April 6, 2020 Show with Mitch Tepper & Stephen Atkinson on “COVID Mayhem & Jewish Mission”

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

Carlyle, Pennsylvania, 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 6th day of April, 2020, and very appropriate with Passover coming up very soon, that we have as our guests today

Mitch Tepper, a Jewish believer in Christ Jesus, missionary to the

Jewish people, and colleague in ministry with my other guest, Stephen Atkinson, the

United States of America director, or North American director, of ministry at Christian Witness to Israel, and today they are both going to be addressing the theme

COVID Mayhem and Jewish Mission. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome both

Mitch and Stephen back to the program. Thank you. It's wonderful to be back.

Good to hear you again, Chris, and good to be with you. Thank you for the opportunity. And I'm very thankful that you have very unique and distinct accents so I know who's speaking during the program.

Well, one's from Brooklyn and the other's from Belfast. That's right, Brooklyn in the house. Actually, Bangor.

My wife's from Belfast. A lot of you guys probably don't even know that Bangor exists.

But I now live in Arkansas and have lived there for eight years, and I'm a proud American citizen as of last

October. So those of you who have heard me in the past have heard me just as a legal resident, but now

I'm a U .S. citizen, and your problems are all my problems.

So I'm here today to talk about all these problems that we have. Welcome to the club. Yes, and having an

Irish guest and a Jewish guest, I know that they both have something very strong in common, corned beef.

Anyway... We do love our corned beef, that's correct. Oh, man.

Well, Stephen, why don't you tell our listeners who are discovering CWI, Christian Witness to Israel, for the first time, tell our listeners about this very important and historic ministry.

Just very quickly, very simply, we are historic in the sense that our ministry was started largely out of the

Scottish Presbyterians of the 1830s, 1840s, and Robert Murray McShane prayed the opening prayer in 1842, and our ministry began as the

British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jewish People in November 1842.

And we have since grown into a worldwide mission to the

Jewish people with that primary aim of telling Jewish people about Jesus. And so we are scattered around the world.

I was placed here, or rather sent here by the UK head office base from eight years ago to develop a

North America branch of Christian Witness to Israel. So the website for us is cwina .org.

The one for the UK is cwi .org .uk. So either of those, you can get more information on where we began, how we began, and what we're doing in various places around the world.

But we're simply, we have that simple primary aim, and it really has come out of a theological burden that according to Romans 9 -11, there is yet a work of God to be done among the ancient people as promised, and we are engaged in that work and praying and laboring for the grafting in again of the natural branches of Romans 11.

And Mitch is a prime example of one of those natural branches that is grafted in.

I'm not, I'm one of the stuck -on branches. I'm one of those Goliath Gentiles that God has, and in fact the

Jewish people, I'm indebted to the Jewish people because salvation is of the Jews. And so I'm a

Gentile that has come to know a Jewish Messiah. But we have Mitch, who is a

Jewish believer, and we're praying that he and us and all our staff around the world may in these days have great opportunity to tell other

Jewish people about Jesus. Amen. So don't forget, folks, the website for the

CWI Christian Witness to Israel North American branch, where our guests today are representatives.

It's CWINA .org. CWI for Christian Witness to Israel.

NA for North America .org. Yeah. And in fact, here's some interesting, fun facts.

Stephen Atkinson was my very first speaker at the

Pennsylvania version of the Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio Pastor's Luncheon, which

I relaunched in 2015 after moving here to Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

I have to try to remember to pronounce it the way the locals do. They don't pronounce it Carlisle. They pronounce it

Carlisle with the accent at the end. Carlisle. And he was the very first speaker at the

Pennsylvania, the first Iron Shepherd's Iron Luncheon in Pennsylvania, because the luncheons go back to the 1990s in New York.

And Mitch Tepper was a guest at one of them. He may as well have been the guest speaker since he spoke for about 45 minutes when he got up there.

There you go. You know me all too well, Chris. Well, I'm going to give our listeners our e -mail address if they want to chime in with a question.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Let me start with a question to kind of get things rolling here. Tell us about what is the normal mind of a

Jewish man or woman prior to such a global crisis as the coronavirus pandemic that we have all globally been coping with.

Good question. I do want to start off by letting you know I did take a shower today for you guys, and I don't know about you two.

You didn't tell me your answer, but I am wearing pants today, even though I've been in the house for quite a few days.

The shower does us no good. We're hundreds of miles away from you. Yeah, yeah. Well, me, it was happy I took the shower and shaved today.

But back to that question, that is a great question, because growing up Jewish, and one of the things, you know,

Stephen and I were talking about it, is when it comes to paranoia, when it comes to fears, and with us being

Jewish, we have fears of anti -Semitism, like so many do have fears of racism.

But the thing about Jewish people that we spoke about, Jewish people even more so when it comes to all these things.

We have extreme paranoia. We have many fears of anti -Semitism. We always have this fear that there's a conspiracy going on.

We're used to people saying whatever it is, it's the Jews' fault. You know,

I mean, they run Hollywood, they run the financial system, and we know now they probably are running this whole coronavirus thing.

So that's one of the things, like I said, even before the coronavirus, we always deal with that. It's always heavily on our mind.

We've known, and this is one of the things that we've also spoken about, Stephen and I, since the beginning of time, you know, the enemy has always had somebody come to try to exterminate the

Jewish people. Well, you mean at least since Abraham, because in the beginning of time there were no

Jewish people, right? Okay, you got me there. All right. But I mean, you know, we're talking about Antiochus Epiphanes, you're talking about Nebuchadnezzar, you're talking about the pharaoh, you go to Hitler, and, you know, even what we experienced the last time that I was on here about Tree of Life, there's always somebody that, you know, the enemy's going to raise up to try to exterminate the

Jewish people. So there's that fear now that they are being singled out.

There's a lot of that going on. There are a lot of FBI reports about that.

There are many different articles that I've studied about the fact that they are being targeted by white supremacist organizations, by neo -Nazi organizations.

They're being targeted also by Hamas and a lot of the radical

Islam organizations. Can I chip in? Can I chip in with a question? You know, is there, again, what we're trying to draw out, is there a paranoia that is just within the regular

Jewish psyche, even not outside? I'm thinking even not within. I'm saying that because I have family that live in Spain, and they live in a very

Roman Catholic country, and they're Baptists in a little Baptist church on the south coast of Spain, but they live in a very

Roman Catholic country, and there is a paranoia within Roman Catholicism.

There is a fear -driven mentality within Roman Catholicism. So what I'm trying to sort of gauge from you is, is there within the

Jewish community, even? Not even outside, not even with the anti -Semitism, not even with the

Islam, Islamic hatred and that kind of thing, but within, do you grow up with fears?

That's what I'm trying to draw. Yeah, well, I can speak to that, and I've also spoken to my wife about that as well as my in -laws and my sister, who

I'd like to bring up later, but the fact is, yeah, there's so much paranoia ingrained in us.

I remember just growing up in the, and I spoke about this,

I think, the last time I spoke with Chris, is growing up in Brooklyn, being called the

Christ killer, just having a hard time trusting anyone, always wanting to look for Jewish friends, not being able to trust anyone outside of that.

Mia felt the same thing growing up where I am now in Butler, and with her it was even worse because she was one of the few

Jewish people I had. There were Jewish neighborhoods. In fact, Belleau Park is very close to where I grew up. It is extreme paranoia that we need to stick together.

