October 14, 2016 Show with Stephen Atkinson on “Evangelizing the Jews in the 21st Century”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 14th day of October 2016.

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And before I introduce my guest today, who is a man that's become very rapidly a very dear friend of mine and one of my favorite guests to interview, before I introduce him and begin our interview,

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I have some urgent news about a conference in regard to Dr.

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R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries. They are having, as many of you may or may not know, their 2016 regional conference in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

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That is going to be held coming up very soon. This is going to be

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October 28th and 29th in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and the speakers at this conference include a really phenomenal lineup of men.

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You have Dr. R .C. Sproul himself, the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries, Dr. Albert Moeller, the president of the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, Dr. Stephen Nichols, the president of Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Florida, and Dr.

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Derek Thomas, professor of systematic and pastoral theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia.

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They are all going to be at this conference in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, but the seats are selling out fast.

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They do have some seats left, but if you intend to go to this conference and register, please go to Ligonier .org,

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L -I -G -O -N -I -E -R dot org forward slash events forward slash 2016 dash regional dash conference forward slash, but you might find it easier just to call them on their toll -free number 800 -435 -4343, 800 -435 -4343, and ask about the registration for the 2016 regional conference in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in October on the 28th and 29th to be specific.

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And you could also go to Ligonier .org, L -I -G -O -N -I -E -R dot org and click on events at the top of the screen and then just follow the prompts.

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But I hope that as many of you as possible can attend this conference, and if you do,

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I hope that you take the time to look for me and greet me, because I would love to know that many in my audience are at this conference.

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And please pray for the success of this conference that the Lord would bring those who most need to hear the gospel to this event, and also those that need to be further equipped, as we all do, in giving an answer for the hope that lies within us.

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So I look forward to seeing you, God willing, October 28th and 29th in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for the 2016

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Regional Ligonier Ministries Conference. And now, let me introduce my friend who is in studio with me today.

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I'm so glad that he's in studio rather than on the phone, Stephen Atkinson.

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Stephen Atkinson is a dear brother and he is originally from Northern Ireland, and he is the

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North American director of a Christian Witness to Israel, CWI as it is known, and he is also the associate pastor at Covenant Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas, which is a congregation in the

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Presbyterian Church in America, well known as the PCA. But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron.

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It's my joy to have you back in the studio, Stephen Atkinson. Well, Chris, it really is nice to be with you and nice to meet you in person again, and I've done a couple of times just on the phone with you, but it is even better to be here with you in person, and just to have that visiting time, and I look forward even to our visiting time after this show also.

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Well, praise God for that. And I do want to announce your website because we are experiencing technical difficulties lately, and some of my listeners have already told me that although we are understandable and the audio is reasonably good, there is a sporadic garbled audio, and now it's better than it was before,

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I'm being told by Tyler in Beach, Long Island, New York. Thanks, Tyler. So let's hope that it remains crystal clear throughout the remainder of the show today.

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But the website for a Christian Witness to Israel's North American headquarters is

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CWINA .org, CWI for Christian Witness to Israel, NA for North America .org.

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Why don't you let our listeners know something about Christian Witness to Israel and its history?

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Well, CWI began in 1842, really arising out of a growing burden among the

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Scottish Presbyterians in particular for the Jewish people and their lostness.

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It was obviously a theological burden, a biblical burden that goes way back, even we might say goes way back obviously to the first century, but particularly from the

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Westminster Divines of the 1600s, and it was that Scots -Presbyterian burden that really birthed our mission.

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So our first meeting in 1842 had present and indeed led in prayer none other than Robert Murray McShane.

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So we're thrilled that indeed we have him in our history and heritage. C. H.

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Spurgeon also preached for us on no less than four occasions in our history in the 1860s and 70s, and so it really is that theology that drove the missiology, that burden that was a biblically based burden that God has not done with Israel, that he has saving purposes yet for the

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Jewish people. So we need to transfer that theology into applied theology in the sense of going forth and telling

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Jewish people about Jesus, and indeed that's what the Church of Scotland did in 1839 when they sent four of their finest over to the land to inquire as to the situation of the

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Jewish people in Europe and in the in the Holy Land at that time, and they came back and started to preach and teach and tell the story of the situation of the

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Jewish people, in particular their spiritual need and their need of the message of salvation, and it has been that which has driven us over the years, that we need to bring this message back to those that brought it to us.

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Well, I'd like to also give our listeners our email address.

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It's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

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if you have a question for our guest Stephen Atkinson, and it's good to keep receiving the reports that our audio is crystal clear.

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Just got one from Murray in Kinross, Scotland. Thank you very much Murray for assuring us that so far we are sounding clear.

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One of the things that I could just say from my own observance, that there is a blemish on modern -day messianic ministries that may make the theologically reformed and other groups a bit hesitant, or more than a bit hesitant, to cooperate with them in evangelistic efforts for the

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Jews. The two major ones that I have observed, I have no statistics on this, but it's just something that in my many years of being involved in Christian broadcasting, especially, where I've got to know and meet and become acquainted with a very wide spectrum of professing evangelical

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Christians. But it seems that the two major problems within the messianic outreach ministries today, and I'm not broad -brushing please,

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I hope that our listeners realize that I'm not saying this is something that is a trait of all, perhaps not even most, but it is prevalent enough that it would be something that stands out to me.

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One would be an overemphasis on specific end -time scenarios, that they would deem someone, perhaps even an anti -Semite, if they disagree with their specific particular, perhaps even exact, understanding of eschatology.

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And the other would be the tendency amongst some in the messianic movement toward, if not on the borderline of Judaizing, actually leaping over that borderline and immersing themselves in modern -day

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Judaizing, where they are really yoking Christians to the law, the ceremonial law, and they are, you know, really teaching, in some senses, a false gospel, because they're requiring things in addition to grace and faith for the salvation of a sinner.

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Now tell us what is your reaction to what I said. Do you agree with my assessment, or do you have any comments on it?

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Those are interesting and indeed important issues. CWI is a reformed mission to the

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Jewish people, historically and presently, and therefore we do have a certain understanding, a certain theological understanding of those two important issues.

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I would say that those things are not simply issues facing the messianic community, but they're issues facing the whole

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Church. I would place the messianic community, the true messianic

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Jewish believers, within the body of Christ. So, in a sense, this is an issue that's facing us all.

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You said you wouldn't be making sweeping statements. There is a danger in us making sweeping statements, because we can see, if we look at the

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Church, for example, the Church is as messy as the messianic movement. The Church has aberrant eschatologies, or the

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Church has legalism within it. So, whether it be a Judaizing element or other legalistic elements, we all face that danger of just crossing the line.

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I think it places upon us, and who believe strongly in substantial biblical theology, it places upon us a burden and a desire that the

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Church and the Jewish believing section of that Church, if we call it the messianic community, we desire them to be taught.

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We desire a better understanding. So we desire those that have poor emphases with their eschatology to be better taught.

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But that doesn't just happen within the messianic community. There are those within the Gentile Church that place more emphasis on the rapture than upon a

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Redeemer. Now, I think that where your eschatology takes your balance away from Christ as the central aspect, or you major on some minors and maybe create divisions within the

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Church, that happens both in Church and in the messianic communities. And where your practices, you know,

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I've seen, I've been around so many, many different churches and different denominations and different individual congregations, and I've seen the ugly side of legalism.

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And so Judaistic legalism and Gentile legalism is alive and well, and both of it stinks, and both of it does damage to the unique and finished work of Jesus Christ.

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And we are to serve him and follow him and love him, not plus works, not plus a list that certain churches are placing upon their members, that you must do this, this and this, and follow our laws to the letter.

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So you're absolutely right, those are important issues, whether it's an eschatology that takes our attention off the centrality of Christ, or a legalism also that takes our attention off the finished work of Christ.

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But I would just venture to suggest that while those things are very relevant in Jewish mission, they're very relevant also in Gentile mission.

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Yes, and I am glad that Iron Sharpens Iron over the years has,

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I believe, demonstrated a healthy biblical ecumenism, one that I'm sure

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I have opponents in some degree, either that I am too ecumenical, or those who would express their opinion that I am not ecumenical enough, and might even call me rigid or even a theological bigot in a sense in some extreme cases.

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But I think that when you're getting bombarded with insults, well actually that's an exaggeration,

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I'm not getting bombarded with insults, but when I do hear any kind of insult about the show, it's usually from both sides, which

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I think is a fairly good indicator that you're doing something right. But one of the things that is a living proof of that is one of my dearest friends and largest sponsors of this program happens to be

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Pastor Ron Glass of Wading River Baptist Church on Long Island. He is a dispensationalist Baptist pastor.

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He is very strongly committed to dispensationalism and the eschatology that accompanies that, specifically pre -tribulational, pre -millennial dispensationalism.

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I am not a dispensationalist, but we do share in common a strong belief in the doctrines of sovereign grace, otherwise known as Calvinism.

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So I think that that is a healthy demonstration of good biblical ecumenism where we're not letting secondary and tertiary issues sidetrack us and cause division and so on.

