Avoiding Spiritual Infancy

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Ebendroth. Mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

Tell your friends, hit like, hit subscribe. Don't hit your dog. All you do is sit alone in that room and laugh at your own jokes.

Yeah, that's true. Might as well just enjoy it while we can. I'm here now too. Yes, I know.

Mario is a federal representative for all you listeners.

See, so what he does, he does for all of you. So when he laughs, he laughs for all of you.

When he gives me that look like, what, you know, are you gonna land the plane? You should see Mario's, well, you should land the plane,

Mike, right now, look. It's quite fascinating. You can always write me, mikeatnocompromiseradio .com.

I think we're on Spotify and iTunes and all that stuff. And now the video's trying to rebuild our

YouTube channel after we lost hundreds of shows. But it is what it is. The world can live without Mike Abendroth and what he thinks about things.

You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook. We don't do a whole lot. Instagram, I'm 65.

How would I know to do Instagram? I don't know what to do. And whatever the new things are. We've changed the format of the show.

Is this a TV show? TV show. We've changed the format of the

YouTube show. And it's more of a variety show. The last two, including this one, will have that variety.

You can write me and say, we like it, we don't like it, whatever you want to do. And so breaking things up into segments, that's essentially what we're doing.

Instead of me talking about the Lord's prayer for 30 minutes, which is fine, it's good.

No problem with that. Just making it a little more fast -paced, that's all. Different camera angles, as it were.

Off we go. So the first segment is a discussion about prayer because it's important.

I think probably over the years, I have not talked about prayer enough on No Compromise Radio. You always want me to ask, you asked me about eschatology.

I'm certain I didn't talk about that much. Although ethical eschatology, I talked about.

But timing, I didn't. But I'm sure I didn't talk about prayer enough. So there's a segment on prayer. There's an award given out called the

Kooks and Barney's Award. There is a book recommendation. There is a message moment.

There is a segment, are you a Roman Catholic or a Protestant? And then there's a short teaching time. So we'll start off with the prayer segment, a discussion, an expanded discussion on the

Lord's prayer. And last time we talked about how God is Father. In this section,

I wanna just remind you, when you say, hallowed be thy name, or hallowed is your name, that you understand what you're saying.

Because it's kind of, I mean, when do we say hallowed? You know, the hallowed ground of the football field in Notre Dame Stadium in the movie,

Rudy, this is hallowed ground. I mean, we don't really say that. And essentially, when we say,

Father, or to use Luke's equivalent in Matthew 6, our

Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. When you say, hallowed be your name, you are saying, God, I want your name, who you are, to be treated as holy.

I want you to be seen as who you are in this world as holy. As the world blasphemes your name, as sometimes

I don't walk in a manner worthy of my calling and treat your name as holy, I want your name to be seen as set apart, as holy, as different, as separate.

I want you to make yourself seen, be seen as who you really are.

Hallowed be your name. I don't want your name to be treated as dirt or as just normal or as profane.

I want your name to be seen as great. As the world thinks, you know what? God's to be blamed for everything.

And who could believe in such a God when there's so much suffering? That's the opposite of,

I want your name to be seen as holy. I want your name to be seen as lofty. Probably good words to live by, hallowed be your name, and good words to die by.

And I probably could ask the question now, even as I want to convict you and convict me, when's the last time you prayed, our

Father who art in heaven, I want your name to be seen as holy. And what we do, and I do it as well, we start off with what we need.

And we do have needs and we can go to our heavenly Father with needs. But even as that acronym, A -C -T -S, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication.

And it's that adoration, that God, you're holy. I want you to have your name be seen as holy and separate and different and magnified.

And as the angels are saying in Isaiah 6, holy, holy, holy. I want your name to be seen as consecrated, as different, as holy.

I have read many theologians and some of them like Thomas Watson would say this. Can you imagine the

Lord's prayer and many prayers that are in the Bible and many prayers that you pray. You won't ever have to pray in heaven.

In heaven, will you have to pray? Please forgive me my sins. No, because you're glorified.

Will you have to pray in heaven? Lead me not into temptation, Lord. Easy for me to say.

Lead me not into temptation. No. Will you ever have to pray? Deliver me from the evil one.