We need to be community. So it makes community all the more important to a Jewish person because of the paranoia that they feel outside of their

Jewish community, and I did not live in a Jewish community. I grew up mainly in Italian, and being called the

Christ killer in that neighborhood always made me want to find Jewish friends to hang with. Now, who was calling you that, the older folks in the neighborhood or your own?

It was mainly the younger kids. Kids can be cruel to each other, but when you go to school there with the teenagers,

I got out of there by the time I was 21. But growing up there,

I always felt like if I didn't watch my step, I better be funny or else I'm going to be beat up.

So I learned how to use my humor so I didn't have to get in a fight every day.

So yeah, there was always that paranoia. Who wants to take me to the schoolyard next? So yeah,

I grew up with that, and Mia said she grew up with the same thing here. Her next -door neighbor, who she became very good friends with, because of what her next -door neighbor learned as a child, went to Mia one day and said,

Mia, you're going to go to hell because you're Jewish. And that kind of thinking, it just draws us together as a community, which is one of the problems that, as we move on, we'll talk about.

I probably did step a little ahead of the next speaker. Well, what I was thinking just also, what

I was thinking was that what we are seeking to do in bringing the Gospel into the

Jewish world is that this Jewish world does not have a sense of shalom, does not have a sense of peace, and instead, even among its

Judaism and the forms of Judaism or whatever, whether it's agnostic, whether it's secular, whether it's

Reform or Observant or ultra -Orthodox, there's nothing that is bringing a sense of peace.

And rather, there is a paranoia. Even within religious

Judaism, is that fair? That's very fair. Let's be honest about it.

Even in the Jewish community, there are many rabbis or rabbinic writers who believe that what has happened to the

Jewish people is punishment, that they deserve what they're getting, even there. Now, obviously, we hear that also in Replacement Theology as well, that there are people who have different views on the

Jewish people, whether they need Jesus, whether we should even witness to them, that they come through the back door.

But that also plays into Jewish people, who some or many do believe that we're getting what we deserve.

There are some Jewish people who do believe, even now, that they're getting what they deserve during this time.

But, yeah, that's something you grow up with. If something bad happens to us, it's because of the things we did.

They'll even go far as back, well, you know, we did kill Jesus.

It's possible that we get a little bit of punishment for that. So that's not just something you'll hear from Gentiles.

It's something you'll hear inside the Jewish community, that the Holocaust happened to us not just for, as some believe, for salvation.

You know, that's the way some of them look at Isaiah 53. But there are some who believe, well, we brought this upon ourselves.

Yeah, I read, I don't know if either of you ever read the book by a secular

Jew. He's not a Christian Jew. Yeah. It's called Boy Chicks in the

Hood. Did you ever read that book? I know the book, but I have not read it. Yeah, he confirmed what you said.

Basically, the book was written by a liberal, nominal

Jew who traveled the world to visit all of his family members who were Hasidic.

And among the Hasidim, it was very commonly held that the

Holocaust, even, was God's wrath upon the Jews for being disobedient.

Oh yeah, I wrote an article on where was God in the Holocaust and where was the Church in the

Holocaust. And so many of the quotes that I got were from rabbis who said, this is,

God put this on us. And obviously there are some who believe that God also is using this to save us.

But that is not a main thought. In fact, it wasn't until Rashi that that thought even came into existence in I think it was the 13th century.

But before that, there was a lot of thinking on why do we get punished.

Well, we know from Isaiah that, and from most of the prophets, that he used the enemies to punish him.

So I think that there's always, and I always say this to Stephen as well before, is the

Jewish mentality is sometimes, when is the other shoe going to drop?

Now, as far as specifically... Whether things are going good or not. Going back to specifically about the coronavirus, which is obviously as bad as it is, it's a far less serious thing than the

Holocaust. Infinitely less serious right now anyway. Yeah.

Well, don't you agree with that, that it's far less serious? Oh, of course! But I'm going to just tell you what, there's a bunch of articles.

There's an article in the Reds where it says, the coronavirus is the greatest challenge to ultra -Orthodox

Jewish life since the Holocaust. Wow. Why would that be? That is the way they're looking at it.

Well, because... I guess we can get into it now, but think about the way

Jewish, especially ultra -Orthodox communities... That would be the Hasidic, for our listeners who don't know.

Well, there's many different... There's the Haredi, there's the Lubavitch, there's many different ultra -Orthodox communities.

Right, but don't they all go under the umbrella of Hasidim? No, not necessarily. Really? But...

No, no. Not necessarily. They can go under the umbrella of Orthodox, or especially ultra -Orthodox.

And what it is, they live in very tight communities. One of the things that's happened as the virus has been spreading is they did not want to stop living the way they live.

Well, if they didn't do that, then this virus is going to keep spreading. In fact,

I just saw during one of Mario Cuomo's... Not Mario, I'm sorry.

A man equally as evil. Andrew Cuomo, our current governor. I just saw during one of his speeches somebody in the audience was complaining that the ultra -Orthodox were ignoring the bans on public gatherings of more than 10, and they were going to weddings and all kinds of events with thousands of people sometimes gathered together.

Well, that's changing because of what's happening. There's a ton of articles.

The Times put out just in the last week that the coronavirus in Israel is soaring, the coronavirus in Borough Park is extremely big.

You want to hear about Borough Park? Just this weekend, literally this weekend that we had just passed, 24, okay, two dozen

Jewish people from the ultra -Orthodox sects in Borough Park passed from the coronavirus.

Just this weekend that we just had. Okay? And that's a report from the

Jewish Insider. And the Jerusalem Post also posted it as well online.

So, I mean, just, and they're starting to get it. They start to get, we've got to do this, we have to, and that's why the president of Israel was warning.

He says, look, Jewish communities, you've got to pay attention to this. It's the only way we're going to level it off, the only way we're going to stop it.

And, you know, we see that more so in the Jewish community. I see it in my community. I see people who want to continue to gather together in my community, you know,

Gentile believers. But more so, obviously, it's happening in the Jewish communities, but they're starting to get the message that if they don't do this, it's going to spread through every

Jewish community. And that's the problem that we're having.

It's spread disproportionately among Jewish communities because of the way that they live their lives.

Oh, that's interesting because I haven't heard that publicly reported. Yeah, well, you could find it.

You look at Haaretz, the Jerusalem Press, the New York Times, it's all there. And, you know,

I'm looking at these articles every day because it changes. Every day it's changing. And what's happening is it hasn't peaked yet.

And what they're really worried about, what they're really worried about is Passover's coming up.

You know, in the Jewish community, you don't just, you know, when you have Passover, it's not just you and your wife.

It's a lot of people gathered together. And they are extremely worried.

And it says right here from the Jerusalem Press as well that Passover in the shadow of Corona, New York Jewish people brace for grim week.

They expect, obviously, you know, even the president told us we're going to have a couple of bad weeks ahead of us, but the

Jewish people, because of Passover, expect a very difficult week to go through. And are they going to be able to...

Do you think that they'll actually... Do you actually think in the privacy of their own homes, where Passover, I would imagine, is most frequently held, that...

Yeah, sure. Don't you think that... Do you think, I should say, that most very strictly religiously observant Jews, do you think that they're really going to not have a

Passover gathering inside their own homes? I hope that they will have

Passover gatherings. I hope that most of them have Passover gatherings just with their family, you know, husband, wife, and kids.

