...will be exempt from that. I'm Dave Anthony, Fox News Radio. Knowing the Truth, with Pastor Kevin Bowling, is a live call-in radio program providing doctrinal dialogue, cultural commentary, and insightful interviews with some of today's foremost Christian authors and leaders. Knowing the Truth is the outreach ministry of the Mountain Bridge Bible Fellowship, located on Highway 25 in Travelers Rest. The goal of the church and the radio program is to seek the glory of God in the salvation of sinners and the sanctification of the saints by the ministry of the word. For more information, go to www.knowingthetruth.org. Here with today's edition of Knowing the Truth is Pastor Kevin Bowling. Hey, welcome into this edition of the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast. This is Pastor Kevin Bowling, so glad that you joined us on the broadcast today. Well, you probably think that you know everything that there is to know about the Lord's Prayer, that you've quoted it yourself many times, that you've heard it quoted, that you've read it before, that you may have read some books about it and so forth. Well, I don't know if you have looked at The Lord's Prayer from the perspective that we're going to look at it today. There's a new book soon to be released. I don't think it's completely out yet. I think it's coming out in July. But the book is called A Transforming Vision, The Lord's Prayer as a Lens for Life. It's written by Dr. William Edgar. and the Christian Focus is the publisher of the book. Their website is www.christianfocus.com. I've been reading through this book. I just started it, so I'm not just into the beginning stages of it, but I'm finding the book very, very interesting, even in just the opening few chapters of the book. It just has a unique way of looking at the Lord's Prayer. I've not only I have quoted it and read about it, as I was saying before, but I've preached on the Lord's Prayer. And as I have looked at what he has to say here, Dr. Edgar has to say on this issue, I've just been finding it quite fascinating in this look. Let me read to you what the Christian Focus publication says about the book. They say this, the multifaceted Word of God never ceases to amaze in its ability to give wisdom and understanding. The Lord's Prayer is no exception. It has always been an important part of the tapestry of a walk with God, yet Dr. William Edgar has opened up new and life-changing dimensions of this familiar passage. approaching this book as an apologetic for biblical worldview puts this book in a class by itself. Without a doubt, a transforming vision will prove to be a pivotal and treasured book in the life of the Church." Well, if it continues to capture my attention the way it has in the opening parts of it throughout the remainder of the book, then I would completely agree. I think it's going to be a very seminal work in the life of the Church, especially on the subject of prayer, which is something, of course, that we all need help with. With that, let me go ahead and welcome Dr. William Edgar into the broadcast today. He is the professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and he's also an accomplished jazz pianist. I don't know if we'll make use of that talent on the broadcast today, but certainly his work there at Westminster will come into play. Dr. Edgar, welcome to the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast. Thank you, Kevin. It's great to be with you. Well, excellent book, as I was mentioning there in my introduction. Let's talk about this subject of prayer as you do throughout the introduction of your book. You even seem to ask right in the very beginning question of your book the type of question that a talk show host like myself would ask, you know, why a book like this? Why another book on prayer at this particular time? Yeah, I had the same question before I wrote it, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought the Lord's Prayer has, to my knowledge, not been used quite in the way I'm using it as a complement to the other very good ways. So the way I'm using it is to show a worldview behind the statements of the prayer and behind prayer itself. The Lord's Prayer represents a view of the universe, which I think, unless we align ourselves with it, we're going to be missing a great deal. And so, since I'm a professor of apologetics, I'm always looking for things to bolster the work of apologetics, which is to defend and commend the Christian faith. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought the Lord's Prayer is an amazing defense and commendation of the Christian faith, not only in all of its parts but as a whole. So with a bit of trepidation I started working on this and the more I did the more I found it pays rich dividends. a whole lot more could be said than even what I've said there. But that's what got it started. Yeah, we've mentioned a few times, you know, I did in the introduction, Christian Focus seems to mention that in their description as well, that there has been quite a bit written about the Lord's Prayer. It shows up as well in Reformed confessions or catechisms. some of them in great detail going into the Lord's Prayer. Speak a little bit about that and a little bit about the history of the Lord's Prayer. Maybe we can use that as a little bit of framework for our discussion moving forward. Sure. Well, of course, the Lord's Prayer is given to us twice in slightly different forms in the Gospels. And from there, right from the beginning, the Church Fathers commented on it, made remarkable studies of it, wove it into their sermons. And then, as you said, in the 16th century, a number of the great confessions and catechisms actually used the Lord's Prayer as a kind of guide, a