No. Will you ever have to pray in heaven? Lord, could you give me what I need for today? Give me this day for my daily bread.

Will you ever have to pray? I want God's kingdom to come back. I want Jesus to come back. No. When you're in heaven at the end of time, in eternal state, you'll never have to pray those things.

But you still could pray. You still could say, God, I want your name to be seen as holy. You're to be magnified.

You're to be great. You're to be adored, worthy, honored, dominion, power, and glory. That's what

I want first and foremost. Your glory, then we'll talk about my good. So when you pray, our

Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. May your name be seen as holy. Well, something with reverence and holiness and sincerity.

Now we move to a part of the show that's maybe a little more humorous called Kooks and Barney's. And we give out awards.

And it's actually a D award. A D award, because it's not a good thing. There's awards.

I can't remember, Mario, what they were called. That somebody gave out awards for bad acting, bad movies.

It might've even been at Harvard. And they were called like the jellies or the this or the that, the bellies.

I don't know what they were called. They're called something. And we could look it up. I'm sure you could ask Grok anytime.

And you didn't wanna get that award. It was just kind of a humorous thing. You know, it was a flop of a movie and they got this kind of award.

And it was usually in the news. So you don't want this kind of award. And so I just know that there's all kinds of theological things out there.

And just like when a surfer does something dumb and they're called a kook by other people because they don't have the proper etiquette and surf protocol, these people who get this award given by yours, truly, they have bad

Bible protocol. And the one I'd like to give out today is an oldie but a goodie because people still read this book.

It's called Wild at Heart, but the newer version or the sequel is called

Beautiful Outlaw. And it was written by John Eldridge. Now, I'm sure he's laughing all the way to the bank and he doesn't watch a show like this and probably doesn't care about it.

But John Eldridge, Wild at Heart fame, wrote this book called Beautiful Outlaw. And I wanna give him the award today.

I wanna give him the award today. It says in the back of the book or in the book, I was going to call this book

Jesus of a Thousand Hearts. Now, even right there, I can see if a lady was gonna title a book like that,

Jesus of a Thousand Hearts. Mario, would you ever write a book called that? I mean, you've got broad shoulders.

I would if I was like you. Oh. I mean, Mario is the kind of guy that you don't wanna meet on a dark street corner before he was saved.

But now I wanna meet him because he's my bodyguard. But this is just,

I mean, already it's just like, it's just like not a masculine thing. He says, I was gonna call this book

Jesus of a Thousand Hearts because of the way he, Jesus, continually breaks into my life. He speaks to me through hearts.

I'll find stones in the shape of hearts in rivers where I'm fishing. I've seen them almost step -by -step up from mountainside when

I'm going up a grueling climb. Praying in the morning, I'll look out the window and passing by will be a heart -shaped cloud.

Dinner rolls, seashells, stains on my jeans.

I've won the lottery when it comes to hearts from Jesus. Then Jesus stopped giving him hearts.

And he says in his book, so Jesus stopped giving me these treasures of our friendship.

Last fall, while I was walking through an Alpine meadow, bow hunting, I was asking him, how come you don't give me hearts anymore?

And Jesus answered, if your grammar was better, no, I asked in a kind of pouting way.

At that moment, something gray caught my eye. I looked down mid -stride and there in the grass, about as big as a dinner plate, was a dried piece of cow manure in the perfect shape of a heart.

Can't make it up. If I didn't know

Jesus adores me, if I didn't know he's playful and our relationship didn't allow me to receive a playful tease,

I might've misinterpreted the icon, but I loved it. It was both.

Oh, so now you want a heart? And I adore you still. A cow pie heart.

That is so Jesus. Wish I'd taken a photo of it. We could have put it on the cover of this book.

Okay, that's all I have for today, folks. Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.

Don't edit any of that out. We move now to a book recommendation, a good book.

The Imputation of Adam's Sin. The Imputation of Adam's Sin by John Murray.

As I've said in the past, I have kept some of my favorite books in my sock drawer. Just, you know,

I've got a bunch of things there. Socks and who knows what, but I had books there.

Just, I ran out of book place. So I put my favorite books in the sock drawer, you know? Okay, whatever. The Imputation of Adam's Sin by John Murray.

Now I might have some differences with John Murray in certain spots, and I do. You could say that about anybody, but this book so helped me.

