Rich Harasick and Generations of Grace (Part 2)

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

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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

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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.

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

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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

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

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Mike Avendroth, and we ultimately, sadly, I have to admit, are compromising here at the radio station because we are fallible, sinful men, the whole staff here, but we point to one who's never compromised.

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That's an amazing thought. To look to Christ Jesus, our captain, the author of our salvation, never sinned one time.

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The Spirit of God protected Christ Jesus in the womb, so he did not have any sin nature. Adam's sin was not imputed to his account, and we have

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Jesus Christ, the God -man, who we can look to as our representative. Substitute, yes, of course, but also representative, and he did not compromise.

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But on No Compromise Radio, we still like to stand for truth as God gives us grace to talk about himself, his son, and how he works in providential ways.

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And so I have Richard Harasik on the line today. Richard, didn't we just do this just a short time ago?

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Weren't you just on? I was a couple weeks ago. That's right. We talked about Generations of Grace, the curriculum that's a

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God -centered curriculum that you can get online if you need some help in homeschooling or you'd like to have

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Sunday school curriculum for the church. God -centered curriculum designed and devised by folks at Grace Community Church where John MacArthur pastors.

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Richard, tell us what your duties are at Grace Community Church, and then I have some other questions for you today. Sure. Well, I am a lay elder at Grace Church, and also

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I am the director of children's ministry from a lay position.

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And I've been in children's ministries for about 25 years now. And so after that time, they finally entrusted me with the reins.

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Yeah, he's finally figured it out. Well, I love

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Richard and his wife, and I love them for lots of reasons. To this day, when

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I go back to Grace Community Church for the Shepherds Conference or any other conference, the respect that I have,

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Richard, for you and the elder board there and John, I still feel like I should be submitting to you guys, even though I know

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I'm far away. But today, I don't wanna talk about necessarily the church directly.

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I'd like to talk about the Lord directly and how the Lord used a situation in your life many years ago to change you, to change your wife, to change your family.

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Tell us about your son, Brady, and tell us the story of Brady Heresick, please.

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Sure, well, in the summer of 99, our son,

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Brady, began to experience seizures in his sleep. And as part of that diagnosis that was later determined to be a partial benign epilepsy, he underwent just a routine

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CAT scan. And from that scan, a little later in the year, we discovered that he had brain cancer and completely separate from the procedure.

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So by God's providence, we were able to begin what was to be a four -year treatment. And just the list of things that he went through, he immediately had surgery to remove that tumor.

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And that was followed by a year of half radiation, half chemotherapy. And at the end of that time, he actually went into remission for about a year, but tumors again were spotted along his spinal cord and into his brain.

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And that began basically another two years of treatment that included high -dose chemotherapy, experimental chemotherapy.

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We actually had to go to Washington State for a month or so. And then he embarked on various other different chemotherapies, experimental drugs.

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And the toll was pretty hard on his body. He had other things to deal with. Had part of his lung removed to treat a bout of pneumonia.

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In the end, he became platelet and blood transfusion dependent. And his body just became too weak for any additional treatment.

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And there's really no more medical options to save his life. So for some time, it became pretty evident to Karen and I that really any pain of losing

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Brady was overcome by the pain of seeing his body suffer more.

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And really the joy of knowing that he would be with his God in heaven really sustained us and helped us in that losing.

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I always like to just express the thought, you know, in losing him and knowing he was a

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Christian and the year before he died, he gave his life to the

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Lord and was baptized. And so for the believers, you know, we don't mourn those who have no hope for Thessalonians 4.

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And just knowing that he is in heaven is always just a great joy. And I always express it like, you know, your son's just going off to college and in a short time, we will be reunited in heaven.

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And we're recording this just the week after Resurrection Sunday after Easter. And, you know, we know that the passage goes on and basically says since Jesus rose through him, so do believers.

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So there's a great hope that we have there. But just, he was just a great example to me.

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And he just showed a strength and resilience that was the model. And I'm just proud of how he went through his trial.

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You know, never once did he complain. He was never angry, bitter, never expressed any kind of self -pity.

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And he just trusted in us as his parents. He trusted in his God. He came to accept cancer as his lot.

