August 3, 2016 Show with “James Wright” on “Martyrs of Malayta: Martyred for the Messiah in Turkey”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon, Cumberland County,.

Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this third day of August 2016, and we have a very important guest today to discuss a very important subject.

This is a first-time guest here on Iron Sharpens Iron, and his name is James Wright, not to be confused with my good friend who's been interviewed on this broadcast numerous times, Dr. James R. White.

This is James Wright, W-R-I-G-H-T, which is actually a pseudonym or a pen name for reasons we will soon discover. We're going to be discussing his book Martyrs of Malatya, Martyrs for the Messiah in Turkey, and it is my honor and privilege to welcome you for the first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, James Wright.

Background on the Guest and the Martyrs of Malatya

Well, let's get into as much basic background as we can about you. Obviously, you're remaining anonymous and write under a pen name for a reason, but how did you first come to Christ? We'd like to know something about your background, perhaps the country you're from, and how you got interested in the people of Turkey and spreading the gospel to Muslims and those living amidst Muslims in a heavily populated country where Muslims dominate.

And this book is about three men who gave their lives for Jesus Christ on April 18th, 2007, which included two Turkish Christians and one German who were committed to taking the gospel to the country and people God had called them and began their day simply wanting to spend time with local men they thought genuinely wanted to study the Bible.

But instead, five hostile young men met their kindness and hospitality with betrayal and treachery, according to the publisher of this book, Martyrs of Malatya, Martyrs for the Messiah in Turkey. By the way, am I pronouncing.

Malatya correctly? And this may seem like a foolish question to ask somebody who writes on.

A subject such as this, but just so our listeners know specifically why, why did you write under a.

Pseudonym or a pen name? And if you could, I didn't want to even attempt to pronounce the names of the.

Three men who were martyred in Turkey, whose lives and martyrdom you have written about. But if you could tell us about these three men and tell us what led up to their deaths.

Yeah, I don't know if it's still as frightening as it was in the days when Billy Hayes was in.

Prison there for being caught at the airport smuggling hashish. But I remember seeing the movie back in the 70s, I believe it was, Midnight Express, which left a pretty terrifying image in the minds of everybody who saw that movie.

I'm not 100 sure how accurate it was. But as obviously you've written a book about three men being martyred for their faith, so it still must be a fairly frightening place. And although it may be a very beautiful place.

In many ways too. Yeah, and the people that are involved in it told about them that they were smuggling this information in slander. They are trying to write about it was complicated, but I did try to distill it down in this book.

And let me give our email address for those of.

Our listeners who want to join us on the air with a question of their own. It's Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

Obviously, if you feel more comfortable due to the sensitive nature of this program, or even our guest is using a pen name, you may write in anonymously and we will honor your request to remain anonymous.

But if that is not absolutely necessary, we would encourage you to at least give us your first name, city and state and country of residence. Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Let me backtrack a little bit before we get to know those brave Christians who were martyred there in Turkey.

Let me get more of a sense of the theological and religious climate of Turkey. There are all different kinds of levels of Sharia law or Islamic rule in the eastern parts of the world. You have those that are strict fundamentalist Muslims running a very strictly ruled theocracy and would be under Sharia law.

Then you had people who were not Muslim fundamentalists, but who were perhaps equally as brutal to their enemies like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi and others who were not really truly fundamentalist Muslims, but in some ways kept the more strict Muslims at bay from committing further violence.

But if you could.

Tell us something about Turkey. Underneath all of that is the Alevis population. They would be the dissenters. They would be the political opposition. But the current president of Turkey, Erdogan, Tayyip Erdogan, since the coup happened, he's been arresting people.

He won. Interestingly enough, people in Rome are still arriving. I've never read anything about it, but I just wonder if there's some connection between the Turks arriving in 1071, winning the battle of Manzikert.

Leaders change, but you essentially still have a very strong... The funny thing about the Turks are, if I could just add this, Chris, is the Turkish, he's quite an effective evangelist. He's from South America, and he once told me even the Sunni Turks went to the Latin script, he tried to westernize the country.

But even when they had that, find in the Arabic countries where they can actually read the text.

And a lot of Americans would be surprised, were surprised and may still be surprised that the United States' involvement in Iraq actually made Iraq a far less safe place for Christians than it was when Saddam Hussein was in power.