Three great imputations. When you think about the three great imputations in the

Bible, we have an imputation where our sins are credited, are imputed to Christ's account.

We have Christ's perfect law keeping credited to our account. Those are two imputations.

And the third imputation is what John Murray writes about. And that is Adam's first sin imputed, are credited to each and every person that will ever be born short of the

God -man, Jesus Christ, short of Jesus. Because of course we know the

Spirit hovered and the Spirit made sure that Jesus was protected from sin, et cetera, et cetera.

Three great imputations. This book deals with Romans 5, 15 through 19, really through verse 21, talking about headship, talking about federal representative, talking about how could

Adam be our federal head. Does sin get transferred just because of, called seminal headship?

Does it get transferred by bad example? Does it get transferred by who knows what?

What about federal headship? And it's hard for some people to take federal headship because they'll say things like, you mean to tell me that I got credit for Adam's sin?

I wasn't even in the garden. How fair is that? But Murray will go on to say in his book that can you imagine in the wisdom of God, God takes this man,

Adam, this man who's sinless. And he says, I'm gonna have him stand for all of humanity.

And whatever he does, everybody will get credit for. Is God unwise? Did God pick the wrong guy?

Would you question God? How would you do, right? How would John Elridge do? How would Mario Escobar do?

How would Mike Ebenroth do? We're gonna do better than what Adam did. And the argument in Romans 5, verses 12 and following is this, hey, aren't you glad for another federal representative?

Are you sure you don't wanna believe in federal representative? Are you sure you're gonna say, I don't want Adam to be my federal head, but by the way, there's a greater

Adam that not only undid what Adam did in the garden, even was greater in blessing what

Jesus did, the last Adam. And so you have a federal representative. You Christian get credit, not only for what

Adam did in the garden, but you get credit for what Jesus did in the wilderness, on earth, as he was earning righteousness, meriting righteousness, keeping the law in your place.

And now God looks at you because you're in Adam, the last, looks at you as you perfectly keep the law, as you've perfectly kept the law and never sin.

And so I like this book because it talks about how God deals with people in two

Adams. You're either in the first Adam or you're in the last Adam. You're in Adam in the garden or Jesus, the last

Adam. I think it was Thomas Watson, he said, or maybe it's Thomas Goodwin. There's a lot of Thomases out there when it comes to Puritans.

Thomas Brooks, there's another one. How many Thomases do we get? Doubting Thomas, Thomas Brooks, Thomas Watson, Thomas Goodwin, all men are hanging on one of the

Adam's girdles. When I read it, I thought, when's the last time I heard the word girdle?

In a theological context, never. The principle of federal relationship underlies the solution of our problem of entanglement in the guilt of Adam's first sin.

We wanna believe in federal headship because it's the way out. Imputation is an act of God by which he charges to our account that which is not in itself and of itself ours.

So I commend you that little booklet. It's hard to read, but it's worth every bit of effort.

The Imputation of Adam's Sin, John Murray. What is that music

I hear in the background? The Drifters? Is that illegal to play? Do I need to get, am

I gonna get lawsuits? Maybe we just play it fast enough. This magic moment, then we're set.

Probably two seconds we can use. The message moment. I've been talking about prayer, Lord's prayer, disciples' prayer.

And so I thought I would read the message, paraphrase by Eugene Peterson, and see how we liked it. This is the message moment.

Our Father in heaven. Great. Reveal who you are. Okay. I guess that's hella be your name.

Set the world right. Okay. But he's a king and that's why

I want your kingdom to come. He's a father, he's a king. And the ultimate king is gonna come back.

His name's Jesus, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. It's much better to say, your kingdom come. Do what's best,

God, above, so below. Do what's best. Good, better, best.

Sin, lawlessness, transgressions, trespass, righteousness, holiness. Do what's best.

Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.

That one, I cannot stand. Keep us forgiven. If you believe in justification, you'll believe that you're always forgiven.

Remember, there's two kinds of forgiveness in the Bible. And if you get this, dear Christian, you'll be so happy.

There's a judicial forgiveness. At the bar of God's justice, you have been declared righteous because of Christ's righteous work.

And you have been declared not guilty because all your sins have been credited to Christ. Not guilty, judicially not guilty.

