Focusing on the first chapter of the book of Acts. The church, the body of Christ was transferred from his physical body and the church was transferred to us and we become the church. In this teaching we will discuss the betrayal of Judas. Many of us have our own theory of Judas, maybe when we were younger we formed this opinion based on a lot of the artistic renderings of him with the scowl and so forth.

However, maybe Judas was the politician of the group, pretty savvy, pretty smart. Probably better educated than the rest of the group. After all, he was in charge of the money for the group. He was a fairly popular and charismatic member of the group.

There are several theories of why Judas did this.  As we grew up we basically thought he was just the bad apple of the bunch but at the same time we have probably realized he did not do anything worse than things we have done in our lives. Did Judas see all this coming and turn states evidence? Did he see all this coming and jump to the other side real quick and maybe they would take it easier on him.  Did he do it for the money? Probably not, 30 pieces of silver wouldn’t have gone very far, I am sure he had access to the whole treasury and that had a 100x more in it.

Did he feel like he had a hatred for Jesus and Jesus could read his mind and he was somehow an evil person? We like to point our finger at the other guy and say at least I dont do that.. But the thumb is pointing back to us as a reminder.

Maybe the betrayal of Jesus was done because it was Judas’ own way of bringing this whole thing to a head.  He honestly thought Jesus was the Messiah and he was going to an earthly ruler and he was going to help make it happen.  He was going to jump ahead of God and instead of getting involved in what God was doing, he was going to ask God to get involved in what he was doing.  He was going to go out first and get his blessing later.  This is our best guess as to what happened.

Don't  you think that at the last supper when Jesus says, go ahead and do what you must do Judas took that as confirmation that he knew what he needed to do. The fact is that he did indeed betray Jesus and he immediately felt a horrible sorrow when Jesus did not become the earthly king and therefore he hung himself.  

But now that leave 11, not 12 and they had to find a suitable replacement.  We know him to be Mathias.

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If the religious leaders of the church thought they had an issue with Jesus when he was alive, well boy they have a bigger issue now! It’s kind of like one of those sci-fi movies when you chop the little monster in half and it basically multiplies and creates two more little monsters. That is exactly what is happening.  All of the sudden, Jesus is no longer here physically, but he has multiplied in the believers.

Now there are 300, 600, 1000, 2000, 10000 and this thing is completely out of control.  And that is what the book of Acts explains, it explains how this all happened.  It was not by chance or circumstance it was absolutely planned.  This is what Jesus referred to when Jesus said to the disciples that it was necessary that I go, but you will not be alone. You are going to have me with you, in a slightly different form.

This is another personal sermon. Jesus was not just talking to the disciples, he was talking to us.  The reality of Christ living in us is exactly what Pastor Harris’s teachings are all about. He always teaches relationship, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and how it manifests itself.  In this teaching Pastor Harris will teach on the events that happen on the Mount of Olives as Christ left after 40 days.  We call it the ascension, because that is exactly what he did, if you recall as soon as he ascended the disciples and believers are standing around and looking up and suddenly there are two more of them.  These two guys are all dressed in white and they are obviously angelic beings of some kind and they are saying men of Galilee, why are you looking up into heaven, the same Jesus you just saw go up will come again in the same manner.  That is obviously our hope and we know that to be true.

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At Easter we celebrate the resurrection of Christ, the week preceding that we typically focus on the events leading up to the cross. That was the culmination of the perfect life of Jesus which was sacrificed for all of us. Now in this series we will focus on the other side of the story.  If you can imagine, just for a moment, it is AD 31, 32, maybe and we are believers, maybe we are one of the 11 disciples that remain, perhaps we are one of the several hundred believers, or maybe we are one of the several thousand people that actually saw Jesus when he was living and he performed a miracle in front of our face and we believed he was something special, maybe we didn't know quite what it was but we experienced it.  We are in Galilee and we hear that he’s dead.  There is no instant communication, so maybe it's been a week or two. Maybe it's a rumor, we just aren’t quite sure, we are devastated and we don't know what to think.

The disciples were in disarray, we know they were at least until resurrection day.  The several hundred believers were probably despondent at the news. It seemed like to us, to the believers, that the vail that had fallen as Christ was dying was still there. The sun was up but the vale was still there. We didn't know what we were going to do.

Suddenly the Church emerges.  In this series, we are going to study how this happened. Our reference will be the first chapter in Acts which many of us are familiar with. However, as Pastor Harris always does, he will give us the details and insights that will make it come alive.

We know that Acts was written by Luke.  Luke, as Pastor Harris will point out, Luke wrote more of the New Testament than any other person.  We think of Paul as the primary author of the New Testament but Luke was very instrumental in the writing of our gospel. Luke was not one of our 12 disciples, sometimes you will ask people, “who are the 12 disciples?” and they will throw Luke in there, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and you know… but nope, he was not a disciple.  

Luke was from the area above what is now known as Greece called Macedonia. He encountered Paul on one of his missionary journeys and became a believer through Paul and apparently Luke and Paul became very close.  From there Luke will take on the role of early church historian. By profession Luke was a physician, he was a learned man far more educated than most of the disciples.  Maybe not as educated as Paul, but close. So here you have these two deep thinkers together and they begin to share with us the history of the church.  We invite you to follow along as Pastor Harris tells us the details of the birth of our faith in this series titled, “The Birth of the Church”.  So let’s kick it off  with the first teaching in this series titled, “The Acts of the Holy Spirit”.

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It is truly hard to believe that we are approaching the 30th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. As many of you are well aware at this point, Pastor Harris, was the pastor of First United Methodist Church, which is situated directly east of the OKC bombing site.  Pastor Harris was at the church that day, and we have shared his story both in audio podcast as well as video on our YouTube channel.  However, in this episode we will hear from Kris Skinner, a cherished family friend and a former employee of First Church that was there meeting with Pastor Harris at the moment the bomb went off on that day that for many has been frozen in time.

As a reminder, we have published several OKC Bombing related episodes over the life of this podcast. Four that I will mention specifically. There is episode 50 which features the sermon Pastor Harris delivered April 16th 1995, just three days before the bombing, this would be the last sermon that would be delivered in that 100 year old sanctuary. In episode 51 we hear from Pastor Harris as he tells his story of the day of the bombing. In episode 52 we feature an interview we had with OKC Bombing Survivor, Arlene Blanchard who was in the Murrah Building when the bomb went off. Arlene had attended “Loves & Fishes”, a lunch Bible Study that First Church facilitated and Pastor Harris taught for many years. In this discussion with Arlene, she reveals one word that Pastor Harris taught on that gave her the strength to persevere. And finally, in episode #100 we feature the story of a surprise concert that Rich Mullins himself gifted the people of First United Methodist Church.

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In the first three episodes of this series, Pastor Harris touched on one key topic in each teaching. In episode one, “The Performance Snare”, Pastor Harris discussed the topic of Justification and that we are completely forgiven and have become fully pleasing to God.  We no longer have to fear failure.  In the second episode, “Approval Addiction”, Pastor Harris touched on the topic of Reconciliation and that we are totally accepted by God and we no longer have to fear rejection. In the third episode, “The Blame Game”, Pastor Harris delivered a message of Propitiation and that we know we are deeply loved by God and no longer have to fear punishment nor do we have to punish others.

Jericho was in the Roman province of Judea, the very wealthy lived here including King Herrod and he stayed there five months out of the year so it had to be pretty nice. In and around Jericho there were other palaces as well. The reason it was so popular had to do with the weather and its geographical location. It’s situated some 833 feet below sea level in what is now known as the Jordan River Valley. It’s the site of the world's largest oasis supported by the world's largest natural spring. 

In addition, its climate is ideal, it is virtually summer time all year round. Date palms can be found everywhere and citrus fruits of all varieties abound. The fences and the trellises are covered by flowers. The city was and is a tropical paradise. This is true even today, and was also true in the time of Jesus.  Even the great Egyptian Queen Cleopatra vacationed there in the winter. 

However, not only was Jericho very beautiful, it was also very prosperous. Some of this had to do with the tourism the city had attracted. Yet that was only a small part of it.  The vast majority of its wealth had to do with a great highway that passed through the city. The great trading caravans of antiquity made their journey there from India and Arabia. Crossing into the lands of Judea at the forge of the Jordan River located three miles east of Jericho.  

Here in this city, the great caravans would stop and resupply and remit their border tolls making it the tax center of Judea. The tax collectors and publicans of Jericho were very wealthy but paid a huge price for their wealth.. They were hated by everyone in their country and they should have been hated.  For the most part they were all dishonest and crooked, it is not hard to imagine that these tax collectors had a real image problem.  Many of them wanted to change but they had believed the fourth great lie that Pastor Harris will talk about in this episode, and that is this, “I am what I am and I cannot change.”

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In the first two episodes of this series, Pastor Harris touched on one key topic in each teaching. In episode one, “The Performance Snare”, Pastor Harris discussed the topic of Justification and that we are completely forgiven and have become fully pleasing to God.  We no longer have to fear failure.  In the second episode, “Approval Addiction”, Pastor Harris touched on the topic of Reconciliation and that we are totally accepted by God and we no longer have to fear rejection.

In this episode Pastor Harris will walk us through the third or four lies that Satan tells us. This third lie can even be seen as a game we play.  Pastor Harris refers to this as “The Blame Game”. When playing this Blame Game we may tell ourselves lies like this, “I am not responsible for what I do, someone else is.”  Has anyone out there listening ever played this game?  Hopefully Pastor Harris’s insights can shed some light on this game we play and how we might win, lose or simply choose not to play as we all work to move forward.

Now before we kick off this teaching, I wanted to give those listening a heads up that about 12 minutes into this original recording, something altered the recording speeds which in-turn altered Pastor Harris’ voice a touch.  Fear not, it's not your device, the issue has to do with the original recording from 10 years ago. It’s a small issue but we can’t let these small issues get in the way of publishing these important teachings.

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Last week Pastor Harris started a series of sermons in which he will examine four of the major lies that Satan uses to destroy the lives of far too many people.  We looked at the first of these lies in the last episode which is this, “I must meet certain standards of behavior so I can feel good about myself.”  

In this episode, Pastor Harris will deal with the next lie which is this, “I must be approved by certain others to feel good about myself.”  This leads to a condition Pastor Harris refers to as Approval Addiction.  This condition is totally linked to the fear of rejection that is one of our deepest human fears. We do not want to feel rejected.  We seek approval from others and we do this because we are biologically wired with a longing to belong.  We fear being cut off, demeaned or isolated. In other words we fear being alone and above all else we dread change.  

The greater this fear becomes the more we experience a need for acceptance and it really can become an addiction. Our problem relates to the fact that we often seek approval from the wrong source. Those sources are often those around us, they can often ignore or reject us. So rather than turn to them, we should really be turning to someone who can love us unconditionally and that someone, as we all know, is our God.  

Right now because of the condition of sin, a state in which we are born, we find ourselves alienated from God, the only one who really counts in our lives.  And that is why we have such an oppressive fear of not belonging. That problem is sin, we begin to overcome these fears when we realize that we need God more than we need other people. When we call upon him he will never reject us and he will never forsake us.  In theological terms we call this process reconciliation.  And that will be Pastor Harris's remedy to Approval Addition that he will be teaching today.

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To say 2025 hasn't kick off how I had hoped would be an understatement. No, I am not talking about politics or anything like that, who knows, maybe it is the tribulation Pastor Harris mentions in this teaching that is needed, time will tell. But spoiler alert… here shortly you will here Pastor Harris mention how tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and amazingly enough, character produces hope. All the sudden, I am starting to think that maybe a little tribulation is just what I needed to kick off 2025.  Who is going to turn down a little hope?  Better yet, a lot of hope!  

I feel like I say it all the time in these intros, I continue to be fascinated how these teachings remain so relevant. Once again, Pastor Harris's teaching in this episode really hit me right where and when it needed to.  As dad used to say, “He read my mail.”  Well my mail really got read here.  I sure hope this teaching hits those of you listening right when it needs to just like it did me, and it is my family's prayer that it continues to do so for years to come!

I am excited about this brief little series.  Although little and brief, I know it's going to pack quite a punch.  I believe it can be life changing for those that need it. In this episode we kick off a four part series where in each teaching Pastor Harris will share one of four lies that Satan sews in our lives. I can relate to all of these and I am sure many of you will as well.

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In II Corinth 2:14 there is a verse that speaks directly to our Pastor’s present series of sermons. It reads as follows:

“Thanks be to God who in Christ always leads us in triumph and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere.”

These words sum up what the Christian life is all about. The apostle Paul wrote these words, after a terrible experience in which he had been abused so badly that he feared for his life. Yet, out of that, he writes that victory is the normal condition in the lives of believers.

In this series of sermons, our Pastor has attempted to show us that true Christians will experience trouble from time to time but God's will for us is this: that we walk in victory. And that is the great truth the book of Esther shares with us.

It is the marvelous story of how God delivers His people. We have seen how Haman plotted the destruction of the people of God by convincing Ahasuerus, the Emperor of Persia, to issue an edict to annihilate all Jews in the Empire. 

We have seen how Mordecai moved to prevent this by convincing Esther to inform Ahasuerus of what was happening. When this plot was exposed, the Emperor hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. 

Then, last episode we saw a new edict being issued, one that permitted the Jews to defend themselves when the enemy came against them. As our Pastor demonstrated, this provides a beautiful picture of Romans 7 in the New Testament, known as the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which sets us free from the law of sin and death.

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As we saw last Sunday, the cry of Esther as she appeared before the Emperor for the second time was similar to the cry of the apostle Paul in Romans 7. "Oh, wretched man that I am…” She cried, “Oh wretched woman that I am.” Then she added something like this: “Who will deliver me and my people from this law of sin and death that has been uttered in the Emperor's name and cannot be revoked?"

But the king was helpless! He could only reply to her request by saying, "I can do nothing. The matter is in your hands and Mordecai's. What has been written by the king's hand and sealed by the king's seal cannot be revoked." 

We saw something similar last week in Galatians 6:8. It reads as follows:

"He that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption…"  

This is an inevitable and irrevocable law. We saw that there is no way to escape the results of decisions made under the rule of self. They bear unavoidable consequences. Paul writes this in Galatians 6:7:

"Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth he shall also reap. If you sow to the flesh, you shall of the flesh reap corruption.” 

We all know the tragic harvest of it in terms of habits that cannot be broken and circumstances that cannot be avoided. So, what can be done? Our Pastor will provide the answer in today’s sermon. It requires a new law one that supersedes the old law.

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We have traced the events which have led up to a climactic point for Emperor Ahasuerus, Queen Esther, Mordecai, and Haman to the point where the Emperor's eyes had at last been opened. He could now clearly see the true nature of Haman, and the deception which he sought to perpetrate. The king knew that his enemy was the person he once thought to be his closest friend. 

Of course, Ahasuerus struggled mightily with what he should do, but he eventually decided to treat Haman exactly as he deserved to be treated. He decided to hang Haman upon the very stake that Haman had erected for Mordecai earlier.

Recognizing the true nature of Haman was the first step of the Emperor in freeing his Empire from the very thing that threatened its ultimate destruction. As Pastor will point out this morning, this has always been the first step in achieving victory our Haman; our fleshly natures. It begins at the moment we stop justifying and excusing our faults and failures; the moment we stop shutting my eyes to these faults and failures; the moment we stop passing our faults and failures off as being something else, and resolve to hang them on the tree where God put all of our sins, past, present, and future when Jesus Christ died. 

That is the beginning of living in victory in all our lives. This will be our Pastor’s theme for today. We will examine Esther 8, where we will trace the steps that follow any decision we make to crucify our flesh. The sermon will open by reviewing the transfer of power when Haman was crucified, and the new authority structure that would be put in place.

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We humans frequently manifest a strange urge for timelessness; we possess an instinctive need to be remembered after we are gone. The idea that we will be forgotten is a pain we can hardly sustain. 

Yet, in all of human history there has been only one truly timeless, eternal event; it was the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross of Jesus Christ marks the hinge moment in human history and it passes judgment on every human life.

This event not only occurred in time and space some nineteen hundred years ago, but it is something which also takes place every day in each and every Christian's life. In fact, it must take place on a daily basis in every Christian's life, perhaps many times a day. 

This timeless event becomes part of our experience when we reenact it in our own lives. This is why the cross of Jesus Christ, with all its possibilities of salvation and deliverance, can be an utterly useless thing if it finds no translation into our own personal experiences. When we believe and act (that is what belief is, acting on the principles set forth in that cross), then it comes to be true in our life experiences. 

This is what we have in Esther 7. This material provides a picture of the only way Christians can find real victory over the subtle, crafty, self-loving, self-pleasing, self-pitying, self-defending, self-asserting urges that arise within us.

This daily manifestation is what is portrayed for us in this seventh chapter of Esther, as our Pastor continues his present series. The sermon is entitled Haman’s Last Supper.

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The book of Esther is known as one of two books in the Bible that does not contain the name of God. It seems strange that a biblical book should never mention God; so what is the book about? Well as we have seen, it is really a story of palace intrigue in the ancient empire of Persia, an historical incident taken out of the very distant past.  But we should not look for direct teaching from this book, but indirect teaching. 

The fact is this: the material in this book is true, yet allegorical in nature. God is everywhere in this book, but not directly. In other words, the book is parabolic, an allegory about your life and mine. In each of our lives the story of Esther is being acted out. This is what makes it so fascinating, so interesting.

As our Pastor has attempted to demonstrate, this story is the revelation of the terrible possibility of our being Christians and yet wasting our lives. It is the story of an empire which was almost wrecked by pride without realizing the true cause. It is the story of the danger implicit in intending to do right, and of desiring to do right, and of believing we are doing right, but ending up realizing that we have been terribly and tragically wrong. As Pastor continues this series of sermons, he will help us recognize the various characters depicted in Esther in our own lives.

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The story of Esther is a story of the Emperor of ancient Persia, who married a beautiful Jewish girl named Esther who had been raised by her cousin, Mordecai. The latter two persons were captives, taken from the city of Jerusalem and brought over into the kingdom of Persia.

