I was hit by a jet ski and I was told by a doctor that
I may have only five hours to live if my liver had been totally destroyed.
And I was faced with all of a sudden this idea that in five
hours I might be standing before the judgment seat of Christ. I was thirty
years old. I knew the bibble very well. I was happily married,
I had two kids. I was very much the epitome of a good American
Christian. And I realized at that moment, when it was real and I
was laying on a gurney, I'm going to get before Christ, and this
is going to be inadequate. I will not go in with my head held
high. What have I done to help all the hurting people out there?
Not much? And I realized at that moment I never wanted to be in
that situation. Again, theology in books is one thing. Theology when you're
laying on a gurney, realizing I might be seeing Christ in the next couple
of hours is another. When I was on the Los Angeles Lisa Brodman and
I saw a brutal, awful crime in a really horrific crime area, and
then as I got into international business. I got to see that depravity is
in five thousand dollars suits, just like it's in do rags and running around
with AK forty seven's. We see over here on the nice americanized Christianity that
we have that some people do seem totally transformed and some not. Lots of
people claim to be Christians, lots of people who believe in Christ, but
they don't seem that much different than some of the stuff I saw on the
streets of Los Angeles. What's the difference that Jesus has given us? The
formula for that difference an experment on them mouth. Jesus has this list of
intense demands that He's put upon us. Those are the things that are the
requirements for living out this life with great joy and power in him. Well,
Christ has said, you can be my salt, you can be my
light, you can be the change maker in this world if you follow me,
deny yourself, pick up your cross daily, and by the way,
when you're that person, I will shower you with great rewards and eternity when
you get there, and a content and joyful life here in this world where
you're seeing change and transformation around you as people see you this great light of
the Holy Spirit. Have you ever seen how some Christians are so filled with
great joy because they have lived up to the Sermon on the Mount or Christ's
demands not for salvation, but for all the promises after salvation. And so
we want to walk through that in a daring faith in a cowardly world,
realizing that the world is counting on us to carry out the good works that
Jesus laid down at the beginning of time for you and I to accomplish.
And if we do that, we will reap great rewards from our Master when
we get to heaven and say, Lord Jesus, I live for you,
I gave all for you, and have him say well done, my good
and faithful sermon. Okay. And that's our guest, Ken Harrison, and
he saw the book there. This is the newest book, a daring faith
in a cowardly world. And so joining us now is Ken Harrison. He
is volunteer chairman and CEO of Promise Keepers, and he's done a great deal
of things in his life. But thank you for joining us, sir,
No, thanks to I appreciate it. It's really important for us to I
think Promise Keepers has a very important message, especially for these times that we
live in, and it is very important for men to understand what their role
is and you put that out there in a very positive way. Tell us
a little bit about the organization Promise Keepers. Well, Promise Keepers was the
biggest men's movement in the history of the church back in the nineties under Coach
Bill McCartney. So they were getting together men, filling the NFL stadium sixty
seventy thousand men at a time, I remember that. Yeah. Yeah,
And they actually had a gathering in Washington, d C. In ninety seven
called Stand in the Gap. Most people think it was called a Million Men
March. It's called standa Gap and they had one point four million men together
to worship Christ for the day. And it's the biggest gathering in the history
of Washington, d C. So it was a pretty impactful organization. It's
sort of faded out of relevance for a while, but we've been coming back
for the last few years. Well that's good. But yet, you know,
as we see so many times in the cancel culture, what is is
to see that Christian venues are now canceling Promise Keepers because They don't like anything
that is masculine, anything that talks to men about keeping their promises that they
make. Tell us little bit about that, and what's been happening with that.
It is truly amazing. I saw that, and I just was really
astounded because, as you point out, promise keepers is so big twenty thirty
years ago, and now we got liberal churches. Churches have gone so far
to the left that they want to ban promise keepers for what they call their
you know what is their gender ideology. Yeah, and it's I've been as
shocked as you have. We went to Dallas Cowboys Stadium two years ago.
We had thirty thousand men there. It was a huge event. And then
we thought, well, let's do a bigger tour. We get letters from
all over the world saying could you come here? And we thought, well,
instead of doing one huge event in one location, which takes so much,
just a lot of stuff, let's just go to churches. Wouldn't that
be great? And we'll go all over We found and we've been canceled and
canceled and a lot of times, David, it's not about ideology a lot
of times, just a plain about cowardice. So We had one church come
to us. We met with the elders and they said, listen, we
agree with you and everything. We're so sorry. We just don't want any
protesters. We don't need anybody to think badly of us. We don't want
to be awful that from our community, right. And I mean, if
you've read the Gospels, if you read the words of our Lord, you
think, how in the world could you, as an elder of a church,
literally say I don't want to be unpopular. They need it worse than
anybody at that church. Yeah, that's absolutely right, and that's what's happened.
That's what we see everywhere. That's why you know, the church is
just disappearance, because nobody will stand for the truth. And you look at
that and you say, well, then maybe you don't really believe it,
So why am I coming to your church? You know, Ao Bernard is
on our board. People think he's I don't know if you know who Ebernard
is. He has a huge church in New York City and a lot of
people say, oh, he's woke. He's not woke. He's an incredibly
brilliant man. A huge church in New York City with forty thousand people,
and he said something to me that I thought was so profound. He said,
Ken, you know what the difference between a strong preference and a conviction
is No, let me think about that, everybody at homeless it what is
the difference between a strong a strong preference and a conviction? A conviction is
not negotiable. Yes, that struck me as so profound because when we see
Saint Jerome being barbecued face down in Rome, and after fifteen minutes of him
singing songs and laughing, he finally yells out, I'm done on this side.
You could turn me over. Now that's a guy with the convictions.
Yeah, right now we have the church is saying, well, we don't
want protesters that might make us uncomfortable. And the ironic thing about it is
our tourist called daring faith, because what we're saying to men is you started
this with at the beginning, what is our identity? Who are we?
And as a church, we've gotten this wrong. And the greatest lie is
the one that's closest to the truth that brings you to the wrong conclusion.