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I would simply add to that when it comes to our work of Christian Witness to Israel, CWI is a reformed mission to the

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Jews and is non -dispensational, but we have very healthy and good relations with other Jewish missions that are dispensational, such as Jews for Jesus and others, and we work well with them.

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Indeed, we've done some joint outreaches. And I think that so far as we, whatever our theology is, whatever our eschatology is, if we lose the centrality of the gospel and the lostness of Jew and Gentile, then that skews our understanding in our mission.

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And if our emphasis becomes some minutiae of eschatology, and that exceeds our preaching

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Christ, loving Christ, serving Christ, then we have some problems. Let me repeat our email address.

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If anyone would like to ask a question of Stephen Atkinson of Christian Witness to Israel's North American headquarters, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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

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Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

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USA. And I know that you wanted to share the who, what, where, why, when, and hows.

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Perhaps I gave a little bit too many of those clarifying questions. But in that line, the who, what, when, where, why, and hows of evangelism to Jews, and as has many things, being in the 21st century, evangelism is a perhaps more complicated thing than it has been in years previous.

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Obviously, in many ways, a safer thing, at least in the United States, it's a safer thing.

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But obviously, in years gone by, evangelism, nearly anywhere, could have cost you your life.

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And in this day and age, that still exists, especially where you have

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Sharia law and things like that, where Islamic rule is a great danger to evangelism.

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But speaking about Western Europe and North America, the postmodern world that we live in has further complicated nearly everything.

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And especially with political correctness and the thought and speech police ready to jump on our every word in the media,

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I'd like you to express how perhaps Jewish evangelism, while the gospel message obviously never changed, never changes because there is only one gospel, but perhaps there are different things that we as Christians are confronted with in the 21st century.

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And if you could also, as I said, give us why we are evangelizing

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Jews and some of those other clarifying questions. Well, have we got about three or four more hours to answer all of those questions?

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Let me begin with the why, because I think sometimes we are confused and some tele -evangelists indeed might confuse us.

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Why are we evangelizing Jewish people at all? For example, some would suggest that there's a backdoor into heaven for the

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Jewish people. Some would suggest there's a dual covenant. That would be like John Hagee, for instance.

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Yes, there are those, he and others, and even within perhaps some of our better churches, there is just an understanding that, well, we maybe should just leave them alone.

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They've suffered enough at the hands of the church over the years. Let's just leave them to their own devices and we'll get on with evangelizing the

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Gentile world. So we actually do have to ask that question. Why should we evangelize the Jewish people?

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Well, the answer is simple. It's simple according to the scriptures. It's simple from the Apostle Paul, who went to every synagogue under heaven, although he was the apostle of the

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Gentiles. But Paul, you're going to the Gentiles. Okay, but I've got to call in at the synagogue first.

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Every place he went to, every place in his missionary journey, he said, Paul, get to those Gentiles.

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No, I need to see Shimon here and I need to just call in at this synagogue.

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So the question is, why do we evangelize? Because it's biblical, because it's scripture, because indeed the

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Jewish people are lost. Look at Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

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Who was the guy in hell? Well, he was the son of Abraham. So for those that say all the

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Jews are getting to heaven, well, read Jesus. Read by lips, as it were. Read his parables.

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In fact, his primary audience was Jewish. Absolutely. He wasn't saying, telling them to, hey, just be cool, chill out the way you are.

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You're okay. Everything's fine. He wept over Jerusalem. He looked upon the sheep without a shepherd.

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He looked upon them with compassion. It tore his heart that his own

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Jewish people were turning their backs on him. And I know we can talk the theology of that.

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We can talk about the predetermined plan of God and all of that. But at base, we see both

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Christ and the apostles had a heart for their people to hear the gospel because outside of Christ, they are lost.

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And I think the Christian church, whatever our confused understanding and whatever, even our eschatology, we need to get this as the foundation.

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Why do we do this? Because Jewish people are lost and they need to be saved. They need to hear the gospel.

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And in fact, for a Christian to think otherwise, it is the reverse of what someone from the world might on its surface believe.

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The world looks at Christians evangelizing Jews as typically as bigotry.

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Because we, in their minds, they are thinking, we are saying, we are superior to Jews.

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And of course, they're equating in their minds, Christians equals Gentiles.

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So we really want you Jews to become Gentiles because we are superior and that's why we are the only ones going to heaven.

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Now, obviously not all non -believers believe that.

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And even those that say that, many of them are probably exaggerating what they believe or just flat out lying.

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But there is that view that people would regard anyone who is trying to win someone to their own faith is doing so out of some kind of bigotry.

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When it's the reverse, it's true. It's actually because of love and compassion. If you believe that God has revealed to you the only way that you can have eternal life with indescribable joy forever and ever and ever with God, if you have discovered that by his grace, why would you not want to share that with every living soul that you meet?

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And to not do that, to me, is just a fruit of hatred or selfishness or laziness or just self -absorption, etc.

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I mean, you could go on and on. But let's tell the story as it really is because Christianity is

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Jewish and we need to realize that they did it for us. They didn't leave us in our darkness.

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My ancestors, I'm Scots -Irish. My grandfather was from Aberdeen, Scotland. I'm Scots -Irish.

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My ancestors were dancing round stone when God had revealed himself to this little insignificant nation in the

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Middle East. All my forefathers knew nothing. But what happened? They went, the

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Apostle Paul and others went forth across lands to win us to their

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God. In fact, I was talking with a Jewish lady some time ago and I was saying

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I was preaching on Psalm 67 the next Sunday and I said, you know,

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I've been studying this and it's fascinating. I said, you guys, you Jewish people were praying for us 3 ,000 years ago.

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And she said, what? I said, have you ever read Psalm 67? She said, well,

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I'm sure I have but I'll read it again. I said, well, let's read it and see that you were praying for us

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Gentiles some 3 ,000 years ago that we, the nations, would come to know

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Israel's God and Israel's salvation. So we had had coffee together. She went home 30 minutes later.

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I get a text from her. She shows me this little verse in Hebrew and she said, I can't stop studying

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Psalm 67. That we were praying for you guys, that you

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Gentile nations would come to know Israel's God and salvation. She said, you know that word, salvation?

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It's got Yeshua in it. And I said, yeah, I know that. And so the conversation continued from that and it was a good means of furthering the gospel witness there.

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But here's the narrative. The narrative is that God showed Israel himself. He revealed himself to Israel and through Israel, that light came to the nations.

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Now, how did it come to the nation? Well, primarily through Jesus Christ, but also through the apostles.

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And so on in the day of Pentecost, in Acts 2, we have a group of Jewish people all gathered together for a

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Jewish festival, which Peter hijacks effectively and tells them about Jesus.

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And tells a pile of Jews about Jesus who then go to the Gentile nations and tell us, and thank

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God they told us. Thank God by his grace, we got our eyes open and we were converted.

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So it's exactly as what you said, Chris. If we leave people just as they are, they're lost.

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Do we believe this? Do we believe today in the lostness of humanity? I could take that off and even on a general subject with regard to some of our preachers.

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Do we believe in eternal life? Do we believe in heaven? Do we believe in hell? Or have we gone soft on all of these things?

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If we believe the scriptures, if we believe the truth, that there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved, then we must go forth and tell

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Jewish people about this man, Jesus. And it's interesting that anyone would think that to evangelize the

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Jews would be anti -Semitic, or even to have our beliefs in and of themselves, that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation, our only hope, that his shed blood on Calvary is our only hope.

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Well, if we were to deny these things, ironically, we would actually be calling the ancestors of our

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Jewish neighbors liars, because we believe Jesus fulfilled their prophecies. We believe that their

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Jewish ancestors, some of them, prophesied about the

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Messiah, and we believe that there is nothing but good evidence, enormous evidence, that Jesus Christ is the only fulfillment of those

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Messianic prophecies. Therefore, we believe in the honesty and integrity of these

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Jewish prophets. We believe that God is the one who revealed these truths to them, and since we don't believe that they are liars and charlatans and frauds, we carry on their message.

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Obviously, we believe that the message that we have has further enlightenment, because we now know who fulfilled those prophecies,

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Jesus Christ. But to say that it has anything to do with anti -Semitism is absurd.

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Obviously, you would agree that there are professing Christians, and even genuine Christians, who are stained with the sin of anti -Semitic bigotry, but our faith in and of itself is not anti -Semitic.

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Absolutely, and you're right. There are Christians who have said things, done things, and still do that are anti -Semitic, and we would pray that they would have a clearer and better understanding of how the

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Jewish people, according to Romans 11, are enemies on account of the gospel, but they are loved on account of the patriarchs.

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So they are still loved. They are a loved people. That doesn't mean there's a back door into heaven for them, but we ought to love them as God loves them.

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That's what Robert Murray McShane very much said. God has an exceptional love for the Jewish people, and we ought to love in that similar way.

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But I think you're right. We need to stress that the Jewishness of Christianity, and we haven't perhaps done that very well, but I can tell the story of a

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Jewish man who came to faith. I was at a church in Hudson, Ohio, just last week, and a year or so back that church saw the blessing of a

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Jewish man come to faith and came into fellowship in that church. Now, his mother is not a believer.