In the court of this Emperor was a very slimy character named Haman who became the Prime Minister of the kingdom. As time passed, antagonism had developed between Haman and Mordecai. Haman, wanting to rid the empire of Mordecai, created a fiendish plan to destroy all the Jews in the kingdom. What he did not know was this: Esther, the queen, was a Jewess. 

Mordecai became aware of the plot and prevailed upon Queen Esther to brave the disfavor of the king by going to him without invitation, to plead the cause of her people.

The whole story becomes of fascinating interest and meaning to us when we discover that this is not merely a story of the ancient past, but is also a divinely inspired, magnificently accurate portrayal of what is going on in each of our lives at this very moment. 

Each of us is a king over a kingdom; the kingdom is each of our lives. The spirit persons of each of us who have been born again have been made alive in Jesus Christ. This is the queen that has come into your life. 

Mordecai, in this story, is a figure of the Holy Spirit moving to preserve the fruit of the Spirit in our kingdom. And slyly at work in us is Haman -- that which the Bible calls the flesh, the SARX, tricking us into believing that the only way we will ever get what we want is by choosing our own way and ignoring the life of Jesus Christ within us. This will be our Pastor’s sermon for today.

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At his current place in the=is series of sermons from the story of Esther, our pastor has now introduced to us an Emperor called Ahasuerus. He was the grandfather of Cyrus the Great. This Emperor had married a young Jewish girl named Esther, a captive taken from the city of Jerusalem, years earlier. Her cousin Mordechai later became a judge in the city of Susa the capital city of the Persian Empire.

In the court of the king was an oily character whose name was Haman who managed to pull the wool over the King’s eyes and deceived him into signing a decree to destroy all the Jews in his kingdom. The Jewish people are called “the people of Mordechai.”

We should be aware that the book of Esther is true history. It can be confirmed by the Jewish celebration called “the Feast of Purim, named for the casting of the PUR, which our Pastor described last week. It was cast before Haman to fix the day upon which the Jews would be exterminated. This feast is still celebrated today some twenty-five hundred years after these events.

However, the startling thing we learn is this: the events in Esther also a glimpse into our own hearts. Each of us has a king dwelling in the capital city, the capital city being our bodies, and reigning over an Empire which touches everyone we know. If we are a believing Christians, at the moment we were born again we gained a queen---a spirit made alive in Jesus Christ to serve as a place of communion between the Holy Spirit who dwells in your hearts, and ourselves.

As pastor will demonstrate this morning, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is symbolized in the story in the person of Mordechai.

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In this series of sermons, our Pastor has introduced us to four characters that play a role in the book of Esther. The first was Emperor Ahasuerus of Persia. He was a young man of about eighteen years of age when the events recorded in the book of Esther begin.

The second was the Queen of Persia, a woman named Vashti. The Emperor deposed her and for the next three years he lived without a queen. But, when the Emperor was twenty-one, he married our third character, a young Jewess by the name of Esther. The fourth character, the one we introduce today, her cousin, Mordecai, was a judge in the city of Susa, the capital of Persia. 

In the course of his duties, Mordecai uncovered a plot against the king's life. The culprit is the fifth character in our drama, a villain named Haman. He represents our spiritual enemy Satan, as we shall see. 

This is more than a story from the long forgotten past! It is the story of each of our lives. The Emperor represents each one of us. Like him, each of us have great influence in the empires we rule, our lives. We are the emperors of our kingdoms, which means we, too, have found a new queen. This happened when our spirit person was made alive in Jesus Christ.

We now have the influence of the Holy Spirit, the heavenly Mordecai, working in us. But today, Pastor will point to the fact that like Haman, our spiritual enemy, Satan, has launched a plot against each of our lives. You will see today how the story of Esther retraces our spiritual journeys.

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Last week, our Pastor began a new series of sermons taken from the book of Esther. In his introductory sermon, he introduced us to three persons, the first being the emperor of Persia, AHASUERUS. Our Pastor suggested that this man represents each one of us. He also introduced two women, a pair of queens, named VASHTI and Esther. Pastor suggested that VASHTI represents our spirit person when it is dormant; dead in trespass and in sin. AHASUERUS and VASHTI had no relationship; they were dead to one another.

This lack of relationship left the Emperor empty and alone. But the day would come when he would meet a Jewish girl named Esther. Last week, Pastor also suggested that Esther represented our regenerated spirit persons. The meaning of this will be seen in the sermon for this morning as he introduces us to this young Jewish girl.

Pastor will also introduce us to a fourth person. He, too, will have a crucial role to play. His name is Mordechai and he is the cousin of Esther. He is described as being the son of Jair, of the Hebrew tribe of Benjamin. Finis Dake, in his famous Dake’s Study Bible, interprets Esther 2:5–6 as follows:

"Mordecai son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, who had been carried into exile from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, among those taken captive with Jeconiah king of Judah.” 

This means that Mordecai himself was exiled by Nebuchadnezzar meaning that he was quite aged. We do know this; according to Esther 2:7, he adopted the young girl Esther when she was orphaned at a young age, and brought up as if she were his own daughter. It is on this young girl, Esther, and this elderly man, Mordechai, that Pastor will focus on in this message.

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We are beginning the book of Esther, which may be the most neglected book in the entire Bible. You see, very few people have ever attempted a sermon series on it or even a few single sermons from this book because the truth is very few people even read this book as  devotional material.

Perhaps this is because this book is different than anything found in the New Testament. In fact, it’s much different from what is found in the remainder of the Old Testament. That’s why people tend to be a bit mystified by it. Then there’s the fact that it’s about a woman, which is very rare in biblical record. The truth is that there are only three books in the entire Bible about women and all of them are similar to Esther. The other two books are of course Ruth and the Song of Solomon. All three books are indeed delightful, but each of them are a little difficult to understand, which is why our pastor will delve beneath the surface of Esther and discover what is hidden there for us. In the way of introduction this much can be said for the book of Esther. It is a story of two angles: one of human love and the other of palace intrigue. As this series begins our pastor hopes we will all be fascinated until we finally arrive at the conclusion of this awesome story, but nevertheless, in the end, we will probably wonder why this book is even included in the Bible.

It does not mention the name of God, not once. There is no reference to worship or faith. There is no prophecy concerning Christ. There is no mention of heaven or hell. But, beneath the surface is in fact, some life changing input. And yet, it is an amazing revelation of how God works through natural means to achieve his purposes. Our pastor will begin this new series with a rather secular title.

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In the last episode we were in 2 Samuel 20, now we are in 2 Samuel 21 and something interesting happens.  We get a rather large time flashback. In fact the events we discuss in this episode may have occurred more than 30 years before chapter 20.  There are many reasons why this may have happened and why the ancient historians wrote it this way. One might be that we have had quite enough of David and all of his weaknesses. Another reason may be that given all of Davids’ different flaws, it now could be time to see a few things that he got right, and why he is referred to as a man after God’s own heart.

David was a compassionate man, he was a loving man, and in this teaching we will see that in his handling of a certain ethnic group associated with the Nation of israel. We must be aware that although certain old testament events do not specifically apply to all aspects of Chirstian life, not matter what community we are in or wherever we are we must always be kind and compassionate to all those who are in need. We see that in David’s handling of this situation discussed in this teaching of this specific ethnic group that he comes in contact with. 

As a king, even against his own personal prejudices, David had to ensure full justice to all of his subjects.  Above all, promises made to minorities had to be kept, especially when those promises concerned the rights of some of those that we might call second class citizens, even if some first class citizens had to suffer for it.

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At the end of the last episode we saw that the war was over and Absolom was dead. Remember that before the battle, David was willing and wanting to risk his life and lead his troops into battle. He wanted to do this for two reasons, first off, it was what kings did, lead their troops into battle.  And secondly, he hoped that if he could enter the battle it would help save his son Absolom’s life.  David’s warriors though, especially his commander in chief Joab thought differently. Joab was convinced that David must stay alive for his kingdom to continue.  If he entered the battle and a stray arrow accidentally pierced him he would be dead and Absolom’s forces would most assuradly take over and they would crown Absolom as king.  Joab knew that David’s life was essential to the cause to keeping his kingdom alive so he knew he could not enter the battle he had to say out but Joab also believed that it was crucial that Absolom be killed. There could not be two kings of Isreal, the rebellion had gone too deep.  Absolum must die and David must be kept safe. Politically it was too late for reconciliation between father and son, Absolom had to die. 

The truth is this. During this entire affair wtih David he had not acted as a King, he acted as a doating father. This is kind of ridiculous when you look at his reactions.  He did not treat Absolom’s rebellion as a rebellion at all.  He treated it like a small minor domestic affair that could be settled with a nice group hug between the patries involved.  He failed to see Absolom’s as a traitor, a rebel who has caused tons of a pain, hurt and suffering to David, his family and the entire nation at large. And that is to say nothing for the 20 thousand men who had just died in a fierce battle in the Woods of Effram. 

The death of Absolom was good news to the Nation of Isreal, it was good news for David the King, but it was the worst kind of news for David the Father.  We remember David’s statement from last episode where he said, “Would I had died instead of you Absolom my son, my son.” These were the words of a bereaved and tormented father. The loss of another son, his third son, deeply hurt David and gave him intense sorrow.  Yet he was the king, he could not forget his duty, his responsibility to his people, there had been a huge loss, a huge battle, a rebellion, an insurrection in his own kingdom. It was time for reconciliation, it was time to bring the kingdom back together, it was time to be king, to step up and be the king that all his valiant warriors who had just died had fought for, to be that king.  Much had to be done and a lot of bitterness had to be taken care of.

Joab, who had personally killed Absolom, was frustrated with the way David was acting, he did not like it, and in fact he calls out David to his face.  This will be the topic of Pastor Harris’s message. 

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David as we find him this episode is nearing the Jordan River, nearing the east of Jerricho. Absalom, his son, has taken Jerusalem and has begun to occupy the famed cedar palace.  Phase one of Absalom’s grand scheme is complete and he is about to enact phase two.  He turns to his advisors, one is David’s former chief advisor Ahitophel.  He tells Absalom the plan, David is not going to cross the Jordan at night, he is going to be too weary and wont want to do it at dark.  Let me take 12,000 men and go all night.  We’ll reach them tomorrow morning and he will be weakened and he will take them all down.  You cut the head off the snake and the whole snake dies.  We will take down David and the whole movement and rebellion against Absalom’s rule will be over. Ahitophel knew this was the way to go, he knew how resilient David could be, he knew that if you let David live on there could be serious problems for Absalom’s newest regime.  

However, Absalom admired another leader, so he turned to him to seek his advice as well. He advised Absalom to stay back, be patient and wait.  He was doing this because he was a mole, a spy. He knew the best thing on David’s side was time, so he encouraged Ahitophel as such. He succeeded and Absalom decided to side with the other advisor.  

Ahitophel, seeing the Absalom siding with this new advice, he knew that he had made a terrible mistake. He knew the time to act was now, he thought Absalom was a man of action. He thought that Absoalom was a man of plan and he knew what he was about and knew what he was doing and was ready to take the kingdom. Clearly Ahitophel, the political superior, saw that Absalom had misstepped in not going and taking David and killing him.  He knew that his cause was doomed and that he had sided with the wrong side.  So he returned to Hebron and hanged himself.

With the extra time that David now had, he used it very well.  He began to rally and train his army while Absalom was staying back.  He would rally the troops, and get them ready to go and ready to fight until he would fight Absalom’s army in open combat.

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Last episode Pastor Harris taught about Absalom, the son of David and his planned assault on the city of Jerusalem. He planned to surround the city, take it, and kill his father David and ascend to the throne of Jerusalem. David had two options therefore, he could stay and let Absalom’s army lay siege and try and fight them off and this would most likely meet the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, David’s beloved city, or he could flee and go to a place that Absalom might have difficulty trying to reach him. It broke David’s heart, but with limited choices, David chose the second option, which we learned in the last episode. Fleeing his beloved city, and betrayed by members of his family, including one of his best friends his best counselor, and it broke David’s heart and was a very humbling moment in his life. 

But at this moment, God chose to act and he sent a gentile, who was a friend and swore fealty.  He swore to go with David till death, he told David that he believed in him and he was his friend. That kind of love and friendship at David’s worst time strengthen him on his journey ahead and he began to have hope. With that David left the city and climbed the Mount of Olives to his ultimate destination. Somewhere along his ascent David looked back at the city and he wept. 

About this time he was approached by Ziba servant of Saul, who brought him donkey's laden with supplies for his journey. With this David made his way across the Jordan River valley. We saw here that all the things that David had been through had began to soften his heart and gave him a new level of tenderness and gentleness and love for the Lord and from these we see some of David’s most Amazing Psalms, and one of these was glorious 63rd Psalm. That is where we finished in the last episode and this week a test is coming. Somewhere on the far side of the Mount of Olives a man came running toward David. His name was Shimie and he would test David to the core, and that is what Pastor Harris will talk about in this episode.

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Welcome to the Relational Grace Podcast where we share the teachings of Pastor Nick Harris who taught us that Christianity is not a religion; it’s a relationship. I’m your host Jamie Russell, Pastor Harris’s son.

Last episode Pastor Harris talked about Absalom, Son of David, as he made his plans for a coup d'etat against his very own father.  He left Jerusalem making his home in Hebron, which was the first capital city of David. Apparently David found nothing curious about this, he had no suspicion as to Absalom's move.  He was totally unaware when the coup erupted. This seems really odd, as it takes a great deal of time organizing a revolt, in fact, Absolom may have spent as much as four years time planning it and yet David had not the smallest inkling of an idea that he was planning it. 

Absalom was extremely shrewd in his dealing with the revolt. Somehow Absalom had begun to win all the hearts of the people of Israel. He had somehow made them think that a man who had just taken revenge on his brother and had killed him was a man devoted to justice. He seemed to convince people that words were more profitable than actions.  He was even able to lure 200 of Jerusalem's best citizens to Hebron to join him. 

Therefore cunning and deceit seemed to be some of his best qualities. He used them many times in his dealings leading up to the revolt and during the revolt.  He used them to induce the majority of the men of Israel to turn against his very own father, their great King David.  Even David’s own tribe of Judah was ready to abandon David and follow Absalom.  This man was capable of much.  For this reason and many others, he proves though that he was not fit to be king of God’s chosen Nation.  But his father does not come out of the story looking that great either.  In fact, he gets had by his own son who was able to pull the rug right out from under him without even seeing it.  He didn't smell the revolt for the four long years that his son was in Hebron. So David does not look that great either, in fact he looks quite complacent. For this reason it looks like he was out of touch; it left room for Absolom to come in and steal their hearts. 

A big lesson learned here is this: It  is essential for good leaders to remain in touch with the people of their nation. 

All this said, neither David nor his son were the most ideal leaders.  But at least David was a man after God’s own heart and he showed this when Jerusalem was about to be laid under siege he fled and protected it.  And Absalom, as Pastor Harris will demonstrate, cared nothing for people, he did not care how many people died as long as he remained in power.

So let’s jump into the seventeenth episode of The Saga of David series, titled, “David’s Sons Revolt”.

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Remember back to the last episode, David was confronted by Nathan about his sin with Bathsheba and Nathan had some stunning words to say on God‘s behalf to David. We can only think that these works played on David’s mind again and again. David and Bathseba had eaten bread in secret, but Nathan on behalf of God knew the truth and he had these things to say to David, he said, 

“I anointed you King over Israel and delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah and if that had been too little, I would’ve given you much more, why have you despised the commandments of the Lord to do evil in his sight.  You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, you have taken his wife to be your wife and you have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. Therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and taken the wife of the Hittite to be your wife. Behold, I will raise adversity against you from your own house, and I will take your wives before you eyes and give them to your neighbor and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of his son.  For you did it secretly but I will do this thing before all of Israel and before the son.

However, there were many years and this prophecy did not come to pass, in fact David ruled righteously and successfully and his kingdom grew and became quite strong.  However, this did not shield David from what was coming. He would face the greatest challenge of his entire life in the fulfillment of this coming prophecy because it would come from someone inside his own family.  It would feature lust, it would feature incestuous relationships, it would feature a vengeance killing and I coupe de ta. In addition to all this David would lose his closest friend and advisor.

The lesson to be learned is this. Bread eaten in secret can be sweet, sin may bring pleasure in the short term. But it also can be very costly.  David would learn this first hand in the fulfillment of this prophecy.  Like many people, the great King found that it was fun to dance but not often fun to pay the band.  Pastor Harris will discuss these issues in this episode.

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Last episode we discussed King David committing adultery with the wife of one of his main commanders in his army Uriah the Hittite. To make matters worse she became pregnant and David attempted to cover this up. However David’s plans of a cover up failed.  David then attempted another scheme, and this one was of murder. In an ironic turn of events, Uriah would end up carrying his own death warrant to Joab, a type and shadow of Christ carrying our sin as Uriah carried David’s sin with him, Christ carried a death warrant in his hand in complete faithfulness and righteousness to his king he carried our sins.  Except of course, Christ was not ignorant to what he carried and to what he was about to suffer. In the end, the scheme was successful, Uriah did as he was told and he was killed. This story is humbling, David was a man after God’s own heart, yet he was able to sin greatly. 

As David had success in his scheme, he appeared to be grief stricken.  He really did not care and in secret was patting himself on the back thinking that he had missed a close call. Bathsheba as well, took her period of grieving, once that was completed to make everything look right, David took her as his wife, they were married, and all seemed well.  The scheme went perfect but that was not so, vengeance is the Lords.

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In this teaching Pastor Harris will deal with the topic of midlife crisis.  He covers this through discussing three weaknesses of David Ben Jesse.  In the first place, David could never control his desire for women.  Secondly, David’s allowed himself to have too much idle time on his hands.  And thirdly, David began to delegate his divinely oriented responsibilities to others that he should have been doing himself. Let’s listen along to Pastor Harrs as he walks us through these things that would sadly lead to King David's own demise.

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Once the issues surrounding building the temple in Jerusalem and who would build it were resolved, David decided to deal decisively with the Philistines. Bringing the war into the Philistine homeland for the first time and after several battles were fought the Philistines would never be a factor again. Israel would now control the major trade route of the ancient world, the Via Maris. 

