The David Knight Show - INTERVIEW Promise Keepers CEO, Ken Harrison

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

At a time when men need brotherhood and a purpose more than ever, the message of local community of men to take responsibility for themselves and others is desperately needed. But many churches who would agree are afraid of the politically correct perception and have actually cancelled this Christian ministry. Ken Harrison, CEO of PromiseKeepers and author of "A Daring Faith in a Cowardly World: Live. Life Without Waste, Regret, or Anything Unfinished"Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.comIf you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-showOr you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @[e-mail] App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Money is only what YOU hold: Go to DavidKnight.gold for great deals on physical gold/silverFor 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to TrendsJournal.com and enter the code KNIGHTBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-david-knight-show--2653468/support.

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 30 years old, I knew the Bible 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 gonna get before Christ and this is gonna 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 Police Department 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 $5,000 suits just like it's in do-rags and running around with AK-47s. 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 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? Jesus has given us the formula for that difference in the Sermon on the Mount. 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 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 in 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 that Christ 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 servant. Okay, and that's our guest, Ken Harrison. And you saw the book there.

This is his 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. Oh, thanks, David. 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 90s under coach bill mccartney so they were getting together men filling the nfl stadium 60 70 000 men at a time i remember that yeah yeah and they actually had a gathering in washington dc in 97 called stand in the gap most people think it was called the million man march it was called santa gap and they had 1.4 million men together to worship Christ for the day. It's the biggest gathering in the history of Washington, D.C. So it was a pretty impactful organization. It 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 surprising 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 a 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 was so big 20, 30 years ago. And now we've got liberal churches. Churches have gone so far to the left that they want to ban Promise Keepers for what they call their gender ideology. Yeah, and I've been as shocked as you have.

We went to Dallas Cowboys Stadium two years ago. We had 30,000 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 um just a lot of stuff let's just go to churches wouldn't that be great and we'll go all over and we have found we've been cancelled and cancelled and a lot of times david it's not about ideology a lot of times it's the plane about cowardice so we had one church come to us we met with the elders and

they said listen we agree with you on 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 off 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. 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 disappearing is 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, A.R. Bernard is on our board. People think he's, I don't know if you know who A.R. Bernard 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. Huge church in New York City with 40,000 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. When you think about that, everybody at home will say, what is the difference between a strong preference and a conviction?

A conviction is not negotiable. Yes. That struck me as so profound. Because when we see St jerome being barbecued face down in rome and after 15 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 convictions yeah right yeah now we have churches saying well we don't want protesters that might make us uncomfortable and the ironic thing about it is our tour is called Daring Faith, because what we're saying to men is, you started this 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 church is 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, we're sinners saved by grace made into new creations in Christ Jesus for good works,

which were prepared beforehand that we should walk in the Ephesians 2 10 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 of 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 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 you brood of vipers who told you to repent

from the for the coming of the lord repent and sow deeds consistent with your repentance yes that's uh that's something we hear in the church a lot today and that was the beginning of jesus's ministry that's right yeah it's like uh you know if we're going to be witnesses to people uh we got to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth right i had george barn on he was talking about how people like oh yeah you know it's like it's like a smorgasbord we'll bring a little bit of this thing over there and a little bit of that thing over there you know so we had 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 he would uh you know uh heal somebody say now go your way and sin no

more you know you've been changed and 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 going to work itself out. And so, you know, we need to constantly, you know, we need to look at that and say, you say, 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 looked 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 pointed out, they're afraid of the criticism that's going to come their way. Yeah. I mean, the Bible says that in the last days,

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 he promised a bunch of, right? I mean, we're taught to think that way. Yeah. And I want to tell everybody, I'm not a jerk.

And we 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're not bogged down by truth. They say whatever they think. And one of them is, well, you know, we want to subjugate women. And I'm quoted all over the place as saying, my role is not to tell women how to behave. I stay out of it.

I'm not a pastor. I run promise keepers. It's here to tell men how to behave. So I'm here to tell men how to be humble, gracious leaders in their home, biblically understand 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 knows 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, I think that there is a 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 chan on the youtube instead of right yeah that changes that the megachurch movement has taken over starting in the 80s 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 be nameless and faceless because I can watch it on YouTube. So, I think what's church about? Church is about lifting brothers and sisters 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 it starts with the men because women naturally make relationships, but men don't. Those churches are going to be the ones who flourish. And 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 mega church.

