Tulsa County Jail. Jim Pinkston, Francisco Davila and Zeth Parkhurst teach the men. Several ladies go to the women’s pods every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for the last five years, to teach. Zeth is teaching with Jim each Wednesday and teaching the hearing impaired. We have baptized 173 of our students this year.
Back to the ladies: We have ladies teaching in all four ladies pods at Tulsa County Jail each week. They rotate lessons every thirteen weeks. Jan Upton, Carol Siling, Elaine Russell, and Theresa Hawkins teach. Elaine is the coordinator for the women. They just opened the fourth ladies pod Elaine is teaching there every Wednesday. Many ladies are being changed by the Gospel because of these ladies.
Dick Connors Correctional Center. Jim Pinkston teaches NLB (New Life Behavior) Lessons and CASA (Christians Against Substance Abuse). He also teaches in the faith based unit and preaches there four evenings each month. He has taught there since 1990. Jim Carmichael teaches every Monday morning and preaches when Pinkston cannot.
Elaine Russell, Jim’s wife Jean, Jim & Jody Carmichael, and Patrick Murphy help and Booker leads singing when he can. We go to the Minimum Security unit on the first and forth Sunday nights for services and to the Medium Security (behind the walls) on the first and third Tuesday nights for services.
Correspondence. 40 packages of 6 to 7 lessons mailed to many prisons in Oklahoma. Every two weeks = 260 lessons x 2 = 520 per month or 6,240 per year. Many of these are people we studied with at Tulsa and Creek County Jail and have gone on to prison or were transferred from one prison to another. This is one way we keep up with our students as they are moved from prison to prison. Elaine Russell & Carol Siling send lessons to ladies who were former students at Tulsa County Jail who have gone to a prison or gone home. On the second and fourth Tuesdays evenings we have a group that meets to grade and get these lessons ready to mail. This is one place we can use some help. We meet at 6 PM in the Ministry Center.
John H. Lilly Correctional Center. Bryan Campbell is doing Celebrate Recovery every Saturday.
Creek Co. Jail . David Stikes, Jim Carmichael and Phil Smith are preparing to start teaching there again in January.
Re-entry program. (Hope City) houses up to eight men right now. Randy Milam is the onsite manager. In the last three years over twenty men have been helped and are closer to Jesus because of the Hope City ministry. Two of these men have their own businesses today and employ several ex-offenders.
Advisory Board. The board is made up of eight men and one woman: James Ivy,(deacon over ministry), Ken Williams, Steve Stade, Scott Blackwell, Gary Medley, Mark Clayton, Randy Milam, Kevin Neiman and Elaine Russell. Jim is the recruiter for the applicants. The board decides who

is approved to enter the reentry program. They go by a set of guidelines approved by the Elders. The board also oversees the operation of the program.
Rogers County Jail. Mike Hawkins started a great jail ministry a few months ago and has been very successful teaching there. God just keeps growing this ministry along with the others.
Future Plans. To continue with the programs that are now successful and just see where God leads us in 2017.
This ministry originated with Marvin Phillips at Garnett Church of Christ in 1989. Elaine Russell brought it to Park Plaza in 2007 where Mitch Wilburn, Terry Finch and James Ivy began working with the ministry in 2007-2008, then Jim Pinkston came on board in 2010 part time for 2 years then full time after that.
Baptisms from this work
2010 94
2011 109
2012 139
2013 259
2014 406
2015 382
2016 398
2017 173 so far this year
Total 2057 Since 2010 That we know of.
To put this in perspective, 2057 would more than fill first & second service at Park Central.
The main help we need is your prayers and support and we could use some help on second and fourth Tuesday evenings grading. We start at 6 PM at the Ministry Center. We furnish everything you need to do in this work.
Impossible without your support.
“Jesus did it!!!”

By Michael Harley

Matthew 21:33-43New King James Version (NKJV)

The Parable of the Wicked Vinedressers

33 “Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country. 34 Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. 35 And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. 37 Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him.

40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?”

41 They said to Him, “He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.”

42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing, And it is marvelous in our eyes’? [a] 43 “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.

The nation of Israel was brought into existence by God to be a special treasure to Him above all people – above all the nations of the earth – to be to God a Kingdom of Priests and a holy nation, to rule over all the nations of the earth so that God could bless all the nations through Israel. The governmental structure in which rule is accomplished has two realms over the earth: heavenly and earthly. Israel was called into existence to rule from both realms.