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He told his mother that he had come to faith in Jesus, and his mother wasn't really very happy about that, obviously.

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She's in South Florida. She's not very happy about her Jewish boy coming to know

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Jesus. And he said, but mom, it's our history. It's the fulfillment of all of our history.

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And her words, which really struck me, her words were, all that stuff's all made up.

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So a very liberal mindset among the Jewish community, even the

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Jewish community in the U .S., is that all that stuff's all made up. So for us to try and press the issue that here is the fulfillment, well, for some

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Jewish people, they don't see it as the fulfillment, because they don't even see much of their history. So we have to maybe start a little earlier than that and start, who is

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God? What is God? What is sin? How do we make our peace with God?

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What I find with regard to reaching Jewish people is assume nothing and ask questions, and then find out exactly where they are on the whole sliding scale of Jewish belief and practice.

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And there really is a whole spectrum of Jewish belief and practice. There's not just one -size -fits -all.

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I was rebuked one time by a Jewish man because I was very early in this ministry, and I was in the

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U .K. Obviously, I was in Northern Ireland. There are 100 Jews in Northern Ireland. Although I had visited the synagogue,

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I hadn't met very many Jewish people. Was that an exaggeration? There are only 100 Jews?

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There are 100 Jews in Northern Ireland, in Belfast. There are about 1 ,500 in Dublin, and there are more in other parts.

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England, 200 ,000 in England. And we are situated in Glasgow as well and in the north of England.

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So in the other parts of the U .K., there are more sizable Jewish communities. But in Belfast, there aren't many.

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So my own experience was more a book experience of Jewish people. So I was rightly rebuked.

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I met this Jewish guy here in the States, and I said, well, of course, you believe this, this, and this, and this. And he said, no, no,

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I don't. He said, don't assume that I believe all these things. And I said, well, you know, this is what I read. He said, well, you can read your books.

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He said, but we may believe various things. Again, he goes back to the saying that, you know, if you get two

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Jews, you get three opinions. So he's saying, well, this is what I believe. So I had to take him on from where he believed, what was his belief, to some of the things that I would want to lead him into.

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And so, again, from my advice to folks who have any Jewish friends out there, and they're wanting to try and reach them, well, just start to ask a few questions.

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Show the love of Christ. Display that interest in them. Put yourself in the way of them. And by God's grace, and we trust that your witness will be a blessing to them.

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Indeed, I was really interested, talking to one of my colleagues, in fact, my

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CEO in the UK, just very recently. And I've been doing this for 12 years, and I'm still learning.

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But he said to me, Stephen, you know, you Gentiles are better at reaching Jews than us Jewish people. He's a

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Jewish believer. And I struggled with that. Because I said, no, no, my brother, surely Jewish people, you must be better at reaching.

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No, he said, Stephen, you Gentiles are better at reaching us Jewish people.

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He said, I've come to faith because some Gentile put themselves in my way. And he said, don't you read your

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Bible? Don't you see what we're supposed to do in Romans 11, that we are to provoke to jealousy? So I say this to the

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Gentile church, you Gentiles are better at reaching Jewish people with the gospel.

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In fact, we're commissioned to reach the Jewish people with the gospel, to provoke them to jealousy.

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And we have to go to our first break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Stephen Atkinson about Jewish evangelism, or just basically theological questions regarding the reform faith or CWI, a

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Christian witness to Israel or Northern Ireland, give us a call or not a call.

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I'm thinking about my old show on Long Island, New York. Give us an email at chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And when you email us a question, please give us your, at least your first name, your city, your state, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the

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USA. And we look forward to hearing from you with your questions after these words from our sponsors.

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So don't go away. We'll be right back, God willing, with Stephen Atkinson. I'm Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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And here's one of my favorite guests, Todd Friel, to tell you about a conference he and I are going to.

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Hello, this is Todd Friel, host of Wretched Radio and Wretched TV, and occasional guest on Chris's show,

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Iron Criticizing Iron. I think, I think that's what it's called.

36:08

Hoping that you can join Chris and me at the G3 Conference in Atlanta, my new hometown.

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It is going to be a bang up conference called the G3 Conference, celebrating the 500th anniversary of the

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Protestant Reformation, with Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Votie Baucom, Conrad and Bayway, Phil Johnson, James White, and a bunch of other people.

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Thanks, Todd. I think. See you at the Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitor's booth.

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Thriving Difference. Welcome back.

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This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Stephen Atkinson, who is the

39:31

North American Director of A Christian Witness to Israel, which is a theologically reformed outreach to the

39:40

Jewish people. Their website is cwina .org. CWI for Christian Witness to Israel.

39:47

NA for North America .org. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Stephen, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

39:56

chrisarnzen at gmail .com. We have Joe in Hoshton, Georgia, and I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly because I've never heard of this city before.

40:08

H -O -S -C -H -T -O -N. Hoshton, Georgia, I believe. That must be the way it's spelled. I could be wrong.

40:15

But Joe says, Dear Brother Chris, I interact with many secular Israelis who have no faith in the

40:22

Old Testament, the Jewish scriptures. Many of them are atheists with no knowledge of Judaism.

40:28

How do you suggest approaching these with the gospel of Jesus Christ? Well, Stephen, your advice to this brother in Hoshton, Georgia?

40:38

Well, first of all, I would like to say that's wonderful that you're interacting with them at all because in my experience, far too many of us are just leaving them alone and are not interacting with any

40:51

Jewish friends. So the fact that you have some is wonderful. I would say make sure that you keep those friendships, keeps the lines of communication open.

41:02

What you're facing is what is being faced by many others up and down the country because the reality is that most

41:08

Jewish people in the U .S. are secular. Many of them, indeed, are complete atheists and have no knowledge of their

41:17

Old Testament scriptures, which we won't say is Old Testament. That's one little thing I would say.

41:23

Don't mention the Old Testament because it wasn't an Old Testament in their day.

41:29

And even today, we should call it the Hebrew scriptures. We should call it the

41:35

Tanakh. It's the law, the prophets and the writings. That's what Jesus would have spoken of. And so our terminology of Old Testament is somewhat,

41:44

I suppose, patronizing because we've got the new model. We've got the New Testament.

41:50

So if we are speaking of the scriptures of the Old Testament, I would use just a different terminology.

41:56

I would speak of the Tanakh. The Jewish people call it the Tanakh. It's our Old Testament. It's the same books in a slightly different order, but it is the

42:08

Torah, the Nevi 'im, the Ketuvim, the TNK, the law, the prophets and the writings.

42:15

And so Jewish people will talk about their Tanakh, and that simply means the first part of our whole

42:22

Bible. But wonderful that you're interacting. If they know nothing, I would simply say, well, it's just like any other person who knows nothing.

42:30

Start at the very beginning and start with their own need of a

42:36

Savior from sin. In one sense, treat them like any atheist.

42:41

But what I would suggest is that even though they think that their whole history is an accident, just as the rest of the secular world thinks we're all here just as chemical soup, that we're all just here by an accident,

42:54

Jewish history is no accident. Jewish people are here today by no accident of history.

43:01

God has preserved this ancient people for, as I trust and see in Romans 9 through 11, other places, a saving purpose.

43:10

God is not finished with them. And if we can stress to our Jewish friends, even if they're not believing in God, not believing in their scriptures, your history is a history of miracle.

43:24

You should have been wiped out centuries ago. You were, it was attempted to wipe you out this last century, but you're still here.

43:33

Why are you still here? Press the issue with such persons. Your life, your history is a miracle.

43:40

And if it's a miracle, well, then there is a God and God has preserved. You haven't simply preserved yourself by your own strength.

43:48

Otherwise, you would have died throughout, you know, Aztecs, the Aztec civilization has effectively died.

43:56

Other civilizations have effectively died, but the Jews are still here. Why are they still here?

44:02

Because God exists. And try to take it from that point, then leading into the most important questions of life.

44:10

And I think also, as I'm interacting, whether it's with Jewish people or anyone, I try to use that,

44:18

I suppose, maybe it's a philosophical argument, but the ad absurdum argument. In other words, lead them to the absurdity of their position.

44:28

Do it in a very gentle way, in a very gracious way, in a very sensitive way, but show them ultimately on your deathbed, who are you going to believe?

44:39

Are you, is it that we're just chemical soup? I was recently interact, not recently, but a few years ago,

44:44

I was interacting with a Jewish man in London, I was doing door to door work in London. And I met this guy on the door, he was a brain surgeon, and he was retired.

44:55

And he was studying the dark matter in the brain.

45:01

That's the kind of thing you do in retirement, of course, you know. And I was, I was interacting with him a little bit.

45:07

I was asking about his family. And he was saying he's atheist, doesn't believe any of this. Brain surgeon, knows the intricacies of the human brain, and yet he's an atheist.

45:19

I said, okay, so you believe that we're just all here by chance. I said, you know, do you have any family?

45:25

He said, yeah, I have a nine -year -old granddaughter. I said, well, God forbid, I said, but if that nine -year -old was struck by a car and died, would you weep?