model, not just for how to pray, but for how to think about our world and how to teach children more about God. And then the Puritans wrote great deals about it, and I've benefited from so many of these studies. The Lewis Pair has also been studied by modern scholars, some of the more liberal ones, of course, but also conservative evangelical ones as well. And each of them has beneficial things to say. And so I'm standing on the shoulders of giants here, And I put this together with knowing how much was behind me and referring to some of it as I went along. So that's a bit of the history of it. And I hope that this little book will contribute to, you know, furthering our insights about the Lord's Prayer. When we think about the Lord's Prayer, you mentioned that it's mentioned a couple times in the Scriptures. Maybe the most familiar there is in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, Chapter 6. Right. And you to talk about the the the framework of the prayer itself. We're we're looking at the idea of an introductory statement being made in the beginning and then six petitions. Is that correct? Yeah, that's the way it's traditionally divided up. So the the way it's introduced in the Sermon on the Mount is that Jesus is correcting the tendency in the traditional Jewish religion of the day to practice an external kind of religion, which would include fasting and showing people how pale you are and and heaping up phrases in public. And instead, he says, no, you say your prayers in private. Now, he wasn't making an absolute statement because he prayed in public, too, but he was correcting that tendency of external religion. And he says, after all, the person who matters the most to hear your prayers is God, the audience of one. And so then, of course, the next thought is, you know, don't be like them. Your father knows what you need. He's not impressed. But here's a model for praying. And then he gives the Lord's Prayer. And I think it's appropriate privately and in churches to actually say the Lord's Prayer as it's given. But I think it's also a model for the kinds of things we need to have in our prayers if we're going to reflect that wonderful reality, that authenticity of our faith. It doesn't depend on externals, but that is glad to have an audience of one. So, yes, we can say the prayer, but it's also just a thing that informs the way we pray. What I sometimes do in my own devotions, I pause over each of the phrases, and I make it a kind of basis for the kinds of requests and praises that I'm giving to God. And it changes every day. The prayer doesn't. I mean, the Lord's Prayer doesn't change, but my application of it changes every day, depending on what's been going on. So that's the context in Matthew. Yeah, the Lord's Prayer, when we typically think about it, I think, as you just stated, you know, either people are used to the rote reading and reciting of the prayer itself, the text that we find there in Matthew 6. And so it does seem to, in that form, even though it's legitimate to use it that way, like you were saying, there's also the danger there of familiarity breeding contempt and then just glossing over the words without giving them the due thought upon the words themselves. Of course, the caution that was given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ about just vain repetition and in somehow thinking that just because we recite certain words, of course, this is committed, you know, grievously in the Catholic religion, But, you know, just repeating this, thinking that because of the repetition of it that somehow it's magically going to bring something forward, that obviously is something we've got to be careful of. But I would say that most people, especially in our listening audience of evangelicals, have just looked at it as a pattern prayer. And when we say that, you know, then we're starting to build some acronyms in here, maybe like ACTS, you know, we should start with adoration and confession and thanksgiving and supplication. And so we're just, you know, glean from it. Okay, there's a little pattern here that we can implement in our praying. But what I liked about your book, and what I'm starting to get to, the kernel of your case being made here, that it goes much deeper than that, than just some sort of, you know, a simplistic pattern. In fact, you quote from Augustine, or Augustine if people would rather, in your book, and you say that he says this, whatever be the other words that we may prefer to say, words which the one praying chooses so that his disposition may become clear to himself, or which he simply adopts, that his disposition may be intensified, we say nothing that is not contained in the Lord's Prayer, provided, of course, we are praying in a correct and a proper way." So he's saying that all prayer, all true prayer, can fit within that form of the Lord's Prayer. That's quite a statement. Yeah, it is, isn't it, really? But I think it's true. So, you know, I grew up in a liturgical church, and fell into the danger you talked about, you know, the minister with a sanctimonious tone would say, you know, and now as our Lord taught us, we are bold to say, and then it kicked in an automatic pilot kind of Lord's Prayer. And then when I became an adult and I was converted, all of that liturgy suddenly came alive to me and I was sad that I hadn't heard it because it was there and I'd I didn't want the Lord's Prayer to go by so fast. I want him to slow down and savor every part of it. And then, as I've been thinking about it for this book, I've come to agree with Augustine that nothing in our prayer life is really not somehow represented in the Lord's Prayer. You know, every prayer ought to have words of adoration and naming God as the