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

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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.

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.

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Obviously, if you feel more comfortable due to the sensitive nature of this

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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.

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.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back after these messages with James Wright.

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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.

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.

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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?

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.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen and.

This is the last half hour of our two -hour interview today with James Wright,

which is a pen name for our guest today, who wrote the book

Martyrs of Malatya, Martyrs for the Messiah in Turkey.

If you'd like to join us on the air with any questions, our email address is chrisarnzen at

gmail .com.

I want to remind you once more about the Fellowship Conference New England in

Portland, Maine.

It's actually being held at the Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine from

tomorrow through Saturday, that's August 4th through the 6th, and the

speakers include my friend Pastor Mack Tomlinson, who is a pastor

at Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

He is being joined by Charles Leiter and Jesse Barrington and Mark

Durham, who will be preaching the Gospel of Grace in a powerful fashion,

and that I'm sure will bless those who are in attendance, and I hope that if you live in Maine or

nearby Maine that you can attend this conference.

Once again, it's from tomorrow through Saturday, August 4th through the 6th in Portland, Maine, and the

website again is fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, and the

phone number is area code 207 -423 -7652, 207 -423

-7652, and I also wanted

to give a prayer request by a listener

in Grass Valley, California.

Dennis in Grass Valley, California, who is

involved in outreach to an orphanage in Nepal, which

is a Hindu kingdom.

He said the police came to the orphanage in Nepal yesterday

and threatened to close the orphanage for teaching the Bible to the children.

They came back a second time and searched the building.

I had advised them to hide all Bibles and Christian literature they had, and so there

was nothing found.

The police have now called them to appear at the police station in

about 12 hours, so please pray.

So we ask of you listening to pray about that situation in Nepal.

Our listener Dennis has requested those prayers for this

orphanage that his church has been involved in, and he is in

Grass Valley, California, and we will definitely pray for

that orphanage there in Nepal, and it goes to prove that there's a myth that Hindus

are very peaceful and tolerant folks.

Now obviously there are many millions of Hindus who are peaceful and tolerant folks, but the

religion is not innately that way, and there are many Christians in Hindu

-dominated countries like India and Nepal who are in

quite a bit of danger if they evangelize aggressively and get converts and so on.

So we thank you Dennis, and we do have a listener in

Monroe, Louisiana, who just wants to offer you encouragement.

He says, I'm listening right now and thankful for your ministry.

We'll continue in prayer for you, and that's Pastor John at Covenant Evangelical Presbyterian

Church in Monroe, Louisiana.

And well, I want to make sure that before the time slips away from us

that you leave our guests, or listeners I should say, with what you most want etched in

their hearts and minds about the story of these three Christian martyrs in Turkey,

and then if we have time we'll.

Move

on to

some

other

listener

questions.

We have

an anonymous

listener

from

Suffolk

County,

New

York.

Who says this question may sound political, but in its root it really is not.

You may be well aware of the fact that the Republican Party candidate for President of the United

States, Donald Trump, says that he will bring about a halt upon

Islamic immigration to the United States, at least for a period of time.

And I was wondering, as a Christian and as one who deals with Muslims in

a Muslim -dominated country, what your opinion is on this kind of tactic?

Do you think that even a Christian who believes in evangelizing Muslims and

loves the Muslims and wants them to become saved, is it still, even

in a day and age of violence, very appropriate and understandable for

Christians to support this kind of action?

Yeah,

that's

a good

question.

It

is

rather

troubling

to

me.

I

have

Christian

minorities

from the numbers of those people being allowed in the country as

refugees of a

Muslim background,.

And I don't quite understand why that would be.

Yeah, that was the complaint against Barack Obama,.

One of

the many complaints.

Yeah.

And by the

way, our anonymous listener

in Suffolk County,.

New York, you are also going to get a free copy of the book Martyrs of

Malatya, Martyrs for the Messiah in Turkey by James Wright.

If you give us your full name and mailing address, and obviously since you remain anonymous, we promise we will not

disclose your name and address on the air, so we just look

forward to getting your email so we can mail this book out to you.

That actually will be mailed out to you by our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service in

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, cvbbs .com.

That's cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs for biblebookservice .com, who are a

sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and we thank them for

their help in this regard.

We have James in

Westchester, New York, who wants to know if you feel truly safe.

