Thursday, April 6th | The Soul-Winner's Prize

Welcome back, everyone. Today is Thursday, April the 6th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. And you're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadon Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

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That's right. Speaking of privilege, would you like to read the rest of the day? Oh, it would be my privilege. Let's see. Where are we at here? Colossians 1.18, and he is the head of the body of the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, and that in all things he may have the preeminence.

Yes. Christ is the head of the church, and we use that as a picture of, you know, what a marriage relationship should look like. The husband is the head of the wife.

We use that kind of language, because the Bible uses that kind of language. But sometimes I think we map marriage and human shortcomings onto the relationship between Christ and the church, in the sense like, you know, the church is doing its own thing, or Christ is like this list of do's and don'ts, like, hey, make sure you do this, because he's the authority. When in reality, the Bible talks about Christ serving the church. That's the model of leadership. That's the model that we as husbands need to have for our wives, is servant leadership. Yes, we are the one driving the bus, but we do that as an act of service.

That's right. And, you know, it talks about Christ being the head of the church so that in all things he may have preeminence. God is the one who is giving him that authority. He's the one who's giving him control over all things.

Yeah, I mean, his headship is integral to his identity. You know, we used to sing a song at Clearview called O Praise the Name. It was Anastasis. It's easy to take that into a realm of resurrection, because, I mean, of course, you know, it's anastasis, that's what it is, it's resurrection. But we always would read this verse, Colossians 1, I think it was like 15 through 20.

It was like one of our heavier reading in that big interlude, that bridge, I would always read this verse, because that's the reason that we praise. Yes, it is because he rose from the grave. Yes, it's because he took on the cross. But it's also just who he is. He's the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning.

He was always there. The firstborn from the dead, that's that resurrection, and in all things that he may have the preeminence. So our response to these truths, and it went on, we read all the way to verse 20, but that was always a good reminder, I think, for the congregation during that time of worship, is that we praise him for what he's done, but we also praise him for who he is, and he is the head.

And that headship, like I said, is integral to his identity in relationship, like you were saying, with his church. So I had a question come in. Also, by the way, you guys are really knocking it out of the park with these questions, because we are having a good time. I'm loving answering your questions. We started answering the questions a little bit up top in the episode rather than at the end, and I think it's really, really, I'm having a lot of fun with it.

This one I'm a little disappointed because I don't think I can weigh in as much. It comes in from Marcus T. I'm not disappointed in you, Marcus. I just, I don't know, I just feel kind of left out. I'm introducing my young daughter to VeggieTales for the first time. Oh, Marcus, good choice. A man of culture.

Any episodes that you'd recommend. Well, Marcus, my boy, I'll tell you, I didn't watch VeggieTales. I got saved when I was 15, learned about VeggieTales like two years later. Apparently, Christians grew up on this stuff. It is what Christian kids love.

John may not be able to help you, Marcus, but guess what? I'm your boy. David, you grew up on VeggieTales too, didn't you? I got you.

Oh my goodness. Yeah, VeggieTales was a... Where it's at. Yeah, honestly, VeggieTales is where it's at. Love some VeggieTales. So what episodes or what, I guess, songs or what VeggieTales content would you recommend? Okay, let me turn you onto this, Marcus. All right, so some essential favorites. You got to start with God Is Bigger Than the Boogeyman.

That whole setup, right? We got the Grapes of Wrath. We got that sequence where Junior Asparagus gets afraid because of frankencellery. Grapes of Wrath, like John Steinbeck? Grapes of Wrath? No, no, these are actual grapes that are ill-tempered.

Okay. So we've got the whole sequence where Junior Asparagus is afraid of frankencellery, the movie that he sees, which is exactly what it sounds like, a celery that is Frankenstein. We've got any of the Larry Boy ones.

Rumor Weed, The Big Fib. We've got... Canyon of the Lion's Den is a great one. What's the one with the giant pickle? Oh yeah, the Barney, the Barney.

Oh, I love the Barney. The music is fantastic. Also, there are movies after, like The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. Yes, there are feature-length movies.

Feature films of Christian vegetables. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. I missed it. I missed it.

I did forget about that. You're right, Dave. I was growing up on Blue's Clues and Little Bear.

Which are great shows. There's nothing wrong with that. I didn't get saved until I was a teenager. You got to watch the old school Veggie Tales. And then Act Two in the Veggie Tales is always a biblical story.

So Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Daniel of the Lion's Den, Jonah, whatever, as told by vegetables. Wow. Yeah. I mean, just imagine Saturday morning getting up, popping in a VCR, white screen comes up, and then the first thing you hear is bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. It's you who likes to talk to tomatoes. Oh my gosh. The squash can make you smile. Well, Marcus, I think you and your daughter are going to have a great time.

