A Sheep Remembers

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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

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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.

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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 Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is

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Mike Abendroth, and it is a new year. Glad to be alive this new year.

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It is, if I have my calendar here in front of me, January 4th,

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Tuesday, 2022, and I think we're back to normal, and we'll start having live shows

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Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, sermon on Monday, and a rerun on Friday.

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Thanks for being patient with me. My health is pretty good. Like now, I just started talking,

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I'll probably, you know, breathe like that a little bit here or there, but overall, things look pretty good.

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I had a CAT scan, and they compared it to the first CAT scan and said, we're probably, you know, they said, you probably shouldn't be here.

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We're surprised that you're standing here looking at the new CAT scan, which looked a lot better than the old one. And I said, what are my chances, odds, you know, statistically speaking, probably in six to 12 months,

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I should be back to 90%. And I probably wouldn't even notice the difference between the 90 and 100, unless I was cranking it on the bike, which

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I hope to do someday. I am tired. I have kind of COVID fog sometimes.

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I said to my son the other day, I wanted him to move the refrigerator, and I'm like, would you move the,

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I'm like just pointing at it, I forget the name of it. Can you move the air conditioner? So that kind of stuff.

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But as long as I don't do that in the pulpit, and what if I said you're saved because of faith?

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Well, that would be heresy. What if I talked about infused righteousness to stand before God on judgment day?

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That would be wrong. I have to be very careful, imputed, infused, imparted. We have to know these words, right?

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Prepositions matter, words matter, theology matters, sin matters. The Lord Jesus matters.

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So overall, thank you for praying. Back preaching every Sunday. Went to New York City with my friend

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Andy, Pastor Andy there at Providence Reformed Baptist? What's it called? Probably something like that.

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And feeling pretty good. Hope to travel to California here in March and just kind of get back to life, back to normal.

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I'm riding the life cycle or walking on the treadmill, usually an hour a day. Not killing it in terms of calories burned, but anyway, feeling much better, thankful to be alive.

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Literally. Psalm 150 verse six, let everything that has what? Breath. Praise the

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Lord. And to have breath and to have oxygen. Lots of people around me I know have

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COVID Omicron, but I haven't been affected. I think I have immunity from the Delta. And I've heard, by the way, and this is not usually fodder for the show, that if you get

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Omicron, it's a lot better in terms of, it's not as bad rather for your respiratory system.

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And it's kind of a, kind of a, see, now

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I've got the brain fog. It's gives you better immunity against Delta, but anyway, my name is

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Mike Abenroth, No Compromise Radio. I got another Patreon supporter, so I think we're at 11 Patreon supporters.

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I'm very thankful for that. I want to try to encourage you as I talk about the Lord Jesus. I don't know if you know this, but the show, but No Compromise Radio, it used to be a lot more popular when

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I would just go after people all the time. And then now that I talk about Jesus more, we don't have as many followers, but it is what it is.

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And I will be content to be the F list celebrity. Speaking of which, I noticed the other day, there's a booking, like talent agency type of thing for speakers and you can get all kinds of speakers and you just have to go through the agency and there's a fee.

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And I'm sure this agency gets, you know, part of the honorarium and it is wild.

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David Platt, for instance, if you want to book him for speaking engagements, 10 to $20 ,000. Tim Keller, five to $10 ,000.

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Matt Chandler, five to $10 ,000. Tillian Tevijan, 10 to $20 ,000.

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And I just thought, yikes, I've always thought, you know, people that require money to come and speak, the

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Ted Paul, excuse me, not Ted, but the Paul trips of the world, it just something's wrong with all that. This is just all carnal.

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And then to see it in black and white, 10 to $20 ,000.

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Now if I, I mean, this has never happened to me, but if you said, we would like to have you come speak,

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Mike Abendroth, and I would say, sure. What are the dates? What are the message titles?

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Tell me, you know, a little bit more about it. I don't ask for any money, right? And when we ask for people to come here to speak at conferences, if they ask for money, we just, you know, that just, we just close up shop.

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You know, it's assumed that people will pay for the flights and everything else. And if some businessman said, you know, you're flying five hours or 15 hours to Tel Aviv or something and we want to bless you and here's a first class ticket, well, okay, that part

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I get. But if I demand a first class ticket and if I, somebody hand me a check and it was $10 ,000 for two weeks of ministry overseas,

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I'd be in shock, first of all, because I've never received anything like that. But if they gave it to me because there's a bit, like I said, a businessman that wants to bless, okay, fine.