The only real enemies David now had were three fold. The Aramian Kingdom, the Mobia Kingdom and the Edimi Kingdom (due to transcription challenges, these may not be spelled correctly).  David knew that he had to subdue these Kingdoms in order to control another trade route known as the King’s Highway which connected the Red Sea with Damascus. His kingdom badly needed the income that was paid by the owners of caravans that traveled the trade route. Once this route had been secured it would be of great wealth to David.  

At this time in Israel's history another important person appears that would be destined to play a vital role in Israel's future, and that would be true for many generations to come. The name of this man was Zadduc. He became the high priest of Israel at this point in time and from his loins would be the High Priest of Israel for the next thousand years to come. When the trade routes had been secured the peace came to Israel and David had time to sit down and look back over the past and he had found that he had some unfinished business, some important business. 

One of his obligations was to his blood brother Jonathan. A part of his obligation was this, any of the children born of Jonathan were now his children and the way in which David chose to take care of this child will be the subject of this message.

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In this episode Pastor Harris reminds us about the prophesies of Nathan and provides a lot of back knowledge leading into this topic.  More specifically Pastor Harris reminds us that God sent the prophet Nathan to David with certain instructions and a grave warning. That warning was this, just because a temple to God stood in their midst, it did not mean that his presence would always dwell in that temple. Pastor Harris will explain more about this warning in this teaching.

NOTE: To save any confusion, please note that Pastor Harris does indeed tell the story of the tapestries he saw in the vatican.  He told this same story in episode #114 which is also the first episode of the Saga of David series.

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In this teaching we will learn more about Saul and David.  Saul had two daughters, Miram and Michael (we call her Michael instead of MiChal). At the time, Israel had a problem with the philistines. They did not like Isreal or the Jewish people.  One day the army of the Philistines were camped on one hill and the Isrealites were camped on the other.  It was a standoff. The Philistines had a clever little plan, they ha a giant of a man, eight or nine feet tall. He was more than likely twice the size of any man at the time. 

The Philistines had a big idea to go down to the middle of the valley and they told the Isrealites to send their best guy to fight their best guy.  This fight will determine who should win.  We know that the young David shows up to deliver food to his brothers who were in the army. David is appoled at this vile person who is down in the valley making fun of his people.  The Israelites said it was the philistine giant.  Saul, the King of Isreal, had promised the hand of his daughter in mariage to anyone that would go down and beat the giant Philistine.

Saul was sure that someone was going to go down there and fight the giant philistine because his daughters were beautiful. No one showed up to take on this challenge until David showed up. But David wasnt fighting for the girls hand in marriage, he was fighting for his God.  Well we know what has happened.  David was indeed victorious, and now he had earned the right to marry Miram the oldest of the two daughters.  

One day Saul hears the common people singing the praises of this young man that had defeated the giant. He was extremely jealous, he thought, “am I going to have a son-in-law that people are going to sing praises about?” So Saul promises his older daughter to another. This would leave Michael available for David.  This was OK with David because he preferred Michael.  Saul thought he knew his daughter better than David.  This will be where Pastor Harris’s teaching picks up today.

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Last episode we discussed David’s plan for spiritual renewal for the nation of Israel.  It was a fairly simple plan. He was going to introduce a worship revolution. It was going to be something the Hebrew religion and the world at large had never seen. The plan really focused on the Ark of the Covenant that he considered to be Israel’s greatest treasure. It needed to be transported to Mount Zion, which was formally Mount Moriah, and placed in a tent that would come to be known as the Tabernacle of David.

Here the Ark of the Covenant could be seen by anyone who would like to.  The flaps of the tabernacle would be open and people could see the Ark there.  On top of bringing the Ark to the top of Mount Zion, David had gone about a massive allocation of resources, people and time to create a 24 hour praise and worship experience. He had done this by appointing three men, Asath, Heman, and Ethan to lead a group of 24 thousand men in three different groups of eight thousand each for 24 hour worship.  This continued for 40 years, 40 years of 24 hour perpetual worship with 24 thousand men.

But first, the big problem with this plan was that the worshippers were ready, the tent was ready, the mount was ready… but they didn't have the Ark. The Ark was eight miles west of Jerusalem where it had been for the past 60 years in the house of Abenidad, in the village of Penrith Jerun, and to actually get the Ark from point A to point B was far more complicated than you may have first thought, and that is the topic of Pastor Harris’s message in this episode.

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Following the exodus when Israel had come into the land of Canan the priests brought the Tabernacle to the town of Shiloh.  The Tabernacle would remain here for 200 years.  In time, there was a battle with the Philistines over a Hebrew highway. The high priests were in charge of the tabernacle and these high priests were the sons of Eli. When the Israelites were in this battle they wanted the Ark of the Covenant to give them the power to win.  So they sent messengers to go ask the high priests to see if they could have the ark of the covenant with them to have God’s power to win the battle.  As they brought the ark of the covenant out to the battle God did not go with it.  His presence was in the Holy of Holies when the Ark of the Covenant was there and when it was brought out to the battle, it was said that the presence of the Lord had departed from the Holy of Holies.

In this episode, Pastor Harris will teach on how the Ark of the Covenant departed.

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Last teaching Pastor Harris discussed David returning after he had defeated the Amalekites. At the same time David was returning to Ziklag, Saul had met his end and been defeated by the Philistines.  Around that same time a different Amilkite arrives with a message that Saul had been slain along with a conflicting story.  Last episode we heard that Saul had fallen on his own sword and committed suicide. This Amilkite claimed that he had actually helped Saul commit suicide.  He believed that since Saul had tried to kill David so many times that he would be rewarded for helping Saul committ suicide and reporting the great news that Saul was dead.  Another odd thing was that he also had the crown of Saul and brought it to David.  The response of David was quite opposite to what he was expecting.  He was expecting honor and approval and maybe a position as David’s right hand man.  Instead David turned and killed the man on the spot!

The way David saw it was this.  God was going to bring God’s anointed David to be King in his own time.  No person could force that to happen outside of God’s timing. It appeared this Amilkite had taken matters into his own hands and had slain God’s anointed and it deserved death.

What was surprising is that upon David killing this Amilkite was David’s response.  He wrote a quite fantastic poem, and I’ll go ahead and read this to you.

Thy glory oh Israel is slain upon by high places.  How the mighty have fallen. Tell it not in Gath. Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exalt.  Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely, in life and in death they were not divided, they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel weep over Saul who clothed you daintily in scarlet, who put ornaments off gold on your apparel. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle. Jonathan lies slain upon the high places.  I am distressed for you my brother Jonathan. Very pleasant have you been to me, your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.  How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished.

It’s very odd to hear such beautiful words from someone who was supposed to be Saul’s sworn enemy. But obviously David was a man after God’s own heart and he could see things in Saul others could not see.  He loved Saul.  However, now the crown of Saul is in David’s hands, Saul is slain, David is God’s appointed and is to be the new King of Israel.  This is the topic of this episode's message.

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Last episode we talked about David and his big battle with the Amalekites in the Negev.  While that was going on with him, the exact opposite was going on with Saul. Saul was encountering Israel's old enemy the Philistines.  They had amassed a massive army and to this point the Isrealites had been successful in defeating them by fighting them off as they had always engaged them in mountainous terrain. But the Philistines had pushed and manipulated the battle so they could fight at the Valley of Jezreel which was flat land.  This was beneficial to the Philistines because they had iron chariots. Any military strategist would say that it looks as if the Isrealites would be slaughtered.  

The reason this battle was so crucial and that Saul had to fight it, was because they were at a place called Beth Shan and if the Philistines were to take this location they would cut Israel in half. This location was too crucial, and Saul was forced to take the Philistines on in open combat, in flat terrain, taking on their iron chariots. It seemed suicidal, God had abandoned Saul for David.  

So Saul turned to a medium.  Saul himself had outlawed the use of mediums. It was outlawed in the law of God, but Saul was driven to the very brink of his insanity by havinfg to hold things together by the giant adversity that faced him having to fight the Philistines.  When he saw this medium, he disguised himself because he knew if the medium recognized him as King Saul that the medium would not consult upon evil spirits.  We know today that spirits guided through mediums are not through the Holy Spirit but are evil spirits. To Saul’s dismay the medium conjures up the spirit of Samual the great profit.  Although Samual had been dead for many years he spoke truthfully  to the situation at hand.  He said that Saul would in fact fight this battle, and Saul, his sons and many of his army would suffer a very tragic defeat.  Saul’s dilemma was over, he looked into the future, the future was clear there was only disaster and death for him and his kingdom. 

Meanwhile David waited back at Ziklag unaware of what was going on.  This is the topic of Pastor Harris’s teaching in this episode.  The death of Saul and the ramifications of that day.

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The events of first samuel chapter 26 and first samuel chapter 24 look very similar if not identical, but in fact they are remarkably different.  Where they are similar in both instances Saul, the King of Israel is pursuing David.  Saul fails, and God delivers him into the hands of David, who chooses to do nothing about it and to release him because he is his king, and he is God anointed. In fact, in the second instance, David’s men come alongside him and say, they have got to do something, they’ve been running from him, they felt they needed to kill him! David still stays committed to what he knows to be true.

The thing that is interesting and is pretty bad for Saul. Given these two instances, God had revealed that he had withdrawn his protection from Saul. He had been given over into the hands of David now twice, this could not make it more clear to Saul.  David realized that this cat and mouse game couldn’t last forever. It was wearing out his men and they wanted to kill Saul, and that was wearing David out. David previously had fled from Saul by going into the land of the philistines and now he had to face the terrible idea of doing that again, leaving the promise land. So he decides to go to the land of Gath and place his warriors at the disposal of the King of Achish. This King however did not like the idea of having someone so powerful in his midst so he placed David in a town called Ziklag.  And this will be our setting for Pastor Harris’s message today.

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In our last teaching we saw David confront Saul at the Oasis of Ein Gedi, and there we saw a great part of David’s character revealed.  One thing we saw revealed was his boldness, his courage and that he really trusted in God.  He was able to stand up and confront Saul because he believed that God would defend him and that God would be in control. We also saw some of David’s crafiness, and his wisdom and the words that he used. He chose not to kill Saul, and instead he chose to cut a part of his robe off. It showed that he never had any intentions of killing Saul, he always saw him as king.  It showed his humility.  We saw his character revealed through his humility.  He said, “After whom do you pursue Saul?  After a dead dog after a flea”. David is stressing his insignificant and his unimportance in the face of a great king.  We saw Saul respond in a very interesting way.  He said, no not at all, you are not insignificant, you are going to be king someday. It is shocking but it reveals Saul’s insanity and that in times he had moments where he had it all together.  But David knew that Saul would continue to come after him. 

Meanwhile, both David and Saul received a shock because their spiritual mentor, Samuel the profit, had died. David received this news while in the wilderness of Maon, and there had a very interesting encounter with a very beautiful and wise and crafty woman herself named Abigail, and there we will find ourselves in the setting of this episode's topic. 

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We continue to follow the life of David in our current series. In this episode we will touch on the topic of vengeance. The need for vengeance is as old as human nature. Vengeance can be overwhelming. Let’s listen to Pastor Harris as he walks us through how David handles vengeance against King Saul.  Finally Pastor Harris will provide us three things regarding  vengeance that will help us understand it and in turn deal with it. 

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Have you ever experienced exceptional success in life like that of David? After what David accomplished by saving his entire nation from slavery and bondage by conquering the undefeatable foe. Who knows what it would be like to experience such success and fame like David did.  In the last episode Pastor Harris talks about five crutches that got knocked out from under him.  One was his job, the commander of Saul’s army.  The position of King and High Priest may be the only better jobs at that time.  Secondly, his wife was stripped away.  His pastor was taken away as well, Samuel was one of the top profits ever known and was taken away from David.  Then Jonathan was taken away, David’s best friend.  These are serious crutches that were taken away from David. It was like winning the lottery and finding out the next day you in fact did not win the lottery.  All he had left was his self respect and his self worth, we won't get to it in this episode but eventually he will lose that as well.

It’s hard to understand what all David was going through mentally, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. At this point his back is against the wall and Saul is coming after him.  At this time David runs to Nob where he takes the sword of Goliath.  He does not realize the trouble that will cause others, and it is at this point that we find David in the cave of Adullem.

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As we continue on with our second episode of this new Saga of David series I continue to think about episode one and how Pastor Harris focused on Samuel and the strange circumstance he found himself in when it came to anointing the next king of Israel. It was an interesting approach to kicking off a teaching about the life of David.  Similarly, one of the obvious stories from the life of David would be that of his victory over the giant Goliath. However, Pastor Harris chooses to diverge from the standard teaching route and come at it from another unique aspect. Definitely not what I expected, but I was by no means surprised.

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This new series is a large and in-depth study of Pastor Harris’s which covers the man after God’s own heart, King David.  As always, Pastor Harris’s approach to the life of David is very unique and we hope will touch the lives of our listeners, teaching after teaching.  This series is over 20 episodes in length and rightfully so, there is so much to learn from the story of David’s life, much more than his run-ins with the likes of Goliath and Bathsheba.  Matter of fact, it can more accurately be defined as a “saga” than simply be referred to as a life story. I’m sure dad knew that far too well, so well that he titled this series very simply, The Saga of David.

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This episode wraps up our current series titled “Courage and Confrontation” which follows the life and times of Elijah.  This has been a truly amazing series and has come with God’s perfect timing.  I hope these teachings have encouraged everyone who listens. I have to tell you all, I love this specific episode, I think it really places things into context not only from a ministry standpoint, but as a way to approach various aspects of life. Dad talks about his early days in ministry well before I was born or dad had even made it to Ponca City where he met my mother Crystal.  As always, we would love to hear from you all any way you like, email, facebook, instagram, etc. We love hearing how these messages resonate with you, it encourages us and keeps and energizes us to keep pushing out new episodes and content.

So let’s get into the introduction of our final episode.  Prior to the Prophet Elijah's encounter with King Ahab over Naboth's vineyard, he had been walking through an agricultural area in Israel and he spotted a young man plowing his field. There were eleven teams of oxen plowing in front of this man and he was plowing with a twelfth team of oxen. 

The sensitive spirit of the prophet Elijah instantly saw something in this man so he walked over to the young man and threw his mantle around his shoulders. Elijah would later discover that the name of this man was Elisha, the son of Shaphat. This farmer turned from his team of oxen, and said to Elijah, "Please let me kiss my father and mother and then I will follow you." Elijah agreed.

What Elisha did at this point was fascinating. He kissed his father and mother, then demonstrated his commitment to following Elijah in that he slaughtered his team of oxen, his sole means of support. Then set fire to his plow and yoke, his secondary means of support. He proceeded to cook the meat of the oxen and shared it with the people of his village and his family so that they could all enjoy one final meal together. Then, he followed Elijah from that point onward, serving him in any way that he possibly could.

That is the last we hear of Elisha for several years. Then, he reappears with Elijah at a place called Gilgal, the place where Israel camped upon first entering the Promised Land. He had seen many things since he had begun to follow Elijah. 

For one thing, he had been with Elijah when King Ahaziah of Israel had sent a captain with fifty men to place Elijah under arrest. He watched as the prophet called down fire from heaven and those men were utterly consumed. He was also present when the king sent another group of fifty to arrest the prophet. Once again, he heard the prophet call down fire from heaven and saw those men consumed. Then, when another group of 50 came, Elisha heard the captain of the group appeal to the prophet to save his life. No doubt, the young prophet heard the voice of the angel of Yahweh, the pre existent Christ, tell to Elijah to save this captain and his men and to go back to Samaria with this captain and confront the King. This was a dangerous proposition, but Elijah did as he was told.

At this point, Elijah was aged. It is time for him to leave this earth, but he has a few things to do before that could occur. For one thing, he would take a quick ministry tour of the area, then, God would take him. This is the background for Pastor Harris’s teaching in this episode.

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In this episode Pastor Harris picks back up with Elijah returning to the kingdom of Israel after his sojourn at Mount Sinai, at least two and maybe three years had passed before Elijah made a reappearance. We can determine this from several situations that are recorded in I Kings.

In the first place, in I Kings 21, we find a vineyard thriving in Jezreel which means the effects of the three and a half years of drought had now been overcome. This would take at least a year or two to occur. In the second place, after Elijah's return to Israel, the nation fought several brutal wars with Syria, all of which occurred before the events recorded in I Kings 21. These wars lasted over four at least two years.

That which brought Elijah on the scene again was criminal conduct on the part of King Ahab, the most wicked ruler Israel had ever experienced up to that time, and his even more wicked wife, Jezebel. These two persons would commit a dastardly crime against a godly citizen of Israel. This act provides all the proof we need that, evil was still flowing from the throne of Israel. So, Elijah was sent by God to confront Ahab.

We should note, however, that a bit of tranquility had come to the land of Israel in Elijah's absence. There had been a lull in the conflicts with Syria, and, as we said, the land seems to have recovered from the three and a half year drought. King Ahab now had some time to sit around in his palace in Jezreel and think about things he could do to improve the place.

This palace was not the main residence of the king and queen. The capital and main palace was found in the city of Samaria. The palace in Jezreel was a kind of Camp David for the royal family. Such residences were located in places of great natural beauty in biblical times. Ahab, a well-known builder, was interested in improving the grounds and the landscape. Next to the palace was a vineyard that belonged to a man whose name was Naboth. He had taken very good care of the vineyard, something that had caught the eye of the king.

So, one day, Ahab went to Naboth and made an offer to buy the vineyard and that offer is the subject of Pastor Harris’s teaching for this episode.

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Before I jump into this intro.  I think it is important that we all remember that these teachings we are listening to, even the introduction I am about to read were delivered back in 2011.  It continues to be so interesting how many of these thoughts we are about to hear remain true still today.

