December 11, 2023 Show with David Zadok on “An Israeli Reformed Baptist Pastor’s Report on the Current Conflict Between Israel & Hamas”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson,

19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports

legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning

issues facing the church and the world today.

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

sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to

have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener,

with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on

the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 11th

day of December 2023.

And I owe an extra measure of thanks and gratitude to my guest today, because

he is conducting this interview live from Israel, and right now, it's

just a little after 11 p .m., and this interview is going to be continuing through 1 a .m.

his time, so I do thank him for so desiring to be on this broadcast

that he was willing to put up with the time difference.

And the man that I am speaking of is David Zadok, pastor of Grace and

Truth Congregation in Kenot, Israel, and director of Hagefen Publishing,

and he was born in Israel, lived in Iran, and studied in the United States of America, and today,

we're going to be addressing an Israeli Reformed Baptist pastor's report on the current

conflict between Israel and Hamas, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for

the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor David Zadok.

Good afternoon.

It's a privilege for me to be on your show for the first time as well.

And I hope I did not butcher the pronunciation of your last name.

That's okay.

Having lived in different places, certainly in the States, I'm used to

butchering my name, but it doesn't matter.

Well, first of all, let our listeners know about the

Grace and Truth Congregation in Kenot, Israel, and did I pronounce that right?

The city in Israel, is it Kenot?

Yes, it's Kenot, but yeah, it's near, not very far from Ashdod and

Gedera.

That's the city that we live in.

It's in the kind of central south of

Israel, about half an hour south of Tel Aviv, and about 35 minutes

west of Jerusalem.

And that congregation used to be located somewhere else in Israel, correct?

Yes, it used to be located in Rishon LeZion, in the facility of Hagefen

Publishing, and now the church is actually hosting our

publishing in the basement.

Okay, I might want to direct our listeners, after this live show, you may have interest

in hearing an interview I recently did on November 1st with the former pastor of that church, Baruch

Moshe, and we unfortunately, because I don't know if it had anything to do

with the fact that we could hear jets flying over where he was

staying, and there were audible bombs and so forth exploding,

but the audio to that is not pristine.

It is a little choppy on that recording.

We apologize for that.

That was beyond my control, so I just wanted to give you the heads up when you listen to that

program, God willing, later on.

But give us more detail about Grace and Truth Congregation.

Yeah, well, you mentioned Baruch Moshe.

He was the founding pastor of Grace and Truth.

The church was established in 1976.

It was one of the first congregations, and it's not the first one, but one of the first

ones, and the congregation was established based somewhat

on the Westminster Confession as well as the London Baptist Confession.

That was when the church started.

At first, it was in Rehovot and in homes, in a rented home, and eventually we moved

into the facility that Agafon Publishing provided for the

congregation after having a lot of issues with the anti -missionary,

Orthodox, Jewish, and others.

Now, is the congregation still the

only Reformed Baptist church in Israel, or have you been successful in planting any other congregations?

No.

Thankfully, there are more congregations.

There are more Reformed congregations in Israel at the moment.

There is about nine, and our congregation is probably the

largest of the nine, and there is a fellowship of the Israeli Reformed

pastors that I have the privilege of chairing it, and we are actually

working on an updated

confession, a Reformed confession that is based on all of the historical

Reformed Confessions, including Westminster, Heidelberg, as well as London Baptist

Confession.

Oh, wow, great.

Well, if anybody wants more information on this congregation, you can

go to graceandtruth .org .il for Israel.

Grace and, and it's the full word and, not the symbol, graceandtruth .org

.il for Israel, and we will, God willing, be repeating that later on in the program.

And tell us about Hagefen Publishing.

Well, Hagefen Publishing, actually, in Israel, was established in 1974.

Its founding thought actually goes back to Robert Marie McChain, the famous Scottish

pastor, who, at some point, he felt that

the church has a responsibility in bringing the gospel to the Jewish people that for almost

2 ,000 years has failed to do so.

As a result, he asked his denomination, the Church of Scotland, Presbyterian Church of

Scotland, to do a kind of a mission of inquiry.

He came with Andrew Bonner and another, the three of them were here, they were

about, they went to various parts of the Middle East.

They were in Egypt.

Later on, they came to what was Palestine, because the state of Israel was not established yet in 1948.

And when he went back, he gave the report, and as a result of the

report, they set up a society, which was called the Society for the

Progression of the Christian Faith Among the Jewish People.

And interestingly enough, when he went back to Scotland, he

realized that his congregation in Dundee,

during the time that he was finding, trying to find ways to bring the

gospel to the Jewish people, his congregation grew almost twice in size.

And he attributed it to the promise of God that I would bless those who bless you and

curse those who curse you.

So the beginning of Hagafen Publishing goes back to Robert McChain, and we are very

proud and thankful for that heritage.

Some years ago, I had the honor and the privilege of preaching in that same church of

McChain in Scotland.

Wow.

That was a great honor.

Yes, I always feel guilt about my own life

when I hear the name Robert Murray McChain, because I'm 61 years old, and he accomplished

more in his 29 years on this life than I will ever accomplish while I am alive.

The Lord took him when he was very young.

Yeah, well, it's not only you.

I mean, many of us, we feel that, you know, he's done

so much more in his those 29 years than we can do in five,

six life spans.

That's right.

Well, we have a tradition here on Iron Trap and Zion Radio.

Whenever we have a first -time guest on the program, we always have that guest give a their

salvation testimony that would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which they

may have been raised, and the providential circumstances that our sovereign

Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to himself and saved them.