And the lie that's been seeded throughout the evangelical churches that we're all sinners saved
by grace. Well that's true, but it's only half true. Because when
you think you're a sinner saved by grace and you stop there, that becomes
your identity. I guess I'm a sinner instead of saved by grace. Made
into new creations in Christ Jesus for good works which were prepared beforehand, and
we should walk in the Ephesians two ten. We've been made new creatures,
that the spirit of God has been deposited in each person who's put their faith
in Christ. Now we're sons and daughters are the most high God, and
we need to act like it. So the identity is a problem because when
men see, well, I'm just a sinner, then suddenly we see what
we have today, which is well, I struggle with porn, but I'm
trying to do better. No, you're a new creature. You shouldn't be
struggling with porn. What did John say to when everyone showed up on the
launch of Jesus's ministry Jesus comes to get baptized. John looks up and looks
at everybody and says, repent your brute vipers? Who told you to repent
from the for the coming of the Lord, repent and so deeds consistent with
your repentance. Yes, that's not something that you're in the church a lot
today. And that was the beginning of Jesus's ministry. That's right. Yeah,
it's it's like, you know, we're going to be witnesses to people.
We've got to tell the truth, the whole truth. Nothing about the
truth, right. I had George Barna and he was talking about how people
like, yeah, you know, it's like it's like a Smorgan's borg.
We'll bring a little bit of this thing over there and a little bit of
that thing over there, you know, so we add some things that aren't
true to it, you know. But then the other part of it is
that you're talking about, is that we don't have the whole truth. You
know, Jesus would constantly, you know, heal somebody say now go your
way and send no more. You know, you've been changed. And if
we haven't been changed, and if we don't have that sense of transformation that
changes, then we need to go back and we need to say, well,
have I really been changed? Have I been saved? You know?
Is that something there? Because if you have it's gonna it's gonna work itself
out. And so you know, we need to constantly, you know,
we need to look at that and say, you know, what does my
life really reflect what I say that it does? Am I really living that?
And of course today we're seeing this more and more. That's why,
you know, talking about promise keepers. You were kicked out of a private
Christian university in Nashville, out of a church in Cordova, Tennessee, out
of a big church in Houston, and on and on, and I just
look at this. I was astounded. It's like, what is wrong with
telling people to keep their promises, you know, and be a good husband
and a good father and that type of thing that you're encouraging men to take
that role? You know, what have we gotten to in a society where
that is something that people hate in churches or Christian universities or as you point
out, they're afraid of the criticism that's going to come their way. Yeah.
I mean the Bible says did in the Last Day's love of many will
grow cold because of a lack of teaching doctrine. And you know when people
listen to this, I think they think, well, is that am I
getting the whole story. I mean, maybe this Ken Harrison guy's a real
jerk, or maybe Promise has a mention, right, I mean we're taught
to think that way. Yeah, everybody, I'm not a jerk, and
we really really have gone with the grace of the Lord. We just teach
God's word. One of the criticisms we get from people because you know,
when you have people who want to spread hatred, they don't let they're not
bogged down by truth. You know, they say whatever. And one of
them is, well, you know, we want to subjugate women. And
I'm quoted all over the place of saying my role is not to tell women
how to behave I don't. I stay out of that. I'm not a
pastor. I run Promise Keepers is here to tell men how to be a
So I'm here to tell men how to be humble, gracious leaders in their
home biblically understands so they can raise their kids. We don't ever mention anything
about women or anything like that. So it's all about humility. Who wouldn't
want a husband who's humble and gracious and those of the Bible and raises his
kids. Right, So really it's unbelievable when you look at the fact that
churches are walking away from this, and it's terrifying. And I will say,
but I think that there is a welcome change in the church coming in
that. I think COVID changed a lot of things when people realized that they
could sit in a robe and watch Francis Chant on the YouTube instead of right.
Yeah, I change is that the megachurch movement has taken over starting in
the eighties, where you know, a really good speaker with good music ended
up with this massive campus and people all went there and it was nameless and
faceless, and they did their church thing and they went home. Well,
culture no longer values going to church, And now I don't need to go
to church and being nameless and faceless because I can watch it on YouTube.
So I think what's church about. Church is about lifting brothers and stitches up
in Christ and sharpening each other. So church is about relationship and teaching biblical
doctrine. So for those churches that are teaching biblical doctrine and there's relationships and
I'm telling you strets with the men because women naturally make relationships that men don't,
those churches are that will be the ones who flourish. I think we're
going to go back more to a local church where people really know each other,
they raise each other's kids, instead of this nameless, faceless megachurch.
And I tell you that's going to be a welcome time. I agree.
I agree. I've seen this in terms of silver linings and what happened in
twenty twenty. From the standpoint I've talked for the longest time to people about
schools, and it's like, you know, don't but you know, be
careful about what the institution is said, oh, it's not it's not my
school, or it's not our school here, and even if it is our
school, it's not my classroom. And then they were able to see what
was actually being taught in the classroom. And so that was a real,
you know, wake up moment for people, just like a lot of the
zoom church stuff was a wake up and churches that said, well, you
know what they've said that there's a sickness going around, so maybe we just
it's not important enough for us to get together, you know. So you
see some things like this, and it's been really kind of an opportunity for
people to reevaluate the sincerity of the institutions and to re evaluate what is actually
happening in their lives. And so I do agree with you. I think
it's not going to be everybody, but it's going to be certainly a lot
of people have awakened to what was going on in their schools, what was
going on in their churches as they saw this stuff being locked down, and
so that's the unintended positive consequences. I think that God is using give us
an idea. You mentioned a little bit of this, but you know,
tell us attle bit about what a promise keeper's rally is about. So this
is men talking to men like men. And so you know, when you
look at a marriage, you need to have a mother and a father for
an ultimal raising of a kid. It's not always possible. But when little
Johnny skins his knee, he needs mom there to say, Johnny, it's
okay, and let me put a bend neat on and me kiss it.