Though Israel never reached the heights to which they were called they had ruled the earthly sphere in the land of Israel. When their Messiah Jesus Christ came to them, He came and presented the heavenly realm to them. Had the nation of Israel repented and turned back to God by receiving their Messiah and His message, He would have then set up the Kingdom and they would have begun to rule over the nations and fulfilled their calling. But they rejected the Christ and His message and Killed Him.

And this is where this Scripture in Matthew chapter 21 brings us. Christians, as a nation, have been brought into existence to receive that which the nation of Israel rejected: the Kingdom of heaven.

The certain landowner is God. The vineyard, the hedge, the winepress, and tower is the land of Israel, the Ten Commandments, the laws concerning the nation of Israel conduct as priests of God, the tabernacle, and various other things that pertain to Israel. The vinedressers are the Jews – the people of Israel. The far country is God’s dwelling place in the farthest places in the north- past all the heavens – the northernmost part of the universe. His servants are the old Testament prophets. The fruits other prophets came to receive is obedience to God’s word so that God to bless all the nations of the world through Israel. And the son is Jesus Christ Himself.

God had been patient with Israel’s disobedience over the centuries since Moses brought them out of Egypt, but God’s patience had run out by the time they were in the process of rejecting and Killing His Son.

When Jesus put this parable forth to the chief priests and the elders of the people of Israel and ended with the question: “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?” The leaders of Israel said with their own mouths: “He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.

And this is exactly what you find taking place at the end of Paul’s ministry in Acts Chapter 28 ‘God taking the Kingdom of heaven from the nation of Israel and giving it to Christians: “Therefore let it be known to you (Jews) that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!”

There are a few other things that should be noted: thought the nation of Israel as a whole has lost the heavenly portion of their inheritance, they have not and never will lose the earthly portion – the land of Israel. In the near future, after the Great Tribulation, the Jews that are alive and those resurrected from the dead will rule the nations from the land of Israel. And though the nation as a whole has lost the heavenly portion of their inheritance, there has always been individual Jews throughout time who have been obedient to God and will inherit the Kingdom of heaven. And the most important thing that all Christians should be aware of is: That Christians can lose their inheritance through disobedience. “Now all these things happened to them (to the Jews – the nation of Israel) as examples (Greek, tupos, exact types) and they were written for our (Christians) admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore, let him (the Christian) who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” (1 Corinthians 10:11,12)

By Michael Harley

Ezekiel 37:11-14New King James Version (NKJV)

11 Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. 13 Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. 14 I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.’”

This is a plain example of the people of Israel’s salvation. The nation of Israel, as a whole, is just as saved as any Christian is saved today. As a matter of fact, there is no salvation apart from the Jews. Salvation is of the Jews. Contrary to some beliefs, the whole Bible is written by Jews:

Psalm 147:19-20[a]  New King James Version (NKJV)

19 He declares His word to Jacob, His statutes and His judgments to Israel. 20[a] He has not dealt thus with any nation;

And apart from His word there is no salvation. And apart from Jesus Christ, a Jew, there is no salvation.

In the verses above, God is speaking to Ezekiel, a Jew, and commanding him To speak to the nation of Israel, and declare that God is going to raise them, “the whole house of Israel,” from the dead.

Not only is God going to raise the whole house of Israel from the dead, but He is going to raise David their King from the dead and they shall serve the Lord their God and David their King. God is going to heal them and their land – the land of Israel. He is going to put His Spirit in them and cause them to walk in His statutes, and empower them to keep His judgments and do them. He is going to sprinkle clean water on them, and they shall be clean. He will cleanse them from all their filthiness and from all their idols. He will make a covenant of peace with the nation of Israel, and cause wild beasts to cease from the land; and they will dwell safely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. God will make them and the places all around the land of Israel a blessing.

In that Day God is going to gather the whole house of Israel from among all the nations where He has scattered them because of their continued disobedience. In that Day when God has allowed the Antichrist to destroy the rebuilt temple and the city of Jerusalem and scatter the Jews into all the nations, Jesus Christ will return, when the Jews have no other place to turn but to the God of their fathers. And when the Son of Man returns, He will send out His angels and gather His elect from the four corners of the earth and from the farthest parts of heaven and bring them into their land again.

He will set them high above all nations of the earth. Then He will set up His standard for the peoples; the nations shall bring the sons of Israel in their arms, and daughters of Israel shall be carried on their shoulders. Kings shall be the Jews foster fathers, and their queens their nursing mothers. They shall bow down to the people of Israel with their faces to the earth, and lick up the dust of their feet. Then all people will know that Jesus is Lord.

Anyone that thinks that Jews were not saved in the days when Jesus Christ was speaking to them in our Holy Scripture needs to check their Scriptures again. To the contrary the Bible declares over and over again that “salvation is of the Jews.”