In Turkey, or are you always looking behind your back?

Yeah, and I guess

nine months.

And we have Tony in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, I'm

sorry if you've already said this, but I'm tuning in late, why did you choose Turkey as a

place to move and live and.

Evangelize?

An

opportunity

I just haven't yet.

Turkey has many, and

God used all

that to

put us.

There.

And did you already speak the language fluently before going there, or is that something.

That you've

been

learning

as we

speak living

there?

It's really quite...

Now in

regard to.

Media, is there any Christian media that is open and

clearly, you know, visible?

Not something.

That's obviously something

like on

the

internet

that

anybody

can have

access to.

Yeah,

sometimes.

When I listen to Christian radio and watch Christian TV here in the United States,

I sometimes battle with the feeling that I wish it were banned here.

But I know that in addition to that, which is theologically vile, there is

still some Bible -believing, God -honoring, wonderful, powerful evangelists

that are proclaiming God's Word on TV and radio, like John MacArthur and R .C. Sproul

and Alistair Begg and a number of other really faithful, wonderful brothers in

Christ who are not to be counted among the charlatans and the heretics that

seem to dominate the airwaves.

They seem to, unfortunately, have the most money to spend on things like television and

radio time.

But yeah,

there's a

wide...

I mean, is it safe

enough

for there to be, for instance,.

The First Baptist Church of Istanbul, where they have a sign out front and they're actually really open in

the face of the public, where everybody knows that's a Christian church, they worship every Sunday, everybody's invited,

there are calls to repentance, and so on.

So they

have a

full

church.

Now, these

Protestant denominations that are.

Tolerated openly, do they possess the gospel?

Are they faithful to the Word of God?

Or what kind of denominations are they?

The

people I

mentioned,

people's

creed has been

translated,

preaching

the Word of God, faithful preaching,

salvation.

I can't think of any

of them that have a denominational but I'm not

familiar.

So these would not be like puppet churches like existed in the Soviet Union at one time?

No.

No.

Okay.

No, no, not at all.

Now, there was a puppet church.

And if someone wants to

support what you're doing there, since I know you're remaining anonymous, is there any way for

our listeners to contact a certain group or organization

in order to somehow support what you're doing?

I can

say in

Columbia, South

Carolina.

Yes, in fact, it's crossoverusa .org,

crossoverusa .org.

And my good friend, Pastor Ed Moore of North Shore Baptist Church in Bayside,

Queens, graduated a Christian college or

seminary in Columbia and he used to be a youth pastor there

at Three Rivers Baptist Church.

I don't know if that church still exists now, but certainly a

familiar sounding name.

And I'm so glad that you have been able to join us on the air today.

I want to thank all of our listeners who took the time to

write in.

And I'm looking forward to having you back with updates, especially as current events

unfold in Turkey.

And perhaps if you could give our

listeners one more time a list of prayer requests and anything that you want them

to remember before the program comes to a conclusion here.

Yeah, for

me and my

family.

Well, I thank you so much for being on the program, as I said, brother, and please

keep in contact with me.

And I definitely want to have you back.

That's for certain.

And I'm sure we're going to have a lot to discuss.

And I want our listeners to know that this Friday, August 5th,

we have a Mormon convert to Christianity, Lynn K. Wilder.

She is going to be our guest from 4 to 6 p .m., God willing, this Friday to discuss her book, Unveiling

Grace, the story of how we found our way out of the Mormon church, seven reasons

we left Mormonism.

And she is a former Brigham Young University professor.

And she became well known for discussing how she left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints in

the 2011 video documentary, Unveiling Grace.

So we hope that you tune in on Friday.

And next week, we've got a number of interesting guests, including

George Grant, who is a world -renowned Christian author and

Presbyterian pastor.

And I always enjoy having discussions with George.

And he's coming back to Iron Sharpens Iron on Wednesday, August 10th.

And Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio will be on August

15th.

He will be our guest on August 15th to discuss his brand -new book, Hot Off the Press, Stressed Out,

a practical biblical approach to anxiety.

So we're looking forward to that as well.

That's just some of the many guests that we have in the days and weeks ahead on Iron Sharpens Iron.

And don't forget that website for our guest, James Wright, to help the work that

he's doing is crossoverusa .org.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner.

We look forward to hearing from you next time on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.