Make it better. Well, every once in a while Johnny needs dad to
go you're not that hurt, get up and get going right. Yeah,
that's right. Yeah, in our society we were lacking dads and so what
we have is so many victims running around, well my dad was mean and
so now I'm screwed up, and my coach didn't play me, and you
know, excuses, and so what we're here to say is, look,
that may be true. You may have had a bad father or no father,
or may maybe a lot of things. Now what are you going to
do about it? It's time to stand up and be countered as a man
of God because you're what your kids are counting on you to be a man
exercise self control. So that's what this is really about. So these are
many events there Friday night only. They go from depending on the city,
like six to nine. The first one will be in New York City on
December first, and it's going to be actually globally simulcast for free to the
whole world. So anybody who's not near New York City can could just go
sign up at Promise Keepers dot org and get the simulcast. We're trying to
do that through churches because again, we want to drive a relationship amongst men.
We don't want sitting at home in their road. We want them out
with other men. But we're going to take on real issues. We're going
to have Becka Cook there, who was a Hollywood major, Hollywood presence homosexual
who God said to completely change his life, went to tell with seminary.
So Beckett tell us, you know, we're gonna have an interview. Tell
us, how do you witness to homosexuals? How should we approach them?
How did you get saved? What if our kid comes to us and says
that they're struggling with this issue? Like real issues. We're going to deal
with depression. You know, eighty percent of suicides in America are for middle
aged men, So we're going to deal with mental health. But it's all
wrapped around Christ because that's all it really matters. Yeah, how can we
liberal lives for Jesus Christ abandoned him? So it's going to be very interesting.
This is not celebrity driven. This is not come see the big speaker
or the big thinger, none of that. This is three hours of sober
worship, sharpening each other and real information that you just can't get anywhere else.
Because we're not going to screw around. We're not going to tell you
you're just so fine and everything is just so great. We're going to deal
with the real issues. As Christ did repent the gods in hand, right,
that's right, Well, that's good, so promise keepers dot org.
The first event is going to be December, the first in case your church
is not telling you about it, but that people can find the live stream
and uh and then what is uh You've got events that are scheduled throughout the
next year. I guess as well. Right, people have a lot of
them. We can't announce any of them yet because we have a whole bunch
that they are almost solidified. And to be honest with you, I've learned
that I have to make sure that everything is solid before right now, so
less we get cancel Yeah, I know, Well that's what we're seeing with
the libraries. You know, libraries have been taken over the drag Queen Storytime
hours and so you have, I mean, as you had I can't think
of his name, the actor who started uh uh yeah, yeah, Kirk
Cameron. As he started going around doing it, they started canceling them left
and right, and and then if they couldn't cancel it, they they created
disturbances there and everything. I mean, it truly is amazing. You know
the other people have beliefs that they hold very dear and and they will fight
against those. I mean, we're even seeing now for the third time this
woman who quietly goes to abortion clinic and prays silently, for the third time
she's been arrested. It's just amazing to see that level of persecution all over
the place. But as you point out, it is everywhere we turn,
men are being denigrated, being mocked as Homer Simpsons, with nothing at all
to contribute, even to the extent they're replacing the caveman with a cavewoman.
It's kind of ridiculous. But tell us a little bit about your books.
Your first book was Rise of the Servant King. What the Bible says about
Bee being a man? Tell us a little bit about that. We'll get
into the newer book after that, but tell first about the Rise of the
Servant Kings. Yeah, that one is a really no nonsense approach on being
a godly man. And it's full of LA cop stories because I was an
la policeman, as you said, I've done a lot of things, and
so there's some stories in there that the publishers like, whoa, we don't
see these in Christian books. And I've had a lot of real positive feedback.
In fact, I've gotten hundreds of letters from women who've read it and
then BLUs because it's really discipleship books and being a man, because you've got
to learn how to be disciples Jesus Christ, to learn how to be a
real man. So that that one and the next one that came out recently
is during Faith in a Cowardly World, which I love that title, and
I didn't come up with it. The publisher did, Thomas Nelson, But
it basically says that again we talk about identity. People think that you said
the prayer, you're saved, and now you just have yours. It's time,
there's nothing left to do. Instead, actually, when you read what
Christ said over and over, in fact, his final words in Revelation twenty
two, he says, behold, I'm coming quickly in marble. Ward is
with me to give to each person according to what he has done, not
Christians. So the idea here is there will be a judgment seat of Christ.
I can Corinthians five to ten, and we'll all stand before Jesus.
Christ doesn't care what we did before we were saved. We were dead in
our sins. We're saved by grace through faith alone. However, after we
were saved, our lives do matter, and we will be judged. And
Jesus says, behold of the person in person for yours doing good works.
I will pull him up onto my throne to sit it with me at my
father's right hand. And at the end of Matthew twenty four he says that
the sermon I come to find serving me will be put in charge of many
things. And so the idea here is there's a reason to have daring faith
because it will matter for an entire return. It will be rewarded those of
who really walk with Christ and those who didn't. And just to put a
cherry on that, you know, because the promise keepers. I get to
talk to all these famous pastors and be friends and everything, and famous theologian
who called me out and said, hey, man, I got to tell
you. I read your book. I heard about it being good about good
works for Christians, and he goes, I sat down with a pen to
shreddit and I was going to go on my radio show and tear you to
pieces, and he goes, When I got done with your book, I
was completely convinced. And now I can't unsee it. Every time I open
my Bible. It's good works for rewards, good works forwards? Because how
did I miss this all these years? Yeah, that's what that book is
about. And that's this challenge of this tourist. Men. Your lives matter
greatly, and because we think our lives don't matter is why we're dropping the
ball. Because David and I need to talk about this, but think about
it. What they're doing to our children here in Colorado. When you are
six years old, you go to school, they want to know what jener
you are. And I just had someone telling me their daughter went to school
for her first day of first grade, and you know, are you a
boy or a girl? I'm a girl? Are you sure you're a girl?