45:36

And he said, you bet I would weep. And I said, well, why? She's only chemical soup.

45:43

Why should you weep? Now, I was pressing the issue, and I hope I wasn't doing it in an insensitive way.

45:50

I don't believe I was. I had built up enough of a relationship in the conversation to really press it with him.

45:56

But he realized where I'd got him, that if we're all just here by chance, if we're all just chemical soup, then why bother crying over a nine -year -old who ends up, you know, in a heap in the driveway?

46:08

And I think that's the kind of ad absurdum argument that we need to bring in some, again, in a very sensitive and gracious manner.

46:17

But nonetheless, let's arrest them. Let's make them think, whether they're complete atheist

46:23

Gentiles or atheist Jews, make them think about their history, make them think about their existence.

46:32

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And they sponsor Iron Sharpens Iron, and they ship out all of our winners, free Bibles and books and DVDs and CDs and other things when they win them.

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We also thank, of course, the publishers of the New American Standard Bible, who have actually gifted us with these free

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In fact, this gives me a good opportunity, now that I'm remembering to do this, if you really want to help

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Iron Sharpens Iron, and we'll run those ads during the program, just like you hear the other ads running, but you could also support our sponsors, because the more they are supported, obviously, the more they will be financially capable of supporting

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and please let them know that you heard about the New American Standard Bible from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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I really appreciate it, because Iron Sharpens Iron is in urgent need of funds. You very rarely ever hear me talk about this, but we are in urgent need of funds, donations, and advertisers, and we are also in urgent need of our current sponsors remaining with us.

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So all you can do to help would be greatly appreciated beyond words I can describe in human language.

49:23

But thanks again, Joe, for submitting that great question. What Joe asked about reminded me of a debate that I organized a number of years ago between Dr.

49:35

James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a reform scholar and apologist. He debated

49:42

David Silverman, an atheist Jew who is the current president of American Atheists, which is the organization founded by Madeleine Murray O 'Hare, very well -known

49:54

Jew. I don't know if Madeleine Murray O 'Hare was Jewish, but she was an atheist, certainly, obviously. And it was a profound part of this debate that had my jaw hanging open.

50:09

Basically, David Silverman admitted that he had to, in some sense, borrow from a biblical worldview to even have any concept of good and evil.

50:24

And he basically, in his desire to flee from that notion that the

50:33

Bible had anything to do with it, he basically came up with an idea, or was just repeating the idea, that whatever a certain group of people in a certain era of time in a certain geographical region believe is good and evil, that is what is good and evil.

50:52

And so obviously, Dr. James R. White brought up the Nazis. And Mr. Silverman is a

50:58

Jewish atheist who obviously believes his Jewishness is just something ethnic and cultural. He doesn't have any fondness for the

51:05

Old Testament at all, or the Jewish scriptures, the Hebrew scriptures. But Dr.

51:13

White said to Mr. Silverman, you mean to tell me that if you were being marched through the gates of the

51:22

Auschwitz death camp, the only thing or the greatest complaint that you could possibly logically and legitimately have is that you find this personally offensive?

51:36

Is that the best you would be able to come up? And David Silverman said, yes.

51:41

Can you imagine that? At least he saw that he had no other avenue of explanation, being an atheist, because we are, according to them, just highly evolved bags of protoplasm.

51:58

And so I thought that was a remarkable juncture in the debate.

52:04

In fact, Mr. Silverman began waving his white flag long before the debate time had expired.

52:13

And was basically saying, do we have to keep doing this? Can we stop now? He became very uncomfortable. I just hope that the

52:18

Lord actually reaches down and rescues him and saves him. In fact, his wife and perhaps his daughter might have been there as well.

52:29

But if not, they were watching via DVD eventually, I'm sure. But pray for the salvation of the

52:37

Silverman family. But that brother that wrote in, I'm again delighted. I wish many, many more would do exactly the same.

52:44

Just interact with Jewish friends up and down this nation. We have 42 % of the world's

52:51

Jewish population on our doorstep. And I would love us to make some interaction with them and interact with those that really know nothing.

52:59

Our Sunday school kids know more than most Jewish people pertaining to Jewish life history and their book.

53:07

Let me tell you one story from one of our workers in Israel, of a new frontline missionary in Israel.

53:14

And he sent this story to us. And right back to 1948, the first chief rabbi of the modern state of Israel, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Cook.

53:27

Now, his great, great grandson is around today. And the story goes that this great, great grandson of the first chief rabbi of Israel, the modern state of Israel, realized that he didn't know his own culture and history, realized he didn't know his own scriptures.

53:47

He was approached by some folks. He was studying guitar in Spain.

53:54

He actually stayed with a gypsy family. This gypsy family in Spain were believers.

54:01

They started to share the gospel with him. And this great grandson of the first chief rabbi of Israel really didn't know his own

54:11

Jewish history. And that really struck him that he didn't know. And they knew more of his

54:17

Jewish roots than he knew himself. So he came back to Israel for a short time, and he discovered a website that was giving away free

54:25

Bibles. Lo and behold, who was giving away the free Bibles? It was one of our workers. So one of our workers—

54:32

They better have been NASBs. I'm only kidding.

54:37

It was Hebrew, brother. It was modern Hebrew. So my colleague met up with this young man, opened up Isaiah 53 and various other passages, and so the conversation continued.

54:51

And the long story short is that young man came to faith in Jesus. He was prompted because he realized he didn't know his own roots.

55:01

And by the grace of God and by the interaction of a gypsy family in Spain and my colleague in Israel, the

55:09

Lord opened his eyes. So today, the great grandson of the first chief rabbi of the modern state of Israel, the great grandson, is a

55:21

Jewish believer in Jesus. Praise God. Praise God. We have another listener, Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, a regular listener to Iron Sharpens Iron.

55:30

It's always great to hear from Tyler. He asks, Is a good example of the sovereignty of God and salvation the choosing of Israel as a nation in Deuteronomy 7, 6, 8?

55:41

And I have that pulled up now. Let's see. For you are a holy people to the

55:47

Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

55:56

The Lord did not set his love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the other people, for you were the fewest of all peoples.

56:07

But because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which he swore to your forefathers, the

56:13

Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

56:23

And again, Tyler's question is, is that a good example of the sovereignty of God and salvation in regard to the choosing of Israel as a nation being the shadow of the fulfillment in election?

56:39

Absolutely. He didn't choose Israel because Israel was so wonderful. He chose Israel because he chose

56:46

Israel. He set his love upon Israel because he set his love upon Israel.

56:51

Why did I come to faith? Was it because I got so smart? And why is it that I'm a

56:58

Calvinist? Oh, yeah, I really got it all nailed. I can give you the five points and I can delineate it all.

57:05

I give you proof text. I'm such a smart guy. And no, no, no, no. Why am I a believer?

57:11

Because the Lord broke into my life. Why am I a believer? Because as I look back on my family history, so far as I know my family tree, no one outside of my parents came to faith in Jesus.

57:24

And my parents came to faith in Jesus after me. So God looked upon this line of darkened lostness and broke in with his love because we're so smart.

57:35

No, not at all. God broke in and opened up my eyes to see the wonder of his grace and the doctrines of grace and then gave me a voice so that I could preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.

57:47

What have we that we have not received? We all must believe that God is the sovereign

57:54

Lord of all ultimately on our deathbed. He that began the good work in you will bring it to completion.

57:59

It's not something that I have done. It's not something that I've been clever enough to choose. And certainly it wasn't something that the

58:06

Jewish people were clever enough to choose. He chose the Jewish people to display his love, his grace and his glory.

58:14

And so he has done and so he will do both in Jew and Gentile and unto all eternity.

58:21

And we have to go to a break right now. Thank you very much, Tyler and Mastic Beach. If anybody else would like to join us after the break with a question for Stephen Atkinson on Jewish evangelism or any other theological question perhaps regarding reformed doctrine or perhaps something involving

58:42

Northern Ireland where he's from originally or perhaps even Arkansas where he lives now. But if you have a question related to his ministry, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

58:54

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Stephen Atkinson of a

59:01

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Harvey Cedars, where Christ finds people and changes lives. Chris Armsen here, standing on the seashore of New Jersey with my guest

01:05:09

Stephen Atkinson. Oh, I just love those sound effects. We are actually in the studio here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania for our interview on Evangelizing the

01:05:19

Jews in the 21st Century. Stephen Atkinson, for those of you who just tuned us in, is our guest for both hours, with one hour to go.

01:05:28

He is the North American director for A Christian Witness to Israel.

01:05:34

Their website is cwina .org, CWI for Christian Witness to Israel, NA for North America .org.

01:05:43

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Stephen, our email address is chrisarmsen at gmail .com,

01:05:51

chrisarmsen at gmail .com. I also just want to quickly remind you that Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania is having their

01:05:59

Reformation Conference Thursday, October 27th, 7 to 9 p .m. It's absolutely free of charge, featuring a friend of my guest

01:06:08

Stephen Atkinson, Mark G. Johnston, who is from Wales, visiting here in the

01:06:15

United States to preach at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, and also from Scotland, Dr.

