July 18, 2016 Show with Ron Elkin on “Jewish Evangelism at the Democratic National Convention in PA”

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

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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.

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

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity who are living on the planet

Earth listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all happy Monday on this 18th day of July 2016.

I am really off timing today and I'm so happy to have back on the program a man that we have interviewed before on Iron Sharpens Iron who has a very valuable ministry,

Ron Elkin, who is with AMI ministry and this is a ministry dedicated to Jewish evangelism, but obviously they bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men and women and children no matter what their race, creed, color, ethnicity, etc.

Well not necessarily whatever their creed is, but if they're Bible -believing Christians they will work alongside them to present the gospel, but those who are lost no matter what they may be,

Jew or Gentile, they reach out to those folks as they should, but the primary focus of AMI ministry is evangelism of the

Jewish people and they are going to be involved in a Jewish evangelism effort at the

Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania which is coming up very shortly, and without further ado let me welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron radio,

Ron Elkin. Thank you brother, thanks Chris, thank you for having me come on,

I'm glad I had the time free to join you, and I just pray this will be a blessing to those that are listening in.

Yes, in fact some of our listeners may have been expecting Terry Burlingame to be back on the program today as he was originally scheduled, but Terry has laryngitis so he had to postpone his interview and Ron was kind enough with very little notice to jump in that slot, and it's very providential because the

Democratic National Convention is going to be just in a short number of days,

July 25th through the 28th, and I urge all of you if you can't actually be there collaborating with Ron Elkin that you at the very least pray for that effort there which is a very important one.

Before we even go into that specific endeavor of yours, Ron, we do this every time we have you or any of our guests on the program, even though they may have repeated their background information many times in the past and explained their ministries, there are new listeners every single day it seems on Iron Sharpens Iron because of the emails

I get from places and people I have never heard from before, especially now that we have a full -page ad in World Magazine, it seems to have attracted a lot of new listeners, but tell us something about yourself, obviously an abbreviated version of your conversion to Christ and not only that but also obviously your

AMI ministry that brings the gospel primarily to the Jewish people. Thank you.

Yes, it's always wonderful to talk about how the mercy of God came into my life.

I grew up in a traditional Jewish home, we kept kosher, we celebrated the

Jewish feast days. I was born and raised in Philadelphia and we had extended family around us that also was part of this keeping the

Jewish traditions as well as going to synagogue on a weekly basis. Just a little more background, as I was growing up I would be sent off to Hebrew school.

This is an additional school to the public school I went to and there I learned how to read

Hebrew, I learned about the Jewish history and the feast and when

I was 13 I had prepared for about oh maybe eight months beforehand. When I was 13

I went through the Bar Mitzvah, became a son of the commandments and I was trained by a rabbi and he almost gave up on me because as you know when as you're growing up men your voice will change at a certain point and it gets a little hard to speak let alone to sing and part of the

Bar Mitzvah ceremony is to chant the portion of the Torah that is to be read through that particular day and the traditional synagogue you read through the entire

Torah in one year some synagogues now stretched it out to three but I was to read that portion of the synagogue and you don't just read it but you have to chant it with certain inflections and in certain ways of doing that so my voice was changing and he trained me and he was probably in despair but lo and behold by the time my

Bar Mitzvah day came my voice had settled down and I was able to do a credible job and we had a big family celebration in a kosher restaurant and it's a big time in the

Jewish community for one of their boys to become a son of the covenants where now they can be part of a minion at a synagogue which means they need to have a certain number of people to worship at a synagogue and so on so I grew up in a very thorough

Jewish community as well as in our own home and as I moved into our teens

I began to wonder about the reality of God even though I was exposed to all this

I saw a lot of unhappiness among the people among my family a lot of troubles and difficulties and then

I looked at the world and saw all the evil that was happening and I was really actually angry about all this stuff and and I just for a short time rejected the idea of God then later

God used a backdoor to start bringing me back towards a God consciousness by introducing me to the occult

I did astrology charts part -time living at one point

I got involved with yoga meditation and went over to India got deeply involved with trying to connect with God through that meditation and becoming a vegetarian and trying to be a good person and and so I got very frustrated because the more

I meditated and prayed and try to connect with God the the sense of distance and conviction began to come on me and my own personal life was not some kind of holy life

I became more and more sensitive to the sins of my life and and so at one point in my late 20s

I began to say to myself and God well if I do a bunch of good deeds a bunch of mitzvahs as we say in Judaism then you'll accept me and I had to husband a bargain with God you know and tell him how it was going to work but anyway

I went ahead and set up a couple of community organizations that were funded by the government and became you know real entities helped probably has helped thousands and thousands of people and so one of the social agency helping people with all kind of problems the other one was to try to help people get off of welfare and towards that time the conviction of the

Holy Spirit got heavier and heavier on me and people had witnessed to me in different ways throughout the years somebody left a track on my windshield when

I lived in West Philadelphia that really impacted me because it talked about how different people when

I was going to college witnessed to me and God used all of that to at some point draw me towards Jesus and I'd like the person

Jesus but I rejected the idea that I needed to believe in him and then a sense that I needed to believe in him to the exclusion of just only believing in the

Most High God and eventually though through God's grace

I became more and more convinced that Jesus really was the way to God but I resisted as a

Jew I felt you know physically upheaved because how would

I who can I be if I if I believe in Jesus I'm no longer going to be Jewish that's what

I was taught and I didn't even though I wasn't practicing Judaism by that point I still had a strong connection and still do to this day but now

I know that it's okay it's kosher to believe in Jesus but at that point I did well

God finally got me to the point when I was 31 where I was able to publicly confess faith in Jesus and he met me the long search

I was going through for Shalom for peace became completed as I trusted in Jesus and experientially

I knew that I had come home spiritually and I was very very grateful and so that was began the journey of God beginning to refine me and change me and eventually it led me to go to Bible College I was a businessman

I had a pest control company and I knew that God was calling me to ministry so I hired someone to run the business and I went ahead and went to Bible College out in Langhorne then

I went on to seminary a biblical seminary and start raising support for AMI.

AMI ministry has three main purposes we started out at church in Center City Philadelphia some of you are familiar with Dr.

Boyce oh yeah and it was that's where AMI developed it was that 10th Presbyterian Church we were a mission of the church for about five or six years then we became incorporated as a 501 3c and our goal has always been the same one it's to reach out to the

Jewish community and communicate the gospel in ways that make sense culturally and historically and to challenge the

Jewish community in a loving way to consider the evidence that points to Jesus being the Messiah and also the fact that we're all sinners and we need to repent second is to educate the church how to witness the

Jewish people how to to understand the Jewish culture history background and be able to answer some of the normal Jewish objections that come up and third it's the fight against the growing and present -day anti -semitism by educating

Christians to the reality of what's going on and also to deal with one of the things that every person has to deal with including

Christians is prejudice and it's a it's in it as I'm at churches as I'm preaching as they have opportunities

I challenge believers to let the Holy Spirit show them in their own hearts where there might be pictures of the

Jewish people that are not true you know prejudicial views and not only the

Jews but every every group that's different than themselves and that they actually have to actively ask

God to cleanse them and this is something that often is not thought of that much in the church preaching and teaching but it's a very poor witness for Jesus to have prejudice against other people and then it takes the work of God to change that mm -hmm well

I assume since you are regularly evangelizing the

Jewish individuals in the community who do not yet know Christ I assume there is also some of that education in regard to the reverse situation where you have

Jewish people who may have preconceived slanderous caricatured notions of who

Christians are absolutely it's being a Jewish person who grows up in a world that has exhibited a lot of hostility doesn't free them from the sin nature of being prejudiced themselves