Father in Heaven. You know, every prayer ought to appeal for his kingdom to come and his will to be done. That's a big category. Everything's in there, missions, healing, you know, you name it. But then every prayer certainly ought to ask for daily provisions, physical bread, of course, but, you know, our needs. Every prayer absolutely ought to contain confession, forgive us our debts, forgive us our sins. You know, our prayers should also ask for God's providence, that as He guides us, He would not allow us to fall into evil, into temptation, into sin, and so forth. So, I think Augustine's right, that the kind of prayers we are going to make anyway are nicely summed up in the Lord's Prayer. So, it's a very, very rich, full, pregnant set of words that I think are very well worth meditating and as you say don't say it in rote but it's okay to say it because it's there so and then apply it to the other areas in your prayer life that you're going to practice. Yeah, you say in the book, you had a great statement there that kind of sums up that whole idea. It says it represents a world and life view in meditating on the words that the Lord taught us. It dawned on me that they are more than just a handy formula for effective praying, which they are, but they are a way of life. And I thought that that really begins to deal with the text as we find it, and not to just glibly kind of gloss over what is said there, or even just extract, as you put here, a handy formula for other prayers. It goes deeper than that. It's more than that. It's more than that pattern. It's more of this powerful way of looking at life, which you get to in your book. Let me remind our listening audience that we're talking about the book, A Transforming Vision, the Lord's Prayer, as a lens for life. And the book is written by Dr. William Edgar. It's published by Christian Focus Publications. You can go out to their website at www.christianfocus.com in order to get a copy of the book. And the book is dealing with the subject of the Lord's Prayer. and how do we interpret the Lord's Prayer, and even, I can't say more importantly, but equally as important, how do we implement the Lord's Prayer? How do we apply it to our lives? Dr. Edgar, as you go throughout the book then, I remember there was a section here, I was scanning through it here really quickly, but I remember that then there was a section here that talked about the idea of guilt, that when we think about that we should be praying more and so forth, and we hear all of these different statements about prayer, it really throws a tremendous amount of guilt upon us And guilt is a very poor motivator, and it doesn't shed much light on the subject either. So it doesn't inform us at all. Speak to that subject about prayer and its association with guilt. Sure. Well, for many of us, maybe there are exceptions. We just don't pray enough. We don't pray sincerely enough. We don't pray in a disciplined manner. And there are lots of ways that we've heard other people do. And when we hear this, we think, oh, my, I'm not on board here. I'm I've been a terrible Christian. You know, the famous story that we all know about Martin Luther, who said, when I have a busy day, I'll get up early and pray. And when it's a really busy day, I'll get up extra early to pray. You know, how many of us do that? And so You know, however, as you say, guilt doesn't really motivate us very far. The thing that should motivate us is to cultivate a greater vision of who God is. When we understand the greatness of God and his love and compassion and his sovereignty, and the more we read in Scripture about his nature, that's when it'll become more natural to pray. That's the natural reaction when we have a great God. I think that's the context in which Jesus was speaking as well He's saying that the Pharisees have a God that you could put in a box but but if you if you have the real God who's the creator of the universe and he hears you and when when nobody's looking that's going to induce you to pray with greater sincerity and So, you know, I can't say that I'm the greatest prayer in the world. I certainly am far from that But it's helped me to, you know, study the greatness of God and and his mercy and his plan of salvation and his love for me. And then then it becomes almost a natural reflex to get on my knees and say, thank you and ask for forgiveness and, you know, go further in the Christian life. That's why I've called it a transforming vision, because it should transform us when we get a hold of these principles. I appreciate that statement so much that I would say this. I would say that thought alone, especially in our modern context, a context that has five steps to this and seven steps to this, methodology approaches to things, I would say that concept right there is worth the price of the book. I try to do that in my preaching, you know, to get out of the way and let people see God for who God is. I think that's the key to good preaching. You know, it's simply stated. It's very difficult to do. And I think that we have done the same thing with the Lord's Prayer. I wanted to read a succinct way that you put that in your book as well. You say this, and let me pick it up here. How can we find such a way? Let me say, guilt is not particularly productive nor constructive. It may provide an initial prodding, but then we need to move on to something not only positive but lasting. How can we find such a way? The answer is really quite simple. Not easy, but simple. If our prayer life is less than it should be, then likely it has little to do with discipline or method. Underscore that for the listener's sake. It has little to do with discipline or method. Those are helpful, but they are beside the main problem. What is the main problem? Simply, our view of God is less than it should be. The greater our God, the more significant will be our prayer life. Put differently, it is all about our worldview, our vision. And this is where it comes in the title of the book, A Transforming Vision. He then goes on to say that prayer presupposes faith. And so that's what the vision is, the seeing of God as we see Him for who He is. And I would maybe add to that, as we see ourselves for what we are as well, that it causes us then to cry out to this God, to abandon ourselves, to be more dependent upon Him. and to seek his assistance in every aspect of life, as well as to live our lives to ascribe the optimum amount of glory to this wonderful being. So that section there, you say that prayer presupposes faith. And that's where it starts to get into understanding this prayer. Am I correct? Oh, absolutely. If you don't have faith, then necessarily your prayers, if you pray at all, will be kind of mechanical and rote. But with trust in Jesus Christ for salvation, then a whole lot of doors open, including the lively conversation that Christians may have with their Lord and their God. And it's not that faith produces anything. Faith is an instrument. It's a gift of God, but it's that, without faith, you don't have the very first thing that you need for praying, which is a dependence on God, a trust in Him, a worshipping approach to Him. So, you know, in that way, the Word of Prayer is not at all unique. On almost every page of Scripture, there's an appeal for believing in this God, you know, the Lord your God is one, hero Israel. That's throughout the Old Testament. But the simple point here is that unless you have that trust, then you may not pray at all, but if you do, your prayers will just be mechanical. That's the way it was for me in the church I grew up in. It's my fault, it wasn't the church's fault, but it's a necessary component to prayer. And without it, you won't be praying as we're meant to be. One of the aspects of your book that I really think is important is, you know, we struggle with the verses then that speak about praying always without ceasing. And when we think about this, then the Lord's Prayer is being more of a worldview. And if you think about it, that transforming vision way, it enables us then to see how we can be ceaselessly praying throughout our life if we have this disposition of prayer about us. And so I think that's another good element speaking about why we should look at the Lord's Prayer in the way that you introduce here in your book. We're going to take a quick commercial break. But when we come back from the break, then we will go ahead and pick up our discussion. I want to talk a little bit about a couple of the trends that militate against productive prayer life. We have a couple of things like secularization and so forth taking place today that don't Assist us in our prayer life. They actually work against us so I just want to mention them briefly and then see if we can't get to the Statements in the Lord's Prayer itself. Stay tuned. It's going to be an interesting discussion. We'll be back in just a couple moments You're listening to Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bolling. For more information about today's program, the radio ministry, and the resources we offer, go to www.knowingthetruth.org. Can Christian publishers maintain Christian distinctives if they're owned by secular companies? On the next Janet Mefford Show, Warren Cole Smith from World Magazine will join me and we'll talk about it. Plus, what's the truth about the vicious terrorist group ISIS? CBN News terrorism analyst Eric Stackelbeck will bring us up to speed. Then and more next time on the Janet Mefford Show. This afternoon from 3 to 5 on Christian Talks 660 and 92.9. Was life brought to Earth by aliens? This is Ken Ham, head of the ministry building a full-size ark near Cincinnati. You know, the idea that aliens brought life to Earth is called directed panspermia. Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA, argued that a technologically advanced race had placed bacteria on other planets. And prominent evolutionist Richard Dawkins also admitted he believes it's possible aliens brought life to Earth. You know, the main evidence they use to support their claim is the similarity of the genetic code in all living things. But you see, they've already started with the assumption that aliens actually did bring life to Earth. When we examine the genetic code in the light of the Bible, we find that these similarities are really evidence of a common designer, the creator God of the Bible. You'll learn more about the origin of life on earth when you visit our faith-defending website. Find out how we know the Bible is true at answersingenesis.org. Hey, this is Tim with Personal Defense Outfitter, your local family-friendly firearms dealer and instructor. I want to let you know about an upcoming firearms course we will be conducting on June 21st. The Fundamentals of Defensive Handgun is the perfect all-day course for anyone serious about becoming more efficient with a handgun for personal defense. Gain the confidence you need to protect you and your family. Contact us today at 610-2097 or sign up online at pdoutfitter.com. Christian Talk 660. Welcome back to Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bowling. Information regarding the resources referenced on today's program can be found at www.knowingthetruth.org. Now here to continue with today's program is Pastor Kevin Bowling. Hey, welcome back into the second half of the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast. We're talking about the subject of prayer today on the program, and specifically the Lord's Prayer. We're talking about a book that has been written to shed some light on the Lord's Prayer. Now, you may say, well, there's quite a few books that have been written that shed some light on the Lord's Prayer. I understand that. I have quite a few of them in my library, as a matter of fact. What is unique about this particular book is it comes from the perspective of someone who is taught apologetics. And so he's taking more of a, what does the Lord's Prayer have to say about Christian worldview? What does the Lord's Prayer have to say about apologetics? And by the way, he's got a great little summary statement about apologetics in the book. Apologetics is the defending and the commending of the Christian faith. I think that both of those two things are vitally important. And the idea that we're looking at in this book, as we're delving down into some of the content of it, is kind of summed up in one of the statements, again, a quote that is given in the book. It says, of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. That's not a quote from the author, but he quotes from somebody else in the book that says that, or somebody else that made that statement. It's in having new eyes. In other words, You know, we're looking at the same words that we've looked at many other times, only we're looking at it from a different perspective and gaining new insights in it from that perspective. That's what we're doing in our discussion here today as we're going through the aspects of this book. We talked about, you know, why pray and how difficult prayer is and so forth. There's a great quote there from Robert Murray McShane, who once said this. He said, you wish to humble a man? Ask him about his prayer life. Boy, isn't that true? You can just see the smile run from the face, you know, when you ask people about their prayer life. My own heart rises up and smites me when somebody says, what about your prayer life? You know, it's not something that we're typically proud of. Well, why? What are some of the hindrances to that? One we've already kind of identified in our discussion, one is we need to see God. We don't need so much more methodology. We don't need to just prod ourselves and talk about more discipline, you know, pull yourself up by the bootstraps approach and, you know, get in there and give it your best try, you know, that type of thing. We need to have a greater vision of God Himself. And as we get the vision of God, like those that were up on the Mount of Transfiguration with Christ, we ourselves then will be transformed by the renewing of our mind. We'll have a different insight, a greater insight into who this God is, and that will lead us to prayer ultimately. Well, just before the break, I said that there were a couple other hindrances that we need to talk about. One of them is the subject of secularism and we can't go into a big discussion as to You know what secularism is but we can just briefly talk about that. I'll let the author do that The author is again William Edgar Dr. Edgar talk a little bit about that hindrance and then we'll talk about the second one as well that you mentioned here in your book sure in many Western countries particularly One can measure a decline not only in attendance at church and so forth, but also a decline in using the Christian world and life view, applying it to every sphere of society, every sphere of life. Some sociologists call this the privatization of religion. It's okay to have a religion, just keep it to yourself and let me have mine. And you know, you don't disturb one another. You don't impose the language. So there are many reasons for this trend. As you say, we don't have time to get into it, but that's clearly evident in various countries in Europe. We get to Europe quite a lot. I was raised in France myself, and I have firsthand experience there. And I think in different ways, it's also happening in America. We have a better church attendance record than those countries. But when you scratch a little or drill down a little, you'll find that people in functional ways don't apply the gospel to every area of life. And sometimes they don't know much about the gospel, even though they will tick off the rubric that says, I'm a Christian or I believe in God or I believe in the Ten Commandments. The famous Gallup polls show people who believe in God, overwhelming majority of Americans. But then when you ask who he is, for many, he's a kind of a kindly grandfather in the sky. Or they'll say, oh, my life is ordered by the Ten Commandments. And then you ask him to name two. And many people, believe it or not, can't name two of the Ten Commandments or they name the wrong thing. You know, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind. And that's not one of the Ten Commandments. So, secularization is a decline, an evacuation of religion. It's also the privatization of the Christian faith. Now, it's not uniform across the planet. In the Southern Hemisphere, the Church is growing in leaps and bounds, so you can't just have one theory that measures everything, but it is certainly characteristic of And this just doesn't help our prayer life at all. You put in the book again, it says, simply put, secularization means the functional absence of God in our lives. One legacy from the Enlightenment, though not the only one, is to believe that we only need our unaided reason to function in life. If there is a God, he is in the gaps. Secularization means to think and to live. as though he were not really a significant factor, either intellectually or in practice. I think that's absolutely right. And we see that there is a compartmentalized religion, and then God, and specifically God in the subject of prayer that we're talking about today, he becomes some sort of a cosmic vending machine. He becomes, you know, you rub the lamp and the genie pops out and grants your three wishes or something. And unfortunately, I'm talking about people that profess to be Christians with that type of view. And that is just a horrible way to interpret the scriptures at all, but certainly as we're looking at the prayer that has been given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ that he gave to his disciples. In your book, then, well, the second one that you talk about, I should mention that, it's a second trend, and people speak about this all the time, but I think that it's not going to stand up in court. And the second trend is that we're simple busyness, that we're too busy to give ourselves the prayer. Why don't you expound that a little bit, and then we can go on to looking at some of the points that you make about this prayer. Sure, well, you know, I think we've all experienced this in one form or another. Emails, so-called social media, texting, and all those things, which can be good in themselves, tend to be invasive and to roll over like a steamroller. So actually, studies show that people who use the social media too much are actually not very good at social interaction. There's a correlation between overuse of social media and loneliness. You think, how does this happen? Well, it's because your social life is on a screen rather than in front of a real person. So this kind of busyness requires that we hit it front on and help to calm the monster down. So little things like when I get up in the morning, I deliberately do not look at my email until I've done a whole bunch of other things. And then when I look at it, every now and then there's the person who says, didn't you get my email? But you know, I didn't because I was doing other things. And certainly prayer should be a greater priority than those forms of communication. And I have a cell phone. I have all of this. I don't use Facebook particularly. My daughter put us on it because she thought we should, but I hardly ever look at it. I just think you can get drowned in that and it'll quench your prayer life for sure. You made mention of the fact about the social awkwardness or that it takes away from the ability to actually function socially because of the social media that we have and so forth. I actually had an experience where I was leaving the studio. There was a guest in the studio. And we were walking to the front door and somebody came through the front door of the studio and the person said to me, well, I'm actually this person's friend. They were referring to on Facebook, but they don't know it that we've never actually met. And so he went up and he introduced himself to his friend. And I thought it was the most bizarre thing I had seen in my life, where you have to go up and tell somebody that you're actually their friend. So I completely understand what you're talking about. I use them all as well, and of course, especially with the radio broadcast and so forth. but I am very cautious about, you know, I look at them with skepticism and with suspicion and I'm very cautious about what they can do to our life in general and even more specifically today as we're talking about to the prayer life. Let's talk about a couple of the chapters in your book. Let me mention them, and if you would just give us a little bit of a sense of what people will find there in that chapter. Chapter 2, you speak about the setting for the Lord's Prayer. Speak just briefly about that subject. Sure. Well, as I said, the Lord's Prayer occurs twice in slightly different forms. The first we've talked about briefly in Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount, and the second is in Luke 11. which is an interesting setting, because it's the Lord's prayer given to the disciples, provoked by his modeling prayer, the Lord modeling prayer. And when he finished, then the disciples said, teach us to pray, because they saw this model. And Jesus was the greatest prayer warrior ever. And apparently John's disciples had taught them how to pray. So they felt, well, we need to know, too. So Jesus gives the Lord's Prayer. And so the setting, though different, produces the same basic prayer. But the difference is instructive. Surely Jesus taught the Lord's Prayer several times in his ministry. The first one is in Matthew, where he's telling people to pray honestly, often authentically, before the audience of one, and not like the Pharisees who heap up empty phrases. The second one is Jesus has been praying, and the disciples, they want to learn how to do this. We've all had models in our lives. Maybe the person who led me to Christ was my greatest model, and I felt like I wanted to do some things like him. Imagine having Jesus, your model, and observing him in prayer. He could withdraw for a whole night and pray, or he could go away, or he could pray, you know, sincerely, how thankful he was that It's not the wise and the educated we're getting the gospel, but the humble, the simple, the children. And so observing all this provokes the question, I want to know how to pray. And that question gets the answer. Here's a model for you, the Lord's Prayer. Yeah, we get the opportunity graciously revealed to us by the Lord in the scriptures, like John 17 and other places where we actually get to listen in. on that, the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, you hear of these meetings of great men up on the face of the earth and leaders of nations and so forth, and people say, oh, to be a fly on the wall there and hear that conversation. Well, we get to listen in between the second person of the Trinity, the incarnate Son of God on the face of the earth, speaking to the first person of the Trinity in John 17. You're not going to find any sort of eavesdropping that supersedes that one there in John 17. In the third chapter, you talk about prayer and the coming kingdom. What does prayer have to do with the coming kingdom? Yeah, well, there's a lot of discussion about whether or not there is a central theme in the Lord's Prayer. I think probably there is, though I wouldn't say it's a hugely important subject, because there are many themes wrapped together. But The one that's most convincing to me is it's a prayer for the kingdom to come. That was Jesus' main message. He began with it. It's woven throughout the New Testament. It seems to be one of the central ways in which the gospel is explained as a coming kingdom with a king. We're not used to thinking about kings so much today, except through fairy stories and so forth, because we're living in democracies. The concept of the kingdom was born in the Old Testament and developed, and David became this great king, and he was a foreshadow of Christ, the king of kings. And so in the prayer, if there's a central theme, I believe it would be the coming kingdom. Everything can be seen to rotate, to revolve around that, like a central pivot and spokes going out. And so, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. It's the opening request after the statement of worship, and it sets the tone for the rest of the prayer. So I think it is an intriguing and very credible connection. The center of the prayer is the coming kingdom. in the fourth chapter, then you talk about that introductory statement. I always took the introductory statement just to be our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. I take hallowed be thy name as being the first request. I've got to ask you if you do the same here in the book. Before I say that, before you answer that, let me just mention here something that I've noted. It's all personal pronouns. Well, the plural pronouns, I should say. Our Father. So right away, one of the things that we learn from this is that we are not to be going to the throne of grace. We can, but in the pattern prayer he gives to us, we're to go with a community mindset. We're to go praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ. And then that glorious statement, Father who art in heaven, is such a great balancing statement about, we see the nearness and dearness of God in the first part of it, our Father, but we also see the might and the majesty of God who art in heaven. That phrase alone, I think about very often, and it just sets my tone, or sets the tone, as I come before God in prayer. Your thoughts on that opening statement? Well, I'd be hard to top the way you put it. It's that was beautifully put. Yes, I do think it's a petition. And yes, it is a plural. Therefore, prayer, while it's absolutely appropriate to engage it privately, is very appropriate in a group. Plus, when we pray to God, he's not my God only. He's not my private God that I can put in my pocket. He's the God of the whole Church, He's the God of the universe, and so I'm acknowledging that I'm a part of a worldwide fellowship of privileged people who get to call God both Father and Lord, as you well put it. He is our Father, we are adopted into His family. I don't think Christians think about adoption enough. That's one aspect of the gospel. It's not the only one, but it's a very important one. We were orphans, and God saw us, and he purchased us and brought us into his family, so he really is our father. He's not any less a father than if we had been biological children, which is a silly idea. Then, Hallowood, because he's to be worshipped, he's to be set apart, he's to be blessed, mighty God. He's a consuming fire. So that is another, I think, remedy for our tendency too often to be friendly with God in a wrong sort of way. You know, there's a proper friendship with God, but there's also reverence for God. We're coming to the creator of the universe. We're coming to the one who orders all things. And We ought to have far more respect for him than we do for our earthly leaders, but too often we're familiar in a kind of not helpful way. So yeah, that's a great way to open the prayer, and it right away puts us into a transforming vision. Yeah, I love what you're talking about there with about guarding us against too familiar way of approaching God. You know, you hear some ways that the Lord is spoken about and you just cringe where people speak about him. He's not, I try to remind people, he's not your BFF. He's not your best friend forever. He's not, you know, we shouldn't be thinking about him or certainly addressing him in these types of colloquial or vulgar terms that are used today. We've got to understand that nearness and dearness that you talked about, and I love the emphasis upon adoption. The Puritans put a great emphasis upon adoption, and unfortunate we've lost that in much of our modern theology today. But the idea that He is our Father, that's true, but the two phrases taken together guard us against that unholy familiarity with God in the beginning, and the dread of God at the end that we would never approach Him if we only thought of Him in those terms apart from our Father. So the two terms must be taken together in order to give us a proper understanding of who it is that we're approaching, and yet boldness, as it says in Hebrews, to approach Him because we're in Christ and on the foundation of the person and work of our wonderful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So we're not approaching Him alone. We're not approaching Him upon our own merit or our own standing before Him. We are always approaching Him in Christ, in Christ's name. I wish we had time to go through all of the points here, but I've got to, let me jump down to some of the more if I could say this this way, the more difficult ones that people have had implementing. And I would say probably the one, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, would be the most difficult one that people struggle with in that prayer, the most difficult petition. So if we're able to do that without the context of the other ones there, if you would just give us a little bit of insight then in looking into that petition, the rest of it, people are going to have to buy the book. Sure. Well, you're right. I think this is the most difficult one, partly because it evokes the whole problem of evil and God's relationship to it. And then also because it's so close to home. We suffer, we are tempted, we are tried. So as a thinker in this issue for all my life, I've come to a couple of conclusions. First of all, evil is on every page of the scripture described as that which is against God, against his character. Or put it better, God is against evil. So, however you resolve the problem of his sovereignty, you should never do it by making him author of sin. He ordains everything that comes to pass, so he is in control of all things. And somehow that's true, as well as his not being the author or accountable for sin. So having said that, when we pray, lead us not into temptation, we're saying, God, you're sovereign over all things. You're sovereign over evil as well as good. You know my strengths. You know my weaknesses. Do not put me to the test. The word temptation and trial is the same one in Greek. So we're saying, don't put us into a situation where I won't be able to handle it. Now, he would never do that, but it's appropriate to pray it anyway. You know, Paul talks about that in first Corinthians. He says there's no trial that you're experiencing that isn't common to men. But with every trial, God will give you a way out. But that's not enough to just know that you got to you got to pray it. You've got to be delivered from evil. That includes Satan. In fact, some translations say, the evil one, which is perfectly legitimate. And the ultimate evil for us is death. And the good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ has put an end to death for believers by his own death. And so for us, death is no longer a terrifying finality. It's a passage to life. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, is saying to the Lord, put me in that in that place. And then I will give you all the glory, the kingdom and the power. So those are just a few thoughts. You could say so much more about this. Amen. Well, well put. I wish we had more time to discuss all of the different aspects of the Lord's Prayer with you and what you've written about it. But as I mentioned, people can just go out and get a copy of the book. I hope that they could hear in our discussion here today the type of insight and depth that they're going to get as you take this unique look at the Lord's Prayer. I thought it was simply fascinating. Dr. Edgar, thank you so much for writing this book. I pray that the Lord would mightily bless it. Thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to visit with us today. It's something we really appreciate. Thanks. Thanks for having me, brother. Okay. That was Dr. William Edgar. We were talking about his book called A Transforming Vision, The Lord's Prayer as a Lens for Life. You can get it out at Christian Focus Publication. They have it out there. I see on Christian Focus it's in pounds, and so it says $8.99 is the cost of it out there in pounds. I looked, I got an email message and the email says that it is currently on sale right now at Westminster Bookstore. So the Westminster Bookstore and I think it's wtsbooks.com is their website. And I see it out there for $9. So it's $9. The Amazon price is $13.49. But you can get a single copy of the book out at Westminster Bookstore, wtsbooks.com. You can get it out there for nine bucks. And if you buy five or more, I get folks who like to buy multiple copies for people at church or for giveaways, gifts and so forth. If you buy five or more copies, you get it for just five dollars each. So it's a savings of up to 67% off of the cover price of the book. So you can't beat that. Again, it's called, A Transforming Vision. The Lord's Prayer as a Lens for Life. Looking at all of life through the Lord's Prayer. I think it's a great book. I think it's, from what I've read of it thus far, and in talking with Dr. Edgar on the program here today, we need to pray, right? I mean, this is what the Christian life is all about. Prayer is to the Christian is a breathing is to a human being we've got to be praying and praying Appropriately praying biblically praying in the way that the Lord Jesus Christ has told us So we remember this and all these things Jesus said He said you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. I You're listening to Knowing the Truth. To keep this ministry strong and coming your way, you can make a financial gift at knowingthetruth.org by clicking on the Donate button. You've been listening to Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bowling. Knowing the Truth is the outreach ministry of the Mountain Bridge Bible Fellowship, located on Highway 25 in Traveler's Rest. For more information about the church and radio ministry, visit us on the web at knowingthetruth.org. The opinions expressed on today's program are those of the announcers, their guests, and callers, and do not necessarily represent those of the staff and management of his radio network, the Radio Training Network, or Clear Channel Communications. changing teaching and talk Christian Talk 660 WLFJ Greenville Spartanburg Anderson on AM 660 and now also an FM 92.9