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 2020 from the standpoint of I've talked for the longest time to people about schools. And it's like, you know, be careful about what the institution is. Oh, 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. It's been really kind of an opportunity for people to reevaluate the sincerity of the institutions and to reevaluate 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 tell us a little bit about what a promise keeper's rally is about. So, this is men talking to men like men. And so, when you look at a marriage, you need to have a mother and a father for an optimal 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. Let me put a band-aid band-aid on let 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're blocking 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 i i my coach didn't play me and uh 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 maybe a lot of things now what are you going to do about it it's time to stand up and be counted as a man of god because your wife 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 they're friday night only they go from depending on the city like six to nine the first one will be New

York City on December 1st 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 just go sign up at promisekeepers.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 the road we want them out with other men but we're going to take on real issues we're going to have becca cook there who was a hollywood um major hollywood presence homosexual who got saved to completely change his life went to talbot seminary so beckett tell us you know we're going to have an interview tell us how do you witness to homosexuals how should we um 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 80 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 that really matters yeah how can we live our lives for jesus christ abandon to 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 singer 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 kingdom of God is at hand. Right? That's right. Well, that's good. So promisekeepers.org, the first event is going to be December the 1st, in case your church is not telling you about it. But people can find the live stream there. And then what is – you've got events that are scheduled throughout the next year,

I guess, as well, right? Yeah, 2024, we should what is, uh, you've got events that are scheduled, uh, throughout the next year, I guess as well, right? Right. People have a lot of them. We, I can't announce any of them yet. Cause we have a whole bunch that are almost solidified. And to be honest with you, I've learned that I have to make sure that everything is solid before I announced. So unless we get canceled.

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, uh, yeah, I mean, uh, as yeah i mean uh as uh you had um uh i can't think of his name the the actor who started uh uh yes yeah kurt cameron uh as he started going around doing they started canceling them left and right and and then if they couldn't cancel it uh 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 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 being a man. Tell us a little bit about that, and we'll get into the newer book after that.

But tell us 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 L.A. cop stories, because I was an L.A. policeman. As you said, I'd done a lot of things. And so there's some stories in there that the publisher was like whoa you don't see these in christian books and uh a lot of real positive feedback in fact i've gotten uh hundreds of letters from women who have read it and been blessed because it's really a discipleship book dressed up and then being a man because you've

got to learn how to be a disciple of jesus christ to learn how to be a real man that's right so there's that one and then the next one that came out recently is Daring 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. And there's nothing left to do.

Instead, actually, when you read what Christ said over and over, in fact, his final words in Revelation 22, he says, Behold, I'm coming quickly, and my reward is with me to give to each person according to what he has done. Yes. That was Christian. So the idea here is there will be a judgment seat of Christ, 2 Corinthians 5, 10, that we'll all stand before.

Jesus Christ doesn't care what we did before we were saved. We were dead in our sins. We were saved by grace through faith alone. However, after we were saved, our lives do matter, and we will be judged. And Jesus says, behold, if the person who perseveres doing good works, I will pull him up onto my throne to sit up with me at my father's right hand. And at the end of Matthew 24, he says that the servant 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 eternity. We'll be rewarded, those who really walk with Christ and those who didn't. And just to put a cherry on that, you know, because of Promise Keepers, I get to talk to all these famous pastors and be friends with everything and the famous theologian who called me out and said hey man i gotta 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 shred it 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 rewards good works. Because how did I miss this all these years? 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 know you talk about this, but think about it, what they're doing to our children. Here in Colorado, when you're six years old, you go to school, they want to know what gender 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?

Do you want to be a boy? I'm really 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 and not having protesters and man oh man they're tearing at 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 enemies

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 have one reaction or another. Either they're going to repent or they're going to hate you. That's what happens because they're going to be utterly in their deception. 2 Thessalonians 2 and Romans 1. Some people are just completely abandoned to their evil and they're going to hate you. You're promised.