And I'd love to hear a summary of your story.

Okay.

Well, it can be, the summary can be a bit longer, but I will try to do a short version.

I wouldn't rush through it.

We do have two hours, so I'm looking forward to hear this story.

I can always have you back, too, if we run out of time talking about the crisis there between

Israel and Hamas.

So go for it.

Well, I think you mentioned the sovereignty of God.

I definitely can relate my testimony to

the sovereignty of God in relation to historical

outworks of God, how God uses huge historical events

in the lives of individuals to accomplish his task.

So my background is that my parents, for many, many generations, are Iraqi

Jews.

And Iraqi Jews, or Babylonian Jews, I should say, are the only

Jewish people that for 2 ,500 years had a consistent

existence outside of Jerusalem in the same place.

Of course, it goes back to the Babylonian exile.

However, in the Second World War II, something very similar to what

happened in Germany, the Kristallnacht happened in Iraq between the

night of June 20th, 21st, I think, in 1942, if I recall.

In that one night, about 120 Jews were murdered.

Synagogues, homes were burned, and businesses were ransomed.

And that was kind of the beginning of the end of

the existence of the Jewish people in Iraq.

Completely?

Almost completely.

It took a while.

Eventually, everybody came out.

And so part of my family escaped to the neighboring

country, Iran, basically across the border.

And other part of the family came to what to become later on the state of Israel.

That included both my parents, my family in Iraq.

They were very prominent family for many years.

And basically, they left with nothing.

So my grandmother, in her lifetime, twice she became a refugee

in our terms that we use today.

The first time was from Iraq, and the second time actually was from Iran.

And so my parents are Iraqi Jews, both of them.

When I was three years old, my mom decided to take my

sister, my brother, and myself to visit our relatives that she hadn't seen for ages in Iran.

It was supposed to be two months, but we ended up being there for nine months.

And we stay with my aunt and uncle.

My aunt is the sister of my father.

She was married to an Iranian.

For some years, they didn't have children.

At the end of the nine months, my mom decided that in order to

save the marriage and help, decided to allow me to stay after

consultation, of course, with my father in Iran with my uncle and aunt.

From age of three, I grew up with my uncle and aunt.

I was basically on a student visa.

Every two, three years, I would come to Israel to visit my parents and my sister

and brother together with my kind of adopted, quote, unquote, parents.

And then, of course, in 1973, there was the Yom Kippur War.

Exactly 50 years ago.

And in that war, my uncle, he lost his nephew

in the Golan Heights.

He was in a tank unit.

He was killed the second day of the war.

But for about almost 10 days, they did not know what happened to him.

At first, he was, they thought he was POW.

Later, they thought he was missing in action.

And after 10 days, the word came to us that he was killed.

And that impacted my uncle so much that he said he would do everything he can

that I would not serve in the Israeli army.

And then, and three years fast forward, 1976, the

Islamic Revolution started.

And as things were getting worse, I was contacted by the Israeli

consulate saying that I need to be ready with a small suitcase.

And they would call me and within four hours, I need to come to a certain place.

And from there, they would airlift all Israelis back to Israel.

And of course, when that phone call came, my uncle got

very nervous.

He tried to do everything he can to get me out of Iran before I would have to come to Israel.

And in God's sovereignty to some relatives, they were able to

get a student application for me in

San Diego, California, in a high school that had a dormitory.

I needed, you know, I was 16 and a half.

And so at the age of almost 17, I flew halfway

across the globe to the United States to complete my studies.

So I'm sure you've heard of the wandering Jew.

So by the age of 17, I have lived already.

I've lived already in three different countries, Israel, Iran, and now in the States.

And it was there that through the Ministry of Navigators and also the

OPC church, that it's actually a PCA church now in San Diego called New Life.

And in the San Diego State University, for the first time, I heard the gospel.

I remember very clearly in that evening, the Navigators, they had a

Bible study, it was Friday night.

My English was not so great, but that now is much better.

It is much somewhat better, of course.

But I remember that in one night, in those hour, hour and a half, I heard the name Jesus more

than I ever heard in my whole life.

And after the meeting, thankfully, two of the gentlemen, Tom Dawkins and Alan

Priestlove together with my cousin, that about a year

ago he passed away, sadly.

They sat down and they shared the gospel with me.

They started with Genesis chapter three, and later on verse 15 and two other prophecies.

And eventually, they came to the New Testament, telling me that

Jesus was actually the Messiah, the Jewish

Messiah that was promised in the Old Testament.

And in my mind, I say that can't be because I always

grew up knowing that Jesus is the prophet of

the Christians.

Muhammad is the prophet of the Muslims, and Moses is ours.

And those three are mutually exclusive.

They don't have anything in common.

And but they told me, if you want to know more, read the Gospel of John.

And somehow, miraculously, when I came to

my dormitory room, I had a

Bible, both the Old and the New Testament that was given to me.

And I thought of throwing it, but I left it because I didn't think it's right to throw a Bible with the Old

Testament.

It would have been all right if it was just a New Testament, I guess.

Yes, definitely.

So part of God's sovereignty was that how I had that.

And I started reading.

That was the first time I'm opening the New Testament.

And then for about, I would say, probably about it was six, seven months

that I would read a passage from the Gospel of John, and

it would bring back some of the things that I heard during

my time that I attended the synagogue and some of the stories that my grandmother

from the Old Testament used to tell me.

It was like God is putting a big puzzle, and each

time another piece is falling into the place.

Of course, Tom Dorcus, my dear friend, who is still alive, we're in

contact, constant contact.