Now, what would your opinion be as to whether or not the coup, or should I say, if the attempted coup was successful in Turkey, would this have been a more problematic situation for Christians, or would it have.

Made life better for them? Even the question, what about the Christians? What about become Christian? Those are always at this point, okay, well, what's going to happen? No one knows. A friend of mine just wrote, well, you don't need to be masses of Turks.

That's interesting. We don't know.

We do have a listener in Kinross, Scotland, Murray, who asks, to those of us in the UK, and I assume the USA, the length of time the trial of those accused of the murder of the three brothers is ridiculous.

Just what likelihood is there that the next proposed hearing scheduled for the 28th of September will actually result in a verdict being arrived at? Is the current instability in Turkey likely to have any effect on the trial?

And I give thanks that despite all this and continued vandalism to the church building in Malatya, the church there continues to grow, but are there any up-to-date needs that you can share with us for prayer?

It struck me as a fact that plays out. And I probably should have waited till later to read.

Murray's question because it involved things that we didn't even discuss yet, but it's difficult for me to read the questions to myself before reading them out loud because obviously I'm conducting an interview at the same time.

Yeah, that's okay. But we do have another listener in Mastic Beach, Long Island, Tyler, who says, what is the greatest threat facing Christians in Turkey? Is there a particular need to pray for in that country?

Yeah, and tying in with the previous, people are serious if they have a heart, lead the congregation in congregational prayer in Turkey to lift up the workers, people who are like, you know, to a place like Iran.

Chris, I don't know how much you've looked into Iran, but there's tremendous growth in Iran these days.

Now, when you speak of the church in Turkey, a lot of people, they will basically use whatever would fall under the umbrella of Christendom as the church. They would include Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and so on.

When you speak of the church in Turkey, what is the percentage of that group in Turkey who are Bible-believing Christians?

Wow. Now, I know that your publisher happens to share my theologically-reformed background. Is that your background as well? I'm kind of, yeah.

Reformed Theology, the Publisher, and the First Break

Right. We're going to a break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. That's 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 USA.

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Return from Break and James White Reference

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned in to Iron Sharpens Iron, our guest today for the full two hours is James Wright, and that is not to be confused with my longtime dear friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, who also has written on the subject of Islam.

He wrote a phenomenal book called What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Quran, and that is available through Bethany House Publishers, a phenomenal book, and he is one of the premier Christians debating Muslim clerics and imams and scholars and apologists all over the world.

In fact, even on occasion inside their own mosques. He debated in a mosque in South Africa. He debated in the largest mosque, or at least I think it may have been the second largest mosque in Europe. I'd have to find out about that.

I got to brush up on my details, but he is a real force to be reckoned with in the apologetic realm with Muslims, and he even has made a number of very close Muslim friends, although they remain obviously very sharply divided on their theology.

But I didn't want our folks to confuse the two names since they're so similar. James Wright, my guest today, is actually writing under a pseudonym or pen name, and the book is Martyrs of Malatya, Martyrs for the Messiah in Turkey.

Our email address if you'd like to join us on the air is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the USA, and you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable.

Before I return to our discussion, I just want to let you know that the Fellowship Conference New England in Portland, Maine starts tomorrow and runs until Saturday, August 6th, and my very dear friend, Pastor Mac Tomlinson of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, is one of the speakers there.

He will be joined by Charles Leiter and Jesse Barrington and Michael Durham, and this is sure to be a time of powerful preaching, gospel-centered, biblically sound preaching, and wonderful fellowship, and I hope that anybody listening in Maine or those near to Maine who are able to get there take advantage of this conference.

And the website for more details is fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, and if you could, I would really appreciate it if you would mention that you heard about the conference on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, since they are a sponsor of ours there, and we also have a phone number for them, 207 -423 -7652.

That's 207 -423 -7652, and that's fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, fellowshipconferencenewengland .com from tomorrow through this Saturday, August 6th, in Portland, Maine. And we do have a listener in New York City, Davey, who wants to know, can you explain briefly what Sharia law means, and is that taking place.

In Turkey? A lot of people are aware to prevail in the court systems.

Well, guess what, Davey, since you are a first-time-ever questioner, I don't know if you're a first-time-ever listener, but since you're a first-time-ever questioner, you're getting a free copy of Martyrs of Malatya, Martyred for the Messiah in Turkey by James Wright.