Forever forgiven. All your trespasses, sins of omission, commission, trespasses, transgressions, missing the mark, being ungodly, being perverse, not obeying

God, not loving God, not loving neighbor, all paid in full. It is finished.

But now as Christians, we have a father and sometimes we sin against the father.

And while the father will never kick us out because we're his children adopted, we have a relationship that's broken.

And so we have another kind of forgiveness, not just judicial, but parental. And so you still need to go ask your father when you sin against him.

Think about on earth, your child sins against you on earth. Do you say, I'm gonna kick them out of the family?

No, you say, since you're part of the family, we need to work through this and discipline you and you need to ask for forgiveness.

And so when he says, keep us forgiven, it's like, don't let me lose my salvation.

No, no, this is, we're praying to a father. We've been adopted because of the work of Christ. Judicial reckoning has already happened.

Now we're in the category of parental. So that's why it says, forgive us. Father, forgive us.

Keep us safe from ourselves and the devil. That's not too bad. I wouldn't do it, but I get the idea.

You're in charge, you can do anything you want. You're a blazing beauty, yes, yes, yes. I would say, just stop when you're ahead.

When it's like, keep us safe from ourselves and the devil. Let's just, you know, lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

I just don't like this street level gutter language. Not very reverential, not very worshipful.

I'd rather have you pray. Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who are indebted to us and lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Doesn't that sound much better? That actually sounds like Jesus would teach them that very thing.

Segment number, who knows what? Five, five, this is five. Are you a

Roman Catholic or a Protestant in your thinking? This is a segment that is important because lots of times, if we're not careful, we as Protestants believe

Roman Catholic doctrines. Now, if the doctrine is of the deity of Christ, deity of the Holy Spirit, things that are in the

Nicene Creed, okay, I get all that. I'm talking about the concept of salvation. I'm quite fascinated by so many

Protestants that wanna become Roman Catholics. And I just think the Mary stuff and justification stuff, they just kind of think,

I'll just figure that out later. I like the tradition. I like the transcendence.

I like the buildings. I like the traditions. I don't know exactly what they're thinking, but I want you to think clearly about justification.

I want you to think clearly about sanctification. I want you to make sure that while they're connected in the sense that a justified person is a sanctified person, they're not gonna be blurred or mingled or put together.

They are different categories. Justification, sanctification, Christ for pardon, Christ for power,

Christ for us, Christ in us. Simple designations, but very, very helpful. So let me read two sentences.

They'll be very much alike, but you spot the difference and you tell me which one you like. Which one?

No, forget that. Not what you like, but which one's true. That's the problem, by the way, with so many theologians. I don't like eternal conscious torment,

Kirk Cameron, so I'll pick something different. And by the way, if you wanna believe anything weird anymore, you can find that on the internet, right?

If you're like, I think I wanna believe in annihilationism, you pull it up, there it is. With quotes and footnotes and everything else, you can believe about whatever you want backed up by people on the internet.

It's kind of a sad thing. God accepts the believer because of the moral excellence found in Jesus.

That's option one. Option two, God makes the believer acceptable by infusing

Christ moral excellence into his life. I think I found these, the last two show and this show as well, found these.

Somebody else wrote these, I think, and I just am reading them. I never said I made them up.

I just said two statements. We're gonna get caught like some kind of plagiarism thing. Next thing you know,

I'll be out walking, looking for cow pies for a living. God accepts the believer because of the moral excellence found in Jesus Christ.

Mario just turned his back to me. I don't even need to read the second one to you. That's the

Protestant one, that's the Bible one. He accepts the believer because of the moral excellence found in Christ Jesus.

Done, don't even have to read the next one. The next one is God makes the believer acceptable by infusing

Christ moral excellence into his life. See what I mean? Blurring, sanctification and justification.

It's not anything in us in the category of justification. It's for us, it's a declaration, it's judicial, it's standing, it's imputation.

In the context of sanctification, sure, transforming Christ in us, infusing even

Westminster Confession we'll talk about in the category of sanctification, but we don't talk about sanctification categories and justification categories.

So are you a Roman Catholic or are you Protestant? In this particular case, we realize that God accepts us because of who

Jesus is. Simple, he doesn't accept you because he's made you something else.