He kept coming to the dormitory and visiting, continuing to answer the question

and sharing the Gospel.

And one of the things that he did was

actually he took the Bible that I was reading, again, the Old and the New Testament,

and he put it on the floor and he stepped on it.

Wow.

I almost wanted to choke him to death.

The first sign of a truly born -again Christian.

And he really made a point, and the point was that it's not the book that is holy,

but what's in it, the words.

And I think some weeks after that, the Lord converted me,

gave me a new heart, and later on I was baptized in the New Life OPC

Church by Pastor George Mladen, who passed away a few months ago.

I couldn't attend the memorial, but I spoke by Zoom in the service.

And of course, after that, I got very excited.

I wrote a very long letter in Farsi to my uncle and aunt and in Hebrew to my parents,

telling them that I have found the Messiah.

Praise God.

And I thought that they would be happy.

I don't know, four or five pages with all the prophecies from the Old Testament,

and I never heard back.

So I sent them another letter.

Back then there wasn't emails.

The second time I got an answer, so I knew they got my mail and my

letter, but nothing about all that I've shared.

And about a month later, one of my uncles came to L .A.

We had dinner at the end of the dinner with some folks, some of the families.

He told me, well, David, you probably think you've done a great thing by becoming a Christian.

Let me tell you how we feel about it.

Probably would have been less shameful for us if you had become a drug addict

or even a criminal in prison than to become a Christian.

Wow.

And I didn't know what to say, and I

literally turned red.

I just couldn't almost, I don't remember what I responded.

I don't remember if I responded or said anything profound.

But that was the beginning of some of the challenges later on.

They wanted to pull me out of my studies.

I studied at San Diego State University, did a double major in computers and business administration.

But by God's grace, they allowed me to stay.

And that's where Navigators, Man to Man, and Scripture, Memory, and Bible study

came in.

So when I came back to Israel, I was well discipled.

And but eventually, my uncle and aunt kicked me out of the

house.

They said, we don't have a son, you're dead.

When my wife and I got married, nobody came to our wedding.

But eventually, the relationship healed to some degree.

So that's really my story.

And I just want to add another sentence or two, just to talk back

with what I started about the sovereignty of God.

I think we always talk about sovereignty of God.

We think about his sovereignty in our lives, in the life of our family,

or even our country.

But I think when I look back on my story, I'm

amazed at how God uses various

historical, worldwide events, like,

you know, Second World War II and what happened to the Iraqi Jews after 2 ,500 years,

the 73 War, and the Islamic Revolution that we suffer

from it so much, even in these days.

And all of this, he used it so that he brought me from Israel to Iran to the United

States to hear the gospel.

Now, of course, all of these huge events with huge

widespread impact didn't happen for me.

But it's amazing, or I'm amazed how he uses that in my

life to bring me to the gospel.

I mean, God could have used other means.

But it's, you know, amazing and

awesome to think of his sovereignty, how it mingles in our

individual lives.

Amen.

And I want you to pick up where you left off there, because I have some other questions to ask you about your

salvation.

But we have to go to our first commercial break right now.

If anybody would like to join us with a question of your own, for my guest today, David

Zadok, who is pastor of Grace and Truth Congregation in Qanat,

Israel.

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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

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We are now back with my guest, David Zadok, a pastor of Grace and Truth

Congregation in Qanat, Israel, and we are eventually going to be focusing on the theme of

his assessment, his report of the conflict going on between

Israel and Hamas, but we are still in the midst of hearing about his salvation testimony.

If you have a question of your own, please send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

David, just out of curiosity, when you came to Christ at that time,

what was your Jewish faith, if any,

as far as the intensity of it?

Was it just a nominal faith like many, many people around the world who

profess to be Jewish?

Their faith is nominal.

They may only keep a kosher home during High Holy Days and so on.

They may only go to the synagogue during High Holy

Days, and it's interesting that I know a number of people who were raised

in nominal Jewish homes who did not keep kosher homes, very rarely went to the synagogue,

didn't have much time for the Hebrew scriptures at all, but when

they converted to Christianity, they were still—the family was still outraged.

And I know of one case where a mother sat shiva for her child,

her son, as if he was dead after he converted to Christianity.

And the irony is, it's when he converted to Christianity that he fell in love with the Hebrew

scriptures more than ever and delved into them more deeply than ever before.

And he was even, one could say, a lot more Jewish after becoming a Christian

than he was when he was a professed Jew.

But if you could tell us where you were.

Yeah, I would say that I probably was more nominal, even though we

attended a synagogue regularly.

I actually, I attended a Jewish school in Tehran.

In fact, I remember there was always a policeman standing at the entrance of

our school, and it was a school that had even had a synagogue inside.

And I think my family, you know, they would keep kosher very

rigorously, even though we were in Iran.

They could buy kosher meat and another dairy.

My family here in Israel, well, certainly my dad was more religious in the sense of

attending synagogue regularly.

He was very much, I would say, not a nominal Jew, but he wasn't an

Orthodox, but more traditional Jew.

I think with me, I really didn't have a

clear understanding of the Jewish faith.

And of course, Judaism has a lot of, it's

much more than the Hebrew scriptures.

A lot of it are stories and what we would call the Orelah to

Rosh Haba Alpeh.

And so that was it.

And I think that really, as you mentioned about your friend, it definitely was the case

with me that only after, you know, coming to faith in

Christ, that the Lord really put the desire and the love for the

scriptures.

And certainly for the Old Testament.

