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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.
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Hello, Mike Abendroth here. In real time, there's snow on the ground, except now it's getting kind of dirty, gross, gravelly.
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You know, we as bike riders, road bikers, hate the gravel. The gravel. I don't like that.
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It makes me slip and fall and bruise a couple ribs, but not lately. So it's not a matter of if you fall on your road bike, it's when you fall.
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And you hope you're awake enough to tell the ambulance driver, please take my bicycle too. It's got nice components.
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Well, today on No Compromise Radio, we have a variety of things to talk about. I do want to give, what do you call these things?
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The proverbial shout outs. One of our listeners is very generous and gracious, and Barbara and her husband sent me
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Pete's Coffee. How about that? See if you talk about it long enough and you don't ask for money, they eventually send you
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Pete's Coffee. Four pounds of my two favorite kinds, Major Dickinson and then the
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House Blend, and arrived to my door. So how about that?
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So Barbara, that was very kind of you. And I got another email, guy said he just converted over to some
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Pete's Coffee too. So a listener in Maine. I forgot his name. Oh. All right. Well, speaking of coffee,
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I think I probably had too much. So we should get into the show. Variety of things today. This is still in the mode of where are we going to go for a direction this year?
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And I do want to say on an encouraging note, an edifying note, and a helpful note that if you have not purchased this book, you need to get it.
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And here's the great news. This is called Fundamentals of the Faith with an introduction by John MacArthur, subtitled
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Thirteen Lessons to Grow in the Grace and Knowledge of Jesus Christ. Right there from 2
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Peter chapter 3, published now by Moody. It used to be published by Grace Church themselves.
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And this is something that we call FOF. And so here's what we do with this.
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It's set up, let's see, it's 96 pages, but it's in a workbook fashion. And so you have prefabbed, what do they call those things when you can just tear out a page out of a book, little, not indentations, but there's perforations, is that the right word?
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Perforations. And so you can tear these out and hand them in to a teacher who would teach a class like this.
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And it is a great overview of the Bible. Some of the lessons,
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God, his character and attributes, that's one chapter, the person of Jesus Christ, the work of Christ, salvation, prayer, worship,
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Holy Spirit, obedience, evangelism, God's will, spiritual gifts, et cetera.
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Now here's the thing that's really nice. When we were back at Grace Church, we, my wife and I, and even when
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Steve Tuesday guy was there, they had a lot of these classes going on all the time and you would have anywhere from 1 to 15 people in a standard
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FOF class. Maybe they're larger now, they can't get much smaller, can they? And you would have a teacher, someone who knew the
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Bible, a seminary student maybe, or maybe just a lay person who was well adept in the scriptures, and they would teach the class 13 weeks, and sometimes you'd go longer, just depending.
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My earlier classes seemed to go longer. And so they'd do the homework in the booklet, and then they would give it to you and then you would correct it and teach, et cetera, et cetera.
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Did I say et cetera? I think I did. So the good news is on the website now is the
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Bible message audio that's given by John MacArthur that is linking to the particular subject.
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So prayer and the believer, then you've got the message that you listen to. Because when I used to teach the classes back in the late 90s, no, what was that, early 90s, what
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I would do is I would give them a cassette and say, listen to the cassette, fill out the homework, and then come back next week and we'll talk about it.
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So listen to a prayer message by MacArthur, do the homework on prayer, and then we'll come back and talk more about prayer.
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And so it was really, really great. Now here's the best part about this Fundamentals of the Faith book. We just keep tons of these around the church.
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I first got saved and I wanted to learn more. And so I went to the bookstore, I think it was called, it wasn't called
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Morning Star, that's the one that's here. I went to Valley Book and Bible, and they used to call it
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Valley Heretic and Aberration. Maybe it still exists, Sherman Oaks -ish, something like that.
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Anyway, it was in the San Fernando Valley. Maybe they've changed. Maybe they don't sell Daddy Hagen books anymore.
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And if they don't, then I'll change my nickname for them. And if they do, they're not a ministry. When you sell books that aren't edifying for the church and you're just trying to make money, whether that's a
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Joyce Meyer book or a Benny Hinn book or an Infusion of Righteousness book, then they're no longer a ministry.
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They're in it for the money. Now that doesn't mean ministry never exists there, because it probably does.
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But different subject. Lesson eight, Prayer and the Believer. And here's what happens.
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I couldn't find a book when I'd go to a Christian bookstore that would help me just read the Bible and do some work.