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But if I say it's 10 ,000 to get me, it's some, this is just really, really awful.

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I mean, even when I look at the christianbook .com CBD calendar, uh, catalog rather,

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I just think, oh brother, what are we doing? And I'm sorry to say many, many times, it's about the money.

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It's about the money. And you look at Bibles and how much money you can make on study Bibles and new translations, right?

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How many new translations do we need, right? Over and over and over. And I understand that Zondervan wants theirs and IV so they don't have to pay other people.

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I understand that Southern Baptist want theirs so they don't have to pay other people. I get all that, but it is really, really something when you just watch, you know, the

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Sarah Young page and it's Jesus calling for Christmas, Jesus listens, gift collection, Jesus calling large print,

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Jesus calling for first responders, exclusive additions. You heard me right.

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Did you know you can get Jesus calling that blasphemous book written by Sarah, the channeler young and it says reward heroes with peace and joy from the

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Lord. What do you mean from the Lord? It's from this lady's head. I mean, I guess if you eat enough peyote, uh, you can come up with anything.

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I mean, it sounds like God is talking, uh, as if he was a 48 year old woman or whatever age she is.

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But you can get a Jesus calling for first responders, armed forces members, firefighters.

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These are each, you know, each one, you get four different ones, law enforcement officers and medical professionals.

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I went to the boot barn not that long ago and I wanted to get some boots cause I don't have any cowboy boots. I haven't had any for quite some time and I thought, you know, it'd be nice to get some cowboy boots.

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And my wife and I go out dance a little bit. I did take her dancing the other day and I didn't,

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I didn't do too poorly in terms of my lung capacity. I feel like something stuck in my throat now, but we were happy to dance and anyway,

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I got some boots. And so I went up to the cashier at the boot barn and they said, are you a first responder?

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I said, no, but I'm sure thankful for the first responders. I sometimes think I'm a first responder because I'm a pastor.

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And the guy looked at me and goes, that'll count. So I got $179 boots, which was,

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I was going to pay for $99. So now I'm doing boot barn commercials. It's the boot barn.

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I would say when I, when I think of money and these Christian gifts and all that, if you go to a typical

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Christian bookstore, I don't think they have many these days, but they make more money selling little trinkets than they do good books.

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But when you look at these authors, I'd say, let's see, I don't want to exaggerate or over exaggerate.

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90 % of the books are just garbage. And that means even some books written by good authors, we don't even really need.

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There's, I mean, how many, how to books do you need? How to overcome depression?

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How to have a better marriage? How to raise your children? How to overcome anxiety?

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How to communicate better? How to, I mean, it's just, there's a lot of how -to books and I guess some are fine.

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How to interpret the Bible, how to see Christ in the Old Testament, how to preach, you know,

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I get it, but they're just, I mean, come on, it's just,

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I just, why are people spending their money on this? Discerning the Voice of God DVD curriculum of all places, of all things.

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It's only $149 for the DVDs, but anyway, that's it for Mike Ebenroth today on Rampage stuff.

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What else is happening in the news? I think it's interesting to watch pastors and other leaders when it comes to opening up churches.

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I think probably the most misunderstood, misused, misapplied verses for 2021 would be

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Romans 13. I'd like to talk about that sometime here in the future. I think I was duped for a while on a certain way to think about Romans 13, but I'm not duped any longer.

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At church now, I started a new series, Ephesians, and I wanted to do an overview, so I'm doing two sermons per chapter.

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So there's six chapters, and I'm going to do a total of 12 sermons.

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It might turn into 15, but around 12 sermons to give an overview of what the

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Lord Jesus is doing in His church. So the rest of the time today, the 15 minutes that I have left,

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I want to talk about David Calhoun's book entitled, A Sheep Remembers.

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It's one thing for me to dog practical how -to books and then give you nothing in place of that.

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So I thought today, out of my magnanimous heart, which, by the way, when you go through trials, the

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Lord lets you see what you're really like, and it's not too good, often, especially if we're honest with ourselves, and you realize, okay, when the proverbial chips are down, and you're saying to yourself, hmm,

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I'm at the end of my rope, and it could be judgment day, or it could be eternity.