I mean in fact not only just Christians the goyim in general right the the

Gentiles oh absolutely right absolutely right you see my understanding from the scriptural point of view is that the enemy of God Satan is always attempting to disrupt

God's promises and plans and obviously he made abundant covenantal promises to ethnic

Jews we know the church today is the people of God but the same time in a mysterious way and in a way that makes us have confidence in God's faithfulness there is still some historical covenantal connection to the

Jewish community the Hebrews in a unique way and Satan is always stirring up irrational hatred towards the

Jewish people if you look at it you know Israel is an example of how modern -day anti -semitism is is focused on Israel in an irrational way that I don't know of any people group or any nation that would allow themselves to be bombed or have rockets of 13 ,000 rockets coming to their community and not try to defend themselves like what's happening with from the rockets from Gaza into Israel and yet the world goes crazy when

Israel tries to defend itself and and demonizes them and and so on so that's part of our ministry to try to get

Christians to have a balanced perspective to understand that Jewish people in Israel particularly at war have been at war constantly and they're not perfect people they're sinners like everybody else and things happen that aren't exactly right but I don't know any nation

America included that during a war period is perfect in their behavior yet there's a right to defend themselves so that's some of the stuff that AMI is about we try to raise all these issues we certainly try to witness the

Jewish people as we have opportunities to it's part of going out in the highway and byway we have 300 ,000

Jewish people in the greater Philadelphia area and I find no matter where I go

Chris no matter whether it's on a cruise ship for a vacation which we do once in a great while or it doesn't matter where I go into an area where there's very few

Jewish people God by his grace providentially brings him across my path and I have opportunities to explain why

I as the Jew believe in Jesus and why I believe they should amen one thing that I don't recall you saying when you were giving your testimony were you from an

Orthodox Jewish background it was semi Orthodox we actually went to a conservative

Jewish synagogue which is can depend synagogues are different or individuals within the synagogue there's no statement they have to confess in order to be a member of the synagogue and so the conservatives are somewhat keeping the laws of the

Torah eating kosher and and keeping the Sabbath to some degree but you can vary my father was raised secular my mother was raised

Orthodox so we went to a conservative synagogue and kept many of the traditions but same time for example we would ride in a car down to Atlantic City on the

Sabbath whereas an Orthodox Jew would never dream of doing that I think Reverend buzz does that every

Sunday and the other thing

I don't I don't know if I ever asked you and if I did I don't remember your answer to it what is on me mean a

MMI that's a Amazon Michael Amazon Michael I yes when we were beginning the ministry we began to fish around for an idea of what to call we like I mentioned we started in Center City Philadelphia which has a large

Jewish population and we were trying to encourage the members of our church and had special events but the word on me we take her from Isaiah 40 verse 1 that says comfort comfort my people sayeth the

Lord and so we as a group we were starting this so if there is no greater comfort than to help someone come into a relationship with the

Living God a permanent loving forgiven relationship so that's where we got the name on the comfort comfort my people and I just want to remind our listeners

I'm going to try to remember to announce it several times throughout the broadcast but in the event that I forget

I will do it now the website for AMI ministry is AMI ministry org a

Amazon Michael Amazon Michael I ministry dot o -r -g and you said that you were part of picking the name so I'm assuming you were either the founder or one of the very founders of this ministry in 10th

Presbyterian Church yes I became the instigator the church the church had a very large mission budget at that point was over a quarter million dollars of mission support and nothing was set aside for the

Jewish people and so I began to say well why you know this is not right you know we live in a city with a large

Jewish population we we need to consider that and so there was a

Jewish mission that was part of the PC USA but it was evangelical mission that was still existing at that time so they actually started support

Herb Links who was the director of that work right there at 1900 1907

Chestnut to be exact only a couple blocks away from 10th but they also began to support our work and gave us a budget and so we began to have outreach meetings

Hanukkah party or a Passover presentation which very clearly presents the gospel and movie nights that were the

Jewish theme concerts and they gave us funds to be able to start doing that to advertise in the local center a city paper called the welcome mat and put up flyers and so on so that that's how we got going and you are a living testimony and your ministry is a living testimony that reformed theology is not synonymous with anti -semitism as some of our dispensationalist brethren involved in Messianic ministry unfortunately have the mindset that that is true now obviously

I am quite convinced that there are theologically reformed people who are anti -semitic and I'm pretty convinced also that there are dispensationalists were anti -semitic

Armenians who are anti -semitic there are whites and blacks who are anti -semitic there are

Jews who are anti -semitic against other kinds of Jews I mean some of the most anti -semitic folks that I've actually met are

Jewish people who are ultra -conservative in their political viewpoints either that or ultra -liberal right right it's true it's really a tragedy but because and we can't get into a deep discussion of the history between the the

Arabs living in Israel and the Jewish people and how that all came together but it's astonishing how through miseducation people have just totally misrepresented the

Jewish people and so a lot of the liberal community many of them are Jewish really are hostile to their own brethren you know and just champion of the

Arabs and certainly God loves both groups of people God loves both the

Jews and Arabs there's no doubt about it but there is a whole history and things that have been twisted and are misunderstood so that yeah we're dealing with that yeah

I was actually very surprised in becoming more acquainted with some extremely conservative

Jewish individuals who are politically active and so on actually using the phrase kike and things like that when speaking about liberal and leftist

Jewish individuals I was I was taken aback by that I didn't think that kind of thing would necessarily be obviously

I know I know the heart of man is exceeding exceedingly wicked and but I just didn't think that term specifically would come up you know it's funny because I personally have never heard another

Jew say that but I don't doubt you when you think about within the African American community how yes how they use the n -word against each other you know are just in describing each other so yeah it's yeah in -house people can get pretty vile with each other you know he's not only proving that we're not anti -semitic he's also proving that we're not anti evangelism right that's right it's two birds with one stone we know that mostly

Jewish people are not beating down the doors of local churches to come in and say explain to me you know about Jesus now it does happen that affect the one of our one of the

Bible studies that I go to there's some PCA pastors and one of them was just recently contacted by a pastor to come to one of their

Bible studies to learn about Jesus so it does happen praise the Lord I'm grateful but we focused on doing outreach work by that I mean besides having meetings where we invite people to come that has a

Jewish theme or encourage Christians invite people to come to those bring their Jewish friends we also go out in the highways and byways and try to connect with people looking for the lost sheep of the house of Israel and particularly in Philadelphia with such a large

Jewish community we inevitably run into some Jewish people that we can water some seeds that their friends have planted or we can break up some of the hard ground or kind of challenge

Jewish people in a loving way to drop their pre suppositions and consider the claims of by the way it might it might surprise some of our listeners to discover in regard to theologically reformed ministries reaching out with the gospel to the

Jewish community it may surprise some of our listeners that chosen people ministries began as a

Presbyterian outreach in New York City to the Jews and and our friend

Mitch Glazer who's currently the president there is not a covenant theologian he's a dispensationalist but he is a thoroughgoing five -point

Calvinist that's funny that you mentioned that I remember being at a banquet with Mitch and maybe it was that one of their retreats that they have from time to time and they call in gatherings or something like that and I remember at that point

I was struggling with the reform understanding of you know God's sovereignty and salvation and Mitch was very confident in explaining that he was very much in that camp mm -hmm and but God in his way began to work on me in different ways to bring me to a point as much as I didn't like it that we don't we don't choose and yet there's a whole mystery because we appear to choose and God gives us the will to do make that but yeah

I am very much grateful because Jewish evangelism is a very difficult work you don't really see a lot of Jewish people coming to the