Jesus promises us that they're going to hate us. But behind some people we can rescue. And what a glorious day that is. That's why we're here in this world. I just want to wake Christians up up stop being so dang 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 it's sure a lot easier more joyful that's right uh such great advice yeah you know we 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 isn't 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 to 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 understand. You know, now that we're at this point, you know, I think of the, everybody knows the parable of the talents.

And 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 in Jesus' parable. Now 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, the people who don't do anything with what they were given, they get strong condemnation from Jesus, right? And so that's the key thing. That's where we are right now.

Look at all of the things that God has given 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 it in detail but you'll notice the first two servants are given a certain amount of money and they go invest it they date and 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 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're in heaven so did he lose his salvation no actually it's pretty clear as you look at over and over again what he's thrown out of is the wedding feast of the lamb 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 has weeping and gnashing of teeth. People think that's hell or pain. It isn't. In the Near East, weeping means sorrow, and gnashing of teeth means anger. He's angry at his wasted life, and he's looking at the wedding feast 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 what they had and that takes courage and the other thing i want to wake people up to is we have swallowed another lie of intellectualism where we think if you these guys who sit in their libraries 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 hebrews chapter 11 is a great hall of faith these are such screwed up people but 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 it with a daryl 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 some woman crying on my shoulder with mascara all over my shirt about her life.

And you try to walk her through Christ, try to find her a good church. Everywhere we go, it's a promise keeper's 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, what is, may tell you that, but it's going 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 is really important because we're just not wired that way to to you know um to open up and to talk to other people you know the course in here 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 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 uh somebody who goes hunting and who can grow a great beard like david knight or uh is tall and has a deep voice or is a cop or a navy seal or no a man is someone with 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 up for my job and times are tough if i got to work at mcdonald's i'll work at mcdonald's

whatever it takes to stand by my kids and my wife to guard my thoughts and my mind so that all of my sexual energy goes towards my wife and nobody else. And these are things that 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. And as you die to self daily, Matthew 5 through 7 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 4'10 and 80 pounds, you have a heart of a lion and a heart of integrity and 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 couldn't agree with that more. Yeah, I've said many times that if you're looking to Christ, that is a leverage point, a fulcrum that's outside of this world. And that gives you a tremendous 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 relationships. They like school better than we like school. They like church better than we like church, you know, and it's just a natural thing for them. And so men need to have a little bit more of an encouragement, a counseling, and to understand the importance of the one another, you know, helping one another. That's a key thing. And I think it's very important for promise keepers.

I'm glad that you're reviving this, that it is now coming back. It really is 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 was a farmer and a rancher and a black blacksmith and all that stuff. So you came together communities and you had to share skills.

And then we learned who we could trust and who we couldn't. We saw 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 masked and in fact it's demasculating and if our churches are falling 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 6 30 in the morning on a friday But there's nothing in that that's 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 20 years, once a week, but we won't really be friends. I'll tell you what, we go hunting for three days in the backwoods and you shoot an elk that's 300 yards away across another mountain range you gotta call it kick you clean that thing and carry it out now we're friends because now i've seen what you really like under stress and you've seen that i'm like under stress 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 i can order ubereats and i can get stuff delivered 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 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 hunters, 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 get together and 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 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 20 years, he didn't take a penny. He took like the minimum, which is like $8,000 a year, said he didn't give any of the money to 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 and 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 procreates species and amongst marriage. I wrote in, in, um, rise of theving Kings that sex is the only thing that differentiates a marriage from any other relationship. Because anybody can share a bank account and raise kids together. It's sex that makes you one flesh.

It's extremely precious, and that's why sex outside of marriage is such a great sin. Fire. Think about fire. What a great blessing you need to survive. Think about how destructive. Water. You need water, but boy, water can do destruction. Money is freedom, if you have a healthy attitude about it is the freedom to do what you'd like to

do whenever 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 50 000 in my hand i can do anything with this $50,000 I want to, from getting clean water in Africa, to fighting AIDS, to buying a big diamond ring. 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. Debt is bondage. Debt will destroy you. Especially today, we have a lot of people are going to end up in massive massive problems