We all know that we live in strange and troubling times. Someone once called this “the age of anxiety,” and it is. Hurricanes are striking odd places. Catastrophic floods and catastrophic droughts are found worldwide. There are devastating earthquakes leaving tens of thousands of people dead in dozens of countries. There are senseless terror bombings happening across the globe. As of 2011 when this was written, there was a horrible war in Afghanistan and continuing violence in Iraq. Of course in the current day we have a war happening in the Ukraine and many geopolitical situations of courcern around the globe.

Taken together, this creates a spirit of fear, and this spirit of fear makes us angry, uptight, tense, hostile, sullen, and very impatient with each other. We see this in the increasing incidences of road rage, domestic abuse, and criminal acts. The sad truth is this: we Americans appear to hate each other equally.

Anger seems to lie just beneath the surface of every human being, but this anger is just another symptom of society’s ills.  In fact, the Bible predicts that in “the last days” God will shake the nations so that “those things that cannot be shaken will be shaken” (Hebrews 12:26-27). 

When Eugene Peterson paraphrased the last part of verse 27 in The Message, he said that God will shake the earth, “getting rid of all the historical and religious junk so that the unshakable essentials stand clear and uncluttered.” Unshakable essentials---that says it all. God is shaking the earth so that we will figure out what matters most.

But this situation is not totally unique to our times. The prophet Elijah felt many of these same strains and stresses, so much so, that he virtually had a nervous collapse. Pastor Harris will discuss his circumstances in this episode.

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As we dive into another episode of the “Courage and Confrontation” I wanted to remind everyone that you can visit Courage.ArielMinistries.com for more details and aggregate content around these teachings on the life and times of Elijah.

In this episode we follow along as Elijah’s fear sets in and he takes flight from the evil queen Jezebel. Pastor Harris will walk us through Elijah’s thinking and actions here.  Although Pastor Harris admits along the way that this action bothered him personally, he also explains why we shouldn't be too hard on Elijah here.

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In our last episode we saw that the fire had fallen on the sacrifice that Elijah had presented at Mount Carmel with such veracity that the wood, the sacrifice, and even the stones of the altar were reduced to ashes in a moment.  In addition the people of Israel who had gathered on Mount Carmel saw all of this and instantly they reached the conclusion that Yaweh of Sinai was and is the only one true God and they all fell on their faces and shouted, “Yahweh he is God, Yahweh he is God.”

Elijah was aware of the importance of that moment. There could be no more middle ground, so the prophet challenged the people to recommit themselves to Yahweh and Yahweh alone.  They could prove themselves by taking the 450 prophets of Ba’al to river of Keyshawn and execute them, which they immediately did.

Only two men remained on atop Mount Carmel with Elijah.  One was the man who made the commitment to be a servant of the prophet and the other was King Ahab.  The king had not left the mountain top and had observed the execution of the prophets of Ba’al in the valley below. Elijah turned to Ahab at this point and gave him instruction.

Go up and eat and drink, for there is an abundance of rain. So Ahab began to eat while Elijah made his way to a mountain top that overlooked the Mediterranean Sea. And there he fell on his knees and began to pray.

Now the bible does not specifically say he prayed here, but only that he bowed down with his head between his knees.  But we know he was praying  because the words were found in James 5: 17-18, it says that Elijah prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on earth in three years and 6 months. And he prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth produced its fruit.

The question for today is, is that God promised that it would rain, which it did, why did the Elijah have to pray for the rains to come?

 Pastor Harris will address this question in this episode. 

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By now we have all seen that the prophet Elijah was an amazing human being. Even his name is amazing. In the Hebrew language the name Elijah means, "Yahweh is my God." Obviously, his name defined his mission. He sought to demonstrate to his people that Yahweh is not only God but He is the only true and living God

We have seen that at the time Elijah first appeared in Israel, the nation of Israel, as a whole, no longer worshiped Yahweh. They had slowly but surely integrated the worship of the Phoenician God, BA’AL and his female counterpart, Asherah, into their religion through the actions of their king and queen, Ahab and Jezebel. In fact they were were well on their way to making BA’AL the primary God of Israel. As a result of this apostasy, God had brought a severe drought upon the land and He had commissioned Elijah to announce this divine punishment.

The moment Elijah pronounced this divine judgment to King Ahab, he was told by God to flee to a remote location where he would be fed by ravens and drink from a brook. So, Elijah followed the Lord's instructions and after a while, when the brook dried up, the prophet was told to go and find a certain widow who lived in the Phoenician village of Zarephath, and he was to stay with her.  While Elijah was living with this Phoenician woman and her son, God miraculously supplied them with flour and oil.

During the entire length of the drought Elijah was forced to remain in hiding, because he had become the most wanted man in all of Israel. The King and the Queen wanted him dead, and Elijah knew it. After all, in the course of the drought Jezebel had put to death many of the prophets of the Lord. Yet, the man she wanted most seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

So, for three long years, not a single drop of rain fell on the land and for three long years King Ahab and queen Jezebel searched for Elijah to kill him. But things were about to change. God was preparing to order the prophet to make himself known once again, and that will be the subject of Pastor’s sermon for this morning.

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In this series of sermons on the life and times of Elijah we saw how a man known as Elijah the Tishbite appeared before the King of Israel, Ahab ben Omri, bringing a very simple message. He said, "It ain't gonna rain no more! Not until I say so!" And then the prophet disappeared for the next three and a half years.

For that entire period of time, God, himself, protected this man from the wrath of the powers that be. First, God took Elijah to a cave in the region known as Transjordan where God took care of his needs. Then, after a year of hiding, God sent him to live in the house of a widow in the region of Phoenicia.

God not only protected Elijah in these out-of-the-way places, he also miraculously fed him. While Elijah was hidden away in that cave in Transjordan, God sent him bread and meat in the beaks of wild ravens. And while he was hiding in Phoenicia, God provided him with cornbread baked from meal that came from a barrel that refused to remain empty, and oil from a cruse that refused to run dry.

So, in comparison to everybody else living in the Middle East at that time, Elijah enjoyed a relatively comfortable existence for forty-two long months. Then one day God spoke to Elijah again. He told the prophet to come out of hiding, to leave Phoenicia and to "go show himself” to Ahab.

Now, please understand this! Leaving his hiding place was a dangerous thing for Elijah to do and he knew it. But the ever obedient Elijah did as he was told, and what happens from here on in the story is utterly fascinating. Three types of characters emerge from the text for today and all of the people involved had different agendas and opposing goals. This morning, Pastor will introduce us to these people.

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In the last episode, we left the prophet Elijah deep in what can only be called Gentile country. If you remember, God had sent him to the Phoenician village of Zarephath which was located less than 10 miles from what the people of Israel believed to be Satan's headquarters on earth, the city of Tyre. In fact, on several occasions Satan is called, "the King of Tyre." This is especially true in the book of Ezekiel.

The prophets of God believed that the people who lived in this area actually worshiped Satan. However, they believed had disguised himself as the god BA’AL, the God of the storm. He was depicted as a powerful bull, usually made of gold, but beneath the powerful image, and the extensive gold, was Satan. The great prophets of Israel stood behind all false religion; all I worship.

As we saw last week, when God had appeared to Elijah at the Wadi Hareet and told Elijah that he was to take up residence in the village of Zarephath, the prophet must've said, "Oh no!" Without question, this is one of the last places on this planet that the prophet of God wanted to go. It was not only because this village was located in Gentile country, and it was not only because Satan was worshiped there, disguised as BA’AL, it was because he lied to knew the meaning of the name of this place. The word ZAREPHATH in Hebrew means this: "the place of the refiner’s fire," or "the place of purification."

The man of God could certainly read between the lines. He could see that God was sending him to this place to eliminate all his inner impurities, and that can be a painful process. And that is why the prophet probably shuddered at the thought of living in this village. But he went to Zaraphath, anyhow!

Once he had settled himself into his new environment, he was surprised; things were not nearly as bad as he had imagined. Think about this! God had provided him with a place to stay in the house of a local widow and her son, and they are God was miraculously feeding him. Everyday his hostess would they cornbread from meal that she had taken from the bottom of her flour barrel and with the last few drops of cooking oil from her jar. But the next day the same amount of meal and oil would miraculously appear again. So, while other people were starving to death, these three people, the prophet, the widow, and her son had enough to sustain themselves. And the good news is this: the provision continued for many months.

But, trouble was on the horizon. Satan would not allow the activities of God to go unchallenged as we shall see in Pastor Harris’s message in this episode.

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Last week we watched as the story that supplied water for the prophet Elijah dried up, and the ravens which brought him bread and meat ceased to appear. It did not take Elijah long to realize that this phase of his life, the training phase, was now over. And as he stood there gazing along the great Wadi Hareet, the voice of God spoke to him again, and this is what God said:

"Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. I have commanded a widow there to provide for you."

Without question, this was not the message that Elijah had expected. In fact, it appears that these instructions from the Lord left the prophet shocked and speechless.

Now, Elijah would not have been shocked if God had said to him, "Go to the desert wastes of Paran," or "Go to Mount Sinai, the mountain of my glory." The truth is this: both of these locations were places where God was known to dwell. His holy presence, His KAVOD, His SHEKINAH, was found in those places.

However God did not tell Elijah to go to either the Desert of Paran or to Mount Sinai. Instead God said, “Go to the village of Zarephath.” Why would Elijah be so shocked by that divine directive? There was a reason! Zaraphath was a village in the region known as Phoenicia, which was Gentile territory. In fact, it was as Gentile as it gets.

This village was located in the very heart of the land from which the evil queen Jezebel of Tyre came. It was a demonized land, a land where the god Ba’al was worshiped; a place where Israel’s God was scorned, so this message made no sense to Elijah. He was at war with this Phoenician god and the very last place he thought a man of God should be seen was in the heart of the enemy’s stronghold.

But this much can be said for Elijah; he may not have understood what God had said and what God did at times, but he was usually willing to obey what God told him to do, no matter how difficult it seemed. Pastor Harris will focus on this tendency this morning.

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As we continue the Courage and Confrontation series we remember that God had always prepared men to do the work that He calls them to do. In the days of King Ahab of Israel, the situation called for a man like Elijah the Tishbite; an Elijah was ready to do the job; at least in part. The easy part was to march into the throne room of Ahab and to announce to the king, “It ain’t gonna rain no more.” And he did just that!

From there, the task facing the prophet would become far more arduous. He needed more training, and the Spirit of the Lord knew exactly how to prepare Elijah for what was to come. The situation was this: God was displeased with the idolatrous practices of the children of Israel, so He chose to chastise them by sending a great drought upon the land. Baal, the god to whom they had turned was worshiped as the “god of the storm,” so, in sending this drought, God was saying to Israel, “Let’s see if the god of the storm has the power to end a drought that Yahweh had ordained. The dye was about to be cast. 

As Pastor Harris will share, once the announcement of the impending drought was declared, Elijah was told to go hide himself in a deep wadi or canyon in Transjordan. To prepare His man for the coming war, God had called Elijah to go to a place of solitude and isolation, and it was in the best interest of the prophet to obey his God. 

There in the wadi, God met the physical needs of the prophet. God provided abundant water from a spring, and He sent ravens to bring Elijah meat to sustain him. In this God was teaching Elijah to live from His divine hand. Of course, the Lord could have sent angels instead of ravens to minister to Elijah, but God demonstrated to His prophet that He can use even the lowest creatures to do His bidding.

However, eventually the brook in the wadi ran dry and the ravens ceased to come. The prophet lost his supply just when it appeared that he needed them most. But the prophet would find that there is a river which makes glad the city of God; a river that never runs dry, “a well of water that springs up to eternal life.”

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This series will be titled Courage and Confrontation. Pastor Harris will follow Elijah the Tishbite.  We will follow him from insignificance and we will watch God take him and turn him into one of the giants of the Biblical era. The Bible will remind us that Elijah was more like us than we could even imagine.  It is important that we all recognise and accept that God can use us all mightily, even despite ourselves.

This series is dedicated to not only the current membership of First United Methodist Church in downtown Oklahoma City.  But to all those who have and continue to love the ministry of First Church over the years, whose lives were changed for the better due to this over century long ministry. I pray that we would be encouraged, and empowered with what Pastor Harris refers to as “a Holy Boldness” to be the new group of Elijah’s that he hoped would appear on the scene and say “Here I stand” and that will refuse to back down. 

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This episode marks the final teaching of the Spiritual Gifts teaching series. What a fascinating teaching Pastor Harris has saved for the last. I have to admit I have probably listened to this teaching over five times to fully understand everything Pastor Harris was trying to get across to us.  In this Pastor Harris will cover the nine manifestations of the Fruit of the Spirit. I can’t wait for everyone listening to learn now the Fruit of the Spirit work within us as believers.

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In this episode Pastor Harris will be continuing his teaching on the topic of the manifestation gift of tongues.  More specifically he will begin this teaching discussing the function of the gift of tongues and he will end it by discussing the final manifestation gift which is the gift of the interpretation of tongues. There is quite a bit of detail Pastor Harris has to unpack on this episode so I hope everyone is ready to provide your undivided attention.

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After the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995, Rich Mullins contacted First United Methodist Church after their church building had been destroyed.  He surprised the congregation on Father's Day that June with a concert they would never forget.  Recent Hi8 video footage was found of this day and we are very excited to share it with those that remember that day, and those who miss Rich as much as we do who may want to see a very special performance of his that shined so brightly in Oklahoma City in such a dark time.

For more personalized stories and details of this awesome day, listen to Episode #100 of the Relational Grace Podcast.  You can also listen online at RelationalGracePodcast.com.

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Pastor Harris will continue on in his teachings on the Spiritual Gifts.  Specifically his teachings on the Manifestation Gifts. In the last episode Pastor Harris taught us about the gift of prophecy as it relates to the idea of manifestations, he also covered the gift of discerning spirits. In this teaching he will begin covering the eighth and ninth manifestation gift which is the gift of tongues and the manifestation gift of the interpretation of tongues. Get ready… because just as Pastor Harris reiterates, you are really going to need to focus on this lesson as it goes pretty deep into this topic.

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In this episode we will continue learning more about the individual Manifestation Gifts.  In the last several episodes Pastor Harris has taught us about the manifestation gifts of the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, faith and healing. In this teaching Pastor Harris will discuss three more of the Manifestation Gifts. He will cover the gift of miracles, the gift of prophecy as it relates to the idea of manifestations, and finally he will cover the gift of discerning spirits. Like the previous gifts he has taught on, Pastor Harris will give real world examples of each of these gifts, some of which are very personal to him.

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In this episode Pastor Harris will continue teaching on the eleven Manifestation Gifts.  More specifically he’ll cover the gift of Faith and the gift of Healing. Not only that, he will use two stories from his life to illustrate these gifts.  I won’t give much away on these stories but I will tease them by saying they may or may not include a Volvo and a bottle of vegetable oil.

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In this episode of our teaching series on the Spiritual Gifts, we will continue to dive into the final category of gifts that Pastor Harris refers to as the Manifestation Gifts.  The first category consists of the seven motivational gifts, the second category consists of the eleven equipping gifts, also called ministry gifts. There are a total of nine Manifestation Gifts and in this teaching Pastor Harris will touch on two of these gifts. One being the Manifestation Gift of the Word of Knowledge and the other being the Manifestation Gift of the Word of Wisdom.

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As we continue this Spiritual Gifts teaching series, Pastor Harris has made his way through what he calls the Motivational Gifts and then into the Equipping Gifts, which as a reminder are also referred to as the Ministry Gifts.  We’ll now dive further into another subsection of the Equipping Gifts which Pastor Harris reluctantly refers to as the “minor” gifts.  Now there are eleven Equipping Gifts total, of course there are the “five-fold” gifts or “major” gifts which are covered in the last two episodes. These refer to the gifts of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers and pastors.  Now the six minor gifts include that of the miracle workers, healers, helpers, administrators and languages or as we most often here them referred to as tongues. You will quickly notice that languages is broken up into two gifts, speakers of languages and interpreting languages.  I don't know about you, but as Pastor Harris takes us through these different gifts I continue to find it interesting when I compare my initial understanding of each of these gifts to my understanding of each after his explanation. In other words, I am amazed at how much I didn’t know about each of these topics.

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I hope everyone has been enjoying this Spiritual Gifts teaching series.  This episode will mark our seventh lesson in this series in which Pasto Harris will continue his teachings on the equipping gifts, which he also refers to as the ministry gifts.  In the last episode her taught us about the ministry gifts of the apostles, the prophets, and the evangelists. In this lesson he will dive deeper into the ministry gifts of the pastors and of the teachers.

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As Pastor Harris continues to walk us through the Spiritual Gifts, in the last episode he completed his teachings of what he refers to as the Motivational Gifts, or in the Greek, these are referred to as the CHARISMATA.  In this episode he will get into the Equipping Gifts, or in the Greek, these are referred to as the DOMATA. Being equipped, as we are all becoming very aware, is one of three things we all need to be successful in any task.  To help with any confusion you may have as we all try to keep these many gifts straight, I will point out that Pastor Harris also uses the term “Ministry Gifts” synonymously with what he calls Equipping Gifts.

Pastor Harris will break down these 11 equipping gifts or ministry gifts in two groups.  There are some he will refer to as “major gifts” and others he will refer to as “minor gifts”.  I love Pastor Haris admits he doesn't really like how he uses the word “minor” here to describe a gift as they are all so crucial.  This just goes to show how his teachings were continually evolving.  I guarantee if he were given a chance to iterate this teaching one more time he would have adjusted that aspect for sure, but given where we are today, I think we can all let that one slide. Now, in this teaching Pastor Harris will specifically discuss the gifts of the apostles, the gift of the prophets, and the gift of the evangelists.

One final note before we dive into this teachings.  Please pay special attention to how Pastor Harris opens this teaching. If you are like me, as you have been going through this study you are wondering what gifts you have.  What is your dominant and subdominant gift?  Well, Pastor Harris walks us through a very simply exercise to understand a little more clearly what our gifting truly is. I hope this helps get you hone in on your specific God given gifts as it did for me.

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In the last four episodes, Pastor Harris has been teaching about each of the spiritual gifts, gifts that he refers to as the “motivational gifts”. In this teaching, he’ll cover the last two of those motivational gifts, which include the gift of administration and the gift of empathy.  It has been great taking a deeper dive into each of these gifts and learning about the intricacies of each.  I know that it has been enlightening for me to cover each gift one by one.