Want to be a boy? Trying to talk her into being something other
than she is? Why are we not so outraged about what they're doing to
our kids? Instead to circle back, I see churches that are caught up
in bureaucracy and money and not having protesters in the man, oh man,
they're tearing out the core of who we are as a people. We as
the people of Christ, ought to just have our hearts being ripped out and
in love doing everything we can because, as you said, the other side
actually believes this nonsense because they're deceived by the evil one. Our enidies are
not flesh and blood, but they're the powers and the authorities and powers of
darkness. We need to be waking people up to the truth because people know
the truth when they hear it, and when they really hear truth, they're
going to have one reaction or another, either repent or they're going to hate
you. Yeah, that's what happens, because they're going to be utterly in
their deception. Uh. Second to this salonliest chapter two. In Romans chapter
one, some people are just completely abandoned to their evil and they're going to
hate you. Your promise, Jesus promises us that they're going to hate us.
But some people we can rescue. And what a glorious do that is.
That's why we're here in this world. I just want to wake Christians
up stopping so dank comfortable, stop looking for the approval of the world,
and start looking for the approval of the one who matters, Jesus Christ.
That's if you have an audience of one. It's amazing how easy life gets
because you don't care what anybody else thinks. Right, Sure, easier and
more joyful. That's right. Oh, it's such great advice. Yeah,
you know, we look at things and it's so easy to fall off one
side or the other and get things unbalanced. And so our response to a
lot of people who think that they can earn their way into heaven is to
say, no, you can't do that. There is in any way that
you can undo what has happened. Only Christ can undo that. But then,
as you point out, if we don't look at the fact that He's
saved us two good works and to do good things, that's the other.
You know, we can get on one side of the extreme or the other.
You know, it can be all about works or we can all be
about grace only. But it's the combination of those two things that are so
important to try to get those in the proper understanding and to understand. You
know, now that we're at this point, you know what I think of
the everybody's everybody knows the parable of the talents and we that's now because of
the way that was translated as a unit of silver. It was an amount
of money that was given to these people, and Jesus is parable. Now
the people have said, well, you know, you have certain talents,
things that God has given you. What are you going to do with that?
And when we look at that parable that the people who don't do anything
with what they were given, they get strong, strong condemnation from Jesus,
right, And so that's the key thing that's where we are right now.
You know, look at all of the things that God has giveniven us.
He has given us not only forgiveness, but he's given us abilities. What
are we going to do with that? Where we are? That's the key
thing that Christians need to be asking themselves right now. And we have just
stopped short of that in so many churches that got the part of the gospel
right, but they also just stop at that point and don't go any further.
You know that parable. I go into it in detail, but you'll
notice the first two servants are given a certain amount of money and they go
invest it and they take risks. But last servant doesn't do anything with it.
And why not? He doesn't want to take any risk? And what
does Jesus say? Throw him into the outer darkness? Okay, so number
one there's this contempt for him because he had he was a coward. And
number two what's the outer darkness, Because these guys are all Christians. They
are in heaven. So did he lose his salvation? No, Actually,
it's pretty clear as you look at it over over and over again. What
he's thrown out of is the wedding feast of the land. That the wedding
feast will be the great culmination of all of history, and all the saints
are going to be there. And this is why he is weeping and gnashing
of teeth. People think that's hell or pain. It isn't. In the
Near East, weeping means sorrow and nashing your teeth means anger. And he's
angry at his wasted life. And he's looking at the wedding feasts of the
Lamb and he's not allowed in because he wasted what God gave him. And
I want to wake people up and say, don't be that person. Be
the first two servants who went and served the Lord of what they had,
and that takes courage. And the other thing on one that wake people up
to is we have swallowed another lie of intellectualism, where we think if these
guys who sit in their library is surrounded by books and criticize other pastors somehow
this is the varsity level of Christ. Just look at the Bible. Everything
is about courage. Everybody in the Bible. Everything is confrontation. It's screwed
up people who are giving all for Christ. They stood up for something ebersheptor
leven is a great haul of faith. These are such screwed up people.
Well if they just kept going, we're all wanting to screw up. But
are we going to be courageous? Are we going to do everything it takes
to raise godly kids? And say, little Sam or little Jane, what
are you learning in school? Let's look and see how that. What does
scripture say about that? And getting a little more about our school board,
what's going on? Just the gal at Starbucks with the tattoos and the nose
ring, with a darrow look on her face and saying, hey, are
you okay? Can I pray for you? Is there one thing I can
pray for you today? I'm telling you, if you start doing that,
I do it all the time. It's amazing how much of my day gets
quote wasted because I'll spend two hours with someone crying on my shoulder, with
mas garroll over my shirt about her life and try to walk her through Christ,
try to find her a good church everywhere we go. It's a promise
keepers thing that we always say, if there's one thing I could pray for
you, what would it be. It's amazing what that unlocks with people,
but you better be ready, and it's harder to get that with men.
You know, a woman will tell you you know what, it may tell
you that, but it's to be much harder to get that from a man,
especially if you don't have a relationship already. Even with a relationship,
it's harder to get men to talk. And that's why something like promise keepers
is really important, because we're just not wired that way to you know,
to open up and to talk to other people. Yeah. Well, for
promise keepers is we've got to teach men that being a man comes from your
heart your character, not from your performance. Say that again, it comes
from your heart, your character, not your performance. We say, what
is a man like? Oh, a man is somebody who goes hunting and
who can grow a great beard like David Knight, or as tall, it
has a deep voice, or as a cop or a navy seal, or
you know, a man as someone with it. It comes from inside.
It's your integrity, it's who you are. It says, I will defend
my family no matter what. I will provide for my family, no matter
what. If I get laid off for my job and times are tough,
if I got to work with McDonalds or work at McDonald's, whatever it takes
to stand by my kids and my wife, to guard my thoughts in my
mind and so that all of my sexual energy goes towards my wife and nobody
else. Now, these are things to talk we talk about come from the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot do this through self effort.
You must do it. You're dying to self daily. It is you die
to self daily. Matthew five through seven is the whole core of being a
disciple. Jesus there is not giving the recipe for salvation. He's giving the
recipe for becoming a disciple. As we die to self daily, we can
really become men. It comes from the inside, and suddenly we find out
that I don't care if you're four foot ten and eighty pounds, have a
heart of a line and a hard integrity than honesty and courage, because you
become a man of God but it's another thing we have to wipe out,
is this idea that masculinity is performance driven. It's not. It's heart and
integrity driven. Yes, I agree, I can agree with that more.