The problem is that's not... I don't know if that's what's going to happen. Should they do that?

Yes. There's also a lot of online things that can be done. The problem is, you know, everybody wants to do

Passover at home. When I was a child and we did Passover, we had 20 people around the table. We have a

Gentile, a bunch of Gentile or a Jewish believer that invited a bunch of Gentile believers over to have a

Passover at the house. And Butler and I, Mia and I were like, how could you feel comfortable doing that?

You know, they're going to invite like a dozen people over. But back to the

Jewish community, they better do that. They better start just having the

Passover this week with small groups. I just don't know if it's going to happen. And that's how come New York is bracing for a terrible week in the

Jewish community, especially in New York where the epicenter is right now. Now, before we go into more of how this is affecting the secular and observant views, this coronavirus pandemic, they call it, because of what you have already said, that there is, has historically and traditionally as a part of the culture of the

Jews, those who are very, who find that identity very important, because obviously there are people who call themselves

Jews that live no differently than I do. But those that find that their

Jewish identity extremely important as far as the culture and as far as whether they be religious or they just hold dear things that are a part of their customs, just because of the fact that they, you know, want to keep their family heritage alive more than any kind of an obedience to God, what have you.

Is there a paranoia, just as you were saying before, that there are nuts out there, there are anti -Semites who have publicly stated that the coronavirus is some kind of a plot of the

Jews. Are the Jews in any significant numbers that you have spoken with?

Do they have their own conspiracy theories about this? Since you just said before that this is affecting

Jews, at least in New York more than any other group, are they coming up with their own paranoid theories that have no basis in fact?

Well, I don't know if I should say no basis, but there are things, being targeted, and I'll just give you, this is an example that, you know, is there a conspiracy out there?

This is where I thought it was very interesting. In the UK, and obviously

Stephen can tell you a lot about the UK, but there's a gentleman that we deal with in the

CWI, both of us, his name is Richard Gibson, and so we've been speaking to him a lot about it, and I've been reading these articles.

I'm from the Jewish Telegraph Agency. Listen to what it says here. Jews are vastly overrepresented in coronavirus deaths in the

UK, and then they have a bunch of theories why. Well, the big one is this. In the

UK, 5 % of the cases are Jewish. 5 % of the corona cases are

Jewish, but the strange thing is only .03%,

which is .03 % of people in the UK are Jewish.

So when the Jewish people hear something like that, they're going, we are being targeted at all. You know, and, well,

I mean, it came out. I'm trying to see where the article was. I have it here. But there was an article that came out from the,

I think I had it written down here somewhere. An article came out that was from the

FBI that said that, and this just spoke about white supremacists and neo -Nazis.

There was another article that came out with, not ISIS, but Hong Kong, was it, that came out?

But it came out the fact that if there are deaths during this week, if there are deaths during this week in the

Heights, and they're worried about the Heights, the Golan Heights, that if we have many deaths in Arabs, that we will take revenge back on the

Jews, that we'll make sure that they cannot breathe. And so this kind of part,

I mean, you think about the hatred that is out there, and that's what's so scary.

But, you know, at the same time, and I'm taking a risk here saying this, but, you know,

I have heard left -wing nuts in the media really exaggerate the presence of neo -Nazis and white supremacists.

And don't we have to be very careful not to buy into some of these lies that really distract people from the real main core problems in this nation and in the world?

You're absolutely right. And I will say this is the thing that we fight at CWI is the passive.

See, there's a lot of passive anti -Semitism. Forget about people who want to hurt Jewish people.

But there's the passive, which is what we deal with all the time when it comes to replacement theology.

The people who will say, well, we won't witness to Jewish people, one, because they have the law, two, because they, you know,

I just don't know how to witness to a Jewish people. There's also the thinking of... You're thinking of, like,

John Hagee there, right? Well, there's a lot of that. It is more than just John Hagee. There's a lot of replacement theology.

Would you call that replacement theology, John Hagee? Well, yeah, it's all part of replacement theology.

I thought that would be like the reverse of it. That's not like the 180 degrees opposite of it? Well, just the fact that he doesn't see any need to witness to Jewish people, to me that's replacement theology because they have another way...

Yeah, the John Hagee theology is a dual covenant theology. So it is, as Chris is saying, it's kind of an inverse.

Which is basically suggesting that we don't need to evangelize the Jewish people simply because they are

God's chosen people and there is already a special relationship that God has and all

Jews have a part in the life to come. And I think of John Hagee's theology, well,

I don't really want to think about it too much, but I think about it as a displacement or a distraction, or quite simply, it is a dual covenant, and there's no way the

Apostle Paul could see that there is a dual covenant. There is one name, there is one name given among men,

Jew and Gentile, whereby we must be saved. And so the Hagee philosophy or the

Hagee theology is simply a heresy in that sense. Yeah, I would imagine that the largest group of people that think it's horrible to evangelize the

Jews, other than the Jews themselves, are the liberals. Because, for instance,

I can recall on a number of occasions hearing Roman Catholic priests who were towards the liberal end, post -Vatican

II, on EWTN, the Eternal Word television network, which is a major Roman Catholic TV network, telling their listeners or their viewers, you don't need to evangelize the

Jews, because of their liberal ecumenical stance.

Quite a different reason than John Hagee would have. Yeah, no, that's absolutely true.

And I think this is where we're facing the challenge. We have a fearful public, we have a fearful people, a people we love, and what do we bring into that?

And I think that's where we want to take the conversation. Yeah, we'll take it that way right after we come back from the first break, because we have to go to our first break right now.

If anybody else wants to join us, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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Don't go away. We'll be right back with Mitch Tepper and Stephen Atkinson of CWI. Chris Arnsen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, announcing a new website with an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a

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Welcome back. This is Chris Ornson. If you just tuned us in, our guests today are two representatives of Christian Witness to Israel, CWI, as it is also known,

Mitch Tepper, a Jewish believer in Christ Jesus, missionary to the Jewish people, and a colleague in ministry with Stephen Atkinson, the

North American director of ministry at Christian Witness to Israel. And by the way, one of you guys, if you're washing dishes or something while you're doing this, please stop because the sound effects are pretty horrible.

We are discussing COVID mayhem and Jewish mission. And before we continue in the thread that you wanted us to go on here,

I just want to take two questions from a listener in Alberta, Canada, who is a first -time listener, a first -time questioner, that is.

Hey, Chris, my name is Jake from Alberta, Canada. Thank you for your work. I love your show.

My question is, what is the role and privilege of the

Jewish people today? For example, in Romans 9, we see all the blessings that came through the

Jewish people. So I'm just wondering what their place is now since they reject

Jesus. He has a second question that'll go to when you answer the first. Well, maybe

I can... I don't know if it's addressed to Mitch or if it's addressed... He didn't address it to either one specifically.