And all of a sudden, the Old Testament, that quite a few of the passages, I

remember citing them and reading them in synagogue or in various festivals, I

mean, like Passover and others, all of a sudden, not only they had a

fuller meaning, but as Paul says, you know, in Colossians

about, you know, the shadow and that the substance in Christ, I

saw the fulfillment.

And that I think was part of the process that God worked in my life during those

six, seven months.

I mentioned about the puzzle, each time another piece would fall in place.

And those scriptures would make sense,

kind of in the true meaning in Christ.

So I would say that I probably kind of escaped one

stage in a sense of, because, you know, in a normal case, you know, you would have Jewish people that,

you know, very well versed in the Hebrew scriptures.

And then when they come to faith, a lot of that makes sense to them, which me,

you know, again, I was only about 17 years.

I mean, I was a teenage.

And so I didn't have much understanding, or I should say, any

deep understanding of the Old Testament.

And I kind of jumped over that right into the fulfillment in Christ and the

New Testament and how Christ fulfilled that.

And it was only much later in my Christian life that I

saw the full picture of God's redemptive plan of salvation,

beginning in Genesis 3, all the way to Revelation.

Now, the anti -Semitism that is

professed by some who call

themselves Christian, like even many in the Nazi

party in World War II, even neo -Nazis, they may use the term Christian,

although Hitler hated Christianity, just viewed it as a weak, pathetic and impotent

branch of Judaism, really.

And many of the hierarchy in the Nazi party were involved in the occult and so

on.

Pagan ideology and idolatry.

But is that the reason why there is such a visceral

revulsion over someone from a Jewish background becoming a

Christian?

It is odd because you regularly hear about nominal Jewish people being

atheists or agnostic.

You hear about some of them dabbling in some form of Buddhism or

other false religions.

And there isn't the uproar over that, like when you hear about

people coming to Christ from the Jewish background.

And I'm wondering if that, in your opinion, is the reason for the shock and horror.

But it also still puzzles me because it would seem that would require a

complete lack of ignorance about the many, many, many

compassionate, kind -hearted, true, regenerate Christians throughout history who have

sought to rescue and protect the Jews from harm.

Even some that lost their lives in the Netherlands and so on, Corrie ten Boom's family.

It's just a notable example.

But if you could, tell us about what your thoughts are on that.

Yeah, I think that probably there are two or three issues here.

The first thing is that, you know, we have to realize that from a Jewish

perspective, everybody who

is not Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist is a Christian.

So to them, for example, you know, that you think of the Crusaders,

you think of the Inquisition time, you think of the pogroms in

Russia.

And of course, you mentioned much of the Nazis.

To them, all of these were Christians.

And so you can see that one aspect of that,

that's horrible things that have been done to us by Christians.

You know, I think I might have mentioned that, you know, my family kept reminding me that more Jewish people

and more Jews were killed by Christians than by Muslims,

which is true.

You just add 6 million just in Germany in World War II, that's

far, far more than any Jews being killed by others, by Muslims or any other.

I think that's one part of it.

The second part of that, related to that, is I think most Jewish people

don't really know anything about Jesus,

except that he's the prophet of Christians.

He stole the Old Testament from us.

And many think that, sadly, that, you know, he was, obviously they don't believe in him as

the virgin birth or as the son of God, but they think

that he was a bastard.

So that's two part of that.

They don't know that he was born as a Jew, lived, died, and raised as a Jew.

In fact, many people here say that the best kept secret in Israel is that

Jesus was a Jew.

Wow.

And then the third part, I think, that we can see that

throughout, I think anti -Semitism, anti -Israeli, that we are seeing

nowadays as well, whether it's by cold -cold Christians or others,

it's really part of a spiritual war, a spiritual war that we know started in Genesis chapter

three and it would continue until

Christ returned.

And we see that battle that started in Genesis chapter three.

We see already in Genesis four, the first murder throughout

the Old Testament history.

We see how Satan used people to try to

destroy the seed of the woman.

It was in Egypt, later on, to the

various nations, the Edomites and the Philistines, and then later

on with Haman in the book of Esther.

And that story continues.

And so we have to realize that it is a spiritual

battle against the people of God, and against the

seed of the woman.

And Satan is trying, as he tried in so many ways, to destroy

Christ.

He's also trying to destroy his people and his witness, and often attacks

the Church.

Yes, he does.

Now, what makes the story even more complicated is

that—I don't know if you experience it in Israel, but here in the United States,

we who are Reformed, who are not dispensationalists,

who see much more of a continuity between Israel and

the Church than non -Reformed Christians do.

Most of us who are Reformed believe that Israel

is fulfilled in the Church, or extended with the Church, whereas

dispensationalists and others who are not Reformed tend to think of them as completely separate entities,

and have very often labeled us, who are Reformed, anti -Semitic, ironically, just

because we have a different view of eschatology and the actual role

of the physical nation in the Middle East in biblical prophecy.

So I was just wondering what your thoughts and experiences were and are on that.

Yeah, I think, first of all, I think that, to me, the worst kind of

anti -Semitism is those people who are

not willing to share the Gospel with the Jewish people.

In fact, in a wider point, I think any people who are trying to, kind of,

guard, quote -unquote, the Gospel from any group of people are committing the worst

crime.

That's right.

Like John Hagee, for instance.

Exactly, and a few others.

So I think that's one aspect of it.

I think the other thing is that, you know, God has made a

covenant with us.

You know, I certainly believe in the covenants.

And as it says in Romans 19 and 11, it really brings us

the point that while in the year, I mean, in the time

when Jesus came, we as Jewish people, for the most part, we

rejected our Messiah.