And from what I can tell from these two guys, she's going to have a lot of joy in her life. You can't go wrong with the old school Veggie Tales. I love it.

Let us know which one you like, Marcus. And those of you who are watching, if you're a Veggie Tales fan, write in and tell us what your favorite Veggie Tales song or episode is. We'd love to hear it. We're going to continue our discussion today on the resurrection of Jesus as we go further into Passion Week. We're getting closer and closer to Easter. And we're going to talk about the resurrection, how it impacts us today, with today being, you know, people will refer to today as Maundy Thursday.

We're going to talk about that a little bit. We're going to get Dr. Sean in just a second. But if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, text us at 252-582-5028. Or visit us online at cleerviewtodayshow.com.

We'll be back after this. Well, good morning, afternoon, evening, Clearview Today listeners. My name is John. And I'm David.

And we just want to take a quick second and let you know about another way that you can keep in touch with Dr. Sean's work. And that is his weekly podcast series, Sermons by Abaddon Shaw, Ph.D. As a lot of you may know, or maybe some of you don't know. If you don't know, you do now. And if you don't know, then maybe just hop off the podcast. David, I'm just playing. Hop off the podcast.

I'm just playing. Keep listening. Dr. Shaw is actually the lead pastor of Clearview Church in North Carolina. Every single weekend, he preaches expository messages that challenge and inspire us to live God-honoring lives. Well, one of the four core values of Clearview Church is that we're a Bible believing church. So every sermon is coming directly from scripture, which is great because that guarantees that there are timeless truths that are constantly applicable to our lives. This is a great resource because whether you're driving, whether you're cleaning the house, whether you're working out, you can always benefit from hearing the Word of God spoken into your life. And God's Word is always going to do something new for you every time you hear it. Sometimes it's conviction and sometimes it's encouragement.

But know that every time you listen to God's Word, you're inviting the Holy Spirit to move and work in your life. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Or if you have any questions for Dr. Shaw or suggestions for future episodes, send us a text, 252-582-5028. That's right. If today is your first day tuning into the show, we want to welcome you and let you know who's talking to you today. Dr. Abbadon Shaw is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show.

You can find all of his work online at his website. That's AbbadonShaw.com. That's right. On today's episode, Dr. Shaw, we're going to talk about the Christian life in just a minute. But we mentioned this at the start of the episode, and I'd like for you to explain it to our listeners and viewers. Some people call today in the Passion Week, Maundy Thursday. What does the word Maundy mean? Where do we get that from? What does that mean?

Why is today Maundy Thursday? Have you heard that? No, I've never heard that. In fact, you said it in the intro.

You really? I've heard people say that, and I have no idea. It's like M-A-U-N-D-Y. We ran a little bit long on the intro, because I'm not going to lie, we were talking about VeggieTales. It was getting kind of crazy. But I remember hearing you say Maundy Thursday, and I was going to engage and be like, what the heck is Maundy?

But I was like, you know what, I trust he knows what... So when you think about it, Maundy means commandment. So this is the time when Jesus gave a new commandment I give you.

This took place on Thursday. And so that's how that idea came in Passion Week. This is that meal in the upper room. He washes the disciples' feet and all of that.

And then a new commandment I give you. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Because the Last Supper is on a Thursday night.

He goes to the garden. Good Friday happens, I guess, in the morning or in the noontime. So Thursday would be the day he's... I really thought you were going to be like, in the morning or in the noontime.

In the noontime. But yeah, if he's given the Last Supper on Thursday night... That makes perfect sense. That makes sense.

Maundy Thursday. Yeah, this is coming from John chapter 13. A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you. That you also love one another. So based on that, this became sort of an important part of the Church's tradition. Okay. So good thing to remember.

Yeah, absolutely. I didn't want to derail our conversation today. I said that on top, and I was like, you know, I don't actually know where that came from. I never even heard it. I heard it growing up, but I didn't... I mean, people just said it like everybody knows what it is.

I'm like, I don't know. I went to a Catholic school, and so we had that. Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday. So those things were kind of a common part of Catholic life.

Very cool. Well, we're talking about life today. We're talking about the Christian life, and what the goal of the Christian life is.

We talk a lot of times about what Christians should look like, how Christians should act, but what is the goal of Christian living? And even that phrase may make some people a little uncomfortable. Yeah, because we're talking about the resurrection, but it's more than just, hey guys, Jesus is alive.

Yeah, he is. But what does that mean for us? We have goals now. We have something that we're living for.