because interest rates have taken off if you had a bunch of credit card debt or you had floating interest rates with what's going on people are going to get crushed i know i'm not trying to be uh who's the money guy in nashville i forget his name now yeah he's always saying get out of debt his name is escaping me as well yeah my wife loves him uh if you're a, get out of debt. His name is escaping me as well. Yeah. My wife loves him. If you're in debt, get out of debt. The thing about money, I actually had somebody come to me as a 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 lot of money. What do you mean? I go, money is a symptom. It's not the disease. If you have money, there's something else. Why do you want money so bad? Is it because you lack faith and you the disease if you pull up money there's something else why do you want money so bad is it because you lack 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 i can't i only have 100 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 a terrible curse 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 so everybody 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 all sort of from our resume i used to have thousands of employees and made lots of money and created lots of jobs and i don't make take any money now i think you know that from promise keepers i get paid zero right 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 and this guy said well you got to leave camp what do you have to leave i go i got a plane to catch he said yeah plane to catch and the other pastor looks at him he goes yeah ken flies commercial and they both go laughing you don't have a private jet i said uh no and right 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 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 laughed but boy i don't 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 um southwest airlines

is just plain adequate and uh flying somewhere for 400 is a lot different than flying there for 15 000 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 a dave ramsey eventually you know yeah eventually it gets there just it's a little bit slower now uh but it's got all these extra paths it's got to go around blockages i guess to get there but yeah they ran over yet baby the older we yeah, 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, um, you know, getting out of debt and, and everything, but it is, as you point out, it is a bondage and, and, um, it's a very dangerous time, uh, to be in that kind of debt, especially it's just, you know, getting out of debt and, and everything, but it is, as you point out, it is a bondage and, and, um, 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 with 29%. I know, 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 like, well, I just passively accepted 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, I'm totally, I cannot walk through all seven of them right now.

Well, first one, I've got them in front of me, so I've got a cheat sheet here. Honor God, honor God. Tell us a little bit about that and we'll do the next one. Honor God is the whole point of our lives, right? And how do we point that 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 G-O-D for something. Oh, G-O-D, 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, 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 have i said i have a word from the lord i don't know this person i have a word from lord and my my first response is what verse is it yeah but yeah people manipulate and use others with this business of putting things in the name of the lord that are not in the name of the Lord.

And 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 the sermon kings 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 this buddy called me up and said hey he said you agree i 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 the whole sermon i just want to pull that one thing out don't concentrate on the little easy obvious god 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 they're really you your opinion and maybe your opinion is true but it's better to say in my opinion or the way i read this passage or my life experience has told me right but but do not go around saying thus says 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 and and you know i also look at it my head i heard somebody say once um we call ourselves christians you know that really comes uh from uh you know kind of a combined thing of christ's men right and so and jesus said why you calling me lord lord if you don't do what I say? And so we can, by calling ourselves Christians, 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 the story to my audience before Karen and I years ago, probably about 25 years ago, we went to see Penn and Teller perform and yeah. And they're funny, but he got at the end of his kind of towards the end of the thing after they'd been there for a while, he starts talking about language and 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 that 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 to blaspheme. You know, I don't believe any of that stuff. And so my wife and I got up and walked out.

But it was really very deliberate from him. A lot of people don't realize that they're doing that. But I think, as you point out, this name-dropping or to say that 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 brotherhood. Tell us a little bit about that. Brotherhood is one of the things that we hear so often now is about we shouldn't let men get together unsupervised by women.

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 said 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 allowed to promise keepers events? Uh, cause it's a men's ministry. No, because well, I just don't think that's right. Well, I said, let me ask you, do you have women's gatherings? Women's? 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 of 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 so let me ask you a point why are you so obsessed on that yeah if we have men talking to men like men why would i want a woman there because when when you put one woman in it changes how men behave men will be authentic you i want a woman there because when 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 our faces and tears i mean the stories um that come out of these events have changed 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 another thing is somehow men are not allowed to get together uh there must be something going on in there that we don't know about it's amazing thing so you know again i'm taking these things on um in a small way but brotherhood is very important men need to get together with other men um 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 gee i've been married for 33 years what's the secret to having a great marriage and i said well i got 30 seconds to answer that question i will just say empathy empathy is the number one thing put myself in

the shoes of my wife and say how does what i just say sound to her right or anybody else but in in sake of marriage this thing here too for women to think well when women get together and and have tea whatever it's all no big deal um 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 those are important things because this is how men sharpen each other is by doing things together so 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 great. I love that. Integrity. Another promise. Integrity. That is at the heart of being a man. What will I compromise? We talked about what's a conviction and what's a strong preference.