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Maybe a workbook. Maybe for me to dig into the Bible and find some things. I did find eventually some navigator's information that would ask a question and then you'd have to go to a specific
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Bible verse that was listed to find the answer. So let me just turn to this page for lesson eight,
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Prayer and the Believer. At the beginning it says, prepare for your assignment, download message eight, then it gives you gty .org
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forward slash fof. Use your notebook to take notes and then work through the questions on the following pages.
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Then memorize Philippians 4, 6, and 7. So if you're a home Bible study leader, if you're someone who's discipling someone, you're asked to teach a
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Sunday school class, this is a great book. If you have a friend who'd just like to understand what
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Christianity is, you don't need to give them pudding and alpha. You can just do this instead.
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So here's what I like about it the most. It says, B, prayer is communication with God.
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Scripture tells us that God is very interested in our personal struggles. Question one, what does
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Psalm 34, 15 say about the Lord? So see what happens? You have to go there to find the answer.
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What did David bring before God in prayer? Psalm 142, verse two. How are we encouraged to approach
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God? Hebrews 4, 16. And then in the middle of this little four or five page workbook section, you've got a quote from John MacArthur, and you've got the acronym there, and an application section.
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So if you don't have fundamentals of the faith, you ought to get some. And why order just one?
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You can order a bunch. And I believe that if you go to Grace Church, gty .org forward slash fof, maybe you can even print out some of the things there if you don't want to spend, probably, oh here it says 9 .99.
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When I was at Grace Church, they used to be, I don't know, 3 .99, but see, it is nicer looking than it was before.
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And that's 15, 20 years ago as well. So that's a great resource that you should get your hands on.
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Speaking of prayer, since this is all coalescing here, fundamentals of the faith lesson on prayer, that's lesson eight.
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I was asked some time ago, what does it mean to pray in Jesus' name? In Jesus' name, amen.
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Now some of you may have been taught that if you don't say in Jesus' name, then it never arrives to God.
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Your prayer doesn't make it. It's like making out an envelope with a letter to someone, and you address it, and you put your return address on it as well, but you don't put the stamp on.
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And in Jesus' name is like putting a stamp on an envelope. Well, John 14, verse 13 and 14 says, with our
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Lord's words, "...and whatever you ask in my name, that will I do, that the
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Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it."
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Well, so what does that mean? In Jesus' name, in Jesus' name, in Jesus' name, in Jesus' name. Is it a potion?
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Is it a password? Is it a stamp? Is it some saying that we have?
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What is it? Now, certainly, this causes a lot of people to stumble because of the exclusive nature of Christ's redemption.
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And when you say Jesus, any biblically informed person, believer or not—I'm thinking about unbelievers though at the moment—will realize that Jesus said earlier in John 14 that he's the way, the truth, the life.
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No one comes to the Father except through Jesus alone is the point. And so people do not like the exclusivity of Christ's redemption.
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They don't like penal substitution. They don't like the penalty that we have earned that someone else pays for.
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There's all kinds of things they don't like. They don't like personal ownership of sin. They don't understand, nor do they love the idea of depravity.
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So what happens when Ravi Zacharias gets asked to pray at the prayer breakfast or whatever it was, the
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World Day of Prayer, National Day of Prayer, whatever it was years ago, and he didn't say in Jesus' name?
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What happens to Christians when they stand up in front of audiences? I'd like to remember, but I can't, if Rick Warren, when he prayed at President Obama's first inauguration, or swearing in, if he said in Jesus' name.
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I don't know what he said, but one of my callers, one of my emailers can let me know.
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By then it's too late though because then I get the email, and I'm like, what is that again? Because these shows are played a month in, you know, taped a month backwards in time, and so then
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I never know. But anyway, one of us will figure this out. And so now I heard Lou Giglio is the one who's going to pray for the second one.
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Now probably by the time this plays, it's already done. I would love to have known ahead of time if he would say in Jesus' name.
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Frankly and honestly and kindly, if someone asked me to pray at the White House, I would be very, very happy, and I would think, boy,
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I get to go to the White House, and I will get my best clothes on, shine my shoes.
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But ahead of time, they will probably scream me and say, you can't say in Jesus' name. It's kind of like West Boylston here, the local high school.
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Let's have a baccalaureate, but you can't talk about the Bible. You can't talk about Jesus. I am a minister of the gospel.
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I'm a servant of the gospel. And even when I fill out officiating forms for weddings, you can write in, first of all, you put your name in, and then it says minister of the gospel, justice of the peace, rabbi, imam, a variety of things like that, priest, father.
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And so I write down minister of the gospel. I don't know if they still ask that or not, since we have the male -female checklist for the gay marriage in Massachusetts.