Well, as the Gentile, I can say that there is a continuing relevance, certainly as is clear of Romans 9 -11, that God is not done with the

Jewish people, and the continued relevance is that he has yet to do a wonderful work of grace in grafting in Jewish people to believe in Jesus, their

Messiah, and through that, there will be blessing abundant upon the

Church as well. And therefore, I think I do want to just to add that when we often make the sweeping, and we

Gentiles do it, often make the sweeping statement that the Jews do not believe in Jesus, the reality is that there was always a remnant, and there was and there is always remnant

Israel. Otherwise, we would not have received the message at all because the first believers were

Jewish, the first missionaries were Jewish, the man is Jewish, the message is Jewish, the ministry is

Jewish. So I think we need to be very careful about dismissing either the relevance 1st century or the relevance 21st century of our

Jewish friends and neighbors. And maybe if I could maybe add in at this point just a little personal story, and Mitch will know this, but I was recently visiting with Mitch and with Mitch's father in South Florida, and after staying and sleeping on the father's sofa in his one -bedroom apartment for a couple of nights,

I felt the urge really just to have a very solemn and sincere word to this elderly gentleman, this 95 -year -old

Jewish atheist who believes that when he shall pass that he shall be food for worms.

And it breaks my heart to think of him in that way, and I feel there is a wonderful continued relevance for the

Jewish people today, and so I simply said a thank you to him on behalf of all

Gentiles, that since salvation is of the Jews, I want to thank you as a

Gentile that I have received the greatest blessing in my life, the greatest blessing upon my family, the greatest blessing upon my whole history is because of a

Jewish Messiah, and that Jewish people of the 1st century decided that they would cross oceans to bring a message to a

Gentile world about Jesus. And I wanted to thank him for that.

I said to him, look, you don't believe this, but I want to thank you because I have received the greatest blessing from Jewish people, and therefore

I believe in turn it is vital, and it is really the thing that we ought to be doing is bringing that message back to our

Jewish friends. We, the Gentiles, have now got it, 99 % or whatever, we have this message of a

Jewish Messiah, and our Jewish friends all around us, 42 % of which live in the

USA, 42 % of the world's Jewish population lives in the

United States, and it deeply saddens me that our Jewish friends, and currently at such a time is that they're living in paranoia for one reason or another, whether it's anti -Semitism or whether it's

Jewish fighting, from fears within, fears without, they are living with paranoia and they do not have peace.

And they brought that peace to me, and therefore I want to share it back with them. So, long answer to a simple question is that they have a continued relevance, and we must be determined and we must be intentional in bringing that message so that we would see the theological fulfillment of Romans 11, and indeed the blessing.

If their failure has been such blessing, well what will their acceptance be?

It will be life from the dead, and those are the longings that I have within my heart, and many of the

Puritans had it as well, and that's where our ministry began. It began with a Puritan hope that those natural branches would be grafted in again, and that in turn would be a glorious blessing to the

Gentile church, and one church, one shepherd, one people, Jew and Gentile under the one shepherd,

Jesus. And that's the delight that I long for and I pray for and I labor for. Before Mitch chimes in,

I just wanted to have something clarified. Don't you think that it is completely acceptable, although not saying the blanket statement, broad -brushing statement, the

Jews reject Christ, could one not very appropriately and correctly say rabbinical

Judaism rejects Christ as God and as Messiah? Amen. Oh yeah, we can definitely say that, and rabbinic

Judaism is a reinterpretation. Biblical Judaism. And we could say also that Catholic Christianity was also a perversion that needed the grace of God to break into with a

Reformation. Oh yeah. You know, I think we've all perverted the glorious story of God saving mercy upon the fallen and lost creation.

Amen. All right, Mitch, did you want to add anything? Well, the only way I would chime in on that, I won't be as long as Stephen, but I think what

I'd like to say is, and I realized this after becoming a believer, the longer

I've been a believer, the more I've wanted to study Hebraic roots. The more I study Hebraic roots, just like you spoke about,

Stephen, that even during the

Reformation, they never really got back to the Hebraic roots. One of the biggest reasons that Jewish people don't find a connection with Christianity is the

Hebraic roots have pretty much gone from it. The more that you study as a believer the

Hebraic roots of what we believe, the more you have this appreciation, just as Stephen was speaking of my dad.

There's this appreciation that, as I'm reading what we call the Tanakh in Judaism, as I'm reading the

Old Testament, the Tanakh, as I'm studying the Torah, the first five books, as I'm studying the prophets and the writings, it's amazing that our

Christianity is so much based in Jewish heritage. And when you see that, you realize what a blessing, you talk about the blessing of the

Jewish people, and I think the most frustrating thing is to be able to close the bridge between the way that Jewish people see

Christianity as being totally un -Jewish, not -Jewish, totally broken away from Jewish roots.

To be able to break that down, and that's the hardest thing, I think, for what I do is when

I'm in front of especially an Orthodox Jewish person, I want to break down those things.

I want them to understand that everything about the Tanakh, everything about what

I believe now, it comes from the fact of Hebraic roots who lead us into believing in this

Messiah that came 2 ,000 years ago, you know, Jesus. And I am so blessed.

I love talking to anyone about the Lord, but whenever I get to speak to a Jewish person, and to be honest, when it's an observant Jewish person who really knows their

Torah, really knows their Old Testament, the Tanakh, I love how enjoyable that conversation can get.

And now I feel it's easier for me to be able to witness to, believe it or not, an ultra -Orthodox or a religious

Jewish person than it is to a secular one because of the connection that we have. And it's that connection that we need to really delve more into as believers, as Christians.

And we want to bring Jewish people to that place where they can see there is a bridge between the

Old and the New, between the Tanakh and what we call the Brit Hadassah. And that is the joy

I get when I think about Jewish people coming to the Lord because we know the fulfillment of Hebrews 9 -11 is that it says

Israel will be saved. Well, what does that mean? That means that the cold ones, they're out there. There's a lot of them out there.

And it's only a matter of time before we see a revival of Jewish people. And we want, as people in CWI and other organizations like us, to see the

Church get behind us to bring the fulfillment of Romans 9 -11. But one of the things that I'm even, you know, we're looking at the situation as we find ourselves in today, which is changing by the day and changing by the week.

And I see that. I see that the Lord has been rocking our world and shaking us.

Once more, I will shake the nation. He has been shaking this world to its very foundations, and people have no answers.

And I think that, you know, what Chris is saying there earlier about Rabbinic Judaism and what

I was trying to draw forth even in our first segment was that the

Jewish psyche and the Jewish paranoia, and it's a world paranoia as well, but a fear that is upon us all that Rabbinic Judaism has no answer for it.

Rabbinic Judaism doesn't bring the peace. Whether it's Orthodox, ultra -Orthodox, how are we going to do

Passover? Is there a fear of not fulfilling the law? Is there a fear of not fulfilling all the...

You're nodding the i, crossing the t. Is there a fear of the loss of the identity?

Or is there a fear of offending God? And it's the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom.

And one of the things that really strikes me now is that we have an opportunity. The Christian church,

Jewish believers, Gentile believers have an opportunity now to speak into this situation.

Whether, you know, Rabbinic Judaism is empty. It's dry. It doesn't have an answer.

Liberal Christianity is dry. It doesn't have an answer. Our worldliness, our secular nature does not have an answer.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of whatever does not have an answer. Joel Osteen, I'm sorry, you know, where's my best life now?

I don't have it. You don't have an answer. And I think this is where the Christian church must speak up.

This is where, you know, Mitch has his ministry now among many Jewish secular people, friends, family, and we have a wonderful, glorious opportunity to speak a word in season to such a time as this.

Yes, and let's pick up right where you left off there, because we have to go to our midway break. This is the longer break than normal, so please be patient with us.

Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, airs this program twice a day in a pre -recorded format, in the morning drive and in the evening.

They require, in the middle of our show, a longer break so that they can air their public service announcements and other things that localize our show to Lake City, Florida.

So please be patient as we take this longer break and use this time wisely.

Write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them.

And keep in mind, the more that you patronize our advertisers, the more likely we will remain on the air because we depend upon our advertisers to exist.

But also write down questions for Mitch Tepper and Stephen Atkinson from Christian Witness to Israel and send them to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

We'll be right back after these messages. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and the

Dividing Line webcast here. Although God has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach, preach, and debate at numerous venues, some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with Pastor Rich Jensen and the brethren at Hope Reform Baptist Church, now located at their new, beautiful facilities in Corham, Long Island, New York.

I've had the privilege of opening God's Word from their pulpit on many occasions, have led youth retreats for them, and have always been thrilled to see their members filling many seats at my

New York debates. I do not hesitate to highly recommend Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island to anyone who wants to be accurately taught, discipled, and edified by the

Holy Scriptures and to be surrounded by truly loving and caring brothers and sisters in Christ.

I also want to congratulate Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham for their recent appointment of Pastor Rich Jensen's co -elder,

Pastor Christopher McDowell. For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

That's hopereformedli .net or call 631 -696 -5711.

That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island that you heard about them from James White on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially.

Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end for which we strive is the glory of God.

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe ten minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

Our website is GraceChurchAtFranklin .org. That's GraceChurchAtFranklin .org.

This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ today and always.

When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

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

Our church is far more than a Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

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Call Lindbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402.

Or visit LindbrookBaptist .org. That's LindbrookBaptist .org. Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years. His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently he wrote a book titled

Consider the Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword.

Dan also has a master's degree in theology. Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states.

He represents many Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy. And currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for $1 million or more and in approximately 10 different states.

In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history. In New York, his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the law journal.

If you have a serious personal injury or medical malpractice claim in any state, I recommend that you call

Dan. Consultations are free. There is no fee unless you win. Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878.

1 -800 -669 -4878. Or email me for Dan's contact information at ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity.

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

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he shall be represented in the world.

They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to do to include in worship and how to worship

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Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace

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Or call them at 908 -996 -7654 That's 908 -996 -7654

Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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That means you can get to the good stuff faster. It also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic, heretical, and otherwise faith -insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors.

Their website is cvbbs .com Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure, and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work in service to you, the

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That's cvbbs .com Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

And don't forget folks, you can also call cvbbs .com

if you prefer ordering by phone at their toll -free number. And the toll -free number is 1 -800 and I just had it in front of me and it disappeared.

Hold on a second. 1 -800 -656 -0231 1 -800 -656 -0231

And remember, you can only call that number, successfully that is, Monday through Friday between 10am and 4 .30pm

Eastern Time because that's the only time that line is manned and there is no voicemail.

So just make sure that you call during those hours and days and make sure you always tell them that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

Before we return to Mitch Tepper and Stephen Atkinson of Christian Witness to Israel, CWI for the continuing of our discussion on COVID mayhem and Jewish mission,

I just have a couple of announcements to make. First of all, barring any unforeseen, prolonged banning of public gatherings, right now, we are still planning to have our next free spring

Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio Pastor's Luncheon on Friday, May 29th, 11am to 2pm in Carlisle, Pennsylvania at the

Bongiorno Conference Center featuring for the very first time ever a man that I believe is the most powerful preacher alive on the planet

Earth, Dr. Conrad M. Bewe, Pastor of Kibwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa and also former

Chancellor and currently a lecturer at African Christian University. You don't want to miss this opportunity if we are able to gather at that point on the calendar,

Friday, May 29th, 11am to 2pm. It's absolutely free of charge. Not only will you be able to hear what

I'm sure will be a mind -blowing message, powerful message by Dr. M.

Bewe, for free, but you'll also be fed a sumptuous meal by our friends at the

Bongiorno Conference Center for free. And you'll also be leaving with a heavy sack of books, brand new books, selected by me personally, that have been donated from, or by,

I should say, donated by major Christian publishers all over the United States and the

United Kingdom. So, send me an email if you'd like to register. You have to be a man in ministry leadership.

Send me an email, whether you're a pastor, an elder, a deacon, a parachurch leader, to chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Even if you're very pessimistic that we're going to be holding the luncheon as soon as May 29th, send me an email anyway to register, because this way

I'll have your contact information. If indeed we need to postpone the luncheon, I'll have your contact information and I will be able to give you the new details should we require them.

So, as it is right now, Friday, May 29th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. is the date and time, and it's at the

Bon Jovi Conference Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, featuring guest speaker, Dr. Conrad M.

Bayway. And we look forward to hearing from you and your registration. Also, just wanted to give you a heads up about some of the guests we have on this week.

Tomorrow, we have my friend Dr. Joe Moorcraft returning to the program for his third discussion on his book,

With Liberty and Justice for All, Christian Politics Made Simple. My friend,

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries returns to Iron Trip and Zion Radio on Wednesday.

He is going to be discussing Purgatory, the heretical doctrine, Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, and we are going to be discussing why this is such an affront, a mockery of the cross of Christ, and the perfect act of redemption that Christ accomplished on Calvary.

We're also going to be reminiscing about a debate that I organized between Dr.

White and Fr. Peter Stravinskas 20 years ago on this very subject.

On Thursday, April 9th, we have my dear friend,

Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, which is an Orthodox Presbyterian congregation in Deer Park, Long Island, New York.

He is most well known for having pastored for many years, several decades, over several decades, the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, Long Island, New York, and as I said, now pastoring a church plant called

The Haven. He is going to be addressing ministry in a post -COVID world this

Thursday, April 9th. And then on Friday, Pastor Joe Jakowicz of Christ Bible Church in Pleasanton, California returns to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for his weekly update on the coronavirus.

We've been conducting these every Friday, and this Friday will be the fifth installment of Pastor Jakowicz's update on the coronavirus.

So we hope that you mark those on your calendar and tune in and send in questions.

Last but not least, folks, if you love this show and you don't want it to disappear, we are in urgent need of your donations.

Please, if you've never given before, or even if you have given before but it's been a while, or perhaps you've given before and you want to increase your giving, we need your giving more than ever because the coronavirus scare has caused two of our in fact it's our two largest financial supporters for the show have had to postpone any further advertising until further notice because their businesses have been so negatively impacted by the coronavirus scare.

So please, help us try to make up for that devastating loss financially by donating to us as generously as you can and as frequently as you can by going to ironsharpensironradio .com

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Never do that and especially never do that during a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic because a lot of churches have been hit very hard financially so please don't siphon money away from your church to give to us.

And never put your family in financial jeopardy by giving to us either. Those two things are commands of God, providing for your family and providing for your church.

Providing for my shell is obviously not a command of God, but if you have been blessed financially above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, you have extra money especially since you're not going out to restaurants anymore other than takeout.

You're not going to the movies anymore right now. You're not going to theatrical playhouses.

You're not going to sporting events, whether professional or college.

You're not doing a lot of the things that you used to do recreationally and you may have a lot of extra money because of that.

Well, please use some of that money to help Iron Sharpens Iron remain on the air. That is if indeed you love the show.

Also, if you want to advertise with us, that will surely help as well. Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

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I believe, then we would love to help you launch an ad campaign because we really do desperately need your advertising dollars.