Lord there are definitely people come here and there and unless you understand that you can turn this over to God and understand it's his work and it's not because you say some magic or some you know clever twist of the words whatever that somebody gets saved it you do you do the faithful work of presenting the gospel clearly and you do urge people to believe and then at that point you have to let go to God and know that he's working on that he's going to work with them and it's a very been very helpful to me because there were a period of time where I got depressed because very few people were coming to the

Lord and then the Lord said to me hey you better start rejoicing of what you got and be thankful and yep you know it's sad that many people according even to Jesus his own word many people will just never see this no

I don't understand why that is but I I know that God's a gracious loving God and there's nothing that he does that's him that's incorrect that is

God who gives the increase you just plant in water the the number of people who come to Christ is entirely up to God as you yourself being the theologically reformed

Christian would readily understand do you find a lot of the rejection by Jewish people well my experience has been with I haven't you know really encountered too many but the ones

I have most of their rejection wasn't so much due to their being Jewish as it was they just didn't want to leave their sin you know they were your typical sinner and their

Jewishness was sometimes just an excuse to say I can't accept Christ because I'm Jew you know in other words shut up I want to sin you know so I think absolutely there's truth in what you said and I think that is true for a certain number of Jewish people which is the majority actually are either mildly religious with a

Jewish veneer like the reformed Judaism are are secular and you're absolutely right they they can use that as an excuse not to really look at the word

I have to say that there are valid objections not that are based in truth but valid valid historical reasons that Jewish people would be very weary of the gospel and feel like a traitor to their people yeah

I'd like you to in fact when we return from the break I'd like you to go through those there's some of those and because we have to go to break right now and if you'd like to join us on the air our email address is

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

we've already got at least three or four people waiting to have their questions asked from different parts of the country and if you prefer to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of this topic perhaps you're

Jewish or you're married to somebody who's Jewish and you just don't want to identify yourself in regard to this question that you have you may feel free to do so but if you are open about identifying yourself please give us at least your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

USA that's Chris Arnzen at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

don't go away we'll be right back with Ron Elkin and his Jewish evangelism.

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Harvey Cedars where Christ finds people and changes lives welcome back this is

Chris Arns and if you just tuned us in for the full two hours today we have

Ron Elkin as our guest one of the founders of AMI ministry which is a theologically reformed evangelical outreach to the

Jewish community which was originally born out of the 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia where the late

James Montgomery Boyce was the beloved pastor for many years and Donald Gray Barnhouse before him but this ministry continues to live on and evangelize the

Jewish people and they are actually going to be involved in some evangelistic outreach to the

Jewish people but I'm sure others as well at the 2016 Democratic National Convention and we're going to be getting into more details about that that convention is the 25th through the 28th of July so I'd appreciate all of you praying for Ron Elkin and his efforts there for the cause of Christ and his gospel and our email address is

ChrisArnson at gmail .com ChrisArnson at gmail .com before the break you are going to go into some legitimate reasons for apprehension or or resistance by Jewish people when they are confronted with the gospel but before we even have you do that I wanted to have you clarify a couple of things

I said something at the very beginning of the program that I'm sure may have had some of my more dispensational

Christian friends involved in Messianic ministry or Jewish believers involved in that who they may have jolted in their seats when

I use the word convert I know that there are some people in the

Messianic movement who say that that is a very serious error of mine because I basically use that term for all men all men women and children who are sinners who come to Christ and when

I was using it in reference to you I did not mean that you ceased to be Jewish you are ethnically a

Jewish person until you die and in fact I think that Jesus Christ the

God man ruling and reigning in heaven as our intercessor is Jewish but if you in that regard and if you could let me know your opinions on that perhaps you disagree with me perhaps you also think oh

I noticed it I I didn't make an issue out of it because it's not a life -or -death situation

I would you know I would agree in some sense that I didn't

I didn't convert as much as embrace true Judaism and the word conversion is kind of like it's using the

Jewish community to mean somebody's become a traitor to their people and so there's a sensitivity that Jewish Christians like myself or a

Jewish believer Messianic Jew there's a sensitivity to wanting to reject the idea that we have become traitors we the

I just embrace the idea that we have here theologically and spiritually come home to the

God who was speaking to Abraham Isaac and James so there's a that's that's the reason that some

Jewish believers are opposed to the idea of using the word conversion somehow means that we've changed from what we we have changed spiritually but not ethnically and we haven't turned away from our

Jewishness and that I think that's the aversion to that term so in your opinion it's an unwise perhaps were to unnecessarily use but technically though isn't it really if you're referring specifically to somebody's heart a man having a heart of stone that is removed by God's sovereign grace and replaced with a heart of flesh

I would say it was circumcised so I if I may just I want to get into what we were saying before the break about the reasons but I'd like to take a little aside first and talk about our our attempts during this coming week what we're going to do to reach the community the way it is constituted politically the vast majority of Jewish people are

Democrats and so there's a very real possibility that a lot of the delegates and we also tend to be an activist type of people so it's a very real possibility that many of the delegates that are coming at the convention are going to be

Jewish mm -hmm and our t -shirt is going to reflect some of that trying to draw

Jewish people to discuss our stance on who Jesus is we call him King Jesus and and so what is your shirt exactly said our shirt actually says it looks like a political button and it has the word choose and then above that there's a number of Jewish stars and then below the word choose is

King Jesus and below that it says 2016 so it's a it's a political theme in a sense saying that the right way to have the best leader is

Jesus and so that's the it'll definitely catch the eye we're we're going to definitely stand out like a sore thumb in some ways to some people but we're gathering together there's there's a couple different ministries helping us we have

Jews for Jesus coming up from Neva from Washington DC with a good -sized group of people we have a couple of all right missionary with their group coming down from New York City then we have some people from chosen people ministry that are local here in Philadelphia they will be joining us and then we have our local and volunteers and then praise the

Lord we have a couple of women who are very practiced in being on the streets and doing evangelism and one is from Boston area and one is from st.

Louis so they're all coming together then we have local people as well and we actually kick off the outreach on the 23rd

Saturday the 23rd and we've gotten quite a few calls from CBS and NBC and the local newspapers because in order to have tables which we're going to have we're going to have literature tables and a prayer station table three different locations we have to fill out a form called a demonstration permit so they called me up and say you know we hear you're going to you've been your permits been approved you're going to have a demonstration where are you going to be parading and and I said and I helped them understand that we're not demonstrating against anything that we're actually proclamation we're actually going to be explaining why

God is at the heart of any society and it should be the right God and explain and I've been able to witness to these people from the press who promised to come by and talk with us more on the street by the way

Ron I was going to dedicate the whole last hour to this event that you're having oh but I you know

I figured I'd let you have your way because you know the Jews always have to have their way well just kidding there of course you know

I figured people can listen for so long so I wanted to get that little bit in there before some of the people have to cut out now when you you've got all these groups coming together to work with you are you all going to be wearing those same t -shirts yes so it's going to be a rather large group of you then that look obviously it'll be a visual united front that's what's good about wearing the same t -shirt because it has an impact mm -hmm and you mentioned a bunch of different organizations that's one of the questions

I was going to ask you is if you team with other groups yeah sure yes and and I we used to have an organization in Philadelphia called chop a

Jewish outreach partnership for Philadelphia area but I would say we kind of ceased becoming an active group probably about seven or eight years ago and there was a number of groups people that came together that were theologically diverse but we all had an interest in a heart for Jewish people and once a year we'd have a witness campaign and we would go out and do that and so but it's not always easy to do it it's not always things you know every every group has their own culture and background and so you have to you know just take you do what you can and then you realize that things are not going to be perfectly integrated but you just thankful for people that are coming to lift up the burden of Jesus before the people of Philadelphia mm -hmm and now why do you think it is since we are talking about your work there at the convention what do you think it is that you seem to be gravitated so heavily toward the