And yet God did not reject us, you know, because the gifts

and the calling of God are irrevocable.

And I think that if we read truly Romans 9, 10, and 11,

especially, you know, Apostle Paul, or I should say Rabbi Shaul, in a sense,

he really builds in those three chapters, his logic in a very

great inspired world.

Words, after all, he was a rabbi, and he wrote with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, because

it starts with telling about his desire for the Jewish people to come to

faith.

And then he talks about the sovereignty of God in salvation.

He talks about the clay and the potter.

And it talks about, you know, God saying, you know,

Jacob, I love, Esau, I hate it.

And then from there, he comes to speaking about

that there would be time that all Israel would be saved.

And I think that really, when we look deeply, I think that

Paul was trying to answer a question to some of

his audience, quote, unquote, asking the question, well, if

God is sovereign, how is it that the Jewish people,

of all the people, they rejected the Messiah?

I mean, Jesus said he has come to the last sheep of the house of Israel, and yet

we rejected him.

And so he says that God is not done.

But I think that amazing thing happens if we think for a second,

hypothetically, what would have happened if at the time of Christ,

we as Jewish people would have embraced him as our Messiah?

Of course, this is a hypothetical question.

I think that most likely what would have happened is that faith in Christ

would have remained within the geographical and ethnical

boundaries of the Jewish people and the land of Israel, as it was in

the time of Christ.

But actually, because of the coming of Christ and the rejection

of the Jewish people, the gospel went out to the whole world.

Amen.

So in a sense, I mean, again, we, this whole program, we're talking about

sovereignty of God.

In his sovereignty, he allowed Jewish people to

reject Christ so that the gospel would go from Jerusalem

to Judea and Samaria and the remotest part of the world.

In fact, tomorrow night in our midweek Bible study, I will be finishing going

to the book of Acts in the chapter 28.

And in fact, could you pick right up where you left off in the book of Acts chapter 28?

We have to go to our midway break.

Sure.

Please be patient with us, folks.

The midway break is longer than the other breaks.

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Have you noticed the gap that exists between the Sunday morning sermon and the Sunday school classroom or the small

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The whole counsel of God as revealed in scripture through the person and work of our Lord Jesus

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,.

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Before I return to my discussion with my guest today, David Zadok of Grace and

Truth Church of Qanat Israel, I just have a couple of very important announcements to make.

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And last but not least, if you are not a member of a biblically faithful church, a Christ

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If you are without a solid church home, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Give us a first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

Right before the break, David, you may remember you were just mentioning that you are in the midst of a

Bible study on Acts 28.

And if you want to pick up where you left off there.

Yeah, I mean, Acts chapter one starts, you know, when Christ is

commissioning the disciples, saying they shall wait for the Holy Spirit to come.

And they should, they should.

And then they shall be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, the mortal parts

of the world.

And we can obviously divide the book of Acts

into those parts.

You know, the first seven chapters is Jerusalem and later on goes to Judea and then

Samaria and Judea and later on to the remotest parts.

And we get to the last chapter, book of Acts, Paul sitting in Rome,

even though he said that he, he has washed his hands, he would go now to Gentiles.

He's sitting with the Jewish people in Rome, arguing with them, showing them

from the scriptures, the Hebrew scriptures, that Christ is the Messiah.

So I think that when we look at that, that Paul is really showing

that there was the purpose in the Jewish people

rejecting the Messiah so that the gospel can go to the Gentiles.

And it's no wonder that, again,

Paul, Rabbi Shaul, as we may call him, the Jewish rabbi

that studied under the Gamaliel, he was the one who brought the gospel to the

Gentiles.

And it was also Peter who shared the gospel with the first Gentile,

Cornelius, that was converted.

And God has to appear to him three times in a vision in order to

convince him that the gospel is also for the Gentiles.

So God is not done, you know, in a sense, you know, Christ

has fulfilled the promises.

But in one sense, the church hasn't replaced Israel in a sense that

still there is time for Israel, the Jewish people to

come to faith, to the Messiah.

Amen.

And God has his elect, and always has had his elect, from out of every

tribe and tongue and people and nation, including Jews.

Yes, especially the Jews.

After all, the gospel is first to the Jews and then to the

Gentiles or to the Greek, as it says in Romans.

Yes.

And in regard to your eschatological understanding, of

the state of Israel today, do you believe that even though it is a

secular state, it is neither religiously Jewish or Christian or otherwise officially,

that it is still a fulfillment of biblical prophecy?

Or do you believe it is a valuable thing

to pray for the state in which you live?

Because we want to see the conversion of the lost wherever they live in the world.

And perhaps as far as a sign goes, what

greater sign of God's power and grace and mercy than to in

mass save Jews and Israel, which is something that, as far as I know, most

Reformed people, regardless of their eschatology, are praying and hoping for and

would delight in seeing.

But tell us about your own understanding of the state of Israel and biblical

prophecy.

Yeah, I do believe that the coming of 1948 of

Israel as a state, it is a fulfillment of the prophecies.

I can't necessarily point you to one passage and say, here, this is the fulfillment that God

says in the 20th century or in such a time, Israel would become a state.

However, there are two things that I think is important.

We sometimes, again, I'm talking in a wider perspective.

In God's economy, the land is not important,

even though land has a lot of importance.

Christ didn't die for the land, even though he died in the land.

God is concerned about people and about

bringing them to the saving knowledge of his son.

And so the land and the state of Israel are definitely

being used in fulfilling that calling.

I often talk about how God has restored the

Hebrew language and the land of Israel in order to pave the way

for the restoration of the people.