Yeah, I've said many times that you know, if you're looking to Christ,
that is a leverage point, a full crumb that's outside of this world,
and that gives you a tremendous this amount of leverage to change this world.
And it's because it's coming from that. It's coming your focus is not
even on changing the world. That's going to be an outcome that comes from
your focus on Christ, having an eternal focus with that. But it is
very important, as you point out, it's so difficult for men to see
this. You know, women just naturally fall into this. They fall more
into their relationships. They like school better than we like school. They like
church better than church, you know, and it's it's just a natural thing
for them. And so men need to have a little bit more of an
encouragement of counseling and to understand the importance of the one another, you know,
helping one another. Uh, that's the key thing. And I think
it's it's very important for promise keep so I'm glad that you're you're reviving this,
that it is now coming back. It really isn't needed at this point
in time. Here's why men have always done relationships by doing things together,
because if you look at the history of the world, you had to do
things together to survive. So somebody was a hunter and somebody as a farmer
and a rancher and a blacksmith and all that stuff. So you came together
communities, and we had to share skills, and then we learned who we
could trust and who we couldn't with some men in stressful situations, and if
you were not a good guy, you were ostracized, and if you're a
good guy, you're elevated in the town. Women make relationships by communicating.
And so now what we see is, because of all our technological advancements,
the world today is all about communicating. It's all about Facebook and social media.
None of that is masking and effect, it's demasculating. And if our
churches upon into that too. So you come to church and you have a
chat, and maybe you get together and have tea. If you're really godly,
you get together and have a Bible study. At six point thirty in
the morning on a Friday. But there's nothing in that having to do with
doing things together as men. And that's where pastors have to be intentional get
men together, because I can have lunch with you, David, for twenty
years once a week, but we won't really be friends. Tell you what,
we go hunting for three days in the backwoods and you shoot an elk
that's three hundred yards away across another mountain rain. We got to call it,
clean that thing and carry it out. Now we're friends because now I've
seen that you really like under stress, and you've seen that I'm like understressed.
You've seen how much we hold each other's work. That's what creates relationships
amongst men, and so we have to be intentional about that now because we
don't need each other anymore. I mean, I can order Uber eats and
I can get stuff to live from the grocery store, and men are being
more and more isolated. So it's fine. There's nothing wrong with women communicating
naturally and men make relationships by doing. But then again we have to be
intentional. So what promise keepers, what we're trying to do is tell men
don't get together for Bible study, get together with guys who are golfers and
golf or hunters and hunt or fishermen or skiers, whatever it is that you
do, and then Bible study will come from that. But if you try
to get together and sit around, you'll just try to do a religious thing
and it won't last. But getet together intentionally, do something that matters and
have scripture and prayer out of that, and boy, you will become you'll
have true friends. That's a great idea. Yeah, absolutely, I think
that's right. I'll see on your board. One name that sticks out to
me is Randy Alcorn, and of course he I know Randy from his works.
He's done a lot of fiction novels that are very well written. He
was a pastor who was at an abortion clinic and they got a judgment against
him, and for over twenty years he didn't take a penny. He took
like the minimum, which is like eight thousand dollars a year, so he
didn't give any of the money to a planned parenthood and just donated all the
money from these novels, which were very successful. But he's also written about
heaven and he's very much focused on what we're not going to be just doing
nothing, floating around on clouds contemplating our navel. It would be an opportunity
for us to work and to create and get involved in a lot of things.
I like his analysis in his way of thinking. But he also writes
a lot about money, because Jesus talked a lot about money, and that's
one of the key things with men as well. Talk a little bit about
what you tell people about money with promise keepers, because that's such a powerful
drag on our lives, just like sex and many other things, but money
has so much of a grip on our lives. Tell people what you tell
men about money, you think about the things in life that are the greatest
blessing, they also could be the biggest curses. Right sex, Right,
sex is an incredible thing. It propreates species and amongst marriage. I wrote
in Rises of Sermon Kings that sex is the only thing differentiates a marriage many
of the relationship. Because anybody can sure a bank account and raised kids together,
that makes to you one flesh. It's extremely precious in this way.
Sex inside of a marriage is such a great sin. Fire. Think about
fire, what a great blessing you need to or survive and think about how
destructive water. You need water, but boy, water can be destruction.
Money is freedom if you have a healthy attitude about it. Is the freedom
to do what you'd like to do whatever. I have some money, and
I'm going to spend it on something major. I think, okay, I
have I'm going to go buy a new truck. I have fifty thousand dollars
in my hand. I can do anything with us fifty thousand dollars I want
to, from getting clean water in Africa to fighting AIDS to buying a big
diamond ring. Like, whatever I want to do is this truck. What
I choose to give that to And it's a healthy attitude when you actually think
that way right. Debt is bondage that will destroy you. Especially today,
we have a lot of people are going to have been massive mass or problems
because interest rates have taken off. If you hit a bunch of credit card
debt or you hit floating interest rates. With what's going on, people are
going to get crushed. I'm not trying to be who's the money idea in
Nashville. I forget his name now, Yeah, I try to tell people.