Democratic Party when they number one are less likely to be supportive of the nation of Israel politically and they are also known for being vehemently opposed to the the basic moral principles that Jews and Christians hold in common and of course

I don't mean to broad brush there are exceptions but I'm talking about the very platform of the Democratic National Convention is sure one of pro -death pro -abortion you know the pro -homosexual marriage issue and you could go on and on and on well a lot of that is recent and you think about Joe Lieberman you know the senator

I think Connecticut up yes yes he would not fit you know he was he was an orthodox or is it orthodox you were trying he would not fit in that mold and so a lot of this is in the last 15 20 years that this has come up Joe Lieberman though I must say that I was very disturbed years ago when he said that he was in favor of even late -term abortion even though he was personally bothered by it he didn't want to prevent the woman from legally doing it which actually in my opinion makes it worse because you're recognizing there's something evil and wrong about it and still wanting women to continue to have the freedom to do it but anyway

I die you're absolutely right and that's one of the nemesis of being a politician you know and then getting into extreme view of individual liberty there's an extreme view of that that leads to when individuals perverted ideas can dominate based on some judgments of some judge you know saying that everybody's got to bow down to that individuals what society normally in the past called perversion so we're dealing with the yeah yeah

I'm disappointed to hear that about Joe because he was supposedly orthodox but yeah there you go he's compromised at least he was when he was running for vice president oh there you go well the bottom line is that the reason that many

Jewish people have gravitated for years when I grew up my family was solid

Democrats and their belief was that the Democrats and you still hear it today help the poor people and a part of Judaism is to do good deeds to do mitzvahs mm -hmm and they see the

Democratic Party since many of them are secular are not really practicing where's the orthodox

Jews now gravitate more towards Republican they see this as a substitute for religion in other words they're doing their good deed they're going with the

Democrats who want to help us want to help the poor who care about the poor and so that's reason that many

Jewish people are Democrats at least have been traditionally there is a growing slightly growing conservative movement within Judaism be more supportive of conservative ideas and politically but it's hard it's hard well you know

I was actually thinking it seems like I'm the only one that thinks this is a good idea but I was thinking of from now on when

I am involved in a discussion with liberals on these issues like abortion and homosexuality and other things when they start to get in my face with frustration anger hostility and radically opposed what

I'm saying I've been thinking of starting to say in response you know how anti -semitic of you just to stop them in their tracks and as they look at me with baffled looks on their face and they say wait a minute you're not

Jewish what are you talking about I would I could bring up the fact that the very things that they are in favor of are a violation of the laws that the

Jews have cherished as a part of their holy scriptures for centuries and if you think that they're idiotic moronic or evil that would mean that you're anti -semitic in my opinion and I think that that might be a better strategy because in this day and age no one cares if you're anti -christian

I think the thing is part of when we're on the streets trying to talk to people we avoid the controversial which we believe are not controversial but God's standards but we don't focus on any kind of discussion of homosexuality, abortion, etc.

we keep on bringing people back to who is Jesus mm -hmm and who are you before God and just you know we also one of the things that we've done is a guy named

Ray Coco I like his book called tactics because instead of us trying to prove

God we try to help people see that they have very little basis for their rejection of the

Bible or of God's existence and so on by asking them questions and so that works out so our goal for that period of time is to distribute literature tracts that are geared towards elections and voting and so on choosing a good leader and starting conversations with people and getting contacts with those who show any openness or interest in further contact or literature and to make ourselves a visible witness for the

Lord by being there on the street and not being ashamed of the gospel you know we pray for physical protection we pray for spiritual protection and we really urge your listeners to do the same for us because there is a spiritual battle that takes place often right before a campaign things happen one of one of our principal people helped me with this was threatened very severely threatened at his job verbally threatened but by a person who could break him in half as he described it

Wow and my wife wound up ten days in the hospital a couple weeks ago and she's a you know she usually comes with us and goes out on the street with us even though she's limited in her mobility and and so we just pray you know because we just keep on going with and unless the

Lord decides to take us home we're going to be there well that brings up another question though now since Chris is one to devote the most of the second hour to well now it's basically gonna be a mixture of everything before we get too much into the convention and what's coming up there though in the second hour

I want to know more about you've answered this somewhat already but your your your daily practices okay your ministry

I mean you don't just open your door and hope Jews are gonna come walking through the door to learn about Christ you said you're out on the streets can you give us an idea like you said that see it seems like God is providentially bringing

Jews your way quite a bit but what is your daily routine like what do you do as a ministry to reach the

Jews how do you find them how do they find you well a couple things one we have a website that we try to keep good material on and direct people to it we try to encourage the many churches that I've been to I've been to hundreds of and particularly those that are local here or even far away we certainly can speak to people through Skype to refer their

Jewish context that have shown any interest in the gospel to us and so we can we're looking for context where they've already some of the ground has already been broken up and so we look for those contacts that come our way we try to raise the issue of the

Jewish people before through Facebook through our website and keep that alive and then we go out on the highways and byways and try to connect with Jewish people that show an interest and when a

Jewish person comes to a church sometimes pastors will contact us and I'll try to meet with that person and then we get contacts out on the street we will follow up we always try to be very thorough in our follow -up and if it's a

Gentile person we who's searching for God we certainly pass that on to a church that's somewhere near to them let them know that we're going to do that sort of introduce that person to that local church and we also send literature to everybody and so that's that's kind of the sum of what we do part of what

I used to do for years and I've gotten away from it right now because of time restraints is continue to raise support part of the missionaries lot here the national missionary is to be regularly going to churches and explaining the ministry and continues to raise support and so I went through a period where my deceased wife

Jackie became very ill for a couple years I had to cancel some teaching tours I had set up and then

God led me to a period of healing from her death and then remarrying so the the the option missionaries have is either see their support window which is unfortunate or continue to beat the bushes and it takes one away from the mission work itself but this look it's a lot of national missionaries often and even foreign missionaries have to come back every so often so that just gives you some idea of what we're doing we try to write articles and stir up people to introduce us the

Jewish people keep that keep explaining about the Jewish feasts and how they present the gospel remind people to develop friendships with their

Jewish context through holiday cards through gifts you know like a happy Passover card and so on and even encourage

Jewish Christians particularly to ask their Jewish neighbor who goes to synagogue if they could come with them and learn about Jewish worship and show an interest you know not denying

Jesus but say hey I like to know more about how you worship and maybe that would open a door for them to be willing to come with that person to the church service hmm that's interesting obviously you would have to be very careful not to give the false impression that you believe all roads lead to God or something of that effect yeah yeah no you gotta know that's true you don't want to you don't want to water down the gospel and in fact that is a good segue because I'd like to ask

Jeremy from Glendale Texas's question Texas's Jeremy from Glendale Texas has a question that I'm going to ask before we go to the break and perhaps you can answer it or begin to answer it when we return because it may be requiring a fairly in -depth answer and I think it's very relevant to our discussion today even though it's not specifically on Jewish evangelism or the

Jews it's I think it's very relevant to our discussion Jeremy and Glendale Texas asked

I was brought into this world for a purpose a purpose that is unknown to me

I do know because of my free will however that I am capable to make choices

I also know that if I believe in God and live my life as he would want me to I will invent

I will eventually be rewarded by sharing with him in life everlasting many many religions and belief systems subscribe to these for similar tenants in that regard therefore

I assume that I was brought into this world for the purpose of giving glory to God won't all religions provide the forum for me to glorify

God thereby leading me to the true God and life everlasting and if not why not very good question

Jeremy and Glendale Texas and we are going to answer that to the best of our abilities or at least our guest

Ron Elkin will when we return from this break if anybody else would like to join us on the air our email address is