Will I give all for the truth? You know that Revelation 21.8 has a list of eight sins. 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 idolater, all liars will for sure have their share in the lake of fire that burns forever and ever. I left the first one out. You know what the first one on that list is it's pretty shocking 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 cowardly act 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 i mean why didn't we like us or cowards right yeah 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 they mean something i know what it means to be pious i know

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 the cost. What's that going to take? And I define courage and daring, faith, and a coward in the world as 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 well and the guy that that that charges the machine gun nest in the middle of a war he's terrified yeah he just does what needs to get done that's right yeah that's a great definition uh family talk about that what what is the promise of family malachi chapter three

um people like malachi what is that i know balakai one of my favorite books in the bible everybody listening you have a chance to read malachi it's the last book of the old testament and it's absolutely fascinating i could i preach whole messages on malachi. But in Malachi chapter 3, 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 McCartney,

who started Promise Keepers, used to say, the most loving thing that a man can do for his kids is love their mother. That's a hard statement, especially if you're divorced or you've had problems. But literally, the most loving thing you can do for your kids is to love their mother. A godly man needs to be dedicated to his family 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

men is what in marriage a lack of intimacy um right then there's money and there's in-laws 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 church that means she feels safe protected. She is the apple of your eye. I'm telling you, it has a massive effect on the intimacy level of a marriage. That's fantastic. Yeah, that's fantastic. Great advice.

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 when 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 3 says that it's a fascinating verse that I'd read a million times that a friend of mine, Tim Dunn, points out to me one day. 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 have 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 a glass darkly, it 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 it'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 going I can't wait to get to heaven because man is my reward gonna be great

yeah not I don't know that I ever will be but i sure am striving towards that so oh that's that's fantastic uh number six unity unity really a lot of that goes around racial reconciliation which is um something that promise keepers was really big in the 90s promise keepers actually kind of the originator of diversity and all this bringing different races together um 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. If 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 Elkhart's on our pastor's board, and I've known Randy for, jeez, 45 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 he wasn't doing interviews at that point in time, yeah. He's a good guy. But if you look at our board you know we have senator langford who's a baptist pastor before he became a u.s senator and we have um uh sam rodriguez who's a pentecostal pastor and we have you know pentecostals baptists everybody around we're unified around the cause of of what we've been talking about not around doctrinal differences and we have great doctrinal differences I mean Sam is an eye um

we've we've had some two-hour rate great debates on different doctrinal issues and we love each other and then never never is there 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 pre-trib and I'm post-millennial and all those things. These are things just 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 him up.

Explain that to me. Here's how I see it. And he said to me. 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, boy, 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 why you believe it. He goes, you really want to have this debate? And I go, I don't want to have a debate. I want to learn from you. I want to learn why you think that way. Because maybe I'm missing something. And after two hours, I realized I wasn't missing anything. But this is the spirit with which we need to come together as Christians.

Sure. Sure, sure. Yeah, 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, isn't that the foundation of everything I've just said, isn't it? I mean, in your book, Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. I was in a major meeting of megachurch pastors, like 40 of them, and we were 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 were really liberal mega church pastors and he said um i don't i don't believe in that jesus so that jesus was mean and my jesus was

never mean so i said to him well it says in luke you know jesus said i came to set the world on fire and how i wish it was already a light that sounds pretty mean to me and 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 an idol called jesus and i think that's where we're at today 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 jesus on them 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 or 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 you've had to say here, and I'm sure there's a lot of wisdom in your book, A Daring Faith in 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 promisekeepers.org. And you've got a website as well. Tell us the address of your website. I had it here, but I lost it. Where can people find you in particular? KenRHarrison.com. Ken R. Harrison. Okay.

Yeah. There's a whole lot of Ken Harrisons out there. One of them is a gay porn writer. So don't, don't go. Oh, okay. That would not be me. So remember R, R that's the one you're going to 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, um, 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 Show is a critical thinking super spreader. If you've been exposed to logic by listening to The David Knight Show,

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