Our main topic today with the time we have left is an interesting one. It's taken from kind of the opposite viewpoint and that is how to stay spiritually immature.

If you'd like to stay as a spiritual baby, this show's for you. So obviously you wanna do the opposite.

So if you wanna stay immature, number one, take your eyes off of Jesus, his person and his work.

Colossians 1, verse 28, him we proclaim. It's interesting, this language of maturity is used in Colossians 1, 28.

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Paul had with the other apostles, the desire to proclaim Jesus for lots of reasons, warn people, teach people, because he wanted to present the language of an offering back in the

Old Testament, presenting to God in the offering in a tabernacle or a temple, everyone mature in Christ.

He wanted them to grow. He wanted them to be not spiritual babies. He wanted them to be spiritual adults.

And you can think about 1 John and chapter two about children, young adults, young men and fathers in the faith and just grow in the faith.

And just like we want our children to grow, we want to grow as Christians. And that's what Paul wanted. And how do you make

Christians grow? Well, you don't, the spirit of God does, but it's through the vehicle of a proclamation of a person.

And that person is Jesus Christ. And so we wanna make sure we keep our eyes on who

Jesus is and that you go to a church where every sermon is about the Lord Jesus in one way, shape or form.

If you wanna grow, it's not by steps. It's not by method. It's not by practical application. Some of that stuff will find itself in scripture.

That's true. Him we proclaim. How do you stay spiritually immature? Number two, major on subjective experiences.

Major on subjective experiences. That is to say, my life as a

Christian is God talking to me in my prayer life outside the Bible. God speaking to me outside the

Bible. God giving me special signs. I ask Him for signs. He gives me signs.

Did you know there's no command in the Bible to listen to God outside of His word?

Like, well, He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way. Show me somebody that talks like that.

I'll show you somebody that's spiritually immature. I also think they're lazy because the Bible's hard work.

That's why it says, you know, be diligent to study. Study to show yourself approved.

A workman who needs not be ashamed, right? The Awana verse, I believe it's 2 Timothy 2 .15. It takes a lot of work to study.

We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God the

Father, the voice was born to Him by the majestic glory. This is my beloved Son with whom

I'm well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountain.

Here's my point. And we have something Peter said more sure, the prophetic word to which you do well to pay attention to.

In other words, the experience that Peter had on that mountain was all true.

Earwitness, eyewitness, and you know what's more sure than an experience? A true experience is the word of God.

Let alone these fake experiences that people have. They say, God told me this, God told me that.

Actually, wait a second. I'm hearing from God right now. Lord, your servant's listening.

Really? He just told me this. He's told me this a long time ago too.

He said, Mike, my servant, tell everyone in the

NoCo world and on YouTube that I no longer talk to anyone on earth outside the

Bible. Yes, sir. Done.

Okay. Closing prayer. How to stay spiritually immature?

Avoid the means of grace on Sunday, the proclamation of the truth and sacraments.

The number one thing you can do even more than read your Bible, read your Bible. The number one thing that you can do more than evangelize, evangelize, is sit and worship on Sunday.

Yes, you give at worship, but you also receive when it comes to worship. Worship is not only giving, it's receiving.

Receiving the word implanted in your soul, and it's gonna be good for you, and you're gonna learn, and you're gonna grow related to the first one about hearing

Christ Jesus. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth.

This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. Let's see, what else do I have? Lastly, for how to stay spiritually immature, think church services and church people should revolve around who you are and what you personally like.

I didn't like this. I didn't like that. Somebody once said to me, I don't really like that hymn. And I said, well,

I'm sorry you didn't because that hymn is really a good hymn. It's about Christ and who he is. And I picked it because I thought it'd be honoring the

Lord. I didn't pick it because I think you'd like it or you didn't like it. Judging, I didn't like this and I didn't like that.

I mean, if it's an unbiblical song, fine, say something. But instead of saying, what can the church do for me and how can

I get my needs met there and I want shorter sermons and all this other stuff. No, no, you come to worship, you come to receive and you come not as like you're in charge.

All right, that's all I have for today, Mario. We started off with a real bang and I think

I'm gonna go shovel some snow outside looking for some hearts. Can you imagine?

Mike Ebendroth, No Compromise Radio. Don't forget if you wanna order some books, you can email me.