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n this teaching Pastor Harris will follow a similar format as our last episode, this time he’ll cover the motivational gift of exhortation and will then cover the motivational gift of giving. He’ll walk us through what both of these gifts entail, and will wrap up each one listing seven dominant characteristics for both of these gifts.

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In this teaching Pastor Harris will discuss two more Spiritual Gifts, two that he has categorized as motivational gifts.  One is the gift of servanthood, and the other is the gift of teaching. It really is fascinating to listen to these gift bearer's descriptions.  Hopefully you all are having a similar experience as I am, learning about your own giftings.

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As always we hope everyone enjoyed our introductory teaching on the Spiritual Gifts.  I for one am very intrigued with the three categories of gifts that Pastor Harris has provided for us.  Of those three categories I am referring to, one contains 7 motivational gifts,  another contains 11 equipping gifts and another contains 7 manifestation gifts.  I am looking forward to digging into these with Pastor Harris as he unpacks each of the life of this teaching.  In this episode Pastor Harris we review the ins and outs of the motivational gifts answering questions like; when do we get assigned our gifts?  Are some gifts more dominant than others? Can you earn gifts or are there reasons that you would deserve a gift?  Pastor Harris will then cover the first of 7 motivational gifts to us, the specific gift he will cover in this episode will be the gift of prophecy.  

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In this episode we kick off one of our largest teaching series to date; Pastor Harris is going to walk us through the Spiritual Gifts. What are the spiritual gifts?  How many of them are there? How do we know which gifts we have? There are so many questions to be answered on this topic. In this episode Pastor Harris will examine these God given abilities through the lens of none other than the Apostle Paul and you know that is going to make for some great teaching.

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Given the nature of this podcast and how it is dependent on past recordings, it is inevitable that we are going to run into instances where we simply don’t have the full recording of the teachings.  Well sadly on this final teaching of dad’s 2017 Advent series it seems that the entire teaching was not captured successfully. However, I say we don’t let that get us down.  I say this Christmas we all put on our Hercule Puaro caps Pastor Harris taught us to wear for so many years, and we do our best to deduce where he was coming from leading up to the end of this teaching as we listen to the final 6 minutes and 45 seconds of his message.  I think there is so much that can be taken from this small snippet of teaching that I couldn't help but go ahead and share it to wrap up this series.

I mean… leave it to dad to be able to teach The Christmas Story from the Gospel of John.  He proves that you don't need wise men or shepherds or angels to tell the story of the miracle of Christmas.  I hope you are able to take away as much insight as I did from this very brief teaching.

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This episode marks the third week of this Advenseries.  It is that time when we remember God’s decision to become a man, and when we look ahead with anticipation to his second coming to establish his kingdom on earth. The magnitude of this first aspect of Advent, God’s decision to become a man is truly incredible. Just think about it! The one true God, the God who brought the world into being by the words of his mouth, chose, decided, willed, to become a human being. Can you imagine?

The facts are staggering. Almighty God willingly chose to put on this corrupt human flesh of ours, choosing to live in one of these bodies of sin. It truly is “mind-boggling.” Then, when we add to all of that the fact that by His own free choice, He subjected Himself to all the limitations that you and I experience, it is difficult for anyone to comprehend.

However, if we think this is difficult for us to understand, imagine how difficult it would have been for the ancient Hebrews to understand. For them, the idea that God would become flesh was the surest lunacy; it was unthinkable. After all, they saw God as being “wholly other,” and the very thought of Him associating with the likes of us, much less becoming man Himself was considered to be blasphemous.

Yet, there were a few men who dared to express such a thought, and this morning, Pastor Harris will point to these special men, and even name them. Their boldness set the scene for that great moment when God became flesh and dwelt among us. 

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In this episode we will jump into the second episode of our Advent series this year titled, “The Christ of Christmas”. Pastor Harris will tell us more about the “Little town of Bethlehem” which was made famous by the great Christmas carol that we all have sung so many times. Bethlehem is located some six miles south of the city of Jerusalem near the chief north-south route that links Jerusalem with the town of Hebron. The word Bethlehem means “house of bread” and its significance lies in the fact that it is located in a fertile region characterized by an abundance of grain, especially barley and wheat, thus “house of bread.”

The town was originally called Ephrathah, which means “fruitful.” The first biblical mention of the site is that it was the place where Jacob’s wife, Rachel, was buried after her untimely death, so the city must have existed as early as the time of Jacob and perhaps earlier.

In the prophetic book of Micah, Bethlehem is given its crowning glory. The prophet declares that this village will be the birthplace of Israel’s Messiah. In fact, Micah 5:2 reads as follows:

“But you, Bethlehem, though you were little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from old, from everlasting.”

Ever since the first century AD, Bethlehem has been a place of pilgrimage and throughout the following centuries the city has continued to be a sacred site for Christians worldwide. There, we find the very ancient Church of the Nativity, perhaps the oldest church building in existence, which is located in the middle of the town. Beneath this church is a grotto, a cave, and it is here where the Lord Jesus Christ was born. In this teaching, Pastor Harris will be making reference to this cave and to the One who was born here. 

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Now if the Bible clearly teaches that when Jesus entered the life of this world, He was born in a land, and to a people who enjoyed a unique relationship with God. We would imagine, of course, that these people would welcome Him with open arms. Unfortunately, none of these things would prove to be true. Rather than being received with open arms, He was rejected and hated, not adored.

When God saw this He was heartbroken. Here was a nation of people who have been longing for a deliverer to appear, and when that occurred they rejected Him.  However, the Jews were not alone in this rejection of the highest and best.

Tragically, this is the sad story of the entire human race. There are so few of us who are willing to accept all that God has for us. And millions even billions of people reject His greatest gift, the Christ of Christmas. Yet this much can be said. Some of the Jewish people did accept God’s gift; and that gift empowered them to become everything God created them to be. As John will write, “To all those who did receive Him, to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God.”

John 1:10-12 will set the stage for Pastor Harris’s message as he speaks of “the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us.”

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As we wrap up Pastor Harris’s fourth and final message on Discouragement.  Let’s step back a few episodes to episode one where Pastor Harris defined discouragement and explained this with some of his own personal examples.  In the second episode on discouragement, Pastor Harris discussed Its many causes and ways that Christians can combat these feelings. In the third episode, Pastor Harris discussed three “don’ts”, or three things we should avoid doing to rise above discouragement.  In this final episode on the topic of discouragement, Pastor Harris will use the story of Joshua to paint a picture of the curse that discouragement can be and the parallels that can be found between the curse of sin. 

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We are continuing on to Pastor Harris’s third message on Discouragement.  In the last episode Pastor Harris discussed the causes of discouragement and ways that Christians can combat these feelings. In this episode, Pastor Harris will discuss three “don’ts”, or three things we should avoid doing to rise above discouragement. Hopefully this message helps everyone listening to discover their true role in life.

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As you all know we recently kicked off a series on Discouragement.  This episode will mark the second of four on this topic that Pastor Harris will deliver.  In the last episode Pastor Harris defined discouragement using its most basic definition of “losing heart” or “to lose heart”.  

In this episode Pastor Harris will address some of the causes of discouragement, specifically some that caused him to lose heart. He’ll will walk us through how we as Christians can combat these feelings of discouragement, specifically how we can deal with some of those deep rooted life experiences, and experiences from our past.

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We are excited to kick off a new series on the topic of Discouragement starting with this episode. Now I know this doesn't sound like the most exciting or uplifting message series ever.  However, it goes without saying that discouragement is something we all face to some degree and I feel like dad’s approach is very personal and in the end, highly ensightgul and very encouraging.

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This episode marks the sixth and final teaching of the series Six Impediments to Personal Success. In this message Pastor Harris will bring the final of the six impediments which relates to the human tendency to become disorganized, thus dysfunctional. To demonstrate how this occurs, pastor Harris will use the biblical example of the twin brothers, Esau and Jacob, two brothers who could not have been any more different.

Even as a fetus in the womb, Jacob desired to be the firstborn. Before conscious awareness ever dawned, he wanted to attain the birthright belonging to his father, Isaac. This was so much the case that he wrestled continually in the womb with his twin. These contests became so violent it made the life of his mother Rebecca miserable. As a result, she approached God to ask Him what was happening. The Lord told her that one of the twins would be stronger than the other, but that the elder would serve the younger, which was the reverse of the usual custom of the time.

So, when the time came for the twins to be born, Esau began to emerge from the birth canal first, but before he could clear the canal, observers could see the hand of the second born grasping the heel of first born attempting to pull him back into the womb. The term, “grabbing the heel” is the Hebrew word AQEB, which we know as Jacob.

Jacob is said to be “quiet,” which can mean “morally sensitive.” He may have been this way because he spent his time developing a plan to inherit the covenant promises made to his grandfather Abraham. In this message, Pastor Harris will not pass moral judgment on Jacob, but he will demonstrate the organized way in which this man pursued his dream. Pastor will make the point that success belongs to those with a plan.

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In this episode, Pastor Harris will continue his sermon series entitled, “Impediments to Personal Success.” In this series, he is pointed out how the great people of faith guaranteed their successes by their attitudes. Pastor Harris will be addressing what he calls a Lone Ranger mentality, one he considers to be a great impediment to succeeding. So, in this message Pastor Harris will focus on a man who exemplifies a totally different attitude toward life, a man Pastor refers to as being “a team player.” This man is known to us as Nehemiah.

From ancient times, the cities located in the Middle East were surrounded by stone walls with gates erected for the protection of the people. The important men of each city would gather at these gates to conduct the business of the city, share important information, or just pass the time of day. Unfortunately, the walls, gates, and the streets of the city of Jerusalem had been totally destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar the Great in the year 586 BC. There was no place to meet.

When Nehemiah was told of the state of the Holy City he immediately asked permission to rebuild its walls. As he was leaving Babylon, he met some Arab men who mocked him for what he was about to do. Nehemiah 2:20 records his statement, which stands even today as a testament to who has the right to the city known as Jerusalem: Nehemiah rights this:

“I answered them by saying, ‘The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it.’”

The key to this statement is the pronouns. Nehemiah always spoke of “we,” not “me.” He was no Lone Ranger; he was a team player, as we shall see in this message.

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In this episode we are going to continue our series entitled “Six Impediments to Personal Success.” This message for today will be the fourth in this series and will focus on the subject of a poor work ethic. Previously, Pastor has shown us three other impediments, the first is a negative self-image, the second is self-pity, and the third is what dad calls “stinking thinking.”  

Whereas last week, Pastor Harris appealed to the great man Joshua to enable us to overcome “stinking thinking,” In this message he will appeal to the book of Proverbs to enable us to visualize the dangers of being overcome by a poor work ethic.

In Pastor Harris’s mind, the book of Proverbs accomplishes something no other biblical book does; it simply compiles numerous short instructions for living an effective life on this earth; that is, instructions for successful living. While other books articulate profound theological truths, lengthy narratives of triumph and failure, or prophetic declarations addressed to disobedient people, Proverbs concerns itself with instructing us in the path of something it refers to as being “wisdom.”

Proverbs states its theme very early in the book. In fact, Proverbs 1:7 tells us this, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” The fear of the Lord does not mean being afraid of Him, it means viewing Him with the respect He deserves; living our lives in the light of what we know of Him; holding Him in the very highest esteem; and depending on Him in every circumstance of life. Only then will we discover true knowledge and wisdom.

The point Pastor Harris will make is this: we need knowledge to overcome the tendency we all have to allow ourselves to become slothful, which more than anything else can defeat our path to personal success.

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In this episode Pastor Harris will be focusing on the third impediment, the one he identifies as stinking thinking. In America today, this stinking thinking is a plague. To illustrate how a stinking thinking can be overcome, he will appeal to one of the great men of the Old Testament, a man whose name was Joshua ben Nun, the central figure in the Old Testament book focusing upon him. According to the books of Exodus, Numbers, and Joshua, he was the assistant to the great man Moses and succeeded Moses as the leader of Israel after Moses died.

Joshua’s Hebrew name at birth was HOSHE’A, and he was from the tribe of Ephraim. It was Moses who named him Joshua according to Numbers 13:16. His name was shortened to YESHUA in Nehemiah 8:17. According to the Scriptures, he was born in Egypt prior to the Exodus.

Joshua was destined to become one of the twelve spies sent out by Moses to explore the land of Canaan. He was also charged by Moses to select and command a military group for Israel’s first battle following the Exodus. He ascended Mount Sinai with Moses when Moses received the Ten Commandments. And after the death of Moses, he replaced the great man and led the Israelites in the conquest of Canaan. He personally allotted the land to the various tribes. This is a man who would never surrender to stinking thinking, and Pastor Harris will use this man as his example for today’s Podcast message.

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In this episode, Pastor Harris will examine a second impediment to success, which is that of self-pity. It is related to the first but the two are not the same; not even remotely. This second impediment can be an abyss, and some of the greatest people who have ever lived have fallen into this abyss. Those people who have had the pleasure of seeing the movie, “The Darkest Hour,” have seen how Winston Churchill, as great as he was, almost plunged into this abyss. Millions of others have done the same thing and destroyed their lives.

One of the great biblical examples of a man suffering from self-pity became one of the central characters in Old Testament history. In fact, he was the first of Israel’s great prophets, and his name was Elijah the Tishbite. Please do not jump to the conclusion that the Pastor is simply teaching us again about some strange guy that lived three thousand years ago. And please do not jump to the conclusion that the life of this man has nothing to do with us.

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Is it safe to say that everyone listening right now agrees that we all want to achieve our goals? I know I do. Personally, I’m a goal setter, sometimes I do it subconsciously but I definitely set goals. Now, we all probably also know that there are many impediments to achieving those goals, or certain impediments that will always stand in our way. Well, for the next six episodes Pastor Harris will touch on one of these impediments each episode and help us address this head-on, and put us on a trajectory of personal success.

So let me introduce the first of these six impediments Pastor Harris will touch on in this first episode. One of the most devastating obstacles is simply the way we see ourselves.  You see those that see themselves negatively rarely if ever achieve success in life.  More often than not, a negative self-image usually developed early in life.  It could start with something like being the last chosen to be on a team, doesn't really matter what sport it was, those who are the last to be chosen often grow up thinking they are not athletic. This is NOT based on facts, it is based instead on what other people think of them.  Some people with negative self-images made low grades in school, therefore they grew up thinking of themselves as backward.

I think the point Pastor Harris will be making is this.  Until we come to an authentic and unclouded idea of who we are until we cease to allow our identities to be a reflection of the opinion of others we will live our lives in a fashion that will lead us to a life of defeat and not a life of success.

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As the great Apostle Paul opens Galatians 5, he returns once again to the all important issue of salvation and circumcision. As we recall, that was the issue that provoked the apostle to write the epistle to the Galatians in the first place. Bear in mind that certain Christians of a Pharisee persuasion who belonged to the church in Jerusalem had journeyed to the region of Galatia in Asia minor. They had made this journey because they were concerned with the certain heretical positions that had been taken by the Apostle Paul. They were determined to correct the damage the apostle may have caused.

When they visited these various churches, they informed the believers in the region that they would have to be circumcised to be saved. They also told them that they could not go to heaven unless they were willing to submit to the rituals of circumcision. Apparently they were able to present a very compelling argument.

What they told the Galatians was this. If you really want to be a Christian, that is if you really want to be saved, you have to first become a Jew because only Jews can be saved. After all they pointed out that Jesus himself had said that Salvation is of the Jews. But these Galatians were Gentiles not Jews.  Remember that Jewishness was both a racial and religious distinction. Not just one of the other.  So the question became, how could Gentiles like them become Jewish.

Well, the Pharisee Christians had an answer to this.  They informed the Galatians that there was a way in which a Gentile could become a Jew.  That was called the path of the Prosthelye. This path involved two distinct steps.  In the first place, one had to be baptized in water, and in the second place, they also had to be circumcised.

Since these Galatians had already been baptized by Paul.  The Pharisees Christians told them that all they needed to do was submit themselves to ritual circumcision. The Pharisees Christians must have been very convincing because the Galatians were standing in line to undergo this painful procedure.

When word reached Paul about what was happening in Galatia he was absolutely incensed because he knew that there was more at stake in Galatian than a piece of foreskin.  What was at stake was the essence of what would become the orthodox gospel of Jesus Christ himself. As we now know, the Gospel has always been Jesus plus nothing and it always will be.  There is no place for the concept of Jesus plus circumcision. 

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In this episode Pastor Harris will pick back up in Galatians, chapter 4:6-12 and discuss the process of maturing in God and many aspects surrounding that idea.  He points out how important it is to realize that simply asking the Lord Jesus into your heart does not automatically make you a fully matured Christian.  Furthermore, we should all try to avoid immaturing ourselves as a believer as well. 

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In this message Pastor Harris is going to tell us the Christmas story as presented by the Apostle Paul.  The amazing thing is that Paul tells the Christmas story and explains it with five easy words.  This is what Paul writes.  “When the fullness of time was come, God. sent. forth. his. Son. That is it. That is the Christmas story as told by the Apostle Paul.

Obviously his version is very short and it is also extremely powerful. The major point the Apostle was making is this.  Christmas is a total God thing.  Human beings never had anything to do with it and never will have anything to do with it. In fact Paul writes, “God sent forth his son”, in other words, it was our God who took the initiative, without our knowledge, without our approval, and without our cooperation. God orchestrated the Christmas events. He decided the timing, he chose the place and he dictated the circumstances.

In addition, he did not hold an election to see if the human race wanted him to appear in human flesh, he just did it on his own. The fact of the matter is this, if WE had orchestrated the Christmas story it would have been drastically changed.  For one thing we would have made certain that the son would have been born in Rome, in the capital city of the world and not some village in the backwater corner of the empire. 

For another thing, we would have insisted on his being born in a comfortable house and not some rustic cave in a barren hillside. And here is another thing we might have done, we might have selected someone like an emperor or an empress of the Roman empire to be his parents. We certainly would not have selected some pheasant girl and a carpenter to raise this kid.