The Hebrew language for almost 2000 years was not a spoken language.

Only in the 19th century, a very amazing

Lithuanian Jew by the name of Eliezer ben Yehuda.

He started in the kind of revolution or restoration of

the modern Hebrew.

He was criticized by his countrymen.

In fact, he had to leave Jerusalem and went to Tel Aviv.

And there he worked out the Hebrew language.

And all of a sudden, the Hebrew language became a spoken language and a common language, not just for

reading the scripture and the other writings,

but a vernacular language.

Then, of course, in 1948, when Israel became a state, God bringing us back

to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the two

things, the restoration of the language and land, enabled the

restoration of the people.

So because of that, very soon, the

church among the Jewish people was once again reestablished.

In fact, I think it's interesting to look at the statistics, and

even though we need to always be careful with statistics, we can play around with them.

But in 1948, when Israel became a state, in the land of Israel,

there were 800 ,000 Jewish people.

And at that time, there were roughly maybe about 24, 25 Jewish

Christians, Jewish believers, Messianic Jews, however we may use that term.

But 75 years later,

the Jewish population of Israel today, I mean, the Israel population is a little bit less than

10 million, but only 22 are Arabs.

But even if we take the whole population of 10 million, and today some

statistics say that there's maybe about 30 ,000 believers, Jewish believers in Israel.

So when you compare those two figures, the Jewish population

in the land of Israel in 75 years has grown about roughly

12, 15 times or 15 fold.

However, the number of believers, even if we take only 24 ,000 or

25 ,000 from 24 to 25 ,000 has

grown 1000 fold.

Wow.

So when you look at those two figures, again, they're not 100 the

exact figures, but that's roughly the number.

You can see the importance, not just this of the state of Israel,

but the promises that we read about in Romans that Paul talks about in this way, all

Israel shall be saved.

Israel today has the largest number of Jewish people.

In other words, the majority of Jewish people today live in a tiny piece of land

called the state of Israel, the land of Israel, piece of land that everybody wants a piece of it.

But it is this land that you have Jewish people from all over the world

that are now all of a sudden speaking one language and they are

concentrated in one tiny land.

I have to tell you a short story about our older daughter.

She's actually now serving in the reserve.

She's almost 26.

When she served in the military, she was in the education course and her job was

teaching Hebrew to new immigrant soldiers.

At the end of the three month Ulpan that they were graduating

as in the military, at one of those events, the

base commander invited my wife and I, Etieh and I, to attend.

And in that time, there were, I think, if I remember about 140 soldiers that they finished their

Hebrew course in the military as part of their first training and the bootcamp.

And those 140 soldiers, I think they were from about 40 or

42 different countries.

And when you look at, and when you think of this, you know, here are

Jewish people from 42 different countries.

They come learning the Hebrew language and they would speak that language.

And when we share the gospel and through our publishing and through our evangelistic books in Hebrew, when those

books comes to them, no matter where they are from, from those 40 some countries,

they can hear the gospel in the language that they can read and understand.

And I think that that's the amazing thing that we need to focus on and pray

for the salvation of the Jewish people so that the time would come that we would once again

become the light of the nations.

Amen.

Let me ask you a couple of questions about things you already said.

When you said that the efforts to

restore the use of Hebrew were rejected in Jerusalem,

were you speaking of the modern Hebrew?

I mean, was not Hebrew used in the worship services in the synagogue?

Yeah, it definitely was used in the synagogue.

As I mentioned, I think maybe briefly, it was used to read the Hebrew scriptures

and various prayers.

However, much of the prayers in the synagogues

are actually in Aramaic.

In fact, the Babylonian Talmud, which is much higher even than the

Jerusalem Talmud, is in Aramaic.

Many of the prayers, you know, when a person, when a Jewish person dies, there is a special prayer that

we offer.

It's called the Kaddish.

The Kaddish, all of that prayer that it's recited is in Aramaic.

And there are still Orthodox, very Orthodox religious people

that they don't speak Hebrew because they believe that this is the language, this is a holy

language that God has spoken to us.

We cannot use it.

That was one why they thought that he cannot revive the Hebrew

language.

It cannot become a common language.

Yes, in fact, the Hasidics, I think, many of the Hasidics still believe that, don't they?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

And that's why they speak Yiddish, many of them.

They don't speak Hebrew.

And by the way, it's interesting that many of our curse words in Hebrew initially were

taken from Arabic and English.

We use some of your curse words.

Our contribution to the Jewish people.

Sadly, we have now developed also our own curse words in Hebrew, but we still use

many of the English terms.

Now, it is fascinating that when I was interviewing your friend and former pastor,

Baruch Mo 'oz, he said that he is, I believe, I can't remember if he said he's still in the midst of it

or completed it, but translating the entire canon of the scripture, including

the Hebrew scriptures, into modern Hebrew.

Yes, that's actually one of the flag projects of Haggafen.

Okay.

And that we translated first the Old Testament into modern Hebrew.

It's a five -volume.

For the first time ever in history, correct?

Yes, yes.

It's called the Edud.

And just as we are speaking, the New Testament of that same series is being

printed.

So in about two weeks' time, before the end of the year, we would have all of the Old and the New Testament

in modern Hebrew.

Of course, the New Testament has been existed in modern Hebrew by the

Bible Society.

And we have the Delitzsch translation that was done by Delitzsch, the German.

But when he translated the Old, the New Testament, the Hebrew language still was not

used.

There is a project now done by the Trinitarian Bible Society

in England, in London, that they are updating the Delitzsch translation.

But the Old Testament has never been translated to modern Hebrew.