01:06:22

Sinclair Ferguson. They are going to both be preaching at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania on a

01:06:29

Reformation theme, Thursday, October 27th, 7 to 9 p .m. For more details, go to gracebaptistcarlisle .org,

01:06:38

gracebaptistcarlisle, C -A -R -L -I -S -L -E dot O -R -G.

01:06:44

So I hope to meet many of you at that conference. So please make it a point to try to say hello to me if you show up and have somebody point me out to you.

01:06:54

I just wanted to read a very encouraging note from Joe, who

01:07:01

I identified as being from Hoshton, Georgia, just a while ago.

01:07:07

I did not know before that, since he is a first -time questioner, that he is actually in Slovenia, because he is a

01:07:16

Southern Baptist missionary there. Let me just read a note to you that he wrote, because it's very encouraging to me, and I just thank

01:07:23

God for it, because I've been kind of discouraged lately, especially with some technical difficulties that we've been experiencing on the program.

01:07:31

And this really brightened my day. Thank you very much for your encouragement to approach the

01:07:36

Jews from the standpoint of the sheer miracle that their existence as a nation, given all that has been done against them, as a people to destroy them.

01:07:46

I haven't tried this, but will soon. Thank you. Thank you, Brother Chris, for your ministry.

01:07:51

You are a great encouragement to me. I am a missionary, Southern Baptist Church in Slovenia, and I use your broadcasts extensively with those

01:08:02

I'm discipling here. My USA mailing address is with my adult daughter, and that's what he gave us before in Hoshton, Georgia.

01:08:10

And I'll get the NAS Bible you're sending me when I visit her later during the

01:08:15

Christmas season. Thank you for your generosity. May God richly bless you in the grace of our

01:08:21

Lord Jesus Christ. So that is my first email from Slovenia from a listener, and I'm very delighted to receive that.

01:08:31

In fact, I had some, I don't know if it was a Slovenian website or not, but I remember some kind of a website that I discovered years ago,

01:08:41

Slavic perhaps, but it had a post for my radio program on it, and everything was written in this other language except for the

01:08:54

Iron Sharpens Iron name and my website. So it was some kind of a Christian website because of the symbols that they had on there, the cross and the

01:09:03

Bible and all that kind of thing. But I have no idea if that's any connection, but... You never know.

01:09:10

Yes, you never do know, Brother. You never know who is listening and being blessed by what you're doing.

01:09:16

And in fact, the reverse is true, too. You never know who's listening and may be wounded, discouraged, or led away from Christ by what you're doing.

01:09:23

So that's why we always have to be bearing witness in word and deed that we are disciples of Christ.

01:09:34

Absolutely, and I think this is, again, what I would stress to anyone that's listening, and what we do in Christian Witness to Israel is just bring that unavoidable reality of Jesus before the

01:09:46

Jewish people. We bring Christ to them in whatever nature we sow the seed.

01:09:53

We are sowing a good seed. We may not get the whole argument across. We may simply get a word in season, but nonetheless, we should be interacting, as the

01:10:03

Brother does, with Jewish people. And we leave those results to God. The longer

01:10:10

I am in ministry, the... When I retire, I think I'll write a book on providence, because I think

01:10:16

I have so many stories of just amazing works of God's providence in my life and in the life of many, many others.

01:10:25

We should be bold in our witness. We should be bold in interacting with other people around us, because God uses even those little interactions, little encouragements.

01:10:36

Even you've just got an encouragement this afternoon. God uses all those encouragements and interactions and challenges and rebukes and arresting words, whatever it might be.

01:10:47

He uses them in his purposes. Let me just tell one more story. I was sitting in a pastor's home in Mississippi a month or two back.

01:10:57

He's on our board, and his wife started to tell me of her conversion, coming to faith.

01:11:03

She came to faith in Berlin in her teenage years, came to faith through a coffee bar ministry in Berlin that was run by a couple of Americans, as she understood.

01:11:18

And so she was attending those meetings, and by the Lord's grace... Bad stuff starts in bars in Berlin.

01:11:25

There you go. This was a non -alcoholic coffee bar. There you go. It was an evangelistic outreach.

01:11:31

We had them in Northern Ireland. I'm sure you had them here. They became very, very popular as a means of outreach in the 70s.

01:11:39

And so she was attending that. And just a month or two ago, I think, she discovered a little bit more information as to who was actually running that coffee bar, this

01:11:49

American family that had come over, I think, part of the Billy Graham operation or something to run this coffee bar in Berlin, that then the result of that was my friend and my colleague's wife who came to faith.

01:12:05

Well, the backstory to that, the two people that set up the coffee bar, one of them was Jewish.

01:12:11

In fact, one of them was a Jewish believer who came through the Holocaust. And so she escaped

01:12:18

Germany in the 30s, 40s, and escaped to the USA. But when she came to faith in the

01:12:25

USA, she had a heart for the German people. And so in the 60s and 70s, her and her husband and indeed her new find faith, she wanted to share that with those that were actually destroying her in Germany, in Berlin.

01:12:44

And through that, she gave forth her testimony and she was going forth in ministry.

01:12:51

And so I was just sitting with my colleague in Mississippi and I was thinking it through, you know, we are here, you are here, this pastor's wife is here talking about Jewish mission because a

01:13:07

Holocaust survivor came to faith in Jesus and had a love for her killers, for her

01:13:16

Germans. It just blew my mind away that in the whole providence of God, that lady escaped, came to the

01:13:26

States, came to faith, and had a burden to go back to Germany, share the gospel.

01:13:32

And so the fruit of that, one of my dear friends now in ministry down in Mississippi, the wonderful weavings and workings of God's providence will be something we'll contemplate for all eternity.

01:13:47

So I say to all my brothers and sisters out there, go out there, go at it, and tell of Christ to all you meet,

01:13:57

Jew and Gentile. Praise God for that. I love hearing stories like that, absolutely remarkable.

01:14:04

I just want to repeat our email address if anybody wants to join us, it's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:14:14

One thing that I wanted to mention, and I don't like to be a troublemaker, although I find myself being one more than I care to admit on this program, but you mentioned the

01:14:28

Billy Graham crusade, and obviously the Lord has done some profound and powerful things globally by bringing the gospel to people through the

01:14:38

Billy Graham crusade association, through Billy Graham as an individual. But it does dishearten me to know that Billy Graham has for a number of decades softened the gospel message.

01:14:52

It seems to be an effort not to offend those of other religions, also perhaps because of an aberrant understanding of salvation where he has said publicly even on Robert Shuler's television program a number of years ago, which you can all hear and see on YouTube, that Billy Graham believes that there will be multitudes from Judaism and Islam and other religions who will come to Christ, but not knowingly.

01:15:28

Billy Graham seems to have adopted over the years, and this is not something new, but he seems to have developed a pluralistic understanding of salvation, whereas he would believe that Jesus Christ and his death on Calvary was absolutely necessary for salvation.

01:15:46

But you don't necessarily have to come to believe and trust in this life for you to be a beneficiary of that death, and that's a tragic thing.

01:16:01

It's sad to hear if that - I honestly couldn't say one way or another. I don't know what the situation is, but that kind of belief is very sad.

01:16:11

I would simply say that that's not unique to Billy Graham. Right, of course not.

01:16:17

The Jesus that we are presenting in our American churches, I'm really,

01:16:22

I'm shocked and saddened by the Jesus that we are presenting, and I'm saying that as even in terms of the

01:16:30

Jesus that we're presenting to the Jewish people, but as a pastor and as a preacher of 30 years,

01:16:36

I'm saddened to see the Jesus that we are presenting from our pulpits.

01:16:42

Is he just a quick pick -me -up pill? Is he just the cherry on the cake of the

01:16:47

American dream? Is he just the guy that's going to set your marriage right, or he's going to give you the 10 points for a successful business?

01:16:56

We presented Jesus in so many ways as just someone that we market as just to make your life better, or to make you have your best life now, and I think it's pathetic, and it's sad, and it's shocking, and perhaps we are being brought as a nation to consider our present situation and our need to repent before Almighty God.

01:17:25

We are in a moral mess in our nation currently, and we need to get back on our knees and discover what it is that we have offended

01:17:33

God, and who is the solution to that, and let's preach him unashamedly in our pulpits and in the highways and byways to Jew and Gentile.

01:17:43

So that's just the preacher and me speaking to that situation. And that's always the best part of you.

01:17:51

And it is very clear, and many of my brethren in Christ will concur, it's very clear that this nation is under judgment for one simple evidence.

01:18:04

I mean, there are a multitude of evidences, but one simple evidence that we all glaringly see every day in the media is the fact that we have these two candidates running for president that are the most likely to win the presidency, one of these two, barring a miracle of some kind.

01:18:29

The fact that these are the two choices that American voters have for the presidency of the

01:18:35

United States, which has been nicknamed the leader of the free world, it is absolutely frightening to me.

01:18:43

It is mind -boggling, and I have no other conclusion than we are under God's judgment.

01:18:50

I don't want to delve into something like this. It's dangerous territory.