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com Chris Arnzen at gmail .com

and we already have several people waiting so thank you for your patience and we'll get to you as soon as we can when we return from the break and after Ron addresses

Jeremy and Glendale Texas's question don't go away we're gonna be right back after these messages

Paul wrote to the church at Galatia for my now seeking the approval of man or of God or am

I trying to please man if I were still trying to please man I would not be a servant of Christ hi

I'm Mark Lukens pastor of Providence Baptist Church we are a reformed Baptist Church and we hold to the

London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 we are in Norfolk Massachusetts we strive to reflect

Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things that's not the best recipe for popularity but since that wasn't the

Apostles priority it must not be ours either we believe by God's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love if you live near Norfolk Massachusetts or plan to visit our area please come and join us for worship and fellowship you can call us at 508 -528 -5750 that's 508 -528 -5750 or go to our website to email us listen to past sermons worship songs or watch our

TV program entitled resting in grace you can find us at Providence Baptist Church ma .org

that's Providence Baptist Church ma .org or even on sermon audio .com Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries the

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that's WRBC .us welcome back this is

Chris Arnzin let me just remind you that if you ever are hearing iron sharpens iron and you miss the website or contact information for a sponsor just go to the website that you are most likely listening to this program on ironsharpensironradio .com

and score all the way down to the bottom and all of our sponsors are there with a banner ad and it's also all of those ads have hyperlinks to the sponsors own websites but Ron are you with us

I sure am okay I guess that there's another call coming in and the last time that happened that was my guest who got disconnected and I didn't but I'm glad that you're still with us we are for those of you who just tuned us in we are interviewing today for the full two hours

Ron Elkin founder of AMI ministry and their website is a

Amazon Michael Amazon Michael I ministry org and Ron and AMI ministry are going to be at the 2016

Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia Pennsylvania July 25th through the 28th evangelizing all who are willing to listen to them about the gospel of Jesus Christ but they have a specific intention to evangelize the

Jewish individuals there since the majority of Jewish individuals happen to be in the

Democratic Party in the United States so we would love for you to pray for them and support them in any way you can and before the break

Ron as you know Jeremy and Glendale Texas basically is asking a couple of things first of all he is convinced that he will be with God for eternity because of the fact as he puts it that I know that if I believe in God and live my life as he would want me to I will eventually be rewarded by sharing with him in life everlasting now

I believe that that does have an element of a very strong truth in it but the issue is what does that mean because living life the way

God would want you to has a different understanding depending upon who you're talking to because there are a lot of people who have a wrong understanding about what

God wants them to do and they have a wrong understanding or ignorance of who God is and what the gospel is and so on so basically he is asking is that true or he's assuming that that's true and he's asking don't all religions provide the forum for him to glorify

God there by leading him to the true God and life everlasting there's a fundamental problem with his thinking

I'm glad that he wants to do good I'm glad that he wants to but again as you mentioned

Chris what does that mean do good and who is the judge the question isn't so much of him trying to do good as much as what does

God think about Jeremy is that with the name Jeremy yes okay what does

God think of Jeremy is really more fundamentally important because God's standards are perfect and beyond our ability to achieve and the question is for Jeremy to seek through prayer and through looking at I believe the

Bible as the basis for what reality is is what is God's standards and is he actually living up to the things that Jesus taught as he living up to what the prophets taught and I know that if one is honest about it that they would find that impossible to live up to the holiness of what is presented there and that's where we need to have an intercessor and a forgiveness and then there's something else to consider

Jeremy there's many different religious ideas in the world and there's a very respectful book that I recommend it despite Kenneth boa and it's called cults world religions and the occult what they teach and how to respond to them and I remember reading this in Bible school and he's very respectful he simply lays out the factual understanding of what the religions teach and how they're different than what the

Bible teaches and I think if you were it's not long chapters it's about three three and a half pages for each major religious thought and I encourage you to read through that because there is a difference in what the different groups teach for the most part the fundamental difference for example between Judaism and Christianity is that Christianity is a works -based religion as many of the religions are and it's based on what you do that will get

God to accept you whereas Christianity is very different it teaches that we cannot work enough to please a holy

God and through the work of Jesus in dying for us that God accepts us and then changes us yes we are to obey

God yes we are to seek to obey him and do the things that are correct and right but it's grace and mercy that saves us and gives us in it to a position of acceptance by our

Creator and entrance into heaven entrance into eternal life in a positive way so as you look at these other religions and that's why

I recommend Kenneth's Boas book is a very concise and very factual he's very respectful towards the other groups and he simply lays out the fundamental differences

I think you would find that the idea that all religions somehow are saying the same thing is not true and I encourage you to do that for your own study and then you know

God is certainly there he says come to me you know you are a heavy laden you know

I'll give you rest for your soul and he's there if you're really sincere God Jesus said those who want to know the truth will know if he speaks of himself or from God so it's something that I encourage you to move forward with yes and obviously

Jeremy all religions could not provide the forum for him to glorify

God or for you to glorify God it because one basic fact is that many of these religions are in 180 degree direct polar opposite to one another in regard to what they believe and for instance

I mean you even have the Christian identity movement which is a neo -nazi religion would you believe

Jeremy that you can find the way to God through that religion I mean they're all kinds of religions there's a nation of Islam which is basically the black counterpart of what

I just said and there there are black Israelites who believe that white people cannot go to heaven there are all kinds of religions that have a false hope for for men but even in the true religion the one true lip religion of Jesus Christ he has made it clear that there's nothing that men can do to earn their way to heaven that we are all sinners and the only thing that could pay the price for that sin is his atoning death his redemptive work on the cross where he took upon the sins of his people upon himself and Jesus Christ had the wrath of his own father poured on him so that those very sinners for whom he died would not have to receive that wrath so obviously nothing that you could do being a good neighbor to your neighbors being a good parent to your children being a good spouse to your wife giving to the poor none of these things are good enough they're all good things but they're not good enough to earn heaven and Ron does not

Jesus Christ make it very specifically clear in the scriptures that that no man comes to the father but through him yes that's a hard one for people because they want to be able to do or come to God in their own way and they want to be independent of God and yet somehow be with God and yeah

Jesus said I'm the only way I'm the truth of life you know there's no other way and that's hard for so many people in this day and age and to be that direct and bold yeah and the fact of the matter is when we are looking at our own deeds when we are trying to sever consciences thinking that we are going to be entering into eternity with God when we depart from this earth and we're trying to measure our good deeds against our bad we are usually comparing ourselves to other people who are worse or worse as far as overtly involved in sinful activity than we are we know we could compare ourselves with people who are in prison we can compare ourselves to people that are just mean and nasty and stingy people or even in prison people compare themselves to each other they say well at least

I didn't murder anybody I'm here for for armed robbery but at least I didn't kill anybody and then the murderer can say yeah well at least

I didn't kill my own wife and children and you know the person who did that can say yeah it might have killed my own life and children but at least

I didn't kill the people in an entire apartment building by setting it on fire you know

I mean you could just go on and on and on with that kind of comparison and in the long run nothing is that you do is good enough to to please

God to enable you to enter heaven by virtue of those deeds that that's why isn't it true

Ron that when Jesus himself was giving the story of the the

Pharisee in the temple praying and he was bragging about all those things those wonderful things that he did do and all those nasty sinful things that he did not do and when the tax collector was in the temple at the same time praying he merely beat his breast and said

Lord be merciful to me a sinner and Jesus said it was that tax collector who went home justified that he was the one who was saved not the man who had some outwardly righteous life am

I right right yes and I Jeremy I urge you if you're still listening to think in this terms there within the scripture it teaches that there's a way that seems right to man but that way is the path to death and throw yourself on the mercy of God to reveal to you his truth and I would encourage you to start reading through the gospel of John and through the