So thank you so much. By the way, we need your full mailing address now, Davey, so if you'd like to get the book, get that to us as soon as possible. We have another first-time listener, or should I say first-time questioner, Peter in Old Town, Maine.

He says, what is the dramatic impact on small churches since the coup? Press reports crystal-knocked-like reaction with burned churches and storefront churches targeted specifically, for those of our listeners who are unfamiliar with that term, crystal-knocked.

That's when the Nazis in Germany in the earlier part of the 20th century began to smash the store windows of Jewish-owned businesses and began their acts of brutality before the death camps arose and so on.

But if you could answer Peter's question there.

The only report that I... Well, guess what, Peter, you also are going to receive a free.

Copy of Martyrs of Malatya, Martyred for the Messiah in Turkey by our guest James Wright. If you would give us your full mailing address, we'll have that shipped out to you as soon as possible. And by the way, our winners of these books are having them shipped courtesy of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, which is one of the sponsors of Iron Sharpens Iron.

And we thank Todd and Patty Jennings for their graciousness to always ship out our winners' books at no charge to Iron Sharpens Iron. So we thank them and we ask of you to keep your eye out for these books.

And of course, Peter will need your full mailing address to get that book out to you. Now, how did you begin to really develop the depth of knowledge that you had in regard to Islam, that you have in regard to Islam?

And did you have it before going to Turkey, or was this something that you had already pretty much become very familiar with before.

Leaving the United States? You could mention right now if you like. Okay. It's a novel and anything quite like this, I think. It's a novel formed through narratives. So I've had to learn a lot about it.

Well, that sounds great. And perhaps we could have you back to discuss those books. So let's now get to know more about those brave young men who were martyred there that your book is really about, Martyrs of Malatya, Martyrs for the Messiah in Turkey.

The Lives and Witness of the Three Martyrs

Yep. As I said, I can't pronounce their names. So you're going to have to, I'm going to have to rely upon you to do that.

Turkish guys, Nejati Aydin is his name, Nejati Aydin. Nejati apparently commute every day to a woman on that regular bus commute. And then he began to learn more and more about Christianity. They would meet for tea sometimes after they got off the bus.

Testament in Turkish. Well, the police followed him one day and took him and his partner and arrested them on different occasions. And then they began to pray for them. They were released. Oh yeah, definitely.

Southeastern Turkey. Alevis tend to be Alevi Muslim, very materialistic. And you know what I mean? And a lot of Alevis are like that, but though he kind of worked this into your theology, I'll leave that up to, he had some kind of an impression.

Sometimes it's a dream that Muslims will report where they see a vision of Jesus or a dream of Jesus, something to this effect. And it just always stuck with him. He would tell us, they thought it was silly, you know, because they didn't even believe in God, much less anything like a heavenly father.

And that's not a concept in Islam too. If you know Islam, they utterly reject concept ideas. And this professor a little bit, you know, you ought to read from the Bible correspondence course in Turkey.

Praise God. Nejati is the team leader. He was very quiet, kind of a thoughtful, philosophical, same way, very quiet, very thoughtful. Praise God. It's interesting. You brought up something.

That a lot of people, perhaps even a lot of Muslims are unaware of. My friend, David Wood, I don't know if you're familiar with David, but he is a Christian apologist who writes a lot in internet blogs about Islam and also debates Muslims, hosts a program called Jesus or Muhammad on the Trinity Channel.

And the Trinity Channel is, I don't know if you're familiar with that, but it's primarily Arabic Americans who are Christians who have left different countries within the Middle East and have come here to the United States.

And the Trinity Channel seems to be focused primarily on evangelizing Muslims with the gospel. Yeah. And David had taught me during one of his conferences that I invited him to speak at that a lot has changed in Islamic history in regard to their concept of the Bible.

This idea that the Bible is corrupted is a relatively or comparatively new concept that in its origins, Muhammad and the earliest Muslims believed that the Bible was from God and nothing from Allah could be corrupted.

But then when Muslims started to actually read the Bible and people became more sophisticated in apologetics and theology, they realized, wait a minute, we can't say this is from God. So they had to come up with the idea that it's been corrupted, even though an actual tenant of Islam, and I couldn't quote you the Surah or anything like that.