Also, folks, if you are not a member of a local Bible -believing church and you're not even prayerfully looking for one, you're living in disobedience and rebellion to God, please if you need help finding a local

Bible -believing church, email me and let me know and I may be able to help you.

I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the world and I have already helped quite a number of people find churches near or in the area that they live.

Sometimes it's a church that they want to visit while they're going on vacation. Sometimes it's a church that they have visited and joined and have become a member there.

Sometimes it's a church for their family, friends, and loved ones in different parts of the world and they don't have a church that they have joined yet.

Well, I have lists and I can help you, God willing, find a church for all of those reasons and perhaps more.

Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to our guests today,

Stephen Atkinson and Mitch Tepper who are both representatives of CWI, which stands for Christian Witness to Israel.

We are discussing COVID mayhem and Jewish mission and our email address if you want to join us is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

Now, do you have anything further you want to add or should I move on to the second question by our listener in Canada, in Alberta, Canada?

Not really. I mean, I agree with everything that Stephen also said about rabbinical

Judaism. Rabbinical Judaism is anything but biblical. And if you want to understand what biblical

Judaism looks like, just look at the life of Jesus. And that's true biblical

Judaism. So I agree with everything you said about that. We have to be aware that rabbinical

Judaism, that the doesn't matter whether it's orthodox or the way to reform that they believe in in Judaism today will never bring them to their

Messiah. But the Messiah has come and that's what our job is to bring it to them.

Amen. Well, the second question from our listener in Alberta, Canada, whose name is

Jake. Let's see. What in the world

Let's see. I thought this was a typo here and perhaps it isn't. What is the world afraid of?

Why do they want to eliminate the Jews? Obviously not everybody in the world, but there has always been a hatred of the

Jews, as Mitch said earlier, going back to the children of Abraham.

Abraham was a Gentile himself, but his progeny were the Jewish people.

So tell us, what is the story here? Why has there always been such a hatred for the

Jews? Do you want to jump on that or do you want me to?

I can simply say that from a big picture standpoint,

I suppose from a Biblical standpoint, there is the folly of Satan's strategy that if he can eliminate the

Jewish people, God is prevented from bringing his redemptive climax, according to Romans 11.

That's my simple understanding of a Satanic strategy, either to get rid of the man -child in Herod's day, or to get rid of the

Jewish people. You know, Revelation 12, the woman, the dragon, those things,

I think I hesitate to get into Revelation. I hesitate to get into some of those things, but I think the reality is we have a

Satanic enemy who foolishly believes he can frustrate

God's plan, and I think your God is saying amen to that.

I think that there is this folly of the enemy, and yet at the same time,

God's will will be done. And therefore, there is the anti -Semitism that's seeking to destroy this particular peculiar people that God has yet a purpose for.

And that's kind of my simple big picture theological answer to why that should be the case.

I would add that it's all about the enemy, it's all about that he has a plan, and his plan has always been to eliminate the

Jewish people. I think that there's one thing that the enemy understands is

God's plan included the Jewish people from the beginning right, like you said, right up until the end in Revelation.

And I think it's just a plan he thinks he can put, but as we know from Scripture and also from men like Sproul and even

John Newton, he said that there's nothing you can do to change God's plan.

Newton said if I could change any part of God's plan, I'd only ruin it. And the bottom line is the enemy has a plan, but there's nothing, there's nothing he can do to change the ultimate plan.

And the ultimate plan that we believe here at CWI is that the

Jewish people are a tremendous part of the plan right up until the end. And we're excited to be in a time like this.

I mean we talked about Esther 4 .14, to be here in such a time as this gives us such a purpose.

And as crazy as things are out there, there's an excitement that we can have to embrace what's happening, because it's enabled us to learn how to reach people in ways we never have.

And that is exactly, and we'll get into that, that's exactly what I'm doing now is reaching Jewish people through phone, through Facebook, through Zoom, through any means possible, through asking the

Jewish Federation, and we'll talk a little bit more about that, but I'm excited to be in these times, because sorry

Satan, you can't do anything to change the plan that God has, and has for the Jewish people. Alrighty, before I ask a question from our listener in Asheboro, North Carolina, Grady is a very loyal listener to this show, and also a very generous financial supporter to this show.

I have a question of my own. Don't those that are our brothers in Christ or at the very least professing

Christians, because there are cults, there are cults that do this too. But don't any, doesn't anybody that has a focus on Jewish evangelism have to be very careful about not entering into the heresy of Judaizing, where where the

Jewish people are presented as innately superior to Gentile Christians.

That they in fact that we have to obey the ceremonial law of the

Old Testament, even to be saved. And it's amazing to me how there are professing

Christians who believe that, even when we have the book of Galatians in our New Testaments. But don't we have to be careful about that end of the spectrum?

And... If I can quickly answer to that, and then Mitch can add, but I think that well, two things

I want to say. One, yes, we do have to be very careful, but the reality is, while there are aberrations among Jewish believers, and yes, some of them do need to go away and read

Galatians, there are actually far more aberrations among the professing

Gentile Church. Well, even some of these Gentiles are the ones involved in the Judaism.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. But all I'm simply saying is that when sometimes we're pointed the finger at our

Jewish -believing friends, and maybe some immaturities that might be there, there are an absolute ton of immaturities and aberrations in the widespread

Gentile Church that we need to also call out. And I think sometimes we

Gentiles, and I'll speak just as the guy here, I'll speak as the Gentile, that sometimes we're the ones that are pointing the finger at our

Jewish friend, they're doing this, they're doing that, why are they doing this? Why are they doing that? When really we need to actually look at ourselves and see the health and wealth and all the kind of aberrations that the

Gentile Church has got on. The other thing that I want to raise also is that we can sometimes talk about these things in a very general and theological way, but one of the points that I want to raise and to get us thinking, because I think sometimes our

Gentile churches, largely Gentile churches, just think of this Jewish question as a theological question, and it is, and it needs to be tackled biblically, it needs to be tackled theologically, but I think it also needs to be tackled personally, and that's why

I was trying to raise the issue, you know, in the earlier sections of, within the real world

Jewish community, Borough Park, wherever, in that real world Jewish community there are fears, there is a paranoia, there is a lack of peace, now how can we bring into that real world the message of the

Gospel to real Jewish people? So not just talking about it in Romans 9 -11, not just talking about it in natural branches, not just talking about it, you know, even historically in the

Puritan hope, but talking about it in terms of a 95 year old atheist living inside Florida, or another, you know, and Mitch, maybe, you know, this is where I want you to jump in here, but real world friends that have either been taken up with rabbinic

Judaism or simply liberal Judaism, and how do we come into them and say, look, you were made for more than this.

I preached a sermon, if anybody's listening and wants to tune in, the last sermon

I preached in person was a few weeks ago, and it's on our website, cwina .org,

on the resources page, and you can hear my sermon on 1

Corinthians 15. And I was simply raising the question, you know, for this 95 year old atheist, you were made for much more than this.

You are a son of Adam, and you were made, you were made to be in the likeness of the

Son of God. Wow, what an amazing message we have to bring to real world

Jewish people, that, you know, forget the rabbinic reinterpretation, and indeed the rubbish that is there, forget all the light, liberty, and pursuit of Jewishness, you were not made for worms.