However, when God sent forth his son, he did choose a cave outside the judean village known as Bethlehem. And God did choose two peasants to raise his only begotten son, in fact the woman he chose to raise his own son was virgin.  This provides the centerpiece for Pastor Harris’s message today.  I know everyone wants to get right into today’s teaching.

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In the previous episodes of the Breaking the Chains series on the epistles to the Galatians. Pastor Harris makes a rather revolutionary claim.  He suggested that the Abrahamic covenant, the great agreement described in Genesis 15, is really the New Testament covenant. In other words, he believed that the Abrahamic Covenant was an initiation of the new covenant.  This covenant was established on a dark starry night sometime around 1750 BC. But that covenant was not fully finalized until 30AD on a lonely hill outside of Jerusalem at a place called Golgotha. When a young man named Jesus of Nazarath whispered the words, “It is finished.” and everything that began with Abraham was fully accomplished.  

The problem had been this: from the initiation of God’s covenant with Abraham until Christ breathed his last breath, people had to look forward to a savior who was yet to come. However when Christ died, he became the ultimate sacrifice for sin and now we, that are under the new covenant, can look back to a completed work.

Pastor Harris knew that this concept would be shocking to some people but he felt he had based everything that he has taught us so far on solid scriptural evidence. He has shown us in God’s word that Christ was personally present when Abraham’s covenant was initiated in Genesis 15. He has shown us how the father and son interacted in the midst of five sacrificial animals. He has also shown us how a comatose Abraham could contribute nothing to this.

Galatians 3:17-25 proves the accuracy of what Pastor Harris has been sharing.  The apostle demonstrates to us how God and his son had initiated the Abrahamic covenant some 430 years prior to the giving of the law to Moses on Mt. Sinea. Granted the text of Galatians does not specifically say that God and his son established that covenant, but I would ask this… what covenant could it have been that God established 430 years prior to the exodus if it was not the Abrahamic covenant?

Here is our text, the Apostle Paul will state specifically that no other covenant, not even the Law of Moses replaced or superseded the covenant of Abraham.  This is where Pastor Harris will begin his teaching in this episode.

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You may recall the churches in Galatia were founded by the missionary activities of the Apostle Paul. But the believers in that area had turned away from the true gospel messages Paul had delivered to them.  In fact Paul said they had turned to another gospel. These congregations had allowed themselves to be seduced into believing that the Pauline Gospel of Jesus plus nothing was not adequate to save them.  So they decided to adopt the concept of Jesus plus circumcision, Jesus plus rules, and Jesus plus the law.

Of courses Paul was amazed by this, and we should be as well.  We should even be asking ourselves how this possibly could have happened, how could these Galatians be duped so easily. The apostle Paul explains the “How” of this in chapters one and two of Galatians. He tells us how certain Christians from Jerusalem had come to the region immediately on the departure of Paul and Barnabus. These men were Hebrew believers in Christ who still hung tenaciously to their Jewish roots.  Paul refers to them as Pharisee Christians.

Once in Galatia these Pharisee Christian had convinced these new believers that Gentiles like them could not receive the blessings of salvation unless they first became Jews. That was essential. After All they claimed the Bible is clear that the blessings of salvation were only promised to Abraham and his seed and knowone else.

Gentiles like these believers in Galatia could only inherit those promises by being incorporated into the family of Abraham.  The only way for this incorporation to accor, these Pharisees taught, was for them to be circumcised just like Abraham who was a gentile himself at the time of his circumcision. However that was not all that they had taught.  They had also taught that anyone who had totally appropriated the promises of God, had to rigidly obey the laws of God as given to Moses on Mt. Sinei. In other words, they had to at least obey God’s moral law, or the ten commandments.  And whether or not they appropriated the promises depended on their being circumcised and obeying God.

The Pharisee Christians were adamant, if the Galatians would first be circumcised, then live according to God’s moral law they would be saved.  However, if they broke God’s moral law their salvation would be forfeited. Without question the Apostle Paul was repulsed by these teachings and he was equally repulsed by the fact that the Galatian converts had so willingly fallen for it. So Paul sat down and dictated the epistle to the Galations in an attempt to straighten out the situation. Our text for today represents one of the apostles' most succinct arguments.

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In this series we have been examining what Pastor Harris calls the Pharisee Gospel. Over the past seven episodes we have taken a close look at the various arguments of a group of Pharisee Christians used to convince believers in Galatia that they should abandon the concept of grace and submit to Jewish law. These Pharisee Christians were so convincing that many of the Galatians believed and concluded that they had not been saved at all.

All this confusion began because these Galatians had bought into the Pharisee Christian argument that the only way for anyone to become saved was to become a Jew. Since the Galatians had not become Jews it appeared to them that even though they had believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ that they really had no relationship with God. The grace message had to be an illusion, after all they had been reminded again and again that Jesus himself had said that salvation is of the Jews. But that raised a huge question which was this, since they were not Jews, was there any way for them to be saved? Afterall, how on earth can a gentile become a Jew?  The Galatians had certainly asked themselves this. Isn't the term Jewish, an ethnic classification as well as a religious classification.  Well they knew the answer to this, of course it is.

Since being Jewish is a matter of genetic lineage, how can any gentile ever be saved? Obviously it would be impossible. But before Pastor Harris provides these answers, let us be reminded of one thing.  In the Bible, God’s chosen people, the Jews, are also known as Hebrews. And there is a subtle but important difference between the Jews and the Hebrews. 

The term Hebrews represents the entire lineage of the man known as Adam Bentera. While the term Jew represents one of the 12 tribes that descended from Adam Bentera.  That tribe is the Tribe of Judah. According to Word of God, the tribe of Judah was the tribe that finally inherited the promises that God had originally told Abraham.

So when we use the word Hebrew we are talking about the offspring of Adam.  When we use the word Jew we are talking about one portion of the offspring of Adam. With that in mind, Pastor Harris will demonstrate how the Pharisee Christians dealt with this issue with Gentiles being saved since they were not the offspring of Adam.  Then he will tell us how the apostle Paul understood how Gentiles become Jews.

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I hope everyone continues to enjoy the “Breaking the Chains” series.  This series sure continues to bring a very unique insight into the process of being born again and how the spirit continues to work in the believer from that point forward.  This week I was talking with a listener and we were discussing this series.  As we briefly discussed our thoughts and take aways thus far we both came to a similar thought.  What this series so far has helped reveal to us is how we as humans have difficulty simply receiving. That is, receiving from God the gifts he bestows on us… plus nothing else.  We don't need to meet a requirement, or follow specific guidelines to keep this gift.  The funny thing to me is that it is such a simplistic concept, but yet so difficult to comprehend.  In this episode, Pastor Harris will continue to help us understand this concept with an in depth review of his most quoted bible verse.

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In the last message of the Breaking the Chains series, Pastor Harris examined the thorny issue of the curse of the law in the so-called “Jerusalem incident”.  This incident involved a confrontation between the Apostle Paul and the leaders of the church in Jerusalem. What made this confrontation tricky was that some of the leaders in the church were some of the original 12 disciples of Jesus. Also present in the leadership were certain Christians from a Pharisee sect who had become very vocal in the church over the years.  They argued continually that a person must become a Jew to be part of the masonic community. In other words they had to be circumcised and submit to a proselyte baptism.

The debate was heated, but in the end James the brother of Jesus and the 12 disciples agreed to accept the position in which the apostle Paul had argued on his second trip to Jerusalem. They decided once and for all, gentiles would be allowed to become Christians without becoming Jews. In other words, gentiles would not be required to be circumcised, or to obey ceremonial laws of Judaism. This was the agreement.

When the conference concluded they all returned to the city of Antioch in Syria. Having now established the official position of the 12 apostles in Jerusalem, Paul went to work building a great church in a beautiful gentile city.  The municipality represented one of the most progressive cities in the Roman empire. It was located in the northwest most boundary of the Roman province of Syria.

The Apostle Paul’s aggressive work in this location soon had this church booming.  People were coming to Christ by the hundreds.  However, while the church in Antioch was expanding, the church in Jerusalem had entered a definite decline, the church was going downhill and fast.

In this message Pastor Harris will fill us in as to why one church thrived and one church died.

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In the last episode we saw that the Apostle Paul had introduced the believers in Galatia to the concept of freedom in Christ. Paul knew once he had introduced this idea the legalists would show up in force, and they did!  Legalists came to Galatia to challenge this concept, and when Paul journeyed to Jerusalem they showed up again.

Anytime freedom in Christ is championed, whether it be now or then, legalists will always voice an abjection. 

However, the Apostle Paul was ready for the legalists. When Paul left Antioch for Jerusalem he brought with them what Pastor Harris calls a secret weapon. And he brought the secret weapon to the private meeting with the Jerusalem church. The apostle would need this secret weapon because the word of the meeting had leaked out to the Pharisee Christians in Jerusalem and they immediately crashed the meeting.

The secret weapon that Paul had brought was actually a young believer named Titus, and this man Titus had never been circumcised. In other words he was a full blown gentile, meaning that his body bore no external sign of righteous standing with God.  This young man was special.  He enjoyed such a deep intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ that everyone at this meeting could see Christ in him. Especially when he was compared to those narrow minded legalists who suddenly burst into the meeting room.

Oddly enough, there is no record that Titus ever spoke a word in that meeting.  Apparently he just sat there dead to himself and alive in Christ and preached a silent sermon of Grace.

Those in the room could see that this Christian faith is based on a relationship with the living Christ, not rules, it always had, and it always will, and Titus was living evidence of that relationship.  And he did this without him ever having obeyed a single rule, Jesus had come to dwell in his heart and every apostle there could see it. He was living proof that salvation is based upon faith, and faith alone. In fact salvation has always involved Jesus plus nothing, and is not Jesus plus the law.

It had better not ever be Jesus plus the law because none of us can keep that law.  We have fallen to a sinful nature and that nature will not allow us to keep that law.  The only human being that had ever been able to keep that law was Jesus Christ and he kept it perfectly.

In this message Pastor Harris will examine the concept of the law and will examine why we cannot keep it and why struggling to keep the law will never save us.

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In this episode we will learn that the letter to Galatians is focused on two major struggles for the earliest church and how the outcome of those struggles would determine the future direction of the body of Christ on earth. These two struggles were as follows. Salvation by Grace vs Salvation by Works, and Spirituality by Grace vs Spirituality by Works. We should be aware that one major difference exists between these two concepts. Salvation and Spirituality.

In this message Pastor Harris will focus on the former concept of salvation. This issue of Salvation came to a head in the earliest church in what Pastor Harris calls “The Jerusalem Incident”.

In the text for today, Galatians 2:1-10 the Apostle Paul describes a second visit he made to the church in Jerusalem. As you may recall, Paul's first visit to Jerusalem was a rather traumatic affair. On that occasion the Apostle Paul was not allowed to address the Jerusalem church at all. He was limited to having a series of discussions with Simon Peter and James the Just, the brother of Jesus.

On this first visit, the leadership would not allow him to address the church.  So, he decided to go out and preach on the streets of Jerusalem and the street preaching stirred up the temple elite. Within days the temple authorities began to threaten reprisals against the fledgling Christian community. So the leaders of the church quickly went to Paul and urged him to leave Jerusalem. They asked him to return to his hometown of Tarshis.

Being a man under the authority he did as he was told and he remained in Tarshish for the next 11 years. But now in Galatians 2:1-10 Paul personally describes his return to the scene  of his banishment. He returns to Jerusalem but this time things would be different as Pastor Harris will demonstrate today.

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In the past two episodes we have seen how certain Pharisee Christians have visited the church in Galatia. When they arrived they told the Galatians that the message they preach is just another Gospel of the same kind of what Paul preached. However, in the epistle to the Galatians that Paul writes, he says, no no no this is not the gospel I preach.  This is another gospel the opposite of what I preach.

Paul goes on to tell the churches that the gospel these Pharisee Christians were preaching was really a perversion of the true Gospel.  In fact it was damnable in its content and doctrine. The verb translated into English as pervert in Galatian 1:7b is the Greek word Medestresti means to mix an alien solution with a pure base and in doing so it changes the entire chemical makeup of the base. In other words, what the Pharisee Christians mixed into the pure Gospel base had changed the base into something totally different.

The Pharisee Christians had taken the pure Gospel which is Jesus plus nothing, and they had added into it the works of the law.  Thus the base was altered to become Jesus plus the law, or Jesus plus rules. The problem is this, when anything is added to the pure gospel of Jesus plus nothing, it will create a gospel of another kind, and this creates something we call religion. That is how religion is born as a perversion of the true gospel message. 

These Pharisee Christians had launched a number of accusations against Paul in Galatia.  One of those accusations is that the theological stance of the apostle Paul had come from God knows where, while they (the Pharisees) had received their doctrine from the 12 apostles in Jerusalem.

In this message we will hear the apostles answer to this issue.  Paul explains to the Galatians where he received the Gospel and why the Gospel represents the real thing.

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In this episode we’re going to dig into the second message of the Breaking the Chains series we recently started featuring Paul’s letter to Galatia. As a quick refresher, Paul initially wrote this letter to address the mammoth problem that had originated in the churches. Paul and  Barnabas established churches in Galatia on their first missionary journey.  However, the believers had begun to accept the idea that Grace was not sufficient for salvation. This idea was birthed as the result of a vicious virus known as legalism. And this virus had infected their entire body. 

You see, a delegation from Jerusalem known as the Pharisee Christians had arrived in the region of Galatia. The men who composed the delegation had come to know Christ as their savior, but unlike Paul and Barnabas they had not been able to sever their lifelong attachment to the law… nor did they want to.  For several years the men of this delegation had deeply distrusted Paul and his message.  It was their belief that in his teachings, Paul undermined the Torah and the temple wherever he went. As far as these men were concerned, Torah and temple still stood at the center of Christianity because they saw Chirstianity as an extension of Judaism.

In addition they believed that Paul had not only deserted Torah and temple but that he had also deserted Jewish law, including the ten commandments, the difference between Paul and the Jerusalen delegation was this.  Paul preached Jesus plus nothing.  While this delegation of Pharisee Christians preached Jesus plus the law… or as Pastor Harris would point out, Jesus plus religion.

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In this episode, we are going to jump into a new series from the book of Galatians.  This series of teachings were delivered at Ariel Chapel in Norman Oklahoma back in 2011 and overlapped into 2012.  Paul’s letter to Galatia, like many other books, has its own theme. For example, the theme of the book of Romans’ is Justification by Faith.  The theme of Ephesians is the Church.  The theme of Philippians is the joy of the Holy Spirit. Well, Galatians has a theme too, and it is one that was very special to dad.  So much so that it became the focus of his entire ministry and basically his life.  You see the theme of Paul's letter to Galatia is salvation through grace or as Pastor Harris would go on to call it, “Relational Grace”.

So let me provide a little background to help set up this initial message. You see, Paul initially wrote this letter to address the mammoth problem that had originated in the churches in Asia Minor or what we would know today as modern Turkey.  Galatians were noted for their impetuosity, fickleness and love for new and curious things. Paul established churches in Galatia on his first missionary journey.  And revisited them on his third missionary journey.  Paul considered them to be the first fruits of his missionary outreach to the world. However, the believers had proven to not be stable. They had begun to accept the idea that Grace was not sufficient for salvation. This idea was birthed as the result of a vicious virus known as legalism. And this virus had infected their body. So how did this virus germinate? It was actually a fairly sad tale. And Pastor Harris will discuss the origins of this virus in this episode.

You can expect this series to take us through the majority of the book of Galatians.  However, the goal of this teaching series is not to simply go through the book of Galatians scripture by scripture.  No, Pastor Harris’s goal with this series is to drive home the understanding that it is Jesus plus nothing. Stop. Period.  This is the point he continues to help us understand, and from many different angles.

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In this episode we will be wrapping up a quick three part series titled WW 3: When, Where and Why. In this teaching Pastor Harris will focus on, what he has learned according to scripture, which will need to happen in order to initiate WW III.  He will also break down the factors that should be considered to deduce the location this war or invasion will take place. He’ll also review some specifics around the timing and location of these happenings.

This is a very interesting approach to understanding how this war could play out in our modern world, and by modern world I should even clarify modern geography and civilizations.  All of these aspects become factors in understanding how all this may very well play some day.

So with that let’s wrap up this series that was first taught back in the 1940’s by Raymond Harris, shared over the course of my dad’s Nick Harris’s ministry, and not being shared out to you all.

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Today we are going to share the second of three teachings from a series we kicked off in the last episode called World War Three: When. Where. And Why. Pastor Harris will focus in on specific alliances that will assemble as the next World War approaches.  I will have to say that as Pastor Harris starts to chip away at some of this scripture in Ezekiel 38 there are a few elements that do hit fairly close to our current news and events.

One thing to note. As you listen to this episode you might notice that the audio sounds a bit different than the first teaching in this series. Well, for some reason it is a bit different.  The file I found was a different type of file but it was named and numbered just like the others in the series. I can’t really explain all that but what I do know is that Pastor Harris wanted these taught in this order, so that is how we are going to publish them. 

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In this episode we begin a new study titled, WW III: Who, What, When, Where, and Why? Many aspects of what Pastor Harris taught in the Beast from the East series could be applied here so weI thought we should go ahead and share this teaching now while topics like the prophetic timetable are fresh on our minds and our decryption and biblical decoding skills are finely tuned and well-oiled.

Pastor Harris opens this message talking about his father, Pastor Raymond Harris, who was an evangelist himself, who traveled across the country back in the 1940’s preaching this apocalyptic message you are about to hear over the next three episodes.  Pastor Harris would describe his father Raymond as the greatest preacher who ever lived.

So who’s up for learning more about what WW III will entail and answer some of those questions like Who, When, Where and Why?  We’ll start by finding out more about why Israel is so pivotal in this timetable, we’ll learn more about Gog and Magog, who and/or what are they?  

