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

Send us a text We humans frequently manifest a strange urge for timelessness; we possess an instinctive need to be remembered after we are gone. The idea that we will be forgotten is a pain we can hardly sustain. Yet, in all of human history there has been only one truly timeless, eternal event; it was the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross of Jesus …

Send us a text The book of Esther is known as one of two books in the Bible that does not contain the name of God. It seems strange that a biblical book should never mention God; so what is the book about? Well as we have seen, it is really a story of palace intrigue in the ancient empire of Persia, an historical incident taken out of the very dist…

Send us a text The story of Esther is a story of the Emperor of ancient Persia, who married a beautiful Jewish girl named Esther who had been raised by her cousin, Mordecai. The latter two persons were captives, taken from the city of Jerusalem and brought over into the kingdom of Persia. In the court of this Emperor was a very slimy character name…

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

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

Send us a text Last week, our Pastor began a new series of sermons taken from the book of Esther. In his introductory sermon, he introduced us to three persons, the first being the emperor of Persia, AHASUERUS. Our Pastor suggested that this man represents each one of us. He also introduced two women, a pair of queens, named VASHTI and Esther. Past…

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

Send us a text In the last episode we were in 2 Samuel 20, now we are in 2 Samuel 21 and something interesting happens. We get a rather large time flashback. In fact the events we discuss in this episode may have occurred more than 30 years before chapter 20. There are many reasons why this may have happened and why the ancient historians wrote it …

Send us a text At the end of the last episode we saw that the war was over and Absolom was dead. Remember that before the battle, David was willing and wanting to risk his life and lead his troops into battle. He wanted to do this for two reasons, first off, it was what kings did, lead their troops into battle. And secondly, he hoped that if he cou…

Send us a text David as we find him this episode is nearing the Jordan River, nearing the east of Jerricho. Absalom, his son, has taken Jerusalem and has begun to occupy the famed cedar palace. Phase one of Absalom’s grand scheme is complete and he is about to enact phase two. He turns to his advisors, one is David’s former chief advisor Ahitophel.…

Send us a text Last episode Pastor Harris taught about Absalom, the son of David and his planned assault on the city of Jerusalem. He planned to surround the city, take it, and kill his father David and ascend to the throne of Jerusalem. David had two options therefore, he could stay and let Absalom’s army lay siege and try and fight them off and t…

Send us a text Welcome to the Relational Grace Podcast where we share the teachings of Pastor Nick Harris who taught us that Christianity is not a religion; it’s a relationship. I’m your host Jamie Russell, Pastor Harris’s son. Last episode Pastor Harris talked about Absalom, Son of David, as he made his plans for a coup d'etat against his very own…

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

Send us a text Last episode we discussed King David committing adultery with the wife of one of his main commanders in his army Uriah the Hittite. To make matters worse she became pregnant and David attempted to cover this up. However David’s plans of a cover up failed. David then attempted another scheme, and this one was of murder. In an ironic t…

Send us a text In this teaching Pastor Harris will deal with the topic of midlife crisis. He covers this through discussing three weaknesses of David Ben Jesse. In the first place, David could never control his desire for women. Secondly, David’s allowed himself to have too much idle time on his hands. And thirdly, David began to delegate his divin…

Send us a text Once the issues surrounding building the temple in Jerusalem and who would build it were resolved, David decided to deal decisively with the Philistines. Bringing the war into the Philistine homeland for the first time and after several battles were fought the Philistines would never be a factor again. Israel would now control the ma…

Send us a text In this episode Pastor Harris reminds us about the prophesies of Nathan and provides a lot of back knowledge leading into this topic. More specifically Pastor Harris reminds us that God sent the prophet Nathan to David with certain instructions and a grave warning. That warning was this, just because a temple to God stood in their mi…

Send us a text In this teaching we will learn more about Saul and David. Saul had two daughters, Miram and Michael (we call her Michael instead of MiChal). At the time, Israel had a problem with the philistines. They did not like Isreal or the Jewish people. One day the army of the Philistines were camped on one hill and the Isrealites were camped …

Send us a text Last episode we discussed David’s plan for spiritual renewal for the nation of Israel. It was a fairly simple plan. He was going to introduce a worship revolution. It was going to be something the Hebrew religion and the world at large had never seen. The plan really focused on the Ark of the Covenant that he considered to be Israel’…

Send us a text Following the exodus when Israel had come into the land of Canan the priests brought the Tabernacle to the town of Shiloh. The Tabernacle would remain here for 200 years. In time, there was a battle with the Philistines over a Hebrew highway. The high priests were in charge of the tabernacle and these high priests were the sons of El…

Send us a text Last teaching Pastor Harris discussed David returning after he had defeated the Amalekites. At the same time David was returning to Ziklag, Saul had met his end and been defeated by the Philistines. Around that same time a different Amilkite arrives with a message that Saul had been slain along with a conflicting story. Last episode …

Send us a text Last episode we talked about David and his big battle with the Amalekites in the Negev. While that was going on with him, the exact opposite was going on with Saul. Saul was encountering Israel's old enemy the Philistines. They had amassed a massive army and to this point the Isrealites had been successful in defeating them by fighti…

Send us a text The events of first samuel chapter 26 and first samuel chapter 24 look very similar if not identical, but in fact they are remarkably different. Where they are similar in both instances Saul, the King of Israel is pursuing David. Saul fails, and God delivers him into the hands of David, who chooses to do nothing about it and to relea…

Send us a text In our last teaching we saw David confront Saul at the Oasis of Ein Gedi, and there we saw a great part of David’s character revealed. One thing we saw revealed was his boldness, his courage and that he really trusted in God. He was able to stand up and confront Saul because he believed that God would defend him and that God would be…

Send us a text We continue to follow the life of David in our current series. In this episode we will touch on the topic of vengeance. The need for vengeance is as old as human nature. Vengeance can be overwhelming. Let’s listen to Pastor Harris as he walks us through how David handles vengeance against King Saul. Finally Pastor Harris will provide…

Send us a text Have you ever experienced exceptional success in life like that of David? After what David accomplished by saving his entire nation from slavery and bondage by conquering the undefeatable foe. Who knows what it would be like to experience such success and fame like David did. In the last episode Pastor Harris talks about five crutche…

Send us a text As we continue on with our second episode of this new Saga of David series I continue to think about episode one and how Pastor Harris focused on Samuel and the strange circumstance he found himself in when it came to anointing the next king of Israel. It was an interesting approach to kicking off a teaching about the life of David. …

Send us a text This new series is a large and in-depth study of Pastor Harris’s which covers the man after God’s own heart, King David. As always, Pastor Harris’s approach to the life of David is very unique and we hope will touch the lives of our listeners, teaching after teaching. This series is over 20 episodes in length and rightfully so, there…

Send us a text This episode wraps up our current series titled “Courage and Confrontation” which follows the life and times of Elijah. This has been a truly amazing series and has come with God’s perfect timing. I hope these teachings have encouraged everyone who listens. I have to tell you all, I love this specific episode, I think it really place…

Send us a text In this episode Pastor Harris picks back up with Elijah returning to the kingdom of Israel after his sojourn at Mount Sinai, at least two and maybe three years had passed before Elijah made a reappearance. We can determine this from several situations that are recorded in I Kings. In the first place, in I Kings 21, we find a vineyard…

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

Send us a text As we dive into another episode of the “Courage and Confrontation” I wanted to remind everyone that you can visit Courage.ArielMinistries.com for more details and aggregate content around these teachings on the life and times of Elijah. In this episode we follow along as Elijah’s fear sets in and he takes flight from the evil queen J…

Send us a text In our last episode we saw that the fire had fallen on the sacrifice that Elijah had presented at Mount Carmel with such veracity that the wood, the sacrifice, and even the stones of the altar were reduced to ashes in a moment. In addition the people of Israel who had gathered on Mount Carmel saw all of this and instantly they reache…

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

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

Send us a text In the last episode, we left the prophet Elijah deep in what can only be called Gentile country. If you remember, God had sent him to the Phoenician village of Zarephath which was located less than 10 miles from what the people of Israel believed to be Satan's headquarters on earth, the city of Tyre. In fact, on several occasions Sat…

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

Send us a text As we continue the Courage and Confrontation series we remember that God had always prepared men to do the work that He calls them to do. In the days of King Ahab of Israel, the situation called for a man like Elijah the Tishbite; an Elijah was ready to do the job; at least in part. The easy part was to march into the throne room of …

Send us a text This series will be titled Courage and Confrontation. Pastor Harris will follow Elijah the Tishbite. We will follow him from insignificance and we will watch God take him and turn him into one of the giants of the Biblical era. The Bible will remind us that Elijah was more like us than we could even imagine. It is important that we a…

Send us a text This episode marks the final teaching of the Spiritual Gifts teaching series. What a fascinating teaching Pastor Harris has saved for the last. I have to admit I have probably listened to this teaching over five times to fully understand everything Pastor Harris was trying to get across to us. In this Pastor Harris will cover the nin…

Send us a text In this episode Pastor Harris will be continuing his teaching on the topic of the manifestation gift of tongues. More specifically he will begin this teaching discussing the function of the gift of tongues and he will end it by discussing the final manifestation gift which is the gift of the interpretation of tongues. There is quite …

Send us a text After the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995, Rich Mullins contacted First United Methodist Church after their church building had been destroyed. He surprised the congregation on Father's Day that June with a concert they would never forget. Recent Hi8 video footage was found of this day and we are very excited to share it with those tha…

Send us a text Pastor Harris will continue on in his teachings on the Spiritual Gifts. Specifically his teachings on the Manifestation Gifts. In the last episode Pastor Harris taught us about the gift of prophecy as it relates to the idea of manifestations, he also covered the gift of discerning spirits. In this teaching he will begin covering the …

Send us a text In this episode we will continue learning more about the individual Manifestation Gifts. In the last several episodes Pastor Harris has taught us about the manifestation gifts of the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, faith and healing. In this teaching Pastor Harris will discuss three more of the Manifestation Gifts. He will cov…

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

Send us a text In this episode of our teaching series on the Spiritual Gifts, we will continue to dive into the final category of gifts that Pastor Harris refers to as the Manifestation Gifts. The first category consists of the seven motivational gifts, the second category consists of the eleven equipping gifts, also called ministry gifts. There ar…

Send us a text As we continue this Spiritual Gifts teaching series, Pastor Harris has made his way through what he calls the Motivational Gifts and then into the Equipping Gifts, which as a reminder are also referred to as the Ministry Gifts. We’ll now dive further into another subsection of the Equipping Gifts which Pastor Harris reluctantly refer…

Send us a text I hope everyone has been enjoying this Spiritual Gifts teaching series. This episode will mark our seventh lesson in this series in which Pasto Harris will continue his teachings on the equipping gifts, which he also refers to as the ministry gifts. In the last episode her taught us about the ministry gifts of the apostles, the proph…

Send us a text As Pastor Harris continues to walk us through the Spiritual Gifts, in the last episode he completed his teachings of what he refers to as the Motivational Gifts, or in the Greek, these are referred to as the CHARISMATA. In this episode he will get into the Equipping Gifts, or in the Greek, these are referred to as the DOMATA. Being e…