I know David would instantly if he was here. Yeah. But he said that Islam did teach for quite a large portion of its history that the Bible could not be corrupted.

Yeah, I think yet another book. And it's interesting you brought up the vision.

That seems to be quite a common experience when Muslims come to faith in Christ. I actually called in to the Trinity Channel during a live broadcast and the host of the particular show I called in was, just as I am, a Reformed Baptist.

He is not a charismatic or a Pentecostal. He does not believe that the sign gifts continue today. But he did say that he thought that there was something unique about these visions or dreams that Muslims have because he said that they are typically one-time events.

They do not follow the Muslim after his conversion throughout his Christian walk. It's just like an initial experience that gets them to read the Scriptures or something. So he viewed it in a different way than a charismatic or Pentecostal might view.

Visions and extra-biblical revelation and so on. We have to go to another break right now,.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. And by the way, Peter in Old Town, Maine, we're still waiting for your mailing address so we can mail you a copy of the book.

And don't go away, we're going to be right back with James Wright and our discussion of martyrs of Malatya, martyred for the Messiah in Turkey. Don't go away, we'll be right back with these messages. An additional 9 ,000 come annually to Harvey Cedars as families, couples, singles, men, women, pastors, seniors, and missionaries.

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Return from Break and More on the Martyrs, Islam, and Turkey

Welcome back. This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today, writing under a pseudonym or a pen name, is James Wright, W-R-I-G-H-T, not to be confused with Dr. James R. White. The book is titled Martyrs of Malatya, Martyred for the Messiah and Turkey.

And if you'd like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com. And also don't forget about the Fellowship Conference, New England and Portland, Maine, that is being held tomorrow through Saturday, August 4th through the 6th.

And the website for that conference is fellowshipconferencenewengland .com. That's fellowshipconferencenewengland .com. And the phone number is 207 -423 -7652, 207 -423 -7652. And please, if you register to attend the conference, tell them that you heard about it through Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

We are discussing the lives and martyrdom of the three very brave Christians in Turkey who lost their lives for the cause of the gospel. And tell our listeners something about how the family of these martyrs have reacted and have.

Been able to cope with this horrific nightmare. One of the few Christians, rather radical for Muslims because of a family, a Christian family way out on the Black Sea and their daughter was studying at a Turkish public school.

And when this happened, the teacher came in and held up the news to the class, the Turkish class, Turkish teacher, Turkish desk. Can you believe this, this murdered in Malatya? And we don't do that side where persecution continued.

People, people, I had another friend that said he was sitting in a hotel when this was on the news. She forgives and all that. It's all a show. Turkey has very low level of trust. They didn't give up.

They didn't leave. They didn't leave. Nejati's wife and two children, they left. There were some concerns there about. And has there been any sympathetic response from Muslims that you're.

Aware of who would not agree with these murders in spite of perhaps their strong Islamic faith?

These people, I think a Muslim from Germany came down and Sunni side to her expressions. And I would say in Turkey, a good, even, even among the Sunni background where people are.

And do you know of any converts to Christ that have come about as a result of hearing about the lives of these young men and the forgiveness offered by the families?

Yeah. I don't remember the specific details, but I think a man even came maybe to a funeral or because of these guys,. I've 19.

And we, this is one thing that there seems to be a lot of disagreement on in amongst not only the population here in America and I'm sure other parts of the world, but even in the body of Christ and even among those who have studied Islam and are involved in the apologetics realm.

There are some who say that consistent, genuine Quranic Islam Muslims who are not only faithful to the Quran, but the, to the Hadith, they would have to be, if they are logically consistent, those who live out these acts of violence that we see these acts of terror, these acts of horrific brutality and murder and so on.

And there are others who would say, no, this is only the interpretation of Islam by some of the more extreme individuals in the fundamentalist sects that, and some would even say that especially the acts of terrorism, which are done vigilante style are not in keeping with Quranic Islam historically based on the Hadith and so on and the life of Muhammad and the early Muslims.

What do you have to say about that issue?

Well, maybe a new view I have is preaching. I think he was again, and a lot of Muslims in the world, that's what then I characterize as well today, these two monotheism and you have, and they're going to fall on one side of that fence.