Finally, we want to reiterate the same sentiment stated several times in the Beast from the East series.  Outside of the biblical teaching, some of what Pastor Harris brings to light are his specific thoughts and beliefs as to what he believes these scriptures could be talking about and how these statements could materialize. Regardless, these WW III teachings are extremely thought-provoking and I hope you learn some new things you had never known before.

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In this episode we will close out the Beast from the East series, by discussing Armageddon and how Pastor Harris believes it could manifest itself in modern day… outside of the fact that this teaching was recorded about 20 years ago. You can expect a quick recap from Pastor Haris, so for those that back-to-back listen to some of these teachings, fear not, you are simply in a recap. The new stuff will kick in eventually.  Some of the new elements Pastor Harris will bring to light, pertain to the wars that will erupt, judgements that will be released, and finally dad attempting to describe the sheer size of this battle and the immense casualty count that will be amassed.

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In this episode Pastor Harris will teach on the Anti-Christ and the various aspects leading up to his identity being revealed. These final two teachings in this series are going to be extremely revealing.  Now, before we continue forward we want to ensure that everyone listening understands that of course Biblical scripture is Biblical scripture, no one can deny that. However, much of what dad teaches throughout this series is his interpretation of what we simply do not know for fact. The truth is…  no one knows.  The scripture tells us that! Truth is that many people have many different beliefs regarding these scriptures and how they can be interpreted, dad’s teachings are simply that, they are his translations.  But what I will say about our dad, Pastor Harris, is that he is the most brilliant man we have ever known, and after a lifetime of study, research, debate, history, pondering, and well… prayer, these points we are about to hear are his findings, and his interpretations. All this to say, we thought it was only right to clarify this throughout this series of teachings. Furthermore, anyone is welcome to adopt his stance, support a different stance, or argue their stance.  

Speaking of stances, Pastor Harris does touch on one of the long time debated topics in Christian Eschatology.  It has to do with the Great Tribulation and when exactly the rapture will take place. These are broken up into several schools of thought, the Pre-Tribbers, Mid-Tribbers and Post-Tribbers. To you all out there listening… Do you know which group you belong to?  Well, Pastor Harris is about to point out which he group falls in line with and why.   Pastor Harris does a fair job sharing the various stances and why each has merit. We will also hear from Pastor Harris concerning things like “The Great Parenthesis” and the “Two Witnesses”.  He will also give us his thoughts on what are referred to as “The Young Lions” and who they might reference.  Many other intriguing, and otherwise cryptic scriptures will be discussed and hopefully everyone will leave with a better understanding of these apocalyptic topics. 

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In this episode, Pastor Harris will again dive deeper into the book of Daniel and focus on the five apocalyptic visions we have been touching on in the last two episodes. We’ll hear more about the statue of many metals as well as the four beasts.  Although Pastor Harris does touch on the same topics we have been talking about in earlier episodes, he takes a different approach in this teaching. We’re reminded of the specific nature in which the books of Daniel and Revelations were written. Many who read these books tend to get lost in the wording and syntax and lose sight of what is really being discussed.

Pastor Harris is going to walk us through the translation, or to be more accurate, the decryption process of these books.  Hopefully this is helping us all more easily comprehend these cryptic books. It’s truly a provocative breakdown on a story that otherwise reads like a fictional or even a mythological tail.  However, when Pastor Harris applies his lens of knowledge and research, it brings a considerable amount of clarity to these books and provides us all with some applicable meaning. So with that, let’s get ready to put on our biblical decoder rings and dive into the third episode of the Beast from the East series titled, “Daniel’s Empires”.

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Pastor Harris will begin by taking us through Jeremiah chapter 50 which is a message about Babylon. He’ll then take us through a quick “Prophecy Fulfillment 101” that’s proved for me to be very important to take into account while listening to messages like these.

If we look at the principles of the last episode we can see several continuing to take shape in our present time.  For example, the Two State Solution is still the road map which is being pursued by the global community.  An example, the Abraham Accords signed over the last three years between Israel and several Arab nations certainly aligns with Pastor Harris’s overall predictions.  Additionally, is the rise of Iran via it’s nuclear development which continues the build up of the Persian Empire which certainly includes Bagdad.   

Pastor Harris will also educate us on “time” and the various calendars that can be applied when studying time in the Bible. He also shares some pretty interesting metrics regarding time itself and how it can accurately be calculated.  

We will also hear more about the multi-metallic statue and beasts King Nebekenezer saw in his dreams and how these dreams can be translated into the times.  What do all the different metals represent? What specifically does the mention of a Beast represent, or horns, or wings?  Pastor Harris is going to explain these in the coming episodes.  

You can look forward to three additional teachings to come in the Beast from the East series.  One focusing on the Anti-Crist, another focusing on Daniel, and one final message on Armageddon. 

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Back in 2003 Pastor Harris prepared a study he titled “The Beast from the East.”  These topics included Daniel, Revelations, Armageddon and the Antichrist. However, in this series of messages Pastor Harris will discuss these teachings through the lens of the time, his time being 2003 when this was originally recorded.

It was Indeed a historic time. Back in 2003 in the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi dictator Sadam Hussain had been removed from power by the Alliance. Pastor Harris will walk us through God’s timeline and hypothesize about the meaning of these events alongside what we can learn from Revelations.  We also have the luxury of looking back at these events through the lens of 2022.  For example, today we know that Iran, which borders Iraq has risen in power and is on the verge of having nuclear capabilities.  The Persian Empire is being reestablished.  

Due to the recent events in Ukraine we were prompted to revisit Pastor Harris’s teachings on Daniel and Revelations.  It’s fascinating to hear him teach from Revelations and Daniel, and apply those prophecies to his day back in 2003.  We can do the same in 2022 and see where we are in the landscape of war and peace.  There are great lessons and depth of knowledge to be gained in these teachings that have direct impact on our present day.  

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The day this episode was published marks the 27th anniversary of the Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.  It is a date that changed the lives of so many people.  Amy Moffiet was home with my two month old son, Christian. But the family of Pastor Nick Harris, knew that their dad was across the street. 

We are excited to introduce a new friend of ours and survivor of that day.  Amy Moffiet was at a women’s conference and met a lady who asked how she was doing.  It was shortly after Amy had lost her dad, Pastor Harris and answered honestly, that she was sad. The women expressed her empathy for Amy and she appreciated the woman spending time with her that day.

The next time Amy saw Arlene,  she was speaking at a conference and shared a story about Pastor Harris.  When Arlene] connected that Amy's dad was Nick Harris, Arlene couldn’t wait to tell her about the connection she had to him.

See, Arlene had attended Pastor Harris's lunchtime Bible study called Loaves and Fishes.  Every Tuesday and Thursday people from the downtown area would come to First Church to have lunch and listen to a teaching by Pastor Harris.  He loved this time with these people.  They were not all people who attended his church, for some, this was their church, and he loved it!

When Amy introduced Arlene to Pastor Harris's wife Crystal, she spoke these words to her, “Your husband saved my life.” Often, we never know how our lives impact that of others. Arlene shared that she had been in the building that fateful morning and survived.  She also shared that there was much more to survive in the weeks, months and years to come.  Anxiety and fear were the challenges she had to survive.

She told us about a specific teaching that she recalled and held on to every time she was faced with fear and anxiety in the wake of the trauma she had endured.  That teaching became Arlene's mantra.  She also recalled how she experienced love and grace from a man who did not KNOW her but he still displayed love to her. 

Arlene is so much more than a survivor of the OKC Bombing in 1995.  She is a mother.  She is a child of the king. She is a woman on fire for Jesus. And she is a bearer of His Joy. I am so thankful that Pastor Harris was obedient to what Jesus asked him to do in hosting this Bible study week in and week out so that people could come to know more about relational grace. Our prayer is that we are able to continue to share this message of grace for many years to come.

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Pastor Harris led his church and he led his community in the days, weeks and months following the Oklahoma City Bombing on April 19th 1995.  Listen as Pastor Harris tells his story to North Church's School of Ministry Leadership Class where his daughter Amy Moffiet is on staff.  This class took a field trip that day and toured the OKC Memorial and followed that tour up with a teaching on leadership through tough times with Pastor Harris at First United Methodist Church, in the former sanctuary which is now called Harris Hall. He spoke of the challenges and victories he experienced as a leader and gave his best leadership advice, “listen to the Holy Spirit and then be obedient.”

For a long time Pastor Harris didn’t talk about the bombing or the events that followed.  Pastor Harris's family felt that it was important to have this story on video in his words for our family. So in 2018, Pastor Harris's daughter Amy asked the North Church production team if they would come along and get Pastor Harris’s story on video.  We are so thankful that they said yes.  A BIG thank you goes out to Mike for taking that Tuesday night to come down and capture this story from my Pastor Harris’s perspective.  It is a treasure to his and they now want to share with you.

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In this episode we are going to share Pastor Harris’s sermon from Easter Sunday, April 16th, 1995.  This would be the last Sunday Pastor Harris and the congregation from First United Methodist Church, or First Church as we will refer to it from here on out, would gather on the corner of 4th and Robinson in Oklahoma City for many years. For those new to this story, First Church was located directly east of the location of the Alfred P. Murrah Building that was bombed just three days following the delivery of this sermon and took the lives of 168 people.

The original video of the service is available on the Ariel Ministries web site via the blog or on the Ariel Ministries YouTube channel. Links to YouTube can also be found at ArielMinistries.com.

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Amy Moffiet and Jamie Russell, Pastor Harris's children, share several podcast episodes and upcoming YouTube videos that will be shared soon.  These episodes and videos are relevant to the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing that Pastor Nick Harris and many others survived, and that took 168 lives.

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We will finish strong as Pastor Harris explains to us how Nehemiah, who has quelled the external threats but now has to turn to a much more serious threat that has emerged internally among the people of Jerusalem.

Pastor Harris is not simply telling a story here.  Of course, through types and shadows, he will share with us how these internal threats, if not properly addressed can dominate the life of the unbeliever or the unregenerated spirt as Pastor Harris often teaches of and models through his Circle Teachings, or “Circles of Man” as we also refer to them.

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On this second to last episode of the Nehemiah series we find Sanballat and Tobia, who Pastor Harris has revealed to us serve as a type and shadow of Satan and his minions, are forced to employ a military option as they see that the walls of Jerusalem are in fact on a direct path to completion.  Now, we will also learn about two distinct reactions the people of Jerusalem will have to this imminent threat. How will Nehemiah combat the negative reaction some of the people of Judea are having?  How will the positive reaction the other half of Judea are having contribute to success?  Will the faith of Nehemiah and his citizen soldiers prevail? Will they answer the trumpeter's call?  … and by the way, why does it have to be a trumpet?

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As the walls of the City of Jerusalem continue to rise, Pastor Harris is going to walk us through Satan’s attempt to discourage and detract the people of Judea.  Thinking back to the last episode, episode 10 of the Nehemiah series, which was all about the cooperative co-laboring of the Jedean people, and how this co-laboring made them stronger together. Let’s follow along today to see how the people of Judea reacted to this attack by the evil one. Likewise let’s learn how we can react to similar attacks in our lives from Satan and how we can lean on our fellow believers to overcome these attacks. 

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In this message Pastor Harris is going to teach on the importance of cooperation and co-laboring in our Christian walk.  Likewise, with successful cooperation and co-laboring the people of Judea begin to raise the walls of the City of Jerusalem, so shall we raise not only our individual protective walls but the protective walls of our co-laborers we are in cooperation with.  We will also see how Nehemiah's gift of administration regarding how he appointed his leadership played a significant role in his success.  

Pastor Harris will continue teaching us through types and shadows as he touches on the Temple of Solomon.  He hits this topic briefly but I have forewarned everyone listening.  Pastor Harris spent many years researching the templates and tabernacles.  Rest assured, at some point we will dive into those teachings and be able to share the many aspects of the knowledge he curated regarding these fascinating structures.

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This episode kicks off the ninth installment of our Nehemiah series. Pastor Harris will cover the various types of people it is going to take to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.  We’ll also learn about a few of the elements that contribute to Nehemiah’s success in Jerusalem. Some of these same elements can also be applied to our daily lives.

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We continue on with Nehemiah’s nocturnal examination of the city of Jerusalem.  Last time we learned about some key gates on the south wall of the city of Jerusalem. In this message we will learn about the unique and storied history surrounding Jerusalem’s water supply and how it plays such a key role in allowing the people of Jerusalem the ability to continually remain behind its protective walls.  

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In this episode we will dig into the seventh installment of our Nehemiah series.  We will kick off with a very subtle arrival into Jerusalem and learn how Nehemiah began his efforts there and where he chose to begin the wall rebuilding efforts.

We hope that everyone listening can really take in the new types and shadows headed their way this episode. I hope that if there are any listeners that struggle with this, that they can finally take the trash out of their lives and enjoy the acceptance of God behind his protective walls.

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In this episode we will continue on with the sixth installment of the Nehemiah series.   This message will review the specifics as well as the types and shadows surrounding the final of the four essentials from the last installment of Nehemiah.  First, let’s start with a quick recap of the four essentials Nehemiah requested from King Artaxerxes. The first of course is adequate time, the second is proper authority, the third is abundant resources and the fourth, which we will be focusing on in this episode is with regards to capable personnel.  

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Today we dive into the fifth teaching of the Nehemiah series where we will learn about the four essentials that Nehemiah requested of King Artaxerxes. No spoilers here… these same four essentials are also required to rebuild our ruined lives or our own crumbled walls.

Those that frequent this podcast know that part of our unique narrative is that of Pastor Harris’s life.  In this message Pastor Harris reminds us of his own broken walls.  Sadly for him, his walls began to crumble at the early age of four years old when he was abandoned with his two sisters.  He admits that his deep seated fear of rejection from his biological parents and aspects around his adoption constantly weighed on him.  He also had a constant fear of failure both consciously and subconsciously. Pastor Harris walks us through how he was successfully able to build up his protective walls, not only that, but how he rebuilt his walls using those crumbled stones of rejection and failure that lay all around him. 

So I ask you this, what are your crumbled stones, big or small that lay all around you? Listen as Pastor Harris guides us through the essentials needed to rebuild your walls just as Nehemiah gathers his essential resources to rebuild Jerusalem’s wall.

This message that was originally an hour and a half long but has been divided into two parts.  This episode will end after Pastor Harris introduces the last of the four requests Nehemiah asked of King Artaxerxes.  From there we will spend the 6th installment of Nehemiah diving deeper into aspects that surround the fourth request, and the revelation of new and fascinating types and shadows.

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We continue following along as Nehemiah approaches the only man in the world in that day that had the power to change the circumstances that existed in Jerusalem. It just so happens that Nehemiah was the cupbearer to that man, and that man was King Artaxerxes of Persia, who he had a close relationship with.  

Now as we recall from past episodes, Pastor Harris continues to share with us the types and shadows found in this story.  We have learned that Nehemiah represents the Holy Spirit, and not only that, we learn that he represents the strengthening ministry of the Holy Spirit.  In this message we will learn the role that King Artaxerxes plays in these types and shadows as Pastor Harris walks us through the intricacies of Nehemiah and his king.

We continue to mention Pastor Harris’s Circle Teachings; we also refer to these as “The Circles of Man”. Pastor Harris walks us through the battle the Apostle Paul faced with his Body, Soul and Spirit, which are the three primary Circles of Man.  Through this excerpt we learn about the challenges the Apostle Paul faced in building the protective walls of his soul.  Nehemiah faced the same challenge in the physical realm, which was to rebuild the protective walls of the city of his people, the city of Jerusalem.

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In this message Pastor Harris will dive into prayer.  Through the prayers of Nehemiah we will see effective prayer in action.  Nehemiah, as a type and shadow of the Holy Spirit, will serve as an advocate for the people of Judea. We will learn more about how we pray when we do not know exactly what we are praying for.  We will learn some general requirements for prayer and why.  We will learn the necessity of exultation to God in prayer, speaking the word of God in prayer, and confessing our sins to God in prayer.

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In this episode we are going to hear about King Nebuchadnezzar overtaking Jerusalem, destroying the city and sending the Jewish people into exile. We learn about their return to the ruined city and it’s destroyed walls, and the many challenges they faced to rebuild. We also learn about Nehemiah and who he identifies as the perfect person to lead the rebuilding effort.

With regard to Pastor Harris's Circle Teachings.  Last episode we learned more about the Body, the first circle, In this episode we will learn about the second circle of the Soul which contains the dormant or captive spirit. Pastor Harris walks us through what happens when you apply a little grace through faith into these circles, and how out of this comes a new creation as well as our third circle, the Spirit.  This is what we refer to as the triune being. Picture three conjoined circles, Body, Soul and Spirit. This is the depiction of salvation in his teachings.  Now again, for more visuals to help understand this concept graphically, please continue to check back at ArielMinistries.com for more circle teaching content and visuals. 

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This episode is the first of the series on Nehemiah.  Today’s episode is a short introduction to Nehemiah but it also is a great introduction to Pastor Harris’s Circle Teachings that we reference often on this Podcast. In this message Pastor Harris will explain the main components or what the three main circles represent in these teachings as well as the various aspects to each. 

Now in this short introduction, Pastor Harris explores the types and shadows found in the infrastructure of the ancient city of Jerusalem juxtaposed to that of the structure of the everyday born again believer.  What role does Nehemiah play in this exploration of types and shadows? What do the walls of Jerusalem and it’s temple represent in this same exploration? 

Pastor Harris’s  prayer was that every broken Christian out there can be given some answers that will enable him or her to become a whole person as we carefully examine the rebuilding story of Nehemiah which restores the falling walls, burned gates and broken streets of Jerusalem.

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In this episode Pastor Harris answers the age old questions, "Why do bad things happen to good people.' Pastor Harris shares about his personal battle with this question, he shares some of the bad answers he received, and he shares his journey to get his own true answers.  Pastor Harris has a way of explaining in both simple terms but also explaining the complexities required to answer this question that take us all the way back to creation.

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In this episode, Pastor Harris will explain how man is created in the image of God, we are created as a triune being with a body, soul and spirit.  When we encounter and accept the  substitutionary death of Jesus, we are given the gift of regeneration.  We are born again. 

