And so you may try to be righteous and you may see in your own self as a judging yourself that you are thinking you're clean before God, but God says we're not.

01:56:56

And so the important thing is to grasp what God as an act of love has done for us in the very simple verse where it says,

01:57:05

God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only son, whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

01:57:12

And Yeshua said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and nobody comes to the Father except through me.

01:57:18

So it's a gift that God wants to give you, his forgiveness, his mercy. And as a fellow

01:57:25

Jew, my heart breaks if you turn this gift down, because God does describe a place called

01:57:34

Hades, a place called the underworld. There's a place of eternal separation. And it's sad and it's hard to accept that a

01:57:42

God of love would do that, but God is ministering truth. There has to be justice.

01:57:48

There has to be a payment for sin. And for those of you who are believers, I really pray that you will pray for the

01:57:56

Jewish community, that you will get before the Lord. And you may not have a

01:58:04

Jewish contact right now, but you certainly can pray that God may bring a

01:58:09

Jewish person into your life. Or that for the people who are in contact with Jewish people, that God would give them a word to say to these

01:58:20

Jewish people, would build a love relationship between them, believers and Jewish people.

01:58:26

And that by God's grace, there could be a revival and bring many to the faith in Jesus.

01:58:34

And we pray for God to use this program that we've been able to share some thoughts to encourage you to know that you can challenge in a loving way

01:58:45

Jewish people's presuppositions. And there are answers. There's ways to get them to think, to show that maybe their presumptions are not based on facts.

01:58:57

And so I pray that that would become part of the result of this show. Amen. Praise God.

01:59:03

Well, thank you so much, Ron Elkin, for being my guest again. I look forward to you returning often in the future.

01:59:10

And just to repeat your website, it's omniministry .org, A -M as in Michael, M as in Michael, I, ministry .org.

01:59:20

And I really hope that all of our listeners take advantage of your wonderful resources there.

01:59:27

I want to thank everybody for listening, especially those who took the time to write in. 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.

01:59:41

We look forward to receiving your questions for our guests next time on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.