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We're already judged as Christians, and that already happened, so there's no condemnation in Christ. But man, sometimes you don't like what you see, and then you make a lot of resolutions, and if I get better,

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I'll do this, that, or the other. It's crazy. But while I was sick, I read a book,

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Banner of Truth book, and most everything that they do is excellent, with a few exceptions, Richard Baxter.

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And there's a book written, A Sheep Remembers, by David Calhoun. Now, David has gone to the

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Lord, I think, last year. You probably know him, if you know anything about theology, that he wrote the two volumes on Princeton Seminary for Banner of Truth.

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That's probably what he is the most well -known for, unless you sat under his tutelage at Covenant Theological Seminary for, what's, 30 years he taught their church history,

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David Calhoun. And what he did in this book, is he, while sick, started walking through Psalm 23, the

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Lord is my shepherd. And that's why it's entitled A Sheep Remembers, because the Lord is our shepherd, and we are his sheep.

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And when you walk through this, you are going to be encouraged. I've been moved to tears reading this book, thinking about the compassionate shepherd that I have, the tender shepherd, even back in that little children's poem, remember, about Psalm 23,

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Jesus, tender shepherd, hear me, bless thy little lambs tonight.

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Psalm 23. So I want to encourage you to get Jesus Calling for firefighters who are left -handed and have

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IQs over 100. Is that a book? I want to encourage you to pick up this little book,

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A Sheep Remembers, and you can pick one up for yourself and maybe for your pastor or someone else in ministry, very, very encouraging.

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And so he starts off each chapter with a little segment of the psalm, the Lord is my shepherd.

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And then he has certain sections, and these are the sections. The first section, after the introduction, is commentary.

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And he will pull commentary quotes from a variety of different scholars.

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For instance, Martin Luther said that the words, the Lord is my shepherd, are brief, but also very impressive and apt.

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The world glorifies and trusts in honor, power, riches, and the favor of men.

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Our psalm, however, glories in none of these, for they are all uncertain and perishable.

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The Lord is my shepherd speaks a sure, certain faith, which turns its back on everything temporal and transitory, however noble and precious it may be, and turns its face and heart directly to the

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Lord, who alone is Lord and is and does everything. Luther concludes, in this single little word, shepherd, there are gathered together in one almost all the good and comforting things that we praise in God.

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The first section is the commentary, and it goes on. And he'll give quotes and little insights from scholars of the past and of the present.

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And then he moves to some prayers and quotations and stories.

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And this is like a pastor who would tell you what the passage says and means. And then it's this,

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I don't want to call it practical application. It's an expansion of why this truth matters for today.

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The Puritans would say all doctrine is practical and all practices is doctrinal. And he goes through some prayers, quotes, stories of encouragement for people who need a shepherd, who are going through difficult times.

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And for me, I was going through this time of, you know, respiratory failure, and it was comforting to me.

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Well, the last part of every chapter is his testimony. It's called my testimony.

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Sorry, I'm still coughing. And what he would do is he would relate his personal struggles with health issues.

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In light of remembering this shepherd as a sheep.

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And he said in this particular section, after seeing my mother's picture and hearing my father preach on the good shepherd,

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I said to my mother that night, he was little. I want Jesus to find me.

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She replied with biblical wisdom. I did not understand until much later. He already has. And then he gives the poem.

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I sought the Lord and afterward I knew he moved my soul to seek him seeking me.

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It was not that I found, oh, Savior true. No, I was found of thee.

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And he in a wonderful way relates how when he was a kid, he went to go hear his dad preached.

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And he was thinking about the 90 and the nine and the good shepherd and finding that sheep. And I just found it so touching.

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I want Jesus to find me. I mean, that is just so great. Well, my name is

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Mike Avendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. You can always write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

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I get a few people writing here and there. I'm thankful for that. Like I said, the bandwidth of the show, maybe because I've been sick and there's been no content, no new content.

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But overall, it doesn't matter if, you know, whatever the downloads are, 1 ,000, 1 ,500 per show, then that's fine.

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I'm surprised one person listens. David Calhoun struggled a lot with health.

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And I'm trying to find the page that talks about how many times he had to go into surgery and had chemotherapy.

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In the chapter, He Restores My Soul, chapter three, he starts off with Horatius Bonar's 1843 poem.

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I was wandering sheep. I did not love the fold. I did not love my savior's voice. I could not be controlled.

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I was a wayward child. I did not love my home. I did not love my father's voice. I loved afar to roam.