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You know, a friend of mine said that Brady had a heart of a lion, and that really gives a great picture of the great quality that the

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Lord gave him. And that is of courage. And he just showed a lot of courage in his life.

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So really, you know, while we were watching him decline physically over time, we were really watching him grow spiritually.

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And, you know, he always seemed, seemingly he seemed to tell the truth, his passion about justice. He was long -suffering, gracious.

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You know, he just took his walk with the Lord very seriously for a young man. He passed away when he was 14.

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And he was consistent with his personal time with the Lord and prayer. He loved going to small group at Grace Church.

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You know, he didn't worry about his life or the future. And in the end, Mike, he was really what every parent would want for their child.

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He was chosen and saved by God. And faithful to the end, right?

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Yes, he was. And so we watched people, I've prayed the prayer myself and thought, Lord, I want to be faithful to the end.

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It's so hard to start well. But then in the midst of adversaries and suffering and adversity to finish well.

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Richard, I'd like to ask you this question. In light of the high divorce rate when there's a child that dies in a family, walk through how you saw the

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Lord keep your marriage together, family together. Tell us, I mean, there are people listening who are going through hardship and some have lost children.

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And so maybe you can walk them through, this is how you should see the Lord and this is what the Lord has done.

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Here, this immutable God who doesn't change, who is not only your God, but their God. Walk us through some of that thinking, please.

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Sure, and it really is that thinking that it's where that doctrine meets the road and where you really, you can say yes to a lot of things you believe about the

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Christian faith. But this is just, you know, an example where a trial will refine that.

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And I do like, you know, when given the opportunity to address the thought, essentially that people express it different ways, but essentially, you know, no child or parent should have to go through what happened.

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And I just begin, you know, everything that we have is by God's grace in giving us what we don't deserve and His mercy in withholding that which we do deserve.

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Suffering is a part of the human experience and there's really no guarantees for tomorrow.

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But as I said, in the real hope that we have that this life is not all there is.

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And if the goal is to be like Christ, then we need to be willing to live a life like Christ who suffered unto death.

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So the great part is though that Christ rose from the dead to heaven and through Him, we might also live together.

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I think I mentioned on our term that God is large and in charge, which

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I stole from Steve Lawson, but you really find yourself and rightly so going to Job in these circumstances.

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And, you know, Job 42 verses one through six, I like to basically sum it up at the end of all that,

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Job effectually said, oh, I get it, you're God and I'm not. And we just have to understand that death is a part of life.

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And Job 14 talking about man, it says man comes out like a flower and withers and he flees like a shadow and continues not.

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And later in that same chapter that since his days are determined and the number of his month is with you and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass.

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And just a great line in Psalm 39 verses four through five, it says, oh

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Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days. And this line, it says, let me know how fleeting I am.

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Behold, even made my days a few hand breaths in my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath.

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So in other words, you know, God is sovereign. We say that, we say we believe that, but we really have to live like that, that, you know, nothing that happened in anything that happened with Brady or family took

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God by surprise. And, you know, God knows what he's doing.

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So you kind of put all that together and basically Brady's sickness didn't catch God off guard. He wasn't surprised, nor does he not know what's going on in your heart.

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So you couple that sovereignty with his goodness, his love and his mercy. And what do you get?

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Well, I say you get comfort and obviously you get hope out of that as well. So that's just the trials of life.

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And it's interesting, I always thought he got treated at the City of Hope out here in California.

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And, you know, in a real way that God, God does use the acts and affairs of man to his doctors, his nurses, to accomplish his purpose in a way.

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We did have a hope that the care that Brady was receiving would give him physical life.

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And it actually extended a life for four years where he could place his faith and trust in the Lord and repent from his sins.

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And he was saved, but there is another hope. And it's that that is more than a wish.

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It's a longing for with the guarantee of attainment and everything

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I extol my son, you know, my son was not perfect. And as a child, he was just like every other child that, you know, stubborn, prideful, but he did come to a point in his life that he realized he was just like everybody else and needed the forgiveness of sins from God to the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

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And Brady's faith and trust was in Christ alone. And his hope was in heaven to come and his hope has been fulfilled.

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And, you know, as you said, he did finish strong. Now, everything I said, you know, we should expect suffering as part of the human experience.