He's always saying, get out of debt. His name is the scaping
hand as well. Yeah, well wife loves him. If you're a get
out of debt. The thing about money, I actually had somebody come to
me as an NFL football player and he said, look, I have this
love of money. I can't get over it. I said, you don't
have a love of money. What do you mean? I go, money
is a symptoms. It's not the disease. If you love money, there's
something else. Why do you want money so bad? Is it because you
lack of faith? And you think that I never have enough money? You
know, I run a huge foundation. And we had one woman who we
went to to give some of her money away and she said, oh no,
I can't. I only have one hundred million dollars. I have to
make sure I can pay the gas she had inherited from her husband. She
didn't know what the value of a dollar was. So money is great freedom
if you understand what to do with it. And it's it's a terrible curse
if because it shows who you are. So if you're a greedy person,
why are you greedy? It's pride? So if I have a million dollars,
what would I do with the million dollars. I want to go out
and buy a Ferrari. Well maybe I really like really fast cars, but
probably I want the Ferrari. Serverybody will look at me and think how cool
I am. Right, I'm not going to judge that person. But what
is it I want to do with money? So that's the thing we tell
men, cash freedom, debt, bondage. If you're trying to accumulate lots
of money, why is that? Because there's people dying, there's people who
need stuff, and I think it's okay to be comfortable. You know,
there's a conversation you can have. I mean, I'll tell you that I
used to run a huge company. As you think you also from a resume,
I used to have thousands of employees and made lots of money and create
lots of jobs. And I don't make take any money now. And I
think you know that from promise keepers that I get paid zero. But there's
nothing wrong with having money because we can all judge, well, what is
a lot of money. Well, one day I was in a meeting with
a couple of major, major pastors and I had to leave. And this
guy said, well, you got leave, can't have to leave? I
go, I got a plane to catch. He's like, yeah, plane
to catch, And the other passional accadming is yeah, Ken flies commercial and
they both put laughing. You don't have a private jet? I said no,
and I and they're kind of mocking me, and I go, you
know, there's something kind of telling about the fact that the two guys who
live off the tithe money of others have private jets and the guy who's created
tens of thousands of jobs flies on Southwest. I'll leave that, you know.
And they both laught, but boy, I know, hey, that's
between them and the Lord. I'm not going to condemn them for it,
but I'm going to say for me, Southwest Airlines is just plain adequate,
and flying somewhere for four hundred dollars is a lot different than flying there for
fifteen thousand on a private plane. But everyone has to be their own judge
and be convicted in their own heart by the Holy spirit. Yeah, oh
yeah, that's Dave Ramsey. Eventually, you know, Dave something. Yeah,
eventually it gets there, just it's a little bit slower now, but
it's got all these extra paths that's got to go around blockages. I guess
to get there. But yeah, the older we get. Dave Ramsey was
always about staying out of debt, and that's that's really good advice. You
know, we want we don't want to make. But again, you know,
with anything that we do, we can always become obsessive about it,
you know, and I've seen people have gotten obsessive about, you know,
getting out of debt and everything. But it is, as you point out,
it as a bondage and it's a very dangerous time to be in that
kind of debt. Especially. It's just to me, it's just criminal what
they're doing with the credit card rates now that they can get away. I
know, that's that's like the average. It's just astounding to me that we
allow that to happen. But it's just another one of these things where everybody
just to just passively accept it instead of trying to change it. Tell us
what the seven promises of the promise keepers are? All right, I'm on
vacation and I'm totally I cannot right now. Well, first one, I've
got them in front of me. I've got a cheat sheet here, thank
you, Honor God, Honor God. Tell us a little bit about that
and we'll do the next one. You know, honor God is the whole
point of our lives, right, and how do we point it out?
And one of the things I point out all the time is honor God.
We were just talking about how you can change things to a negative that are
a positive. One of those things is honoring the name of the Lord and
not using the Lord's name in vain, right. And a lot of people
think that means saying good for something. Oh God, I can't believe you
just did that. That's certainly not a healthy thing. But that is not
using the Lord's name in vain. Using the Lord's name in vain is actually
something much more nefarious and something done all the time in the church. And
let me tell you right now, I cannot tell you. I speak all
over the country. How many people walk up to me and say, the
Lord told me that you right? How many times I said, I have
a word from the Lord. I don't know this person, I have a
word from Lord. And my first response is what verse is it? Yeah?
Yeah, people manipulate and use others with this business of putting things in
the name of the Lord that are not of the name of the Lord.
And I'll keep I could keep going people who come up with doctrinal points and
say, well God said this, Well you shouldn't drink alcohol because when Jesus
drank alcohol, it was really just grape juice. Well maybe it was and
maybe it wasn't, but you don't know that, right. So using the
Lord's name in vain is attributing things to God that God didn't say, right,
And I use example and rise of sermonkings on this. We talk about
how somebody said they gossiped about another person or slandered that person, and they
said, even Ken Harrison agrees with me. Well, in fact, I
didn't agree with him. His buddy called me up and said, hey,
here said you agree with said, actually I don't. But he was using
Ken Harrison's name in vain in that right, trying to give himself authority by
attaching it to me. That's what we do to Lord all the time.
So honoring God. There's a lot I could go into on that, but
rather than to preach a whole serm, I just wanted to pull up one
thing out, concentrate on a little easy, obvious good as a little euphemism.
Make sure that you look at your heart and you're not using and attributing
things to God that are not God. That really you your opinion, and
maybe your opinion is true, but it's better to say, in my opinion
where the way I read this passage or my life experiences told me. Right,
But do not go around saying thus as the Lord. If he didn't
say it, that makes you a false prophet. Yeah, yeah, kind
of a name dropping that's out there, you know, as you and you
know I also look at it. I heard somebody say once some we call
ourselves Christians. You know that really comes from you know, kind of a
combined thing of Christ's men, right, and so, and Jesus said,
well, do you call me lord Lord if you don't do what I say?
And so we can. We can by calling ourselves Christians when we don't
really care what Jesus says. That's a way I think of taking God's name
in vain. But you know, there are people who deliberately do it.
And I find that that. I've told a story to my audience before.
Karen and I years ago, probably about twenty five years ago, we went
to see Penn and Teller perform, and so, yeah, and they're funny,
but he can at the end of his kind of Towards the end of
the thing, after they've been there for a while, he starts talking about
languages. He says, you know, I really hate it when people use
the F word. They use it for every form of speech. They use
it as a you know, an adverb and an adjective and all the rest
of this stuff. And he goes, it just makes you look stupid because
you don't have any vocabulary. So I refuse to use that. He says,
I deliberately take the name of Jesus in vain because I want a blaspheme.
You know, I don't believe any of that stuff, and so I
did, and so, you know, my wife and I got up and
walked out. But it was really, you know, very deliberate from him.
A lot of people don't realize that they're doing that. But I think,
as you point out that this, this name dropping or to say that
you know, I'm a christ follower when you're really not, that really is
a very serious thing. I think that we need to look at ourselves and
say, well, am I guilty of doing that? In a different way,
you mentioned your second promise is a brotherhood. Tell us a little bit
about that. You know, brotherhood is one of the things that we hear
so often now is about we shouldn't let men get together on supervised by women.