01:18:55

But the situation is that God sometimes gives us what we want, and sometimes he's more gracious.

01:19:03

And I wish he would be more gracious. I'm in the happy and blissful situation of being a green card holder and not a citizen, and so I will not have to make that choice.

01:19:17

And that's my comment on that subject. And if you could give us some more of those clarifying questions, or should

01:19:29

I say answer some of those clarifying questions. I know that we had the why, we had some different versions of how, but we're obviously speaking about who the

01:19:40

Jews, and perhaps you might go into who in regard to those evangelizing.

01:19:49

There are people who have a lackadaisical attitude about this.

01:19:56

They just look at evangelizing not only the Jews, but they may view evangelizing anyone as something outside of their periphery of duties.

01:20:09

They believe, oh, that's for preachers, that's for pastors, that's for scholars, that's for teachers.

01:20:16

I'm just a regular blue collar guy and I sit in a pew every Sunday, and I don't know where to begin even to evangelize my own redneck family, let alone a

01:20:31

Jew. So leave me out of this, I'll just pray for you. But that is not an option for a

01:20:37

Christian, is it? I don't think any of us have an option to opt out of being a Christian. So if we are in Christ, then we are to display

01:20:47

Christ, and our lips and our lives are to display a consistency, and the sad reality is much of that doesn't happen.

01:20:57

But actually, whether it's the preacher preaching a message or an ordinary unskilled, perhaps believer, just showing forth the love of Christ, that can have a more potent message to bring to an unbeliever than the preacher preaching his 30, 40, 50 minute sermons.

01:21:20

I think what I would want to stress is God gives to the church, preachers, teachers, evangelists, missionaries, gives to the church all of us so that we can all play our part.

01:21:30

We're all part of the body. We in CWI have missionaries, frontline missionaries, who again are unashamed in the speaking of Christ to their

01:21:40

Jewish friends. We are in Israel. We have several staff and team of staff in Israel.

01:21:46

We're in Europe, we're Bulgaria, Hungary, France. We're just taking on a new guy for Paris. We're another guy from Taiwan has just passed our interview and pending support.

01:21:59

He will be coming into our ministry. We have a team in London, a team in England and in Scotland.

01:22:07

All that to say, we all are involved in sharing this

01:22:12

Jesus with Jewish people. We'd love to tell the story. You gave the website earlier, so please may your hearers go to our website and hear and see some of the things that we're doing.

01:22:24

If you'd like to email me and get on the mailing list, cwinamerica at gmail .com

01:22:32

is the email. You'll probably find that on the website as well, but cwinamerica at gmail .com

01:22:40

will get you through to me and I'll certainly happily put you on the mailing list and get you every two months.

01:22:49

We send out a little newsletter telling the stories. There's some amazing things are happening in the world today.

01:22:55

More Jewish people than ever before are coming to faith in Jesus and our missionaries are just finding

01:23:01

God's amazing grace in opening doors, in opening opportunities for them to share and indeed bringing to faith many under our ministry and the ministry of many others.

01:23:14

We're very thankful. I want to clarify that email address because is it CWI the letter N for North or is it

01:23:20

IN? It's the letter N and it's all lowercase. So, instead of the CWINA, it's cwinamerica.

01:23:28

And the rest of the email address? At gmail .com. CWIN for North America at gmail .com.

01:23:36

By the way, I don't think that in this day and age of computer technology, I don't think it matters whether you use upper or lowercase.

01:23:44

There you go. I think that's only for passwords that that matters. It definitely matters for passwords.

01:23:54

Now, just to let our listeners are fully aware of this, CWI is not a fly -by -night or new ministry.

01:24:06

This has a very old past and I know that you've mentioned this before on our program, but I just really want to drive home to our listeners that this is a firmly established ministry that began with the likes of men even such as Charles Adams Spurgeon and Robert Murray McShane and so on.

01:24:24

Yes, indeed. As I think I said earlier and we've been talking off air as well, so I'm not sure if it's fully on air.

01:24:32

And I've interviewed you at least five times. We began in 1842 and Robert Murray McShane prayed the opening prayer at that first ever meeting and Spurgeon was involved with us preaching on four occasions for us in the 1860s and 70s.

01:24:49

You are a lot older than you look. There you go. All that to say is that we have a good history and heritage and in fact, if folks go on our website, they will find some of these resources, some resources from these men of old.

01:25:05

We have a little booklet series that we've done, Voices from the Past, and it's got McShane and Spurgeon and Bonner and we're hoping to supplement that as well.

01:25:14

But what I would say is that it's all very well having a good history and a good heritage, but what is the present?

01:25:20

What are we doing presently? In terms of our theological backbone, we may say again, it sounds as if it's name dropping, but it is just cutting through the clutter of the messiness of Jewish missions.

01:25:34

On our advisory board currently, we have such heavyweights as Ligon Duncan and Al Mohler who have very graciously and generously put their name to endorse our ministry.

01:25:45

And on our executive board, you mentioned Derek Thomas earlier as well, and Derek is a good friend from Northern Ireland days and he is on our executive board, and as well as David Strain, who is the successor to Ligon Duncan and First Pres Jackson, and several other guys from the

01:26:05

UK and from here, and we're hoping indeed to supplement that board as well. All of that to say, in the clutter and mess of Jewish missions in the

01:26:16

U .S., we have a good history and we have a good heritage and a good theological backbone to what we do today, having said all that, backbone is not enough, and the history and the theology is not enough.

01:26:30

We need to be actively reaching the Jewish people on our doorstep and around the world, and that's what we've been doing, and indeed,

01:26:39

I want to really see the advancement in the U .S. of the mission work of Christian Witness to Israel, and I'm working on gaining new missionaries here in the

01:26:50

U .S. because we have the mission field here. Forty -two percent of the world's Jewish population live in the

01:26:56

United States, and the fact that some of your listeners are interacting with atheist

01:27:01

Jewish people, then we need to know how do we do this, and where are the

01:27:08

Jewish people, and we need to analyze that and have some measure of strategy in sending forth missionaries, frontline workers, to the

01:27:18

Jewish people here in the U .S. Well, we're going to go to our final break right now.

01:27:24

If you'd like to join us on the air while there's still time, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:27:31

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

01:27:40

U .S .A., like our listener in Slovenia did, and we're so delighted that we heard from him, and he is continuing, as I speak, to send me encouraging emails about other broadcasts that have blessed him.

01:27:55

But chrisarnson at gmail .com is the email address we hope to hear from you, and we'll be right back after these messages, so don't go away.

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01:31:07

Iron Sharpens today. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am

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01:32:33

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the entire two hours with less than a half hour to go is

01:32:43

Stephen Atkinson, the North American Director for Christian Witness to Israel. Their website is cwina .org,

01:32:52

cwina for northamerica .org, and his email address, if you'd like to get in contact with him later after the show, is, again, if you could provide that,

01:33:05

Stephen? cwinamerica. At gmail .com, cwi, the letter n for north, and the word america at gmail .com.

01:33:16

And our email address, if you'd like to ask him a question now while we're on the air, is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

01:33:24

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. We have Murray in Kinross, Scotland.

01:33:31

By the way, have you ever been to Kinross, Scotland? I've been many places in Scotland, yes. I'm trying to get my

01:33:37

Scottish geography back into my head again, but I'm sure I have. That's up in the

01:33:42

Highlands. I'm almost certain it is. My Scottish friends are absolutely going to think that I've betrayed my trust now, that I'm totally lost in the

01:33:54

U .S. I need to get the map out again. Well, Murray says, when I lived in London, I found it all too easy to become lazy and complacent with regard to witnessing to Jewish people, because the church

01:34:06

I was with had strong links to CWI. It was almost as though I was saying leave the

01:34:14

Jewish evangelism to the experts and thinking that would tick a box for me.

01:34:20

When an individual isn't necessarily meeting many Jewish people on a day -to -day basis, what is the best way to break out of this lethargy?

01:34:28

And I'll follow up after you answer that with something else Murray has to say. It's so easy, isn't it, just to leave it to the experts.

01:34:36

It's so easy in church life to say, well, the preacher, he's the evangelist, and we just pray for him and pray that people will come into our churches and he'll preach the gospel.

01:34:49

That's not the way church ought to be done. We are all called to go forth and testify.

01:34:54

We're all called at whatever level, at whatever understanding we have, whatever simple level we have to share that gospel with our lips and with our lives.

01:35:03

So with the Jewish people, is it left to just the CWI experts? No, it can't be.

01:35:10

We can't evangelize the whole Jewish world. We're small in number. We can in Arkansas. Maybe so.

01:35:18

I'm doing my very best, my brother. But there is only so much we can do.

01:35:25

We can have a certain expertise, we can have a certain edge to our ministry, and the Lord will open up those opportunities.

01:35:31

But we need the church at large to be engaged with the Jewish population here in the

01:35:37

USA. As I've said before, that the Jewish people are here.

01:35:43

Israel is here in the USA. There is no other country on the planet where there is as many

01:35:50

Jewish people and Christians living side by side. Now, in London, yes, there are 200 ,000

01:35:57

Jews in London, and what an opportunity is for the churches. Don't leave it to the experts.