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The shepherd sought his sheep. The father sought his child. They followed me over hill and dale, over deserts waste and wild.

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They found me nigh to death, famished and faint and lone. They bow me with the bands of love. They saved the wandering one.

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Jesus, my shepherd is. T 'was he that loved my soul. T 'was he that washed me in his blood. T 'was he that made me whole.

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T 'was he that sought the lost, that found the wandering sheep. T 'was he that brought me to the fold.

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T 'is he that still does keep. I mean, now that's good. I mean, if you talk about Free Church of Scotland preaching, that is excellent.

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And then he has the stories and the prayers, and then he has the testimony. And you are going to be encouraged.

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Okay, I've got my little sheet right here, my cheat sheet. And here is Spurgeon on Psalm 23 in David's little book.

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Look at the past and see how he has guided you. How very little you and I have had to do with it after all.

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We have struggled. We have fretted. We have repined. We have fumed against the workings of providence. But after all,

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I do not know that we have had much more to do with it than the sheep in the stream has to do with the way in which it has floated to the other side.

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And of course, if the Lord is providential and faithful in the past, and he doesn't change, then we see him in the future.

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Well, I found the pasture that I'm looking for. I found the chapter that I'm looking for. And you can tell why this is going to mean something to me, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

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The very valley of deep darkness, as the Hebrew might translate

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Psalm 23, verse 5. He talks about Samuel Radagast's poem, whatever my

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God ordains is right. Here shall my stand be taken, though sorrow, need, or death be mine, yet I am not forsaken.

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My Father's care is round me there. He holds me that I shall not fall. And so to him,

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I leave it all. Well, he, David Calhoun, the author, talked about his lymphoma.

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And here's the section that I thought was pretty amazing. The cancer that began in my neck spread to my throat and then to the colon, requiring over 50 colonoscopies during the next 25 years.

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I mean, for me now, I'm 61, and there was cancer in my family. So I started getting colonoscopies,

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I think when I was 40. And then every five years, I don't know, I've had four or five. And they're no fun. All the stuff you have to drink ahead of time, go lightly, they call it.

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That is amazing. David said, occasionally my cancer would be in remission for a year or two, but it always seemed to return.

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After I retired from teaching at Covenant Seminary and his wife, and I moved from St. Louis to the

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Chicago area to be near our daughter and her family. The new oncologist told a colleague, I have a patient who has had mantle cell lymphoma for over 30 years.

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His friend said, no, you don't. That's not possible. And here,

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David is rehearsing this psalm, even though he was going to die.

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And then he brings in wonderful truths by, for instance, John Calvin.

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If God should change my circumstances, so that ease gives way to suffering and laughter to tears, it is enough to know that I am still his child.

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He has promised to acknowledge me always as his, and in that I rest content.

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Especially when we live in today's society, where everything is your best life now, and have it all, and good health, and prosperity, and name it and claim it.

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It's counter to what we are sold. And that's why we need to rest. I rested so often in the psalms.

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I would read the psalms. I couldn't believe how many times it said refuge. God has made refuge.

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God is our refuge. Fortress, strong tower. Here's a good little one from Psalm 23.

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J. Douglas Macmillan said, Somebody said to me last night, I am sure, Mr. Macmillan, you have noticed that there are only two negatives in this psalm.

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Well, I've been looking at this psalm a long time, but I've never particularly noticed this. How on earth did

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I miss them? I will not want, I will fear no evil. What wonderful negatives they are.

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Stuff like that. I would just read when I could still hardly breathe, and I would think, you know, this is the mercy of God.

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It would be the mercy of God if I died, when I die. And it's going to be the mercy of God while I live.

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In this book, David Calhoun says, you know, it's a mercy that God gives us time.

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He said the old Christians would pray, please God deliver me from sudden death because we need time to prepare.

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And I need to make sure that everything's all up to snuff when it comes to earthly matters, and then that I'm trusting in the

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Lord Jesus. Well, my name is Mike Abenroth, this is No Compromise Radio. Sorry, I have just a little bit of rattle in my throat still.

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I don't have it on Sunday. I don't know why I have it today, but it is what it is. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your prayers.

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The doctor said to me, I can't believe you're alive when he looked at that other CAT scan. And I just blurted out the grace of God in prayer.

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And that's true. That's true. I might nuance it a little bit more now, but thank you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abenroth 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 bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.