Right. I didn't bring up a different church. There's another megachurch that
we've been having problems with right now that a bunch of major leaders have come
together, and so we want you to go to this church. And the
pastor of that church actually called me and said, I have a question for
you. Yeah, why aren't women a lot of promise keepers events because it's
a men's ministry? Because me, well, I just don't think that's right.
Well, I said, let me ask you. Do you have women's
gatherings? Women said, well, yeah, all the time. So what
why do you have women's gatherings all the time and not men's gatherings? Why
is it that you're only critical at men's gatherings. Well, that's a good
point. Well, let me ask you this, then, why don't you
have any women pastors preaching to the men? I said, let me ask
you a point. Why are you so obsessed on that? Yeah, if
we're you have men talking to men like men, why would I want a
woman there? Because when you put one woman in it changes how men behave
men will be authentic. You know, you go to promise keepers event,
you'll see guys falling on their faces and tears. I mean the stories that
come out of these events of change lives. But there's a when there's a
woman there, men feel like they need to change. It's whether it's fair
or not. I'm not saying it's fair. I'm just saying what it is.
It was amazing to me that in our culture and other thing is somehow
men are not allowed to get together. There must be something going on in
there that we don't know about. It's an amazing thing. So you know,
again, I'm taking these things on in a small way, but brotherhood
is very important. Men need to get together with other men and just hang
out, as we talked about a little bit, and sometimes women don't totally
understand that. But I think when you put it the other way. One
of the things I teach people. I was just asked this the other day
GM Mary for thirty three years, what's the secret to having a great marriage?
And I said, well, I get thirty second answer that question.
I will just say empathy. Empathy is the number one thing. Put myself
on the shoes of my wife and say, how does what I just say
sound to her? Right? Well, anybody else but in sack of marriage.
This thing here too for women to think, well, when women get
together and have tea whatever, it's all no big deal. Same thing with
men, and women need to stop and just go. You know what.
For my husband to get together with godly men and go golfing and go fishing,
goes through important things because this is how men sharpen each other is by
doing things together. Your brotherhood is incredibly important. And again the lies of
Satan in the world are trying to keep men from getting together because if they
do, they just might plot how to make the world a better place.
That's been great. I love that integrity. Another promise, integrity that is
at the heart of bandw man. What will I compromise? As we talked
about, what's the conviction of what the strong preference? Will I give?
All for the truth? You know that A Revelation twenty one eight has a
list of eight sin. It says if you are typified by these sins,
you are not saved. It literally says, here's eight sins. If you're
an adulterer, a murderer, a sorcerer, an idolator. All liars will
for sure have their share in the lake of fire that burns forever and never
I left the first one out. You know what the first one on that
list is. It's pretty shock cowards. Cowards. Cowards is the thing that
God says, I'm going to start this list off of people that shows for
sure you're not a Christian coward. That doesn't mean if you've committed a coward
lat because I think we all have. Yeah, if it defines you,
just like lying, you know, if it's defined Yeah, so integrity because
so much of a lack of integrity comes from cowardice. Right. I even
say it's funny because the list starts with cowards and ends with all liars.
Well, liars and cowards are kind of the same thing, and mostly because
are cowards right, they're trying to create something that's not really true about themselves
because they're afraid of something somewhere. Integrity is I will not depart from the
truth, no matter what the cost, and that takes great courage. Courage
is again one of those things. All these are the things we can define
that they mean something. I know what it means to be pious, and
I know what it means to be generous. But courage is sort of this
all encompassing thing. What is courage? And courage is integrity. It says,
I will not bend no matter of the cost. What's that going to
what's that going to take? And I define courage And during faith in the
coward the world is refusing to compromise no matter what the cost is. Whereas
cowardice is not doing the right thing because of fear for something, because we're
all afraid. And the guy that the charge of the machine gun nests in
the middle of a war, he's terrified. Yeah, he just does what
needs to get done. That's right. Yes, that's a great definition.
Uh, family, talk about that? What what? What is the promise
of family? Melichi chapter three? People like Malachi? What is that?
Malka is one of my favorite books in the Bible. Everybody listening here have
a chance to read Malachi. It's the last book of the Old Testament and
it's absolutely fascinating. I preach hold messages on Malachi. But in Malachi chapter
three, God says, I hate divorce because because why because I'm jealous for
godly offspring. Family is the most important thing you can do as a man
of God is to raise godly kids to pass it on to the next generation.
There's lots of things that we have to do. I'm not minimizing other
things, but I am saying that. Being Coach McCarty who started Promise Keepers
used to say, most loving thing that a man can do for his kids
is love their mothers. That's a that's a hard statement, especially if you're
divorced or you've had about problems. But literally, most loving thing can do
for your ca is the love their mother. Godly man needs to be dedicated
to a stami because this is the building block of the church of community.
If you have a strong family with godly kids, with a happy wife because
you know she's cherished by her husband. Another free advice thing I'll give on
family and marriage because I get asked about this a lot. The number one
complaint you get from man is what in marriage? A lack of intimacy.
Then there's money, and there's in loss. Those are the three big things,
but the lack of intimacy is number one by far. I tell guys
absent a whole long thing to tell them. Usually a lack of intimacy is
because your wife doesn't feel cherished. If your wife feels churished, that means
she feels safe protected. She is the apple of your eye, I'm telling
you, has a massive effect on the intimacy level of a marriage. That's
fantastic. Yeah, that's fantastic. Great advice of serving, serving, It's
an amazing thing. The godliest person is always the one who serves the most,
not the one who rules the most. And we really have power wrong,
and we look at Jesus Christ right, so we have the ultimate power.
Jesus said, I can call down angels and wipe all these people out
right now if I want to. But instead he lowered his head in humility,
and he says, that's the person I'm going to elevate in the last
days. See Ephesians chapter three. Says that it's a fascinating verse that I've
read a million times as a friend of mine, Tim Dunn point it's out
to me one day, and I'm like, how could I not have seen
that? It says that God is teaching the full extent of his wisdom to
the powers and the authorities in the heavens from the church, which is you
and me. David, Now, what world do you or I have to
teach the angels that are run for millions of years, what's the one thing,
what's the one experience that we have that they don't have. We live
life by faith. This is our one chance this lifetime that we have.