01:36:03

No, don't do that. Get out there. And the other thing that I would say in that situation,

01:36:09

I'm living in northwest Arkansas. It's not Jew central. But if you have a burden for the

01:36:14

Jewish people, if you pray that the Lord will open up doors and opportunities, in a strange and wonderful way, those providences happen.

01:36:22

And I have met and evangelized several Jewish people. And I have another dear friend who's in Arkansas, and he's evangelizing some other

01:36:31

Jewish people through his business, who are in other parts of the USA. If you have a burden, you can be sure that the

01:36:40

Lord will bring certain people across your path. And I would simply say that keep doing that in London, in the

01:36:48

US, in Atlanta, in Georgia, in New York, in Florida, or wherever you might be.

01:36:54

Let the church see its calling, and to go forth, not just as the preachers, but as the people, to share the gospel with the lost that are around them.

01:37:06

Yeah, folks that live in New York, like where I used to live, have no excuse not to evangelize the

01:37:11

Jewish people, because there are millions of Jewish people in New York, especially in Long Island and the five boroughs.

01:37:19

And even upstate New York, there's a very large Hasidic community. Well, a very quick,

01:37:25

I haven't got all the figures in my head, but in New York, in greater

01:37:31

New York, there are 2 million Jewish people. In Miami, in South Florida, 660 ,000

01:37:38

Jewish people. Snowbirds from New York have all come down to South Florida.

01:37:44

There's a kosher Dunkin' Donuts in South Florida. That'll tell you that you're in Jew central there.

01:37:50

Atlanta, 150 ,000 Jewish people. Chicago, 120 ,000. Cleveland, I was there just last week, 80 ,000

01:37:57

Jewish people. 50 ,000 in Dallas, 40 ,000 in Houston. I was in Indianapolis just again a few days ago, 10 ,000

01:38:06

Jewish people in Indianapolis. Every major city in the US has a sizable Jewish population.

01:38:12

Now, I'm asking the church, what are you doing about it? I didn't know a donut could be non -kosher, other than on Passover.

01:38:19

Ask Dunkin' Donuts about that. By the way, how does a

01:38:24

Jewish person in Arkansas pronounce matzah? Do they say matzah? I have many accents, my brother, but I haven't really won the

01:38:35

American accent yet. I'm sorry. It's still my Northern Irish accent. I'm losing it.

01:38:42

Again, my colleagues from back home will say I've completely lost it. I don't know what the

01:38:49

Arkansas version is. Murray and Ken Ross Scotland has a follow -up question.

01:38:54

He says, On a lighter subject, many years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Joseph Steinberg, but back then he was known as Eric.

01:39:03

Is it common for Jewish people who are saved to change their name, or is this likely something that Joseph decided to do himself?

01:39:11

I will need to ask Joseph that, because Joseph is now our CEO in the

01:39:17

UK. Wow. That's interesting. Joseph became our CEO in the

01:39:23

UK just two years ago, and Joseph is a Jewish believer. Joseph started life here in the

01:39:28

US. He's an American Jewish believer, and he actually played saxophone in the

01:39:36

Liberated Wailing Wall, so the Jews for Jesus music group back in the 70s, early 80s.

01:39:44

Joseph Steinberg played in that and then worked for CWI for some years in the 80s and worked for Jews for Jesus as well.

01:39:52

Now, was he theologically reformed when he was with Jews for Jesus? I would need to ask him that.

01:39:57

Certainly, he is theologically reformed now because CWI workers must all sign to one of the reformed confessions, but one of the things that Joseph has done for us in CWI is really to restore to us an evangelistic edge.

01:40:15

I think, if I can say this among my reformed brethren, we can be reformed but lose the evangel, and folks will know what

01:40:24

I mean by that. We can be so reformed as to lose the cutting edge of the gospel, and we can just have our little holy huddles and our reformed monasteries where we just get together and we teach reformed doctrine, and the world is going to a lost eternity.

01:40:43

What Joseph has done very passionately and very helpfully to us in CWI has given us a very strong evangelistic edge so that we are passionate about bringing the gospel to Jewish people.

01:40:59

Again, I would need to talk further with him on this, but one of the things that I suppose comes close to home with him is that his mother, his

01:41:10

Jewish mother, died without knowing her Messiah. And so that drives him.

01:41:19

He said one Gentile went out of his way to tell him about Jesus. He wants us to go out of our way to tell other

01:41:26

Jewish people about Jesus. Praise God. And I don't know if our listeners can tell, but our brother is making it very obvious that he has a passion for the

01:41:34

Jewish people because he could barely make it through that sentence through the tears in his eyes.

01:41:40

And I don't mean to sensationalize the program, but I think it's important that you know that. We have

01:41:47

Aaron in Indianapolis, Indiana, who asked a question. And again, since I've interviewed you so many times and we were talking before the program began,

01:41:56

I don't know if you specifically answered this on the live broadcast yet, but Aaron says, what did

01:42:03

God use specifically to spark your burden to evangelize the Jewish people?

01:42:10

Again, I said earlier that when I retire, I might write a book on those strange and wonderful providences.

01:42:17

But initially, I would say theologically, I had that awareness from reading the

01:42:23

Puritan hope in my seminary days. So I theologically was aware that God was not done with Israel.

01:42:31

And so I believe that in my ministry years, I got the CWI literature, prayed for Jewish mission, and had something of that awareness of what was going on.

01:42:42

But what brought me specifically into CWI was a phone call out of the blue and a ministry crisis,

01:42:51

I might say. Without going into detail, there was a ministry crisis in which

01:42:58

I got the t -shirt, have the scars and took the medication and all other things that many other pastors perhaps might appreciate.

01:43:08

I had a very, very difficult situation. And out of the blue, a phone call came to me and said, we feel that you could be the guy for CWI Ireland and become the rep for CWI Ireland.

01:43:21

And again, not trusting my own judgment, I talked to a few other of my colleagues and friends, and they said, Stephen, we think that'll be a good fit for you.

01:43:28

We think that would be right for you. And I joined CWI with only a little knowledge of Jewish mission, with a theological knowledge, with a theological passion, but only a little knowledge of the on -the -ground work.

01:43:39

And I can tell you year on year on year, I never grow tired of the subject and I never grow tired or less passionate about bringing the gospel to the

01:43:48

Jewish people. And what you've seen, maybe you can't see on radio, but what you've seen is a passion.

01:43:55

And I want to share that with everyone that I meet and make that passion and that burden, indeed, that which was a

01:44:02

Scottish burden, I might say, at the beginning of our ministry, to make that burden contagious.

01:44:08

I would just love more and more people to get involved and get interested in Jewish mission and get interested even in our mission.

01:44:16

This is the most pro -Israel country on the planet, but for a ton of wrong reasons and in a lot of silly directions.

01:44:26

And I want us to get back to the main thing, which is bringing the gospel to Jewish people. I want your listeners,

01:44:33

I want the Christian public to leave behind the silly stuff, and the pun is intended there, to leave behind the silly stuff and get behind gospel mission to the

01:44:45

Jewish people. Murray just wants to clarify exactly where Kinross, Scotland is.

01:44:51

Please do, Murray. Kinross is, and I know I'm going to butcher the pronunciation of this, Kinross is between Dunfermline and Perth, north of Edinburgh.

01:45:04

I got it, yeah. And it's Kinross where the military base is that is further north.

01:45:12

Thank you for the answer. I'm listening to now. Sadly, in 10 years of living in the Kinross area, I haven't met one person who is

01:45:19

Jewish, saved or unsaved. Don't lose your Northern Ireland accent. I've still got my

01:45:25

English one. He is a transplant from England to Scotland. And the church

01:45:30

I was with in London was Cole Abbey, as you've no doubt guessed.

01:45:36

I know Cole Abbey well. Now, why would he be so certain that you've guessed that? Why am I so certain? Because that was the

01:45:42

Free Church of Scotland in London was meeting in Cole Abbey. And in fact, my early prayer meetings with Cambridge Presbyterian Church in 1992 were held in Cole Abbey.

01:45:54

And I then became the, I was the pastor at Cambridge Presbyterian Church in 1992 to 1997, part of the

01:46:01

Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England and Wales. And so I do know Cole Abbey well and have many fond memories there.

01:46:10

Well, praise God. Thank you very much, Murray. I'd like you to basically really make sure, since we have only about 13 minutes,

01:46:17

I want to make sure that you really leave our listeners with some of the information that you intended to give them before we run out of time.

01:46:25

Well, again, back to our website, there are some resources on our website. It's cwina .org.

01:46:31

If you would like to go to our UK and head office website as well, I'll give you that. And that's cwi .org

01:46:39

.uk. And again, there are many more resources there that you can look up.

01:46:44

We'd be very happy to get you on our mailing list. Just email me at cwinamerica at gmail .com.

01:46:52

I'd love to tell you more stories of the various things that we're doing. I'd love to give you our newsletter of the various things that we're doing in various parts of the world.