That was a project that Beruch initiated and worked on it and continues to

just finish the New Testament.

It took us about 16 years because we wanted to make sure that everything is translated accurately

and as accurate as we can.

And it's mainly for teenagers, but many of the immigrants who came to Israel, they're

using that even now to learn Hebrew because they're reading the scriptures and they're

learning, reading the modern Hebrew.

In fact, we're now developing an audio Bible of that.

Oh, great.

Well, who knows what the Lord may do in his sovereignty by drawing the

curiosity of non -Christian Jews to

not only want to read the Hebrew scriptures in modern

Hebrew, but also perhaps the curiosity will lead them to delve into the New

Testament in modern Hebrew.

Who knows what the Lord will do?

That's our hope and prayer.

Yes, amen.

Okay, we have Holbrook in Peacock, Alabama, who said,

having heard your belief that the modern state of Israel is a part of the unfolding of

biblical prophecy today, do you believe to disagree with you on that is

anti -Semitic?

That is something that a lot of people would say.

A lot of Christians, especially if they're dispensationalists, would say that.

And maybe a great portion, if merely the entirety of the Messianic movement would say that.

They would accuse people of anti -Semitism, even if they have a passion and a love for the Jewish people, they want to

see them come to Christ, and so on.

But if they disagree eschatologically, they disagree with the place of the state of Israel in

biblical prophecy, they're anti -Semitic.

How do you respond to that?

Well, you know, I would be very careful in using the term anti -Semitic.

I think that, again, to me, the most important thing, and again, many people

may disagree with me, the most important thing is bringing the gospel to the

Jewish people.

Right.

The land of Israel, I do believe that it's a fulfillment of God's prophecy, but more important than that,

I mean, there are many, many prophecies that have been fulfilled

in Christ and are being fulfilled and have been fulfilled, but I think what has

not yet been fulfilled is that all Israel

shall be saved.

And I think that God can use the state of Israel and using mightily the state of Israel.

But by the way, we talked about the Jewish people in Israel, but there is

a large number of Jewish people outside of Israel

that are also coming to faith in

Christ in other countries, particularly in the U .S., but not only there.

I think it was in one of Joel Rosenberg's reports

on All Israel News that he estimated that maybe

there is about close to a million Jewish people.

Today, the Jewish population is about, the worldwide Jewish population is roughly about 14 and a half million,

and one million, that's a significant number.

So God is using all the means

to fulfill his promises.

Okay, we have Blanche in Coconut

Creek, Florida, and Blanche says, how did you get

along with your Muslim neighbors when living in Iraq and Iran before

you were forced out of Iraq and then when you wound up living in Iran?

Yeah, well, I have to say that I never actually lived in Iraq.

I do like to visit there one time, one day.

I don't know if that would be possible with the current situation.

But in Iran, when I was living there, we have a great, great relationship

with our Muslim neighbors.

We have some Armenians as well in our neighborhood.

You know, we lived in Tehran, which was a large city, and we lived under the reign

of the Shah, the previous king or the last

king before the Islamic Revolution and before Khomeini came.

And the relationship was great.

I mean, my uncle, he was a merchant in the famous Tehran's bazaar.

He used to bring goods from communist China and sell them in the

bazaar.

Most of his customers were Muslim.

We didn't feel any threat.

You know, we would go to synagogue freely.

You know, I would go to school by myself, you know, ride the

bus.

We had a great relationship, you know.

And I think that even today, if we look at the country of Iran,

which, by the way, as I'm sure you know, Iran and the Iranians is the largest

growing number of the churches, the largest growing in that country and among the

Iranians.

But today, I think most of the Iranians, they don't hate Israel.

In fact, I have many Iranian friends outside of Iran in Turkey and other places that

often, you know, during the Day of Independence, they send me, you know, flags of

Israel and congratulations and many other things.

And even now during this horrific war, many of them writing and telling

me that they are praying for us and they are standing with us.

And, well, let's get back to, or should I say move forward to the

primary theme of our show is your observations and assessments and updates

on what is now happening in your midst during this horrific

conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Tell us, starting from the beginning of what your reaction was when

you first began to hear of the abominations that have been occurring,

the brutal, satanic way that Hamas

has kidnapped, tortured, raped, and murdered not only

Israeli men, but women and children.

Tell us about this conflict from your point of view right now.

You know, actually, when it happened, on

Saturday, October 7th, our church evangelist and myself

just landed in Helsinki in Finland.

And we flew Friday night.

We arrived there at about 6 a .m.

We went and we said, let's sleep for two, three hours.

And then we get ready for our first meeting.

And about 7 .30, I received a call from Eti, my wife.

And she said, David, have you heard?

There is a war.

And I just woke up after about, I don't know, hour, hour and a half of sleep.

And I said, we're here in Finland because I immediately thought of Russia and Finland.

You know, they have a common border and the war with Russia and Ukraine.

I said, we're here in Finland.

She said, no, no, here in Gaza, in Israel.

And she relayed that to me.

And then about half an hour later, one of our elders sent a message to the church, to our

WhatsApp group that due to the situation, we have to cancel the meeting.

And it was then that I realized, we are doing anything we can to come back.

So we came back on Tuesday, early in the morning.

And as I was driving back and I saw the waves of the

cars, of the reservists near, not very far from our home,

and everything that I was hearing, I realized that in two days, I have landed in a

totally different country.

And it took us about, I would say, two, three days to realize what's going on.

We immediately set up an emergency fund in our church through the

generous support of many friends.

We've been able to support various war efforts.

