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

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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. 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, although 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 your, not only that, but obviously your AMI ministry that brings the gospel primarily to the Jewish people.

Point. Big time in the Jewish community for one of their boys, been a very thorough kind of problem, welfare, and towards that, and people have witnessed him as a businessman. Oh yeah. Third, it's the fight by educating.

Amen.

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. I mean, in fact, not only just Christians, the Goyim in general, right? The Gentiles. Oh, absolutely. Obviously he made a difference in Israel. Amen.

One thing that I don't recall you saying when you were giving your testimony, were you from an Orthodox Jewish background? I think Reverend Buzz does that every.

Sunday. I'm only kidding. And the other thing, I don't know if I ever asked you, and if I did, I don't remember your answer to it. What does Ami mean? A-M-M-I. That's A, M as in Michael,.

M as in Michael, I. Yeah, an idea of what the church in center city, Philadelphia, which is me, we take her from us. 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 amiministry .org, A, M as in Michael, M as in Michael, I, ministry .org.

And you said that you were a 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 had a very large mission. 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 who are 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. Well, either that or.

Ultra-liberal. Right, right. It's true. It's really a tragedy. You can't get into a deal with people.

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 taken aback by that. I didn't think that kind of thing would necessarily be, uh, obviously I know the heart of man is exceedingly wicked, but I just didn't think.

That term specifically would come up. You know, it's funny because I personally have known about how they use the n-word against each other, you know, or just in describing 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. That's two birds with one stone.

Well, we know that mostly Jewish... By the way, 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 our friend Mitch Glaser, who's currently the president there, is not a covenant theologian.

He's a dispensationalist, but he is a thoroughgoing five-point Calvinist.

That we don't... Yeah, because you say something. ...be thankful, and yet, you know, it's sad that many people will just never see this. No, I don't understand why. There's nothing that he does that...

But as God, who gives the increase, you just plant and water. The number of people who come to Christ is entirely up to God, as you yourself being a theologically reformed Christian would readily understand.

Well, let me ask you this.

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... Yeah, I would like you to, in fact,.

When we return from the break, I'd like you to go through those, at least 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 chrisarnsen 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 chrisarnsen 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. Hi, I'm Chris Arnsen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a Christian perspective.

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Find Harvey Cedars on Facebook or at hcbible .org. Hcbible .org. Call 609 -494 -5689. 609 -494 -5689. 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 chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Before the break, you are going to go into some legitimate reasons for apprehension 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 used 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, 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've been talking to a lot of Christian people. So, in your opinion, it's an unwise, perhaps, word 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.

Amen.

So, it's worth thinking about.

What does your shirt exactly say?

Well, our shirt actually says, we stand out, like, we're gathering together. There's a couple different ministries helping us, coming up from New York City. Then we have some peop-cations. We had to fill out a form called a Shem Permit.

We'd be parading, and I helped them understand that we're not demonstrating against anything. We're actually going to be...

By the way, Ron, I was going to dedicate the whole last hour to this event that you're having.

Oh, sorry.

But, you know, I figured I'd let you have your way, because, you know, the Jews always have to have their way.

Well, now...

Just kidding there, Ron. Of course, you know that.

That's just the way I was doing it. Now, when 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? Obviously, it'll be a visual united front.

That's what's happening.

And you mentioned a bunch of different organizations, because that's one of the questions I was going to ask you, is if you team with other groups.

Yeah, sure.

Now, why do you think it is, since we are talking about your work there at the convention, why do you think it is that Jews 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 uh, 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 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, you think about Joe Lieberman, you know, the Jewish senator.

Yes, yes. 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 digress.

No, you're absolutely right.

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...

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 oppose what I'm saying, I have 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 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.

That's a good idea.

All right, so there's two of us now.

I think the thing is trying to talk to people.

Right, right.

Keep on bringing people protection. We pray for spirit. Wow.

Well, that brings up another question, though. Now, since Chris has wanted to devote most of the second hour to the—.

Well, now it's basically going to 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 daily practices, okay, your ministry, I mean, you don't just open your door and hope Jews are going to come walking through the door to learn about Christ.

You said you're out on the streets. Can you give us an idea? You said that 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?

I need to remind people of Jewish context through card and so on. A neighbor, maybe that would open a door for them to be—.

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, no.

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. I think it's very relevant to our discussion. Jeremy in Glendale, Texas asks, 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 eventually be rewarded by sharing with Him in life everlasting.

Many, many religions and belief systems subscribe to these or similar tenets. 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 form for me to glorify God, thereby leading me to the true God and life everlasting?

And if not, why not? Very good question, Jeremy in 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 chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson 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 in Glendale, Texas's question. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages.

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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 it was my guest who got disconnected and I didn't know it. 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 amizonmichael .com.

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 in 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 your 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 an 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 form for him to glorify God thereby leading him to the true God and life everlasting?

Fundamental problem with this, right?

Yes.

Okay. What is God and beyond our ability through prayer and through looking, what is God's standards? And is He actually living up to it? And we find that, and that's where we need to have something else against many different religious ideas in the world, despite Kenneth's response to the long chapter on Holy God.

And as you look at these other religions, and that's why I recommend Kenneth's career so dear God, Jesus speaks of himself or from...

Yes. And obviously, Jeremy, all religions could not provide the form for him to glorify God or for you to glorify God, 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, there are all kinds of religions. There's the Nation of Islam, which is basically the black counterpart of what I just said.

And 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 men. But even in the true religion, the one true 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 no man comes to the Father but through him?

R. Yes, that they want to be...

J. Yeah, and the fact of the matter is, when we are looking at our own deeds, when we are trying to salve our 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 as far as overtly involved in sinful activity than we are.

We can 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 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 then the person who did that can say, yeah, I might have killed my own wife and children, but at least I didn't kill the people in an entire apartment building by setting it on fire.

I mean, you could just go on and on and on with that kind of comparison. And in the long run, nothing that you do is good enough to please God to enable you to enter heaven by virtue of those deeds. That's why, isn't it true, Ron, that when Jesus himself was giving the story of 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, Ron?

Yes, and I would encourage you to contemplate. So thank God that Jesus has done 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?

Yeah. 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 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 leading us the wrong direction.

If by any chance, 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 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 a 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 for eternal life, but only upon his sacrifice.

But you know, there's a part of his statement there that is true. If he were to lead his life like God wanted him to, he would be saved, but the fact is he hasn't. Nobody has.