You were made to be in likeness to the man from heaven. And that's a wow story that we need to tell to our

Jewish friends all around us. And so jump in on that, Mitch. I am going to jump in, because you know, practically speaking, and I can speak a lot about Messianic Judaism and the issues with it, but I'm going to tell you when the rubber hits the road is what

I'm doing, and you know, the minute that this COVID hit, the minute we were told by CWR we want you to work from home, and I wasn't able to go in the streets,

I wasn't able to visit people, you had to be creative, and we,

I ended up contacting everywhere I can, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, the

Jewish Community Centers of Pittsburgh, the Age Well Pittsburgh, the nursing homes, even the hospitals, and I said, look,

I want to volunteer, I want to be available if someone needs to talk on the phone to someone, if someone needs me to come over and visit, and we can do it safely, you know, whatever it is.

I'm still waiting for clearances for that, but in the meantime, I've spoken to some, you spoke about my father, 95 -year -old atheist,

I will lead that into a story about my sister. My sister had leukemia, she was diagnosed on New Year's Eve of 2018.

So all of 2019, she was in remission for much of that, much of 2019, and what happened is she was getting better, she was in remission, and then she had a spot on her lungs, went back to the hospital, and they found some spots, when she went to the hospital, she had some bronchial stuff, and while she was in the hospital,

Sloan Kettering in New York, she contracted the virus, and we thought she was going to pass.

I mean, she had a compromised immune system, she's getting over leukemia, and we thought she was going to pass.

So, my dad was so down in the dumps. My dad, I didn't know if he was going to pull through this.

What was amazing, and where this really comes into play, you know, God just opened the doors.

I mean, this is when God opened the doors. How did God open the doors? Well, first of all, my dad was so down, he, the 1995 atheist, asked me to pray to God, pray to God that Linda would be healed, okay?

He has never mentioned God in that way, especially praying to God.

Since I have known my dad, I cannot remember saying that. Praise God. So, it was an amazing experience, and I told him, you know,

God's real, and he for the first time was like, well, you know, maybe we'll see what happens.

Well, my sister, when she got the COVID, she could not breathe on her own.

She was on a respirator for, I think it was three weeks almost, she was on a respirator. She couldn't communicate obviously, because she was heavily sedated, and I got a phone call from her husband.

Now, I have never gotten along with a husband. I've always tried to reach out. We worked together for a time.

I'd known him for 40 years, and all of a sudden, because of this, God opened the door, and he gave me a call, and we talked every single day on the phone, but the conversations we had weren't conversations you know, like, hey, how are things?

Conversations is, how's my sister doing? We're praying for her. I got thousands of people praying for her.

I got thousands of people praying for her throughout the country, even throughout the world. I have people praying for her.

He was excited. I told him about Jesus. I told him about his Messiah.

I was able to communicate things with him, and we never talked for years, so God opened the door there.

Well, it comes down to how this story ended with my sister, which she just yesterday, yeah,

I'm sorry, it was yesterday morning, yeah, on Sunday, she would finally be able to breathe on her own yesterday.

Praise God. And my dad, my dad, it wasn't Steven, who was her husband, my dad called me on the phone happy as a clam, and I'm going, what's going on?

He said, I got great news. She can finally breathe on her own. She's getting better. Praise God.

And I said, I told you that's from the, we listed up thousands of prayers to God.

That's why she healed. And, you know, he, in jest, was like, okay, maybe that's true. So it opened the door for that.

So I just praise God that he opened the door to those three people in my life. I've been able to get on the phone.

In fact, you're going to love this story. In fact, Mitch, can you give us the second story when we come back?

We're going to our final break right now. Oh, great. It goes so fast.

I know. Well, this will be much more brief than the last break. If anybody else, if anybody else wants to join us, send in your email immediately because we're running out of time.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back.

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We have as a... Oh, Mitch, you wanted to give a second story that after you told us...

Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Sure. Well, I mean, everything that I'm trying to share now is how

I'm learning to walk through the new doors God has opened since COVID -19. And that's what he's doing, and I pray he's doing it for all of us out there that are listening.

He's opening new doors. As I was sharing about Steve, I was able to end that conversation by letting him know there is a great sovereign

God that heals, not just physically, but spiritually and emotionally as well. So pray for my family.

But there's a man, Jerry, from Florida, who I've been dealing with. He happens to be what...

I guess he calls himself a modern Orthodox. And I guess just a little more liberal, but very, very much like an

Orthodox Jewish person, believes in the Torah, the Talmud, the mission he's been studying for years.

I've been talking to this guy, and what really was fascinating, I learned a lot from him. He shared with me that, which

I never knew, many Orthodox Jewish people believe in the two Messiah theory. They believe he was the son of Joseph, and that someday he'll be the son of David.

One, obviously, the suffering, and the other one, obviously, the king, the glorious king. Well, my big question to him is, is it possible they're the same person?

Well, we've spoken for many times. I met him probably about two years ago at the clubhouse where my father lives in Delray Beach.

He takes care of his father down there. After speaking with him for probably a good two years, and especially, extremely, much more intentional once I was hired by CWI, we would sit and talk.

He'd come to my place, I'd come to his. Bottom line is, he called me up not that long ago, and he said that he's been studying the scriptures, and he's come to the conclusion that they are the same.

And he believed the suffering servant was Jesus, the son of Joseph, but he didn't believe he was the second

Messiah, which I didn't even know orthodox Jews believe that. But he came to the conclusion that he was both.

So he's now a new believer, he's in the kingdom. We just need to get this man's fellowship, because I've been stuck here since he's...

I was supposed to be down in Florida even today, believe it or not. I was going to be there for two weeks.

Now, let me ask you a question, because it's very crucial. Does he believe in the deity of Jesus Christ?

Yeah, oh, definitely. We've talked about that. But obviously, I've not been able to disciple him the way

I'd like to. I've been trying to turn him over to people, but we've been on the phone a few times, and I text him.

So I'm, you know, he obviously needs prayer, and I can't wait to get down there and just be able to disciple him one -on -one.

But now that we're in this situation, I plan on doing that through phone calls and Skype or any other way.

So Jerry is a new believer, so pray for him. Also, there have been many other calls that I've been able to speak to.

There's a woman that I've been speaking to for a year. She comes to my Shabbat. I do a Shabbat where I teach the, we call it deputation, teach the body of Christ from probably about 15 different churches.

Came to my house, about 25, 30 people come every Friday, and we teach them the roots, the

Jewish roots, and the break roots of the Christian faith, which gives them the impetus to want to go out and tell everybody, obviously including

Jewish believers. One of those women who comes is an unsaved

Jewish woman who continues to come. She keeps coming, and one of the great conversations we had since the

COVID was she could not understand how God could allow this terrible thing to happen, always so bad that this happened.

And the problem with Bluma, she thinks she's a good person, but she finally, for the first time, and we've known each other for about a year and a half now,

I guess, she's been coming here. She finally, for the first time, says, yes,

I understand that I need a Savior. So the door is opening slowly. I know it's been over a year, but I pray that it's only a matter of time that she comes to the

Lord. There's another woman, Lila, who talked to me because she saw that I mentioned pray for my sister who needs healing, plus she doesn't know her

Messiah. She says, I'm appalled that you would put that on there. Who cares if she knows a

Messiah? I think that's terrible. All you should care about is a healing. I explained to her, and I gave her one of my favorites.