Bible to and contemplate on what you're reading and pray and ask God is this the truth as Jesus said if somebody's willing to know the truth by submitting themselves to God they'll know if he was speaking just from his own self or he actually was telling the truth so it's really a choice to realize that you cannot please

God it's not possible so thank God that Jesus died for you and learn about that hopefully you will trust in him in fact isn't the book of Galatians a very primary source to look to for proof that not all religions lead men to heaven because here you have the

Apostle Paul rebuking a church in Galatia that he planted because they had been seduced by a group of Christians or at least they were professing

Christians known as the Judaizers and from what we know in the scriptures the

Judaizers believed in everything that Paul believed except the Judaizers said that you had to be circumcised and because of that one thing

Paul said that they were accursed he said that their gospel was a false gospel and no gospel at all and he didn't say well they were almost right so that's good enough he condemned them as false teachers am

I right yes I would like to address the part of the question where he said that he has a free will and Jeremy yes we have a free will as far as we can decide you know in so many decisions throughout the day whether I want to wear the blue shirt or the red shirt except for Chris who's colorblind but our will is part of our nature and as as fallen people as people who are born in sin by the damage that we inherit from our ultimate father

Adam our will is also subject to that fallenness and God has given certain commands to us and the

Apostle Paul very clearly in the book of Acts says that God has commanded all men to repent and if our free will leads us to do anything but other than repent and believe the gospel which is the requirements that God puts on us then it's it's leading us the wrong direction if by any chance you'd well the way

I put it is this I couldn't have even wanted to please God by repenting and believe in the gospel if God had not first regenerated my heart to do so if I were to follow my free will the only thing

I would choose is whether I wanted to be an adulterer a murderer or a thief but to to want to do what

God commands and repent of my sin and believe in the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ that's something that has to be given to me that's what my will needs to bring me to what

God's real commands are right and then part of his question is I also know that if I believe in God and live my life as he would want me to well we as Christians believe he wants you to believe upon his son

Jesus Christ as your only hope of salvation and not trust in anything that you do eternal life but only upon his sacrifice you know there's a part of his statement there that is true if he were to leave his life like God wanted him to he would be saved but the fact is he hasn't nobody has right right so we live and living life in obedience although never perfectly is only a what's the word

I'm looking for it's a fruit it's an evidence right of the person saved it's not the cause it's not the causing factor of somebody the only righteousness we can have before God is a foreign righteousness that's imputed to us and that's what happens in conversion is the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us and that's what

God sees is the righteousness of Christ well by the way Jeremy you are going to be receiving since you're a first -time questioner today you are going to receive a free

New American Standard Bible compliments of the publishers of the NASB so we need your full mailing address to ship that out to you

ASAP and we hope that you give us your address and that you read that Bible it's a very beautiful version of the

NASB with an embossed cross on the leather text cover it really really beautiful Bible yeah it is and we hope that you are blessed by that do you have anything further to say to Jeremy before we go on to a couple of other listeners

Ron yeah well I think you and I we've covered it we just prayed that his heart will have heard and we'll see the truth okay and we have another listener in Tulsa Oklahoma Ken and he says

I knew Joe Finkelstein as a Messianic Jew in West Philadelphia in the early 70s when

I was on the faculty at Dickinson oh I guess he means Dickinson College which is three minute walk from where I'm sitting does

Ron know him and is he still alive in ministry I'm sorry is he still active in ministry

I'm laughing because in February I visited

Joe in his home in Israel Wow yeah so yes he's still he's still involved with congregational work there he's been there for about I understand about six and he's very active with a believing community and his wife seemed to be healthy and doing well great

Ken we need your full mailing address because since you are a first -time questioner

I don't know if you're a first -time listener but if you since you all are a first -time questioner first time you've ever sent in a question we ask of you to give us your full mailing address because you've also won a free

New American Standard Bible so we look forward to getting that from you and shipping that Bible out to you

Ken we have Tyler in Mastic Beach Long Island New York who has become a regular listener to iron sharpens iron and we always appreciate

Tyler's questions he asks is one of the classical passages to evangelizing the

Jewish people Isaiah 53 or commonly known as the suffering servant oh absolutely absolutely

I what I have done at times is taken that out of description and since I just copied the verses and even sometimes people type it out and show it to somebody without stating where it's from and inevitably people will say well this is talking about Jesus and then you explain that this is written 700 years or so before he was born and through Isaiah and doesn't mean somebody's going all of a sudden fall down and accept the

Lord but he's certainly given him something to think about you know it's interesting that something that Jeremy asked

Jeremy and Glendale Texas asked that popped this question into my mind it's interesting that among the

Jewish people it seems to be unless of course you are in a really hardcore

Orthodox or Hasidic community it seems to me that you could be almost anything except a

Christian and they your family friends and loved ones will be fine with that and let me give you an example we have some famous Jewish actors and people in Hollywood that dabble in Buddhism and all kinds of meditative religious practices that are not

Jewish and there's doesn't seem to be outcry about that there are Jewish people who are atheists where they're not outcasts because of that I know of a friend of mine a

Jewish believer now living in Florida who before he became a

Christian was a male stripper and he had no backlash from his

Jewish family for this and his back his Jewish family was nominal did not keep a kosher home did not regularly go to synagogue and yet when he became a

Christian they set Shiva for him wrote him off as dead an enemy of theirs and it made it worse when he married a

Gentile girl and this Jewish man's mother physically attacked his wife at a funeral when they showed up there for a member of the family's funeral who had died and is it you know so it's really amazing that is it what is it about Christianity obviously other than the obvious that it's the one true faith in the planet but what is it that the deck excuse me yes this will lead me back to one before the first break there about why there's some reason for this type of behavior and I can briefly go over that with you mm -hmm mm -hmm okay well the early early church was predominantly

Jewish we know we're Jewish and they were witnessing the Jews and I'm sure there were some

God fears of Gentiles that heard them as well who believed but the church was predominantly

Jewish and some of the church historians are convinced somewhere between a quarter of a million even a million

Jewish people believe in Jesus by the end of the first century now as the church expanded around the world it became predominantly

Gentile and over these by the fourth century particularly as the church was embraced by Rome Constantinople and embracing the

Christianity it became a political thing to become a

Christian in order to do well in your life there had been prior to the coming of Jesus a whole basis of anti -semitism in the

Greek world the Jews refused to worship the multiple gods that the

Greeks worshipped they could not go to their festivals because the Greeks festivals were centered around these false gods the

Jewish people kept kosher if thinking in terms of Alexandria in northern

Africa where there was a very large Jewish community in the among the Greeks and so they were seen as outsiders they were seen as atheists and when the church spread to this

Greek world a lot of the previous prejudice against the Jews continued in the hearts of people and so as the the

Roman Empire had been very tolerant of Judaism to a large extent but when it converted to Christianity it began to become very intolerant and began to insist that if a

Jewish person believed in Jesus they had to develop or take a

Gentile name if they were not married they did not want to marry a another Jewish person they were to give up all the feasts and holidays that God gave

Israel that had nothing to do with it and had no way to be against Jesus but they were God -given feasts and so on and they tried to totally

Gentile eyes any Jewish person who believed in Jesus then here's a quote from John Christos and a very very important Christian figure he was very worshipful when it came to explaining the gospel when it came to teaching the scriptures but when it came to the

Jewish people he was really insane he said it's the duty of this is a direct quote it's a duty of Christians they hate

Jews why are the Jews degenerate because of their odious assassination of Jesus or Christ there is no forgiveness possible gee