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I'm not sure what it says anymore, but I write minister of the gospel. And when people call me,
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I've had friends call me who have said, you know, my wife has just died, neighborhood friends, and would you please officiate the funeral?
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We don't really want a lot of Bible. So I say thank you very much for asking me.
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It's a real privilege to be asked in this hard time. I really appreciate it.
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I am a minister of the gospel, and that means good news about forgiveness of sins and Jesus conquering sin and death.
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And so I won't preach a long sermon, but I must talk about who Jesus is because I'm a servant of the gospel.
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So in Jesus' name, what do we do with that? If you're asked to pray someplace, do you say in Jesus' name?
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What reason wouldn't you? Because you say to yourself, well, it's not really the stamp of approval.
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It's not the stamp that gets the prayer to heaven. So therefore I don't really need to. Well in an environment where you're tempted to compromise,
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I want to do the exact opposite. What does it mean to pray in Jesus' name?
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In Jesus' name, amen. Asking anything in my name, I will do it.
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Well, one man said, this is to pray in a manner consistent with our new identity affected by the reconciliation of God and humans in Christ.
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Okay, that's not too bad. Here's what another man says, in accordance to all his attributes and characteristics.
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Okay, what do you think of that? Well, in one sense you have to, well, not in one sense, but you must think name.
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What does name mean? All his attributes, all his characteristics, the person.
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This isn't a formula that you just slap at the end of the request.
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But as one study Bible says, but by means praying for the same things that Christ would desire to see accomplished.
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Okay. You ask, will this please the Lord Jesus? Will this please
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God the Father? This is according to your will. This is according to your good pleasure.
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I ask for things, but sometimes I ask wrongly and for bad motives and for things that aren't in your sovereign plan.
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J .I. Packer said, to ask in Jesus' name is not to use a verbal spell, but to base our asking on Christ's saving relationship to us through the cross.
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This will involve making petitions which Christ can endorse and put his name to. When God answers in Jesus' name, he gives through Jesus as our mediator and to Jesus as the one who will be glorified through what is given.
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So I think that is a good way to think about in Jesus' name.
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So today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking about a few different things and both of them so far have been linked to prayer.
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So since that is the case, we might as well keep going, don't you think? We might as well keep going with this prayer mode because I have this stack of things here.
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And I have some Pete's Coffee someplace to be found, but I think that's over there towards my desk. Hopefully by the time you listen to this, you'll be watching a new feature.
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And so far the working title is NoCo90. And 90 seconds, it'll be a video podcast on YouTube.
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We already have the domain there. And I'm going to talk about issues that have sharper edges.
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So NoCo90, you know, keeping the right angles in the gospel, something like that. Wouldn't that be a good little thing to do?
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I don't know. Maybe it'll be bad. I'm not sure. I don't know why I thought of it, but it just popped into my mind.
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And so I just have to go with what my mind says. You can always write me at info at nocompromiseradio .com.
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I received an email yesterday from a lady. I was going to say young lady, but I don't know if she's young or not.
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A lady who used to live in Massachusetts who now lives in Finland and listens to the show in Finland.
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How about that? Not Finland, Nebraska, but Finland, the land of the Finns. So we now have listeners in Finland.
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So I would like to welcome those listeners, those listener. Listen to what
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Spurgeon said about prayer. There is no need for us to go beating about the bush and not telling the
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Lord distinctly what it is that we crave at his hands, nor will it be seemly for us to make any attempt to use fine language.
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But let us ask God in the simplest and most direct manner for the things we want.
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Of course, there are more things to be said about prayer than this, but you'll get my point here in just a minute as I go on to quote
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Spurgeon. I believe in business prayers. I mean prayers in which you take to God one of the many promises which he has given us in his work and expect it to be fulfilled as certainly as we look for the money to be given us when we go to the bank to cash a check.
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We should not think of going there, lolling over the counter, chattering with the clerks on every conceivable subject except the one thing for which we had gone to the bank, and then coming away without the coin we needed.
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But we should lay before the clerk the promise to pay the bearer a certain sum, tell him in what form we wish to take the amount, count the cash after him, and then go on our way to attend to other business.
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That is just an illustration of the method in which we should draw supplies from the bank of heaven.
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Charles Spurgeon. Isn't that good? Isn't that good when you, a son or daughter of the father, need to approach him because you need something?
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I mean, my kids the other day said, Dad, I need a new outfit for this. Why was Luke asking me for an outfit?
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Just kidding. One of my girls asked for a new outfit for a play she was in, or some song thing, or something else, or for church, or for Easter, or whatever it might be.