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In this episode, Pastor Harris will explain to us the freedom we can experience because of the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross.  His sacrifice sets us free from the penalty of sin and provides us the daily deliverance of the power of sin.

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In past Essentials of the Faith episodes we talked about things like sanctification, justification, the second birth and all the elementary things that surround those topics. Pastor Harris has discussed a lot of big words like propitiation and redemption and Justification.  The last one of these we talked about Justification which is related to Propitiation, now we will talk about forgiveness which is related to redemption.  Those two things belong together so you have to consider them in their specific category.

You cannot take lightly the fact that ALL of your sins are forgiven in Christ.  Pastor Harris will spend some time with us ensuring we understand what "ALL" really means.

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In this episode we learn more about the men we refer to as "The Wise Men".  Pastor Harris reminds us how important it is that we make it a standard practice to dig into scripture and make sure we really know what it’s telling us. Case in point, the Three Kings we find in the traditional Christmas story.  

Dad was always a pretty straight shooter, so I got a kick out of dad’s answer to his own simple question he posed regarding how the story of the three wise men following a star actually came about.  He simply answers, and I quote, “Well it all started from certain myths and legends that were concocted after the church had been overrun by apostasy in the fourth century.” I’d say that is a pretty straight answer. Maybe not the most Christmassy answer ever, but accurate none the less.

Now lucky for us, in this episode we will all be paid a visit from the Great Hercule Puaro of all things Biblical to investigate and correct any great misconceptions of the three men we call the wise men. Pastor Harris uncovers specifics behind the text that sheds light around locations, timing, and background of the many aspects that surround these men.

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This episode's message will focus on Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, who is so often seen in the back of the paintings as an old bearded man wearing a brown robe.  

But what do we really know about Joseph, the truth is, not a whole lot.  He was the husband of Mary.  He prepared the manger for the savior.  We know he was a descendant of King David.  We know he paid five pieces of silver in Jerusalem to secure two doves for Mary to sacrifice.  We know he was the man who cheated King Herrod of his prey and fled in the starlight from Bethlehem to Egypt.  

Now let’s discuss what we DON’T know.  We don't know where he grew up, we don’t know his age, his religious party, how he dressed or where or how he died. Most of what we know about Joseph comes from the first two chapters of Matthew’s gospel and the first two chapters of Luke’s gospel.  

Although often portrayed as an older man we have no reason to believe he was actually older, he was more than likely a teenager like Mary. 

What we know 100% about Joseph is that he was willing to take a risk when he heard from God.  He was obedient in spite of the fact that he received very little press over the centuries. We hope you enjoy this message about how the FAITH of Joseph would help change the world. 

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Today we will light the “Bethlehem Candle” where Pastor Harris will talk more about Mary, and take a deeper dive into what her experience had to have been like through these times. 

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In this episode we will dive into the second of a five part Advent series titled "Good Tidings".

Now in this message, Pastor Harris will focus on the unclean and ritually contaminated shepards who God chose to be the first to visit his son, the lamb of God, the savior.  Why wouldn’t God choose someone more knowledgeable, or more important, or more religious?  Well, we are all about to find out.

So it is with great JOY that we present this message, along with its original intro by Kyler Kanady, titled, “The Glory Returns”.

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The first of five advent messages this season. Pastor Harris delivered these messages not too long ago in 2018. In this episode we will learn how Augustus Caesar unknowingly enabled several ancient prophecies allowing two insignificant peasant people to be in the right place at the right time.

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Join us today as we remember Pastor Nick Harris after losing him a year ago today.  Hear from Pastor Craig Groeschel, Pastor Harris's children Deak Harris, Amy Moffiet and Jamie Russell, and finally his wife Crystal.  Learn a little more about the man, the teacher, the dad, the husband, the coach, the friend, and our pastor. 

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Missions are crucial in ministry.  We hope you enjoy this unique story of a partnership between a pastor and a missionary that started over 35 years ago and how a simple unscheduled meeting at a church in downtown Oklahoma City helped fuel a mission to spread the gospel on the other side of the globe for so many years.

In this episode Crystal Harris, Amy Moffiet and Jamie Russell are joined by Linda McCarter, wife of the late Cal McCarter.  Cal and Linda started their mission known as Each One Feed One many years ago.  We will start from the beginning with Linda to hear her story of how she and Cal met, and bring it to current day and hear about the amazing campus in Tharaka, Kenya that now provides kids a healthy meals, quality education, clothing, medical care, and a Christian environment where the Gospel of Jesus is shared.

We are also joined via phone by Jeff McCarter and will hear his story as he and his siblings grew up as a family of missionaries in Africa.

We hope those that listen enjoy this story of missions and God’s grace.   Words cannot describe how passionate Pastor Harris was about this mission, and I don't know that we will ever fully comprehend the pure drive and determination that Cal McCarter must have had to venture his family into this Faith Safari.  

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Pastor Harris will distinguish the difference between the mean of salvation and the effects of salvation.  He will explain to us the meaning of grace and the many things we receive from God that we cannot earn and do not deserve: His love, His forgiveness, His righteousness, His acceptance, His mercy, His redemption, His eternal life.  These are free gifts upon salvation given to us by God if we are willing to receive them.

Pastor Harris will explain the meaning of repentance and how it goes hand in hand with salvation. Each of us have a decision to make for ourselves-will I trust in Christ or will I trust in my works?  I pray you choose Him.

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In this episode Pastor Harris will help us understand the concept of justification and the important role it plays in the life of a believer.  Justification allows us to walk in grace, not works righteousness.  Our righteousness is found in Christ alone. Pastor will teach that the greatest benefit of justification is the freedom we have from condemnation.

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In this episode, Pastor Harris will dive into the Greek word for reconciliation to give a clear understanding of what this word means. Then he will share one of the best examples of reconciliation found in scripture, the story of Hosea. The act of reconciliation, made available to us by Jesus’ action on the cross, tore down the wall that divides God and man and makes relationship with a living God possible for you and me.

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There is a word found in scripture that is not common to our everyday language but Paul uses it in the book of Romans to describe the act of satisfying the payment for our sin by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Pastor Harris will paint what he believes to be the clearest picture of what propitiation means found in the tabernacle in the wilderness and then explain how Jesus died as our propitiation for sin.

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In this episode Pastor Harris will remind us of the debt we owe and explain the qualifications of the redeemer who would pay the price to free us from our slavery to sin: He had to be a free man, one without sin, he had to be next of kin to the human race, a mediator, and He had to accept the task voluntarily.  

On the day of His crucifixion, Jesus became our redeemer.  Pastor Harris reminds us in this episode that Jesus experienced aloneness so we would never be alone. Love is what sent Him to the cross.

Pastor Harris will begin this teaching talking about the day that would forever alter the relationship between God and man.  This is the day that Jesus died on the cross. Pastor will start with a quick summary of what happened on that fateful day.

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In this episode Pastor Harris will present the Old Testament prophecies found in Isaiah and Micah that tell of the Messiah who would come as both God and man.  He will also show how the New Testament points to the identity of this God-Man.  That man is Jesus.

You will hear that Jesus became the only person to have two natures-one divine and one human.  Pastor Harris will explain that Jesus became a man for five reasons: to become our savior, to pay the penalty for our sin, to mediate on our behalf, to be our high priest and to be our redeemer.

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In this episode Pastor Harris will illustrate the final stone of the wall that separates us from God-the state of death in which we can no longer commune with God. Pastor Harris will discuss three aspects of death: spiritual, physical and eternal. He will take us to the scene in the garden where God demonstrates the meaning of death.  Pastor will show us the rule of sin and death that God put into place for sin to be covered and ultimately forgiven. 

We are also introduced in this episode to a central teaching of Pastor Harris that he calls the circles. This is the representation of the human being as a triune being, like our creator.  The three circles represent our body, soul and spirit.

Just a little production note, all of the content we have for this podcast are recordings of Pastor Harris teaching and preaching from his many years of ministry.  Sometimes the recordings are incomplete.  This recording begins in the middle of a story of Pastor Harris talking about the model train set he had as a child. The story is so good so we decided to allow it to play as we have it.

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In this episode, Pastor Harris will examine the debt of sin that we owe. He will share some valuable stories that reflect his personal realization that he was a sinner and destined for death. He will compare the external vs the internal responses to our debt of sin.  He teaches us that this state of sin cannot be solved by doing something in our own effort.  We cannot pay the debt of sin for ourselves. Thanks to Jesus, we have hope, a new motivation, and a new heart. The work has already been done, the debt is paid.

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Pastor Harris continues discussing the Essentials of the Faith.  He will explain how God communicates with his people through his creation and ultimately by becoming one of us.  A foundation will be laid regarding why God had to become man. He will talk about the barrier between man and God and his plan to tear it down by the substitutionary death of Jesus.  Pastor Harris will explain the qualifications of the substitute to be able to take away our sins and how Jesus filled all these requirements for you and for me.

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You will witness Pastor Harris's passion for the Old Testament as he shares hidden secrets he has uncovered having to do with the sacrificial system.  This message also covers the development of substitutionary death we find in the Bible.  Pastor Harris takes us on a journey from the first sacrifice to the final sacrifice and their necessity for the forgiveness of sins. 

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“The Essentials of the Faith” are the things that are absolutely necessary for us to understand about our faith. In these messages Pastor Harris identifies the wall that exists between God and Man and how Jesus came to knock that wall down.  He will discuss many topics including substitutionary death, why God became a Man, redemption, justification, forgiveness and many more. In this episode, Dad will discuss the disease of sin. 

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Pastor Harris identifies the wall that exists between God and Man and how Jesus came to knock that wall down.  He will discuss the topics of the disease of sin, substitutionary death, why God became a Man, redemption, justification, forgiveness and many more.

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Our lives consist of a series of choices.  Choices that lead to consequences. Consequences can lead to doubt and doubt can lead to fear.  How do we deal with fear? As fear sets in on the Children of Israel what do they do?

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Through comparing the diametrically opposed characters of King Saul and King David, Pastor Harris teaches us about the two selves that battle with us and how we can be our ideal selves.

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Pastor Harris juxtaposes grace to that of justice and mercy. With Justice you receive what you deserve, with Mercy you receive less then you deserve and with Grace someone else takes what you deserve. Pastor Harris also touches on the topics of free will and how it can make our lives hell on earth.  Also discussed are the two attitudes that can stop us from appropriating God’s grace.

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Pastor Harris teaches from the story of David Ben Jesse and Goliath of Gath and how David was motivated by the Holy Spirit and uses positive words that align with God’s will to defeat the giant.  David uses the ABC’s of faith.  David takes ACTION, he BELIEVED because he had CONFIDENCE.

In the story, David takes his rod in his hand and goes to the brooke and collects his five flat stones. There is an interesting fact pointed out in the introduction to this message that Rabbi’s believe that the staff of Moses was passed down to Joshua and then passed down to Samual; he gave it to David when he anointed him.

We are in war, this life of ours is in a war, a spiritual war, and whether we win or whether we lose is in the power of our words.  Guard your words.

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Pastor Harris walks us through the religion to relationship evolution of the lying, maming, torturing, murdering, Paul of Tarsus to Paul the follower of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:6-14). Salvation is not based on what we do or who we please. Religion says you missed the mark... relationship says you are unconditionally loved because of who you are, a child of God. 

The number one thing that Pastor Harris always taught was that Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship. This phrase represents the teaching legacy that he has left behind. It is so very important to what we are continuing to do with Pastor Harris’s teachings that we may very well remind our listeners of this every episode. So today I have found a message where he talks about this very topic through the story of Paul. 

Pastor Harris literally despised the idea of religion and in this message he has some, well i’ll just say it, some pretty strong things to say about religion.  However as much as he despised religion he was the foremost advocate of relationship. The Lord loves you because who you are not the things you do, we are his children, it is about what his son did for all of us on the cross.

So with that said, here is a message originally recorded just short of 10 years ago about the lying, maming, torturing, murdering Paul of Tarsus and his evolution to become Paul the follower of Jesus.  This message is simply titled, “Religion vs. Relationship”.

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A fascinating take on the parable of the Good Samaritan and the types and shadows that accompany it. Get Pastor Harris’s take on where we fit into that story. Who is the Good Samaritan?

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In this series Pastor Harris has attempted to show us six steps which could lead us to the very highest place a Christian can reach in life, and that place is to be seated together with Christ on His throne according to Revelation 3;20-21. Of course, we all recognize the fact that we are not dealing with physical realities here.  When we ascend the six steps, we are not going to find Christ sitting in a great big chair, and He is not going to scoot over as far as He can so that we can slip in beside Him. In fact, when we talk about being seated with Christ we are not speaking of physical, visible, tangible experiences at all, we are speaking of spiritual realities; and invisible things.

Pastor Harris used Solomon”s throne as a model. He wanted us to see that for Solomon to sit down on his throne, he had to ascend six steps. He has shared with us 5 steps, and today he will introduce the sixth which is this: to actually sit down with Christ on His throne. This final teaching in this series is entitled, Seated with Christ.

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Over the last 4 teachings Pastor Harris has been pointing to the fact that the goal of every Christian is to be seated with Christ on His throne. This is where He wants us to be, but what does that mean to be seated with Christ on His throne? How do we get to this place and what does His throne represent?

Today we will examine step 5 in our journey to the throne, which is this: Christ was resurrected from the dead.  This leads us to today’s teaching entitled: Resurrected with Christ”.

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Let’s continue the climb today, step by step to the highest place any believer can attain, this is to be seated next to Christ on his throne?  How do we do this? We need to take six steps, and the requirements are outlined before us in these teachings. In this message we will learn what it means to be quickened or to be “made alive”. If you have been crucified, if you have died, and if you have been buried, you need to be made alive in order to step up to the very highest place.

One small reminder… please visit RelationalGraceBlog.com and check out the Six Steps to the Throne blog post that features content referenced in this teaching.  This includes the model of Solomon’s throne as well as the circle diagrams referenced throughout this series.

So today, we will move on to step 4. The message is entitled “Quickened with Christ”

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In this series  Pastor Harris is attempting to demonstrate that the very highest place to which any believer can attain is to be seated together with Christ on His throne, as Revelation 3:20-21 clearly affirms. The issue is how?  The riser of step 2 was, Christ died on that cross. The tread of step 2 was you and I died with Him on the Cross.

Now in this episode Pastor Harris gets pretty personal regarding what he calls “The old man” or “a steamer trunk”.  As you listen to this message, what is your so called, steamer trunk that you are carrying around? We hope this message helps you understand what you can do with that old steamer trunk.

So today, we will move on to step 3. The message is entitled “Buried with Christ”

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In this episode Pastor Harris will be introducing the second step of six steps leading towards the great thrown of Solomon. In the last teaching of this series Pastor Harris made the point that before King Solomon could be seated on his throne, he was required to take 6 steps. Pastor Harris also demonstrated that by its very nature, every step has 2 parts, a riser and a tread. The riser always comes first. The risers represent Gods revelation to us and the treads represent the truths in which we stand. The last teaching described step one. The riser of the step was, Christ was crucified on the cross for our Sin. The tread is this; We were crucified on the cross with Him.

Let's hear from Pastor Harris what the riser and the tread are as we continue our ascent to the Thrown on to step two of six in a message titled “Dead with Christ”.

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Pastor Harris kicks off a message series where he breaks down the six steps up to Solomon's throne and how they relate to everyone listening. Pastor Harris's goal in this series is to help everyone listen to live an exciting Christian life. A life that is victorious, a life that is overcoming and a life that is powerful.   

Years ago Pastor Harris was honored to receive a gift of an incredible model, built true to scale, of the magnificent Temple of Solomon.

Along with this model of the temple, he was also given a model of Solomon's Throne with it’s gorgeous six steps. This elaborate throne was known to have sat inside of Solomon’s amazing temple. In his teachings, Pastor Harris often uses the model of Solomon's throne as a teaching tool, and as he studied this throne, he discovered many types and shadows and spiritual truths. This throne and it’s six steps leading up to the seat, were the inspiration of this teaching, and as you will see, each step has a distinct meaning and still relates to the experiences of every person listening today.

For your reference, we have created a blog post at RelationalGraceBlog.com for this series titled Six Steps to the Throne where we feature photography of this amazing model.  You will also hear in this teaching, Pastor Harris reference a diagram that features the Body, Soul and Spirit, we always called these his “circles”. For your reference we have also included one of these circle diagrams in that post. We look forward to sharing more of Pastor Harris's circles in many episodes to come.

We hope that by taking one step per episode that everyone enjoys this six part series as we journey upward to the throne together. We will start with step 1’s message titled, “Crucified with Christ”.

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Many years ago Pastor Nick Harris wrote a book that introduced the idea of Relational Grace, hence the name of our podcast. This book features the story of Mepobisheth and touches on the blood covenant and the many types and shadows found in this story. Pastor Harris says it himself, this is the clearest picture of salvation that he could find in the Bible. We thought it would only be fitting to lead off our podcast efforts with this foundational Relational Grace message.  For context this message was recorded at Ariel Chapel in Norman Oklahoma ten years ago in 2011.

On a lighter note, and for our listeners that are new to Pastor Harris’s teaching and personality, he loved detective and sleuth characters and narratives, at one point in his ministry evolution he coined himself the Great Herqu Puaro of all things Biblical. He was always very proud to brag of this self proclaimed title.

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This episode kicks off the Relational Grace Podcast by telling listeners more about what to expect from the ongoing teachings of Pastor Nick Harris who we sadly lost in 2020 just short of his 80th birthday.  We also tell more about what to expect from Ariel Ministries, Pastor Nick and Crystal Harris's ministry, as we move forward without Pastor Harris.  We consider it a responsibility to continue to share his great teachings and foundational message of Relational Grace. Visit the RelationalGraceBlog.com for more supplemental details and visuals.

We use the majority of this podcast to dive into a family conversation with Pastor Harris's wife Crystal, oldest son Deak Harris, daughter Amy Moffiet and youngest son Jamie Russell.  We start from the beginning with a story of abandonment in Tulsa, Oklahoma and move through his adoption, education, career, and ministry.  We wrap up with some key themes we have identified over the last several months that we feel tie our blended family unit together.

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