I don't know I think Jesus said forgive them father for they know not what they're doing that he went on to say the synagogue is a house of prostitution and assembly of criminals and he went on and taught this type of teaching led to riots against the

Jewish community where thousands of Jewish people were raped killed and property seized and many things happened to them and then there was so over the centuries of this early church period there were many

Jewish people really destroyed or oppressed and so a deep mistrust of Christianity develops and it's seen as a political enemy and a spiritual enemy deeply within the the teachings of the prophets was a great cry against idolatry and so given this horrible testimony the miracle is that any

Jew believed and there were some who did it's funny all this but but the the issue of idolatry is a major issue within Judaism because of the punishment that God put on the

Jewish people we carried them off to Babylon and and because of their idolatry practices so they see

Christianity as worshiping a man and it's a very offensive and they're also very afraid of that because they see that as making

God angry against them now so because of all this nonsense that happened is horrible stuff there's psychological reactions to persecution there's fear and mistrust of the world anger pride sense of superiority to combat that anger want to control the environment unbelief some

Jewish people say where was God when the six million were killed now defensiveness overachievement try to prove oneself shame self -rejection assimilation and they really like the idea of a pluralistic society and they're very politically diligent to separate religion and government because in history when the governments were very much tied in with the church it often led to great problems for the

Jewish people and the end result of this it becomes difficult for Jews to believe in Jesus and of course you have the erroneous lie that the that's a that's a redundancy there the erroneous lie the the common spread lie that the

Nazis were in reality Christian or are actually believing in the the theology of Christianity when they were not there there were nominal

Lutherans and Catholics in the Nazi Party but these men especially in the hierarchy were not

Christian by any stretch of the imagination in fact Hitler hated Christianity and was into the occult so and that there was their religion was more resembling of of Norse theology of Norse pagan idolatry am i right yes because Jesus as a

Jew was the founder so to speak of Christianity therefore they the

Nazis in the hierarchy who hated the Jews saw this as a scourge and we have to go to our final break right now this is your last opportunity to write to us and it is

Chris Orrin's in at gmail .com is the email address Chris Orrin's in at gmail .com don't go away we're going to be right back with Ron Elkin I am

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Welcome back this is Chris Sarnes and if you just tuned us in for the last 90 minutes we have been interviewing

Ron Elkin of Ami Ministries, a ministry singular they they choose that phrasing of the ministry and we are discussing not only

Jewish evangelism in general but also the fact that Ron and Ami ministry is going to be present

God -willing at the 2016 Democratic National Convention to evangelize primarily the

Jews who are there but obviously they will evangelize anyone willing to listen to them at this convention which is being held in Philadelphia Pennsylvania July 25th through the 28th so please pray for Ron and his team there before I return to our discussion one of our sponsors has a special event coming up Fellowship Conference New England is going to be having their next conference in Reverend Buzz Taylor's old stomping grounds

Portland Maine that's August 4th through the 6th and my friend

Pastor Mac Tomlinson of Providence Chapel in Denton Texas is one of the speakers

Mac Tomlinson is a dear brother in Christ I am so delighted that he in his sovereignty has guided our paths to cross

Mac's and mine and he has become a friend and one of my favorite guests to be interviewed here on Iron Sharpens Iron.

Mac is not only one of the orchestrators of this conference but he is one of the speakers and those other speakers include

Jesse Barrington, Charles Leiter and Michael Dorham and there's going to be fellowship and great preaching and great food and all kinds of things there and we hope that you especially if you live in Maine or nearby

Maine and I know that we do have listeners in and close to Maine I hope that especially you folks take advantage of this conference and attend but even if you don't live anywhere near there but have the means by which to purchase airfare there or get hop in an

Amtrak or wherever else you want to get there we hope that you go to this conference and for more details go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com once again if you'd like to join us on the air for the question for Ron Elkin our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com we look forward to hearing from you with your own questions for Ron and when you were talking about Chrysostom before John Chrysostom obviously there are heroes of the faith that that many of us have that when we discover more about their lives and things that they said and wrote we realize that they are merely sinners saved by grace like we are even though if they may be gifted men in many ways and may have been very heroic men even some of them who gave their very lives for their faith or at the very least very least risked their lives for their faith like Martin Luther and then we discover wait a minute he believed that he said that and are we to just totally disregard and denounce and renounce any affiliation and association or affection or appreciation for these men like Luther and others who have said vehemently anti -semitic things or are we to say these were these were sinners saved by grace but what they did contribute to the church is so valuable

I cannot see revering them in some sense as a hero of the faith obviously not to the extent that our

Roman Catholic friends actually worship their heroes of the faith even though they would vehemently deny that they're worshipping them they still are but that's a question that I have for any of my

Jewish friends who happen to be of the Reformed faith because obviously we look to these great heroes for sources of truth through their writings and so on yeah

I agree with you a hundred percent because it the things

I was explaining prior I just wanted to also add we know that Luther had some wonderful teaching about justification by faith and and dear

Christassim wrote some beautiful homilies about the

Lord and glorified Lord in his writings so it's it's a it's a dichotomy it's something that as a

Jewish person who believes in Jesus I extend a lot of grace because I know

I'm a sinner saved by grace and I extend a lot of grace where I know that based on what they were teaching and believing that they seem to really be beloved brothers now some believers would have a hard time accepting that when they read their anti -semitic statements and only you know

God knows for sure but it seems in many ways they were believers and understood the gospel so I agree with you and the last things that I was talking about before the great break

I don't want people to be discouraged from not witnessing to their

Jewish friends because of this history the liberal church has moved in that direction where they came up with a dual covenant theology that somehow the

Jewish people can be saved right without Jesus and it's a tragedy because Jesus said to love our neighbors as ourselves and any

Christian who believes the scriptures who believes that what Jesus said is true and yet is afraid to witness to their

Jewish friends and neighbors or doesn't believe that they need to it's not really believing the scriptures are really believing

Jesus and so I didn't want to discourage those out there that are interested in or have

Jewish contacts or maybe God will give you one if you don't right now I would encourage you to do go to our website and look through all the articles we have including on Isaiah 53 and other articles about the

Jewish feast and how they are prophetic pictures of Jesus I encourage you to equip yourself and do even a

Google on the Messianic prophecies and they make wonderful Bible studies very encouraging and yet the same time you can be equipped that if you meet a

Jewish person you can start to in a loving way challenge them to consider who

Jesus really is and based on the prophecies you know based on the Word of God and I pray that some of you will not be discouraged but understand that if you get a negative reaction that you might even say to the

Jewish person you're talking to you know I understand why you would be upset about me trying to talk to you about Jesus I understand the history of the background that you suffered a lot of things by people who call themselves

Christians but Jesus never taught anything like that Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself and so let's talk about who

Jesus was not what some people misrepresented him and it's a way to kind of turn it around a little bit but definitely pray about opportunities to witness the

Jewish people they are on their way to hell without Jesus yeah John Hagee I think was one of the primary people teaching that dual covenant heresy am

I right yeah it's shame it's a shame because he's can be a very good preacher at times but he's certainly going off the rail when it comes to the

Jewish people I know personally a Jewish man who's a very dear friend of mine actually

I've known him since 1991 I think and he has been very much in admiration of Christianity and Christians that he knows it's interesting because he is very actively involved in very conservative political activity the

Lord has constantly brought people into his life that were Christians including very famous athletes professional athletes baseball players especially and and they have relentlessly evangelized him and unfortunately

John Hagee was somebody that salved his conscience and was just another reason why he was able to say to me yeah but even though I love all these

Christian friends of mine I don't really have to become a Christian because John Hagee says the

Jews kind of get a pass on this and obviously he would have found another excuse if it wasn't John Hagee but this is showing you how dangerous this is this is this is not some subtle difference in theology this is this is in essence leading