But the horrific of this war,

I think within a few days, our president

said that since Holocaust, there has not been one day

in which so many Jewish people have been killed so brutally.

And I think only within, after two, three weeks,

the atrocities were coming out as videos were being found of the baby being

put in the oven, a pregnant woman that they opened her

belly and took the baby out and shot her and the baby.

And just the things that you

hear, you think, well, this cannot be

human.

This cannot be people who've been created in the image of God.

I mean, any war is horrible.

In war, there is always innocent people who die.

Most of the wars that the world has faced till I would say

10, 20 years ago has been armies against armies.

But we are facing, even since 2005, when

Israel left Gaza, both military, of course, and

civilians, was one of the most painful period in our

modern history where Israeli soldiers have to uproot Jews

from their homes, from their homes, from their synagogues.

And yes, very soon, Gaza, that was

ruled and given back, and very soon Hamas took over and they murdered

the Fatah, the people by throwing them sometimes from

the third floor alive.

And they've been shooting endless rockets

over cities of Israel, targeting.

You know, those missiles have been landed, targeting in as much as they can,

civilians, not just military bases, but civilians, schools, hospital.

And again, in the goodness of God, and part of the

protecting our, the people of Israel with the Iron Dome,

it has really saved literally tens of thousands of lives.

A few years ago, one of those missiles landed in our street, just a few homes from us.

And the sharpness from it just were, you know, if people were

in the area standing, it could kill literally hundreds of people.

And so, you know, you think that, and I think one of the struggles

I had as a Jewish people and as a Christian,

you know, and I served in the military for about 19 years as a major in the IDF,

is you see those images, you hear those stories, and not long ago, about 10 days ago,

my wife and I were invited into the foreign ministry in

Jerusalem with some bishops from Africa, and there was mother of one of

the hostages that told the story of her son, Hirsch, that

from one of the GoPro cameras that fell from the helmet of one of the

terrorists, it was seen that her son was injured,

his right arm was almost cut, and they dragged him

into Gaza.

Back then, for about almost 60 days, she has not heard one word about her son, is he alive, what's his condition.

And so in one sense, as an Israeli seeing those,

I wanted to annihilate and destroy everything in Gaza,

but Jesus said we need to love our enemies.

Amen, can you pick up right where you left off there, because we have to go to our final break.

And don't go away, folks, we are going to be right back after these messages.

If you have any questions to send, send them immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

give us your first name at least, your city and state and country of residence.

Don't go away, we'll be right back.

It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show

he really loves hearing interviewed, Dr. Joe Moorcraft.

Hi, I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland,

going back to 2005.

One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft.

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If you visit, have them Joe Roydigan, Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener, and Mattoy in County Kildare, Ireland,

send you.

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One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Arnton is doing is

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As host of Iron Trump and Zion Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

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We're now back with my guest, David Zadok.

And you were just talking before the break about speaking with, I can't remember if it

was one or two parents of someone who was kidnapped by the Hamas.

It was one of the mothers that she came to that meeting in the foreign

ministry.

And so I think that this is really where we are.

And at the end of the day, you know, again, we

started the program with the sovereignty of God.

I think we should certainly end it with the sovereignty of God.

And I think that our hope and prayer is that through these dark

times that we are going to, both as Israeli and Palestinians in Gaza,

that God would light the shine of Christ, the light of Christ.

And I think that that's really, we feel that this is the time for us as a

church, as a congregation, and as believers in the land,

to call our people to repentance and to faith in

the Messiah.

And our prayer is that also God would use this to bring

many of the Palestinians to Christ, because those people need

Christ as bad as we need them.

One of the things I've been doing on a personal level and to some

friends is providing support for some of the Arab churches in the West Bank

and to some friends, to some of the Christians in Gaza,

to provide them with food, again, showing not just the love of Christ,

but the unity that we have in Christ, even though we are Israelis and

Palestinians, and our two countries, or not countries, Palestine is not a country, but our

two nations are in a war.

But we are still brothers in Christ, and as hard as it is.

Amen.

And it was very moving to hear how, you know, your

guttural instantaneous reaction might have been to annihilate those involved in the

terrorist attacks against your people, but that quickly

changed to, because of your new heart in Christ, through having compassion

for their lost condition, and that's something that we all should learn from.

Yeah, this war has taught us a lot, no doubt, about ourself,

about man, the gravity of man, and about the light

of Christ.

And we are now celebrating Hanukkah, the Feast of Light, and Christ said that he is

the light of the world.

We hope that his light would shine

even more brighter in these days and in our times.

It's almost like a diamond, when you put a diamond in the background of the black velvet,

it shines even greater.

Well, I want to remind our listeners of your website, if anyone wants to

find out more about Grace and Truth Congregation and Cannot Israel, and perhaps

to find out how they could support your labors there in a very important

place in the world.

Go to graceandtruth .org.

I'm sorry, it's graceandtruth .org .il for Israel.

Graceandtruth .org .il for Israel.

It has been such an honor and a privilege to have you on the program.

I look forward to many frequent returns by you to be interviewed again, if

you are willing.

And my door in this studio is always open to you, brother, so I hope to be speaking with you again very soon.

Okay, thank you so much, Chris.

I appreciate that, and I'm getting familiar with your radio program.

I saw some of the folks that recommended it, many of them my dear friends,

including John McArthur.

We have a great partnership in our publishing with Ligonier Ministries, and Steve Lawson was, when I did

my doctorate degree at Masters, he was the head of the program.

Praise God.

Well, I want everybody to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior

than you are a sinner.

Amen.