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And I necessarily wouldn't wish that on it. And, you know, I had a talk with my son that probably most others aren't.

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I had to go into his room and basically tell him that he was going to die and to die soon.

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And most amazing thing, the first response out of his mouth was he just expressed concern from some really close, dear people to him and that he wanted to make sure that they heard the gospel and they believed.

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It was just an amazing time. Hmm. We're talking to Richard Heresick today. He and his wife, Karen, had a son named

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Brady and we're hearing the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ in the life of the Heresicks. I'm about ready to cry some, so I'll compose myself.

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Richard, the Lord gave you a ministry, not just as you ministered to your son, but as I look at 2

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Corinthians 1, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the

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Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

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I'm sure you have had many opportunities as a family to minister to other people whose children are suffering, are about to die, haven't you?

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We have, and I must say, one of the greatest days of my life was actually the memorial service for my son.

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Again, I realize it's hard for people to imagine, but it was just, the thing we just said immediately, that we were just thrilled for him and just thrilled that he was in heaven, that he was with his

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Lord, and really, what more would you want? And not only was he in heaven, but he didn't have to go through all the pains of life and just live out the effects of the fall and sin throughout his life, but it was a great day, and at my work, we literally had hundreds of people from work,

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I work for a large organization, and it was just marvelous. I got to share essentially everything

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I've shared with you today, and Pastor John gave a gospel message, Jubilant Sykes was there singing, and it was a marvelous time.

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So ever since that moment and just one -on -one things or things like this with you on the radio, we've been given these opportunities.

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Real quick, the most memorable one is we celebrated the 50 -year anniversary of our church, and the church decided to make a video of that, and they interviewed a whole bunch of people just kind of telling different vignettes from their life at Grace and whatnot, and we shared our time with Brady on this

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Sunday. Well, actually, the week before, they called me up and said, what do you want the title and your name to be when they show you, and I thought everybody was gonna have just a little part, and they said, well, there is nobody else.

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And I didn't know quite what to make of that, and then that morning, Pastor John came up to me and he said, have you seen the video?

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And I said no, and he gave me a wry little smile. He says, you're gonna like it.

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And they start the video. I mean, the church has never been more packed on a Sunday, and the first opening scene is me talking and basically giving the story of Brady and how key

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Grace Church was and just the preaching of the word through all that. I just went flesh red, and it was a great opportunity even then.

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That was a number of years after that, and ever since then, the Lord just puts people and circumstances in our life to give people comfort, the hope, and just a real -world example of that you can go through what would seemingly be the lowest point in your life, seeing your child die right before your eyes, literally, and yet to come out of that and go through that, actually, with great joy and great reliance on the sovereignty and graciousness of God.

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Richard, as you were saying that, I was thinking about William Cooper and his song or his lyric called

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God Moves in a Mysterious Way, His Wonders to Perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.

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And then a few stanzas later, judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace.

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Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. And I think you'd agree that the

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Lord has smiled upon the Harassic family. He has. And we just ended that 50 -year video with really what we have as Christians, and as many people say, we're people of the book, and we have the

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Bible, and we have God's revealed Word. We have the plan of God, what

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God would have for us through life, and it's just a cherished treasure. And people ask, why do you preach so much in the church, and especially at Grace Church?

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Well, it's so that you're prepared for times just like this. And you can go to God's Word with answers and with comfort and with hope.

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Well, today we've heard from Richard Harassic. What we're going to do, Rich, is we're gonna play that video, but just the audio portion.

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And if our listeners would like to go and go to YouTube and type in Brady Harassic, Grace Church, or Brady Harassic John MacArthur, it'll pull up and you can actually watch it and see the family and some of the pictures.

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But let's just play that now for audio only. And thank you, Richard, for being our guest again today on No Compromise Radio.

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Thank you, Mike. Brady was 14 when he passed away, and he was actually 10 years old when he first got diagnosed with brain cancer.

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And so we were just kind of cruising along normally with life and whatnot. And just a series of kind of medical things caused us to kind of go into the doctor and see what happening.

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And they immediately saw that he had a tumor in there. And they said, your doctor's on the phone would like to speak to you about the results of this exam.

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And that's when my heart dropped. And I think that I was really shocked by the whole thing and just trying to regain, just to gain my composure back because I had my little ones with me.