Jewish people to hell isn't it yes and I have it I have a theory on this you know in case you haven't noticed the

Jewish people are not invisible we we don't disappear somehow in spite of all the pressure against us and and I tell a lot with the

Soviet Jews that came out in the 1990s and many of them were leaders in their community or leaders at their factory or were doctors or professional people and and so we make an impact on society and many

Jewish people are good communicators you think in terms of the entertainment industry and and the writers and so on and if the enemy of God wanted to do his best to discourage

Jewish people from being part of the church where they could further the cause of Jesus then he would work through the way he did in other words bringing all this hatred towards them from so -called people who say they believe in Jesus and it's an effective way to counter the work of God think in terms of the fact that there's

Jews and Gentiles and we're a balance we bring good things to the church and we have different mindsets in different ways different abilities and and the church is meant to be united together between Jew and Gentile Paul called it a mystery in Ephesians 2 the mystery is that the

Gentile and Jew would become one new man and that's a wonderful thing if we could live it out because it's the ultimate way of expressing

God's mercy and grace the world is prejudiced and always wants to divide but and so the enemy has done his best but that's why

I encourage people to love the Jewish people by explaining to them as much as they're able as you're able to about why they need to believe in Jesus reverend buzz yeah before we this is sort of a two -parter the first one's

I think kind of quick but do you know the reference for the quote that you gave us from John Chris Austin yes you mean that yeah so I can look it up and check the content and while and while you're looking it up a letter our listeners know that they can email bail us but do it very quickly because we're running out of time yeah that's orange at a gmail .com

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com I'm sorry go ahead okay well

I was leading up to this with that question the shoe used to be on the other foot

I heard a you may be familiar with this and I of course I do not remember the name it's been years since I heard this but I heard a very interesting testimony on it was actually on focus on the family

I believe that about a man a Jewish man who was converted to Christ by reading well hearing in a

Bible study that in the early church the problem was the

Christian Jews accepting the Gentile Christians into the church that was something that they did not see that the two bodies would become one and if two flocks become one as the

New Testament teaches and they're a problem a very predominant theme in the

New Testament was the gospel going to the Gentiles as well and it seems like it was a great strain for the early church to accept that fact that yes

God is now bringing Gentiles into the fold just like he did the Jews at first and a lot of the persecution of of the church of course in the first century came from the

Jews and you know I thought of the book that you could refer to to find a lot of these quotes that would be by a

Catholic priest named Flannery and it's called the 23 centuries of Christian anti -semitism and it's a very well documented scholarly work that goes into great depth about the pre -christian error of anti -semitism and blended into so that's

Flannery 23 centuries of Christian anti -semitism okay all right good thanks we have a listener in Lindenhurst Long Island CJ who asks

I understand from some of your previous programs that some of your guests were very opposed to the let the lion roar movie because it was on it wouldn't it was an unfair treatment of the reformers and an exaggeration of their anti -semitism what does your guest today think of that movie if he has ever seen it well based on what

I just heard I haven't and I'm glad I haven't it sounds like I tend to not

I mean the media tends to really mangle the Word of God and every attempt recently to talk about a biblical figure like Noah which

I didn't see the movie but I've certainly heard the criticism of it seems to not be willing to follow what

God says but they want to manufacture all kind of false ideas so it's sad because it affects a lot of people and this was just to let you know and others know this was a movie that apparently was created by evangelical

Christians oh yeah oh yeah this was about basically trying to educate the church to cease being anti -semitic and and you know that that they have to depart from the the mindset of a lot of the heroes of the faith like like Calvin and Martin Luther and Augustine and well and some of these pillars of the

Christian faith and the Reformation and I'd never saw it either but I had heard from those who have seen it who do acknowledge that these men had being sinners said regrettable things about the

Jews and so on but the movie itself was really entered into slander and was very much distorting those things you know

I understand what you're saying and it's it's it's really hard sometimes when people have a hurt they've been hurt by the history and where they can focus on the hurt and it's hard for them to see the big picture and probably the people who put this together were being reactive to the sad part of the history of the church but you know at the same time the church really is

God's people on this earth you know Jew and Gentile and we have to recognize the sin in our own selves that was has prejudice towards different people in different situations and sometimes reformed people are very prejudiced against this sensationalist you know almost write them off as horrible people and stuff like that so and of course the reverse the reverse is definitely true yeah yeah no

I understand I understand and it's like we just have to recognize that the human weakness

I I do want to ask people those that are listening if you would be merciful to us and pray tickly as we're going into an intense situation the politics of the country right now are very divisive and we're coming there not to argue with people but to remind them of the need to believe in Jesus and who he is and try to answer questions for people that are legitimately seeking and we do this in a non -argumentive way but we ask you to consider if you have experience doing evangelism on the in the streets to join us we still can use more people to come out and help for those that are physically limited who couldn't stand on a corner we are going to have three different table spots where you'd be able to sit behind the table and we need stewards even someone who would come out and help prepare the food for the those that are witnessing in a hot

July Sun and coming back for break times and eating to help with that type of detail so we do have if you don't mind

I give my my phone number oh of course it's two one five eight four three one seven six four a lot of times you'll get a message machine

I'll be glad to respond as ASAP and but I would appreciate you seriously considering at the very least praying that the

Lord will put a shield around every witnesser that's going out not just our ministry but we know there's other ministries going out and that we would have favor with the authorities that we'd not be interfered with and that you the enemy of God who would try to discourage us or dissuade us would be bound and cast away from us and that we have the liberty to proclaim the truth while we're on the streets we are going into battle this is as we walk there we're carrying the kingdom of God with us and we are taking foreign territory that is supposedly belonging to the world but we're bringing the presence of God to that area so it is a real spiritual battle and we pray for you to pray for us and well of course the website of AMI ministry as I said earlier is

AMI ministry org AMMI ministry org we have

Harrison in Mechanicsburg Pennsylvania that wants to know you've had in the past two different guests that had a knowledgeable expertise on Martin Luther and they seem to disagree on whether his alleged anti -semitism was truly anti -semitic anti -semitism as in those who hate the

Jewish people ethnically or whether his opposition to the

Jews even if even if at times coarse and sinful was toward their religion and not towards them as people and their ethnicity does your guest have any comment on that well unfortunately he wrote a tract called concerning the

Jews and their lives and I encourage you unfortunately he wrote it

I encourage you to read through it and I think you'll be kind of at the depth of where he was at he was talking about restraining them from living any kind of normal life preventing them to travel making them work in the field in a hard way destroying all their worship places and their books and so on so it went beyond what you would call you know being opposed to their rejection of Jesus to actually credibly oppressive and destructive mentality and because of that book when

Hitler and others of his came to power they directly quoted from his teaching to justify you know where they were coming from and didn't he not start out with very high hopes he did of the

Jewish people coming to Christ he did he had a great hope that by his talking about that salvations by grace that many

Jewish people would you know understand that and accept that now I have another fellow

Jewish believer who is very he's been a missionary and now retired but I I know that he would say that he believed that towards the end of Martin Luther when he moved into this type of fierce anger towards the

Jewish people that he was suffering physical problems and maybe emotional issues in some point as a human being you know after his great work you know and I can't say

I know that reading the stuff that he wrote is vile at the same time on that issue yes of course yeah we agree that he was a full -bodied human being who believed in Jesus and he led the church in in a good direction to free them from the you know the destructive

Orthodox religion that was lining them up and teaching all kind of false ideas so in many ways he was a great liberator and it's just it's a tragedy again the work of Satan I believe to influence people even as believers not that he was possessed but and we were out of time

Ron and I know that your website is Ami ministry org Ami ministry org and I want everybody who always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far far greater