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Then they should just directly ask, and so we are able to do that with the
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Lord. Of course, we want to talk about who He is and not just always ask God, give me prayers, give me prayers.
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If you think of the ACTS acronym, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, there should be more than just S for supplication, but we are able to go to the
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Father, and so I just like that Spurgeon quote, business prayers. Let's get to business, and aren't we thankful when we are thinking about how we have access to God?
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Hebrews 7 .25 says, Hence also He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, speaking of the
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Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
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Now that is very wonderful, and then you add on Romans 8 .26,
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and in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the
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Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
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So today on No Compromised Radio, we've talked about a variety of things, all seemingly related to prayer.
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If you want to go to our website, you can go there via Facebook and all those other things. See, I just say these things when
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I'm trying to figure out what to say next. I have a whole stack of things here, and I was trying to think to myself, is there anything else here related to prayer, but I can't think of anything.
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So I have an email from Christy. This was some time ago. Hi, Pastor. Is there a couple of worship songs that you can put on your bad list?
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Always Forever by Phil Wickham, Phil Wickham. Let's see what it says.
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You are the hand that catches my fall. You are the friend that answers my call. You are my day. You are my night.
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You are my love and all my life. Now I don't even know if there's a good
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Rickenbacker guitar that could rescue those lyrics, right? Singing, you are the love
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I need. You are the air I breathe. You are my love, my life, always forever. I would lay down my life just to be by your side.
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You are my love, my life, always forever, always forever. Now think about this for a second. Here's the crazy thing, and I don't know who this
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Phil is. I don't have any idea. Maybe he's written 500 great songs.
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This just happens to be the one that's no good. I mean, if you listen to my worst sermon, then you would say, if that's the only thing you ever listened to or the worst no -go show, then you probably have a bad opinion of my theological education.
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But see, I do think, categorically, undeniably, that the songs we sing should talk more about what
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God has done for us. Then we can respond with, well, we love you, or we are thankful, or we can put our trust in you, or something.
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When I read songs that are supposedly about Jesus, where we talk about how we would lay down our life to be by his side, friends, that is exactly opposite of the truth.
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Now you may say I will stand up for the faith as a Christian martyr for the sake of the
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Lord Jesus Christ and his name and his reputation and his honor and his glory. Okay, I would die for you.
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But see, that kind of singing, it's not even as a response to what God has done.
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I prefer the old, old story, and come back to the crucifix again. You say, well,
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I don't like the crucifix. Come back to the cross again. I think of crucifix, I just think about determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, even the crucified one.
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Yes, of course, Jesus isn't on the cross anymore, he's in heaven. Yes, of course, I prefer empty crosses to ones with Jesus on them.
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But thinking about substitutionary atonement, Jesus was on the cross. How's that for wisdom? How's that for a sign?
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I digress. I would lay down my life just to be by your side. Here it says, finally it says something good.
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You are the grace. I don't really like that you're the grace, but anyway, you are the grace that covers my sin.
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You're everything, the beginning and end. You have my soul, my heart, my mind. You have my love and all my life.
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I mean, I could really sing this to my wife. It'd be bad. The shower couldn't even help me. You are the love
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I need. You are the air that I breathe. You are my love, my life.
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Always forever I would lay down my life. Repeat, repeat. You know, sometimes when
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I'm in a plane, I like to see what's in the seat in front of me because you never know what little treat might be left because I like to leave little tracks in there or something that I've just read that's about the
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Bible. They probably throw them all away, but sometimes maybe there's one left. Well what they usually have in there is a little white bag and it has wax coating on the inside or a laminate, something like that to make it slippery and smooth.
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And then they have a way at the top that you could close it up. Maybe some little,
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I don't know, some adhesive. I like to save those bags because they remember, they remind me of a lot of things.
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In this particular case, I could use that kind of bag to open up and not spew things out, but just put this little piece of paper.
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Always and forever. It's so bad. You light up my life.
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So Christy, thanks for nothing. Mike Abendroth here, No Compromise Radio. I hope you tell your friends about No Compromise Radio.
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I hope you tell your friends in Finland. I hope you tell your friends in California, Washington. I think so far we do have that one
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North Dakota listener, but I think that they only drive through South Dakota and listen from the podcast in North Dakota since I think
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North Dakota is just working on the introductory NOCO conferences. So what else?
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If you'd like to have a question answered, you can write me at info at No Compromise Radio. If you'd like to make a comment, info at No Compromise Radio.
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If you'd like to know what's going on and speaking agenda and where to send Pete's coffee, that's info at No Compromise Radio.
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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 6. 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.