You probably know this one, Chris. Pendulet, who's my favorite atheist now. Ray Comfort loves to use him because of this awesome statement.

And when I say this statement, I want you to continue to listen, guys out there. But after we're closed,

I want you to go, make sure you call the phone and tell someone about the Lord. Listen to what Pendulet said.

He's an atheist. He's from Penatella. He said, how much do you have to hate someone to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them?

If that's not an invitation from a great, I don't want to call him a great atheist, but an atheist, if that's not an invitation from an atheist to say, tell us about the gospel.

If you believe it, tell us. If you don't tell us, then you obviously don't believe it strongly. In fact,

I say that to every Christian out there. In fact, if you're, obviously, those of you who are listening, jot this down.

All you got to do is go to YouTube and type in the YouTube search engine

Pendulet. That's P -E -N -N -G -I -L -L -E -T -T -E.

I'm almost positive that's the way it's spelled. Pendulet Bible. And you will hear the statements that Mitch Tepper is telling you about, that are absolutely remarkable.

For somebody who despises religion, it was amazing for him to say that.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, we have the second, or actually, this is the first question, and the only question from our friend in Asheboro, North Carolina, Grady.

He says, let's see. I met some

Jewish people in New York a few years ago. Growing up in the South, I only knew one

Jewish person, and he was a businessman in my hometown that told me one time he was blessed by God, and that was a fact because he was one of God's chosen people.

A few years ago, I met two Jewish siblings that owned a business where I was picking up a load, and I asked them a question.

I don't know if they were Orthodox or ultra -Orthodox, but they were wearing white shirts, all their clothes were black, and they had the little head coverings.

I asked them why a lot of Jewish people were Democrats, because the Republicans usually supported

Israel. Their reply was that they didn't recognize the current nation of Israel because it was illegal.

When I questioned them further, they said that only Israel, they said the only

Israel they would recognize is the one the Messiah possesses. Is this normal amongst

Jewish people? That's a sect amongst the Hasidim, right, that believe that? Yeah, well, you know, a very large...

I mean, even Israel's divided when it comes to Zionism, right? I mean, you're not going to... You're going to... You see what's going on.

Rett has tons of articles about all the separation pretty much down the middle between the

Zionists, and I would say maybe a third. I mean, that's just a loose estimate on how many people believe what you heard or what this gentleman heard.

There are many Zionists there. There are many there who do believe they're waiting for the Messiah to bring the true

Israel. That's probably more of the ultra -Orthodox. What's interesting is what you said about voting

Democrat. My dad, like many others... And I think it's mainly a secular

Jew. I think it's mainly secular or Reform Jews that are more Democrat. Most of the liberal

Jews are Democrat and have been ever since FDR. Most of the conservative or ultra -Orthodox

Jewish people that I know consider themselves in this country supporters of Trump and extremely conservative, and they usually vote

Republican. And that's what I've noticed in the people that I've known in this country.

I don't know how it is in Israel, but I think things are a little different there than they are here. Yeah. In fact, I don't know if you've seen the really fascinating movie that actually was the main reason

I discovered what Grady was talking about. The movie The Chosen came out in 1981,

I believe, with Robbie Benson. And Rod Steiger played a rabbi, a

Hasidic rabbi. And the whole movie was about how Rod Steiger, the

Hasidic rabbi, wanted his son to break off a friendship with the son of a liberal

Jewish or comparatively liberal Jewish college professor who was a

Zionist. Because the Hasidic sect that Rod Steiger's character was leading was vehemently anti -Zionist.

Yeah. And it's a fascinating movie. I highly recommend it. And you can watch the whole thing for free on YouTube, by the way.

Oh, wow. I saw it years ago. I read the book when I was in junior high school,

I think. Oh, let's see here. We have... Thank you, Grady. We have Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.

Christopher says, could your guests briefly define replacement theology?

Because I believe that there are people who define that differently. And I think it is very sad that some

Christians have been accused of believing this just because they have an eschatological difference from dispensationalists and so on.

That's a very good question because I've been accused of believing that just because... In fact, I'm assuming that there are people within CWI that might even be accused of it because you allow millennialists and post -millennialists.

And your focus is not on the real estate in the Middle East.

It is on the Jewish people rather than the nation. Yeah. You want to address it?

If I had to put a simple way to say it, if you do not understand...

And there's so many different ways it's done in the church. If you do not understand the importance of witnessing the

Jewish people, if you do not understand the priority of witnessing Jewish people, not only is that a type of replacement theology and there's different types of them, but it's also a type of anti -Semitism.

And I think that's the greatest sin in the world is to not feel as a Christian, Gentile Christian, Jewish Christian, whatever, that you do not have a priority to go to Jewish people and tell them about the

Messiah. I mean, that's as simple as I would say it, but there are many different types of replacement theology. It's like there's one thing that I have been accused of being a non -millennialist, which is a slander, is that non -millennialists believe

God is through with the Jews. I'm like, what are you talking about? I'm a non -millennialist and I believe

God saves Jews every day. And I witnessed the Jews. I mean, in fact,

I don't even know of an orthodox, when I say orthodox, I mean, biblically sound, non -millennialist or post -millennialist that would ever say

God is through with the Jews. In fact, post -millennialists believe there's a great, great hope for the Jews, for mass conversion, if not all of their conversion before the end of the world.

I think the replacement theology in its grandest form was the

Roman Catholic Institutional Church, which institutionally replaced

Israel and replaced Judaism with a new priestcraft, and therefore there was no need for any

Jewish aspect to it. And it was the Reformation itself that really restored, and Mitch was talking earlier about Hebrew roots, and it was the

Reformation that took us away from the Latin back to the Hebrew, and so the

Reformers began to study afresh what does the Hebrew Bible say and the original languages, and then there was an interest again then in the

Jewish people. So, you know, Reformed theology historically has not been replacement.

Reformed theology has been at the very forefront of embracement, is what

I sometimes call it. That embracing of the Jewish people, again, with the

Gospel, because they first gave it to us. So to me, Romanism is a replacement in its grandest form, and we thank

God for a Reformation that has restored not only the Gospel, but restored that burden from us to bring the

Gospel to our Jewish neighbors, and praise God that is exactly what we're doing and that is happening.

Yeah, it's a shame when I have seen on the Journey Home, which is a Catholic television broadcast where they have the testimonies of people who converted to Catholicism, I cringe when

I see Jewish people on there who are so excited and fascinated by the ritual of Rome and they will find it, they will find kinship with that in the ceremony of Judaism.

But the difference is when you have these totally invented Roman Catholic rituals and ceremonies that have no basis in the

Old or New Covenant. It's amazing why a Jewish person, a

Jewish person must not know who Nadab and Abihu were to think that somebody could just have a ceremony and a ritual and think it's going to be somehow pleasing to God where they were consumed in flames for their merely offering incense that wasn't prescribed by God.

But we are out of time, and I want to make sure that our listeners have, once again, the website for the

Christian Witness to Israel is CWINA .org, CWI, Christian Witness to Israel, N -A for North America dot org,

C -W -I -N -A dot org. Thank you so much, Stephen Atkinson, and thank you so much. Thank you, and actually, please send any questions to that website, please send any questions to Chris, they'll be passed on to us and we'll follow them up.

We'd love to be the parachurch organization that gets alongside our church supporters and that we support you through such a time as this as well.

Amen, and 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.