Every Muslim is going to fall. Whatever reasons they have to fall on the first side, the moralistic monotheism, whatever reasons they have, they could have any number of reasons and they may have very different reasons from one another, but that's where they wind up at.

The second side is a militaristic monotheism and they may get there with a different Islamic leader, but that's where they end up at. And have you developed friendships with those who are and continue to be Muslim?

Yeah. And of course the existence of Takiyah, where they are told.

That they can legitimately lie and they're not violating any kind of teaching of Allah in doing.

So, that further complicates the issue, further increases paranoia amongst non-Muslims. Yeah,.

Even we who are Calvinists or those who believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace or reform theology, if we are interpreting those precious truths the way that they have historically been held by the great heroes of the reform faith, we will diligently and passionately and tirelessly evangelize all those we come into contact with because we do not know who the elect are.

The elect come from the most pious of preachers and also the most perverse of prostitutes and everywhere in between. And I believe Spurgeon said that even if the elect had a yellow stripe running up their back, he would still preach to everyone that he met regardless of whether or not they had a stripe or not.

I may have mixed up the analogy there, but that was the basic idea of Spurgeon's comment. And well, that is a very tiny percentage there of those who profess to be Christ, but the Lord has historically brought about great revivals in place where the percentage of believers was equally as small, if not even a smaller remnant.

Well, it's a unique event.

Right. Some of our listeners might be confused by your describing Islam as a Christian heresy. I guess we should explain that the Muslims have a very high view of someone named Jesus Christ in their theology.

It is not the biblical Christ. It is not God. It is not the second person of the Trinity, which they would view to be shirk, the most wicked of all sins, and a sin that cannot be forgiven. But they believe that Jesus was a prophet.

And the thing that is very baffling about the religion is that they believe Muhammad to be the greater prophet, and yet Jesus has more phenomenal attributes than Muhammad. They even believe he was born of a virgin.

They believe Jesus was sinless. They believe Jesus performed miracles. And they believe that Jesus is returning. And none of those things are attributed to Muhammad, who they believe is a greater prophet.

So that's kind of interesting.

Yeah. And Christian slaves in the Ottoman Empire, not to lose their faith. He said, when you get into the Ottoman Empire and you see the wealth, you see the opulence, you see the need to hold on to your faith.

It didn't happen. They didn't overrun Germany. There were Eastern European Christian people that were taken into slavery in the Ottoman Empire, but not the numbers he thought. But he actually had some interesting...

And he actually said that he thought the Holy Spirit left little clues or little hints of the truth in the Qur 'an, so that if someone were to really read the Qur 'an and the Holy Spirit were to work on that person, that that would be used to lead that person to find out more in the New Testament and the Old Testament.

And that's what he saw years ago before some people have suggested that. I went out what you just said, and that is, and since Muslims, you have certain things in the Qur 'an that are true. It is known that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary.

That's true. That's in the Qur 'an. Get them into the New Testament. Like I said about Ur, for example, he read the New Testament four or five, three or four times in one week. And that was...

We have Sam in Chicago, Illinois, who wants to know, are you intending to remain in Turkey as your permanent home, or are you just visiting there as a journalist.

Or missionary? That's been our home for many... How many years has it been again? Wow, that's.

Something. Well, I know that I happen to have fallen in love with Turkish cuisine. There's a restaurant right up the block that I live on, the same block, the north side of the block that I live on here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, called Andalusia, and it is both Moroccan and Turkish cuisine that they have there.

And it's really delicious stuff.

There's lots to love. Now, can you live very openly about your Christian faith,.

Or is this something that has to be in some measure underground, or how is that working out?

Living as a Christian in Turkey

Well, we're going to our final break right now, and this will be your last opportunity to write.

In with a question if you'd like to ask a question of our guest, James Wright, which, as I've been repeating, is a pen name. It is not his actual name. And he is the author of Martyrs of Malatya, Martyrs for the Messiah in Turkey.

And our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please include your first name, city and state, and country of residence, but if you prefer to remain anonymous, we will honor your request.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with James Wright and our discussion on Martyrs of Malatya. Hi, I'm Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a Christian perspective.

Try World at no charge for 90 days and get a free copy of R .C. Sproul's book Relationship Between Church and State. I rely on World because I trust the reporting, I gain insight from the analysis, and World provides clarity to the news stories that really matter.

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