01:47:01

God is doing amazing things among the Jewish people in these days. It saddens me that the

01:47:07

American church gets distracted in so many silly things. We go off and we are getting interested in blood moons and red heifers and buy a tree for Israel and looking at what's happening in the

01:47:19

Middle East and the geopolitical movements, et cetera, et cetera. What excites me, what thrills me is what

01:47:26

God is doing among the ancient people, both in the land of Israel and here and around the world.

01:47:31

And I want your listeners to hear those stories and to get our literature and get behind us in prayer.

01:47:39

Amen. I have a question that is somewhat controversial and I hope

01:47:44

I don't offend anyone, including you or anyone who is listening who is either

01:47:49

Jewish, a Jewish Christian or not, or those involved in Jewish evangelism.

01:47:56

But do you think that on occasion, certain individuals involved in Jewish evangelism or certain ministries even may go overboard in attempting to exalt the ethnic pride of Jewish individuals?

01:48:15

Where they're really, instead of humbling them and creating by God's grace, using their words, a need for salvation from sin, they're being puffed up about their ethnicity and they're being catered to and almost at times viewed as tokens or people that their

01:48:42

Jewish ethnicity is being so extremely exaggerated or heightened or dominated in the conversations and in the relationships that the gospel somehow disappears.

01:48:56

Now, I'm not even speaking about the extreme version of that with John Hagee, who doesn't even believe that Jews necessarily, or not even necessarily, he doesn't believe

01:49:06

Jews need to believe in Christ to be saved. But I'm talking about people that believe that Jews and everybody else needs

01:49:15

Christ and needs to believe in Christ and his finished work on Calvary to be saved, but yet they really placate to the exaltation of Jewish pride and ethnic pride in individuals.

01:49:28

Is that a danger? I think, again, it goes back to what you were saying earlier. Why did God choose the Jews? Not because they were so wonderful.

01:49:35

His choice of the Jewish people, his choice of the ancient people was pure unmerited grace.

01:49:43

It was his love poured out upon one particular peculiar people of no significance other than he chose them.

01:49:52

So there shouldn't be any reason for pride. We all have a pride in our ethnicity.

01:49:59

I'm Northern Irish. Should I have a pride in my Northern Irishness? Murray, I'm sure. Absolutely not.

01:50:06

I'm sure all of us have a certain pride in our roots, in our ethnicity.

01:50:15

And one of the things that really concerns me is when a person loses a sense of pride in their roots.

01:50:23

It seems I'm living in a country now where people seem to like to hate America or hate our roots or hate the country of origin.

01:50:33

No, we don't do everything wonderfully well, and there's a lot of stuff that we don't like, but it does sadden me whenever there is a hating one's roots or hating one's country or having that kind of flip side of the pride.

01:50:49

No, we mustn't be proud of being American. I know what you mean by that. And there's a sense in which we mustn't have a false sense of pride that we are the greatest country on the planet and we're going to make

01:51:01

America great again, et cetera, et cetera. But what I've seen happen in countries, certainly in the

01:51:06

UK, is a loss of the sense of identity. If we are being put down in case we offend someone, we are not allowed to have that enjoyment of our identity and even a measure of pride in our identity.

01:51:25

Now, I've put a Jewish person into that situation. We read in Hebrews chapter one where the writer is writing to Hebrews and he says, in the past,

01:51:36

God spoke to our forefathers in many times and in many ways.

01:51:42

Now, I'm Scots -Irish, so I can't say that in the past God spoke to my forefathers.

01:51:49

No, my forefathers were pagan darkness. But Jewish people can say, in the past,

01:51:57

God spoke to my forefathers. Would a Jewish person have a pride in that?

01:52:03

You bet, and would have every right to have a sense of the wonder, of the amazing wonder that God spoke to my ethnic forefathers.

01:52:15

But in these latter days, he has spoken to us through his son and we

01:52:21

Gentiles can buy into that and we are brought into the olive tree.

01:52:26

We are unnatural, stuck on stupid branches and we amazingly have been brought, but there are natural branches and there are unnatural branches.

01:52:37

That's not a Jewish person speaking in any pride manner. That's not me speaking in any pride manner for the

01:52:46

Jewish people. The scriptures record natural branches and unnatural branches.

01:52:53

And so God has actually made that distinction and that distinction is a distinction in love and grace, not that we may be puffed up.

01:53:02

It's by grace that you are saved, not of works, lest any man should boast.

01:53:09

So we shouldn't have any pride in God's amazing choice, but God's amazing choice is still

01:53:17

God's amazing choice. And I don't know if that answers your controversial question, but I think there is a sense in which if, now that doesn't mean that I run off and see if I can get my

01:53:29

DNA checked and I would love to have some Jewish blood in me, but no, I'm not going down that route.

01:53:37

I'm a son of Abraham by faith. What more can I have? That thrills me and that will thrill me through all eternity.

01:53:45

And in fact, what you said, believe it or not, has something to do with the conversion of a

01:53:51

Mormon scientist when he realized that the Native American peoples do not share

01:53:59

Semitic DNA, which is a part of the Latter -day

01:54:04

Saint or Mormon fables that the Native Americans were among the lost tribes of Israel.

01:54:12

And when this Mormon scientist discovered that the DNA of Native Americans have no commonality with Semitic people,

01:54:23

God used that to actually bring him out of Mormonism. But one of the things that I asked another

01:54:32

Reformed evangelist involved in Jewish evangelism, he actually himself is a

01:54:39

Jewish believer. He said that he agreed with many of those who are in Messianic ministries that may be more prone towards dispensationalism or other expressions of theology and doctrine, in that he does not believe that it is proper to use the word conversion when evangelizing

01:55:08

Jews. And my way of thinking, conversion is just anyone who is being converted from darkness to light.

01:55:16

They're being transformed from death to life. It is not that they stop being

01:55:21

Jews. I don't mean that when I speak of Jewish conversions. They're still

01:55:27

Jewish, but they have been 180 degree transformed from death to life.

01:55:33

What I would simply say to that is that there's some things that would be normal usage in terms of the words we use sometimes can be offensive to people.

01:55:47

We see that in our society and increasing measure. We've got to be so careful about the phrases we use, the words we use for a certain people group.

01:55:56

You don't call them that, but you call them this, or the names of football teams or something.

01:56:05

The whole way in which we use our words today is under very close scrutiny.

01:56:13

And maybe it's just the PC movement, but there is the desire not to be offensive in the words that we use.

01:56:21

And so we will cut back from maybe words and phrases and terminology that we would have used commonly 20, 30, 40 years ago.

01:56:28

So we're much more cautious and careful. That's like tact, but it doesn't change your reality though, right? Yeah.

01:56:34

I would simply say that with Jewish people, conversion, yes. But for some people, that word brings back unhappy memories of forced conversions of the inquisition.

01:56:49

You kiss this crucifix or this sword will kiss you.

01:56:56

So that was the choice. That was conversion or die. And so in the

01:57:01

Jewish mindset for Christians today to use the word conversion can be problematic.

01:57:09

It can be offensive. It should not be in one sense because it is a biblical word.

01:57:15

And in that sense of the turning from darkness and converting from darkness to light, yes,

01:57:20

I understand that. But there is a sense in which we need to have a sensitivity to the people group that we are reaching.

01:57:28

And that's true in all different kinds of missiology. Well, I just want to thank you again so much for being on our program today.

01:57:36

I am so delighted that the Lord smiled upon us. And although we had a little bit of a technical problem with the audio in the beginning, it was still understandable according to our listeners who have been emailing me.

01:57:49

And then fairly soon on, the audio was crystal clear.

01:57:55

So the majority of the broadcast today was crystal clear in its audio. And I just want to thank

01:58:00

God for preserving our interview today in that manner. And I want to thank all of you who listen, who are so eager to let me know when things are going wrong and to take the time out of your schedules to not only listen but to write questions and so on.

01:58:18

It means more to me than any of you will ever know this side of glory. And I want to thank again

01:58:24

Stephen Atkinson, my dear brother, who I am so grateful to our sovereign

01:58:30

Lord that he ordained our paths to cross and that a friendship is born. And I hope that that friendship continues to strengthen with the coming years and decades until he returns.

01:58:40

And once again, the website for Christian Witness to Israel is CWINA .org.

01:58:47

CWINA .org. If you're in the UK or overseas, you can also go to CWI .org.

01:58:55

CWI .org and - CWI .org .uk. .UK. Okay.

01:59:01

Add the UK to that one. Yeah. And Stephen's email address is CWI the letter

01:59:07

N America at gmail .com. Yes. CWI the letter

01:59:12

N for North America, the full word America at gmail .com.

01:59:18

I want to thank all of you for listening. I want to thank all of you for writing in. I hope you have a safe, blessed, and joyful and God -honoring weekend and Lord's Day.

01:59:28

Don't forget about the Lancaster Regional Bible Conference featuring Dr. R .C.

01:59:33

Sproul and a number of other speakers. And you could call 800 -435 -4343.

01:59:39

800 -435 -4343 to register. Please do it quickly if you intend to go because they're running out of seats.

01:59:46

And please mention Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater