Christian Harris Interview (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is

Mike Abendroth, and in the studio today, I have a friend, I have a comrade, and it's not

Jetty. We're not talking about Jetty, he's not in the studio today. My dear friend Christian Harris, Pastor Christian Harris, is in the studio today live from Texas via California.

Christian, welcome. Thank you, Mike, it's great to be here. How did we meet? I remember the first day we met.

Do you remember that day? All I know is that it happened probably somewhere in 1991 when we were entering seminary, and I have a couple of early memories.

I'm not so sure I can pinpoint the exact time, but I know that it involved, at one point, basketball, and you schooled me.

Well, I don't think I schooled you. I think you had good, tight defense. It probably annoyed me, but I remember meeting you at the

Grace Community Church gym, and my wife and you knew each other from school, and then we went to seminary together at Master's Seminary, and you became a pastor, and so did

I. Christian's here on vacation. I thought, I've gotta pick Christian's brain in the studio today.

So you ready to have your brain picked? Yes, let's do that. That would be great. Well, first tell me, so the people that are listening can understand you a little bit more, give me a

God -centered conversion story. Well, I was born into a family of non -believers.

My dad was an airline pilot and my mom was a stewardess, and through their own rebellion and selfish attempts at trying to figure out life, they were at the bottom of everything.

They were on the verge of a divorce, living in the same house but in separate rooms, and some family members thought enough about them to hold a

Bible study specifically to see my parents get saved. Make a long story short, that happened, and I was then brought up in a

Christian home. I saw a lot on the outside, but there was no real conversion experience in my own life until actually

I graduated from a Christian college, and started reading the Bible on my own, and it was in that time that the

Spirit of God opened up the Word of God in my own heart. I saw the majesty of Jesus Christ, and I saw his eternal worthiness, and my need for his righteousness, and I repented and trusted him for salvation.

I came down with a melanoma, a type of skin cancer in 1984, which even took me deeper into the depths of the gospel, and it was at that time that God called me to ministry, and I began serving at a little inner -city church, and after five years of doing that, was sent,

I believe, again, by God's work in my life to be trained, and that's where you and I met in 1991.

Well, that is an amazing thing, where you get out of Christian college and then read the Bible on your own and then get saved.

It happens, and it was right after college, in fact. I went to Europe thinking

I was going to pursue law school and was traveling, and it was a unique time of actually coming face -to -face with the truthfulness of Scripture and crossroads for sinful decisions, and it was really in the power of God that I was able to say no to, for the first time, really, to say no to the desires of the flesh because of my worship for Christ, and it was amazing.

I loved it. I loved what God was doing. I saw the power of God in my own sanctification, and it was powerful.

A miracle was happening in my life. Christian, let's talk about that just for a second. People read the

Bible, and they get saved. Do you think it's because they're getting to know more of who

God is and how he relates with humanity? They see, in other words, Christian, a bigger perspective of God compared to some kind of altar call service.

You're a sinner. You need Jesus. Accept Jesus in your heart, and you're good to go. I guess what I'm trying to say is, in my mind,

I think that when people read the Bible, they understand more fully the object of their faith, who should be their faith, and they read the

Bible and get saved by reading the Bible. I got saved that way, too. Yeah, you know, that's a good question.

Here's the way that I see it, and I don't want to slam -dunk everybody that minimalizes the gospel, but I think, overall, that is not the best way to present the truthfulness of God and the truthfulness of Christ and the truthfulness of the gospel.

I think that there are times where we do need to have a 30 -second presentation and try to get as much information as possible within that context of that conversation, but I think the ultimate best way is seen, for example, in the

Apostle Paul's life in the book of Acts, where daily he would go into the marketplace and present the truthfulness of Christ from the

Old Testament Scriptures, and obviously, as an apostle, in his own words, he was actually presenting for hours, engaging, dialoguing, and I think that, to go back to the question, we need to have a full -orbed contact of the gospel.

We need to have information, and a lot of information is better than less information.

The gospel, I think, is so rich and so deep that virtually, though God can use the short presentations, a much fuller and slower presentation is better.

Well, that's a good point, Christian. In our society today, I think you'll agree with me, there's an overemphasis on emotions, and so we don't want to be robotic.

We're not against emotions. Jesus was emotional. We have been made in the likeness and image of God.

We're emotional, but there's such a priority on the emotions that the intellect, seemingly, is just jettisoned.

When you're reading the Bible, this is an intellectual. It's more than that, but it is intellectually stimulating, intellectually informing.

Talk to me about the differences between the intellect and emotions. Can you have one without the other? Just launch off on that.

Okay, I'll use it. Maybe it would be helpful for our listeners just to do what I like to do. Now that I'm almost 50 years old, and again, was set apart for the ministry and have studied the word of God for years, one of the things that I like to do is, when

I go into a situation, an evangelistic situation, where the presenter, the one with the testimony, the one who's actually bringing the word,

I like to sit back and allow the message to run through the grid of scripture, because I believe that the

Bible is very clear that the word of God is central to any biblical ministry.

Now, we're emotional creatures, and emotions are important in the whole, in the way that we've been created in the image of God, but what really must be presented is truth.

And so what I like to do is, whatever the situation is, is just to say, okay, is there enough information given by that individual that could lead to regeneration or to repentance?

Is there enough content of the gospel, the truthfulness, again, as we mentioned, the truthfulness of the gospel for somebody to listen to and to be saved?

And I just like doing that. I was with my son -in -law recently, new son -in -law, new

Christian, and we went to a deal where this guy was presenting his journey.

He had died and he had supposedly gone to heaven and I don't know if you know the name

Don Piper, but he was a guy that wrote a book about his whole journey into heaven. So he came to Texas and we were there and we're listening to this because it was the big evangelistic deal.

And in the message that I heard, and I sat there very carefully, there was not enough information there for a person to be converted.

And so I was so convicted because, and I try not to let my card show, I like to allow my son -in -law to discern.

And we walked out, I said, what do you think? He said, man, that was weak. He said, I don't know. I don't think anybody could have been saved by that message.

I said, you're absolutely right. I asked him, I said, what do you think I had to do? He said, you got to call the pastor. So I actually contacted the pastor and talked about it.

And I said, I don't, I listened to the tape. I said, there's not enough information there about the gospel for somebody to be saved.

And yet there was an emotional altar call and about five people came forward.

I don't know why they came forward, but it was just sad. Maybe those were the plants, maybe those that were told to go.

And there were 2000 people there, so, you know. Don't you think if you really went to heaven,

Christian, you would have probably the real message to preach to people? Well, in the context of this particular situation, yeah,

I think I would be a little more excited, a little bit more.

Well, you know, back to that whole emotional intellectual deal. I have my Bible open to Acts chapter seven and Stephen preaching.

Stephen wasn't, I'm sure, trying to be dry and, you know, anti -emotional and everything else, but the truth was given.

Stephen was preaching to their mind. He was preaching to their whole self, I'm sure. But at the very end, it says, now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick and began gnashing their teeth at him.

Now, certainly there was an emotional response to the truth. And so I think as proclaimers of the truth,

I'm not after trying to play to people's emotions. I think that's God's work.

That's the spirit of God's work to convict and to encourage, to do different things. We are supposed to give the truth.

We just looked at that verse on my desk. We are to preach the word in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction.

And it is our job to preach the truth and then the spirit of God can take over while, during, after.

We just are men who are under duty to preach the word. You're exactly right.

And that is why, back in the day when you and I first met, that is why I went to seminary.

Prior to going to seminary, I was a youth pastor for five years. And the model of ministry that I was being discipled in is look and search.

The internet wasn't around then, but look and search for the best emotive stories. Come up with the most gripping illustrations because ultimately that will lead to eternal change.

And so really the focus of my message is in big events and small groups and my weekly ministry was trying to find something that would grab their emotion.

But it wasn't until I began to do that and to practice that, but really the fruit of that was so shallow.

It wasn't lasting in the context of that five -year ministry that I realized there needed to be something else.

And it was through just listening and reading other things that I needed to know truth. I needed to study

Hebrew. I needed to study Greek. I needed to know the mind of God and the way that he communicated his thoughts because when that truth gripped me and I began to preach that with passion,

I began to see lives change. And it was emotional. We are not anti -emotional. I mean, I have to say this every single time because society is so emotive, so kind of viscerally motivated.

We're not anti -emotion. You can just read the Bible and look at Moses and look at Joshua and you look at Peter and James and John.

These men and the women of God as well had emotions. But Mormons, don't they preach in such a way that they can get an emotional response?

Jehovah's Witnesses? Sure. But here, again, it's the model that you and I, I think, are really accustomed to and really convicted by, like tomorrow morning.

It will be hard for me not to be emotional when I'm presenting the word of God. We're gonna be looking at one of the most powerful

Psalms in which the psalmist is full of emotion. And he's full of emotion because of the truthfulness of his situation in light of his discernment and his understanding of God.

And it's gonna be hard. You're gonna see me tomorrow even fight back, pause for a moment as I'm swallowing so that the tears that are coming even to my own eyes are being placed down, not stifled, but set aside so that I can, again, engage the truthfulness of the text of what we're doing.

That's something that happens to me on a regular basis. But it's the truth that must lead that emotion.

And I love rejoicing and singing and weeping before the throne of God, but that only comes after I've come face -to -face with God.

All right, great insight. Christian Harris, Pastor Christian Harris from Texas these days.

He makes his home in Texas. And Christian and I also like to bike together.

Could you give me kind of a theology of biking? We're not talking about Harleys. We're not talking about mountain bikes.

We're talking about what real men do. They put on spandex, they clip in, and they go ride for 70 kilometers.

Is that a biblical thing to do? Well, as you and I have grown older,

I believe just as the way that God put us together, we're very competitive, we're very active, we love athletics.

And there's something about turning 50 and spraining your ankle and waiting five weeks for it to get healed again that you really just, that's not fun anymore.

So I think that you and I both were just looking for an outlet, a competitive outlet just to let us express ourselves and what have you.

But I think going back to the theology that what I find is that when I'm cycling is that it forces me to engage my own mind and to think.

And it seems like in the busyness of everyday life, it's very difficult sometimes to have any kind of meaningful thought when the phone's ringing and this is happening and demands of the family and all of that.

So I enjoy the solitude of cycling. I also enjoy having the technology, modern technology of the iPods and especially downloading the latest

NOCO radio shows. You actually, Christian actually listens occasionally. Yes, I do. In Texas. Well, we are on a tight budget, so we have the dial -up modem, so it takes a little longer to download those things, but I do download them.

And there's days when I just go, okay, I'm gonna be on my bike for an hour and a half and I download the six and we listen.

But anyway, going back to the question, basically it's, I don't know how theological it is, but it certainly is helpful for me to get away and to relieve stress, physical stress, and then just to think,

I enjoy it. Well, we could just take the Bible and torque it any way we wanted and Jesus had to go to a quiet place to pray and have some solitude.

And so it's the spiritual discipline of solitude. There you go. Yeah, that's okay.

I buy it. We're talking to Christian Harris, this No Compromise Radio minister. You can always email us at info at nocompromiseradio .com

if you have a question or wanna make a comment. That would be great. Maybe there's a show that you want us to do. You can always email us and get access to the old shows there as well.

Christian, let's talk a little bit about things that you're concerned about in evangelicalism and things that you're encouraged by.

So maybe we should start with the encouragement first. As you look at the country, as you're in Texas and California and other places, what encourages you about American evangelicalism?

Well, one of the things that is historically a reality as you study church history and certainly even today,

I think it's easy to be distracted by the negative and the things that seem to be going so poorly, but God has always had a remnant.

Even through the darkest of ages in church history, there's always a testimony of life.

There's always a group of people, individuals that we see maybe when history is almost silent where the gospel has been lived and believed and taught.

And when you take a look at today, I love the fact that there is still a group of men, significant leaders, men by God's grace, have been raised up to shepherd the body of Christ who have come together with different opinions on certain things, different distinctions on maybe doctrinal distinctions or denominational distinctions.

And yet at the same time, they place those things aside to say, yes, we will be standing for the truth and we will be available as much as modern day evangelicalism would listen to present correct and accurate and biblical theology, especially around the gospel.

So one of the things that encourages me is in the morass of bad theology and in the shallowness of the modern church overall, seems to me that there is a strong group of men that are saying we will study hard, we will place our own popularity aside to present what is accurate and what is right and what is true.

And I just praise God for those men and they're influencing a number of people. And you're one of them on a smaller level.

What do you mean smaller level? This is WVNE 760, 9 ,100 kilowatts.

Well, on a very important level, you're doing that here locally in, is it

Worcester? Yeah, Worcester. Worcester. You know, Christian, that's a great point to talk about these men across the country who are faithful to the call.

They have their wives to assist them in the gospel ministry at home as they hold down the fort at home and the men are allowed to go preach.

You know, only eternity will show us the faithfulness of these men who pastor churches of 30, 40, 60, 80, whatever the number is, faithfully preaching the gospel by the grace of God, faithfully proclaiming the exclusivity of Christ, faithfully declaring the literal resurrection, and we're never gonna know about them.