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And I remember that I tried to explain it to my children and I said, well, there's a mass of tissue in Brady's brain.

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And then one of my kids said, does this mean we're not going to want it? He was just a really neat kid and not really unusual in the sense of being unusual, but he's just very bright and he loved to read and he loves sports.

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Well, in my experience, Brady was a little boy like every other little boy, before he found out he had cancer, he was energetic, he was aggressive, he was just all boy.

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But once he found out he had cancer and everybody knew that that was serious cancer and that it was potentially lethal cancer.

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My understanding of Brady and every time I interacted with him was that he squeezed the next 15 years of maturity into those four years.

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And by the time he went to heaven at the age of 14, he was a very mature young man. His focus on the things of Christ changed dramatically.

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He actually was saved, he became a Christian. He found a strong desire for scripture at really an unusual thing for a kid who's 11 and 12 years of age.

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Carried the Bible, studied the Bible, took copious notes, began to think deeply about doctrinal things, biblical things, wanted to view the world the way

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God viewed the world, wanted to view his own situation, his own family, his own illness, the right way, the divine perspective became all -consuming to him.

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He developed so much spiritually during that time. He really wasn't, we believe, a believer at the time that he was diagnosed.

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But over the course of the few years, I think he had a lot of sobering events in his life that caused him to examine whether he was in the faith or not.

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And I think that he came to realize that he needed Christ as his savior. And during that time, he was able to get baptized.

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And that was really amazing because having even a time where he could go do that during that kind of intensive treatment was truly from the

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Lord. So it was really exciting to see that change because we feel like that's, we were able to see the purpose that God had for it in his life.

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First of all, I think it's very important to say that we will never have an explanation for everything that happens.

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We will never have an explanation for every bad thing that happens because there's just too many bad things that happen in too many situations all the time, all over the world throughout all of history.

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We'll never know that. But in a case like this, you can see the purpose of God and the glory of God clearly in this.

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First of all, it brought Brady to salvation, to eternal life. And as I shared with his parents, and his parents know this, a parent has, a

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Christian parent, has one primary responsibility, and that is to raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the

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Lord, to raise them to love the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, God comes in in his wonderful grace and sovereign way to aid the faithful parent in that wonderful evangelistic endeavor.

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We always knew, well, this didn't catch God off guard. He's not surprised by anything that's happening.

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In fact, this is exactly the will he wants for our lives. You still kind of are along for the ride in a sense, but you know the ending is always gonna be for your good.

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You may not see it at the time, and it's certainly always for God's glory. And in the case of Brady, God in his providence allowed cancer to come.

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It was a component in awakening him to his sin and his need for a savior. And in the end, that's all a parent ever does anyway, to bring ultimate joy.

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You could raise your child to 19, 20, they could graduate from college, go on and get a PhD, become a storied, legendary influencer of society in the future.

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But if they die without Christ, then a parent who's a Christian is gonna have a huge aching hole in the heart.

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But in the case of Brady, his mom and dad are filled with constant joy because all that you can ever ask out of a parent is that they would do everything they could to influence their child to faith in Jesus Christ.

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And by the grace of God, that happened, and he's with the Lord. So in this case, you can look and see the glory of the

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Lord. You see it in the salvation of Brady. You see it in the influence on his parents, their testimony enhanced and enriched, and the way they're able to give

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God glory, even in the loss of their child, is a tremendous strength to other parents who go through the same kinds of things.

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He was the most exasperating child to a parent. Between my three children,

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I think he was the one that grieved me the most as far as his acts and attitudes of disobedience. But that's what

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I think really made it special when he came to know the Lord because you could see that transformation in his life. Oftentimes, when someone is raised in a

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Christian home, there's not a dramatic before and after sometimes before they come to know the Lord. But for him, you could see that the

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Lord really softened his heart and that he gave them the desire to do what would be pleasing to God, not just himself.

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And so that was really exciting to see that the dramatic difference between his being headstrong and selfish and always had to be right and proud to really the

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Lord broke him to the point where he realized that he was nothing without the

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Lord. And so that was really for us to see one of the most wonderful things a parent could ever witness and experience.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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.

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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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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.