The Bible says that the angels look on us with fascination. They can't understand
it. They see things as they really are. We see things as through
it to glass darkly, as says I think it's in James. So this
is the one chance we have to make a massive impact for the rest of
our lives. What will we do today? And this is why it's so
important to not be tied into what does the world think, what's the world's
opinion. Truth is eternal. It's not dictated on what the United States of
America's culture happens to think. It's dictated on what does God say at the
beginning of the foundations of time? This is truth. I have a very
strong conviction on gravity, and therefore you won't find me walking up to a
cliff and jumping off, right. Do I have that same conviction on the
trust on the promises that the Lord Jesus made in the Bible? Frankly,
no, I don't. I have a lot of faith compared to most people,
But Jesus isn't comparing me to most people's comparing me to the truth of
heaven. How far am I in that conviction? Could you? Or I
be like Saint Jerome being barbecued and singing songs and go and I can't wait
to get to heaven because man, my worlward gonna be great. Yeah,
not that I don't know that I ever will be, but I'm sure I'm
striving towards that. So that's that's fantastic. Number six. Unity. Unity
Really a lot of that goes around racial reconciliation, which is something that Promise
Keepers was really big in the nineties. Promise Keepers actually the kind of the
originator of diversity and all this bringing different races together. I do think,
like we talked about earlier, it's one of those things that can become a
god. It can take over where you're at. You're saying, I'm just
going to love a black man today because I'm white and I'm going to Well,
that's not going to do anybody any good? Is it coming from a
heart of Christ? So unity is about unity in every aspect. If you
look at our board. You started to mention our board of directors and Randy
ol Courts on our pastors board. And I've known Randy for she's forty five
years. I've tried to get him on. When I reached out to him
last time, his wife was dying of cancer, and I certainly understood wasn't
doing interviews that point in time. Yeah, he's a he's a good,
good guy. But if you look at our board, you know we have
Senator in Lankford who's a Baptist pastor before he became a US senator. And
we have uh Sam Rodriguez who's a Pentecostal pastor, and we have you know,
Pentecostals, Baptists everybody around. We're unified around the cause of what we've
been talking about, not around doctrinal differences. And we have great doctoral differences.
I mean Sam is an eye. We've we've had some two hour rates,
great debates on different doctoral issues, and we love each other and it
never never is their anger. So unity is around racial unity about understanding,
you know, other people have different experiences. It's also understanding theological differences.
It's okay to disagree, It's okay if you've been speaking in tongues and I
don't. It's okay if you're prep you know, pre triven, I'm post
millennial and all those things. These are things just to to sharpen each other
and have good conversations on. I just had a pastor of a small church
but very intellectual. He gave a great podcast on post millennial, which is
something I really didn't understand. Called them up, explain that to me.
You know, here's how I see it. And he said, well,
here's how I see it. He'd studied, and we had a great conversation
for an hour and a half around those issues. We need to come to
each other in humility but in unity and say, well you see this differently
than I do. I really want to learn from you. I did have
that majorly controversial issue in the church and I went to a huge pastor and
I sat down and I said, look, you believe this and I don't
believe that, and I don't understand way you believe it. He goes,
you really want to have this debate. I go, I don't want to
have a debate. I want to learn from you. I want to want
to think that way because maybe I'm missing something, and after two hours I
realized I wasn't missing anything, but this is this is the spirit with which
we need to come together as Christians. Sure, sure, yeah, you're
you're not compromising on truth, but you want to understand where they're coming from
and have that discussion. Promise seven the final one here obedience. Well,
wasn't that That's part of the found everything I've just said, isn't it.
I mean Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. I
was. I was in a major meeting of megachurch pastors, like forty of
them, and we're all sitting around on something and I was invited. I
don't know why I was invited, but I'm sitting there and somebody was reading
from Luke and one of the pastors and I realized afterwards most of these really
really liberal megachurch pastors. And he said, I don't believe in that Jesus,
so that Jesus was mean, and my Jesus was never mean. So
I said to him, while it says in Luke, you know, Jesus
said I came to set the world on fire, and how I wish it
was already alight. That sounds pretty mean to me. Jesus said, well,
I choose not to believe in that Jesus. And I said, well,
if you don't believe in that, Jesus, then you don't believe in
Jesus. You believe in it, I don't call Jesus. And I think
that's where we're at today. There is a lot of people don't actually know
Jesus. They don't know who he is. They have invented a god in
their own heads, and they've slapped the name of Jesus on him. Because
if you read the Gospels, you will see Jesus was extremely confrontational around truth,
never around frivolous issues. God said to Jeremiah, if you speak noble
words and not worthless ones, you will be my spokesman. So it is
as a Christian we will be in confrontation all the time. It's upon us,
though, to speak noble words and not worthless ones. It's not about
whether we're getting in screaming arguments about who belongs in the National Championship, is
it Oregon or is it Alabama or Optimus, or whether there should be a
border wall. But we do be very diligent about all the issues we've talked
about today. If you love me keep my commandments. That defines a man
or woman of God. Well, I tell you there's a lot of wisdom
in what you've had to say here, and I'm sure there's a lot of
wisdom in your book, A Daring Faith and a Cowardly World, and I
will be picking that up. And it's available at Amazon and everywhere the books
are sold. I'm assuming that it's at Promise Keepers dot org. And you've
got a website as well. Tell us the so your website. I had
it here but I lost it. Where can people find you? In particular
kenar Harrison dot com Ken R. Harrison? Okay, Yeah, there's a
whole lot of Ken Harrison's out there. One of them is a gay porn
writer. So don't don't go to Okay, so remember r R that's the
one you're on. I go to and someone who's had you've had so much
experience as a as a CEO of international company, a marine, a police
officer. But I think that probably I don't. You were definitely suited for
what you're doing right now with Promise Keepers. Thank you so much for what
you're doing. Appreciate it, thank you, Thank you. The David Knight
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