And so in heaven, I'm sure they're going to be more decorated, as it were, with more accolades that they can certainly return back to the

Lord than the MacArthur's, the Dever's, you know, these big names. I mean, I don't know the men's personal lives as much as I probably would like to, but on the large scale, but small scale, don't you think that the country is just littered with small churches, with faithful pastors that we don't know about and we probably never will until heaven?

Yeah, thank you for bringing that to the discussion because there is an important part that the big names play.

I think that they do a great service for, on a public, in a more open way, but you are absolutely right.

The foundation, the bedrock foundation of the gospel is being protected and lived and taught right now in many, many, many smaller venues that are just as important as the big names.

Well, if you have the world that says you've got to have popularity, you've got to have success, numbers, how many

MySpace hits, how many friends on Facebook, everything's generated by popularity and numbers, and then that spills over into the church too.

How big is your church? I hate that when somebody asks me. Maybe I'm just prideful because I have a smaller church and I don't like to question, but just how many people are at your church?

Does that mean anything to anyone? Well, unfortunately it does, but when you take a look at the instruction of God's word, no, absolutely not.

It means nothing. And God has designed His church to be built in these small venues in this way, and men preaching and teaching and faithfully discipling in these country and rural places, 30, 40, 50, 60, 100, 200 people.

Praise God. It's not true totally, Christian, but when I see megachurches,

I am fairly pensive. I'm fairly, I'm wondering what's going on because if you really preach the real gospel, verse by verse, line upon line, and you preach the riches of Christ Jesus, you also preach

Jesus Himself who divides people. I mean, listen to Luke 12, 49.

Jesus said, I have come to cast fire upon the earth and how I wish it were already kindled, but I have a baptism to undergo and how distressed

I am until it is accomplished. Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you no, but rather division, for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three.

They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother -in -law against daughter -in -law and daughter -in -law against mother -in -law.

And He was also saying to the crowds, when you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, a shower is coming and so it turns out.

And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, it will be a hot day and it turns out that way. You hypocrites, you know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?

And He goes on, I find it fascinating when you preach like Jesus preached, I'm not so sure you're gonna get a mega church unless the

Spirit of God is really doing something extraordinary like Grace Church or maybe other churches that are faithful to the text.

Yeah, and maybe in the last few minutes that we have here, we can talk about what concerns me. Hey, I'm the host here.

Oh, but go right ahead, please. Well, just when you take a look at our conversations and things that we had since I got off the plane just to enjoy our friendship, and I was sharing some of the concerns with what's going on in our area.

The largest and fastest growing church in our particular area, and I'm on their email list, they send out their little ads for what's going on in a particular month.

The month of March was the mustache growing month, and so they invited all the men to grow mustaches, and the last

Sunday in the month, they were actually going to have the ceremony and give out the awards for the most unique and largest and so forth.

Their Easter service, the number one selling point for their Easter service was Monty's Burritos, so come on in and get these popular burritos that were made for free in the

Granbury area. So I take a look at that, and then they boasted of almost 3 ,000 people on their

Sunday morning. I just take a look at that, and I'm, okay, talk about emotion, I'm moved to emotional responses.

Anger at sometimes, and then also want to weep, and just thinking of the reality of sheep without a shepherd.

You go back to Acts chapter one and just the beginning, the foundations of the church as the apostles were laying the foundation, and Jesus said in Acts chapter one, verse eight, but you will receive power when the

Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses.

Mike, give us a definition of that. A witness is probably, I don't have my Greek text open, and it's probably some kind of martyr kind of word.

Yeah, I believe it's martyrian, and it really is, you will be my lay -down -your -life people for the sake of this message, and that's exactly what happened, and I don't really see that in the content of the pulpits of the large churches.

It doesn't seem that it's upward and eternal. The message seems to be more man -centered, and let's try to build this thing and be user -friendly and consumer -driven, and for me,

I don't judge the sheep. I'm very careful about that, but I look at the men and just think that they will have a terrible judgment one day.

Well, if the gospel's not enough, nothing's enough. We're gonna pick this up next time with Christian as well. We'll stay in the studio and tape one more show.

My name's Mike Abendroth with Christian Harris. If you'd like to know more about No Compromise Radio, we're at info at No Compromise Radio.

Christian, thanks for coming today. Thank you, Mike. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible -teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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