Yeah, right. We think it's to read the Bible more, to pray more, to love God more, to glorify God. And all those things sound good and very spiritual, but if you read the Bible carefully, now that Christ has died and risen, go. It's about going. Going where? Go tell others.

That's what the goal is. And so Jesus did that. When he came out of the grave and he appeared to his disciples, he said, go tell my brothers. Go tell the disciples that I will meet with them just the way I promised them this is happening.

And then of course, as he's ascending, go into all the world. Go. Don't just sit there and pray.

What do you want to talk about? Go. Go. I'm with you. And this is not just something that began in the New Testament. This has always been the way. This is not something that began after the resurrection of Jesus. This is something we find even in the Old Testament. And one place you find it very clearly listed out is in Daniel chapter 12. So I want to read that passage, then we can kind of walk through it together.

Absolutely. Daniel chapter 12, verse one. At that time, Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time, your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament. And those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. So in the end, who are the ones who are shining? Who are the ones who are, you know, just radiating? It's the ones who turn many to righteousness.

There's a very clear and active goal, because if you do this, then this will happen. That's right. Yeah. The soul winner is the one who is wise, the one who is shining, the one who gets it.

Right. So if you back up, let's walk through this passage, because this is maybe an unfamiliar passage to many. But I'm hoping that this Passion Week, this week leading up to the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus, will help you to keep things in perspective. So the passage is giving a prophecy and a promise to those who are wise and to those who turn many to righteousness. In fact, the Hebrew construction there really means that the wise and those who turn many to righteousness are one and the same. Okay.

Okay. So those who are wise and those who turn many to righteousness, kind of like expanding on who is a wise person. Like this action is what wise people do. That's right.

Wisdom is turning people to righteousness. Gotcha. Okay.

Isn't that great? Yeah. Yeah.

Simplify things, right? Well, yeah, because that's the thing is like, if I tell someone, be wise, they're like, okay, how? But I'm like, hey, this is... Make wise choices. Right. Right.

Yeah. Just make smart choices. But this is what wise people do. When you're wise, this is what happens.

This is the mark. A truly wise person is one who is a soul winner. That's right.

That's right. Wisdom is not that I have a lot of knowledge in my head. Of course, a lot of people with a lot of knowledge. Wisdom is not that I can parse the Hebrew or the Greek. Wisdom is not that I can explain to you difficult concepts in the Bible. Wisdom is when you see somebody who is going one way, which is away from God, which is a way of destruction, which is a way of sin, and you're helping them make a turn towards Christ.

I like that because a lot of times I feel like people will go to the Proverbs and they're like, this is where wisdom, which is 100% true, but they take it as... They kind of meet in the middle where they're like, okay, I'm just going to stay out of trouble. I'm just going to make wise decisions so that I don't go down the wrong path, which is like, yeah, that's great, but it has to go beyond that. It's not just about not getting in trouble.

The goal of Christianity is much more than just don't do bad stuff. One of my mentors, who I consider to be a very wise person, has given me some tremendous advice through the years and really saved me from a lot of bad decisions. But what always strikes me about him is that he is a sole winner. He loves lost people and he has been, his whole life, his ministry has been dedicated towards reaching the lost. Time and again, he'll tell me, he's like, man, now we're winning these many thousands of people or now these many thousands of people. And so Daniel was a sole winner. We often think, you know, Paul is a sole winner and Peter was a sole winner and of course Jesus. But did you know that Daniel was also a sole winner? So what do we know about Daniel? Daniel is a young Hebrew or Jewish boy, right? Young man. And he is taken into exile by King Nebuchadnezzar, right? He comes several times against Jerusalem.

And then in one of those times he takes the choicest of the cream of the crops. These are the MIT guys. Sorry if you didn't go to MIT and you consider yourself smart. Great. I'm sorry.

Don't want to insult you. But Daniel would be the MIT grad. Daniel is that Harvard top notch guy coming out and instantly he launches a business and it's like successful.

He invested angel round. He's the one that the other people who graduated with him are like, what about you? But if you come out of his institution, those are also, you're bound to do well. So this was who Daniel was, but unfortunately he's ripped away from Jerusalem, taken across the desert and across the rivers to Babylon. And imagine he probably lost his family. We don't know for sure, but more than likely he lost his family. Maybe his family is still alive, but he is taken away to the king's palace. And he's being raised there.

Raised there to be one of his choicest people to rule his Babylonian empire. And repeatedly what we know about Daniel is that he keeps standing for his faith. In spite of all the craziness that he's gone through, he's not like moping or grieving or passive aggressive or depressed or discouraged. He's always trying to share his faith from not eating the king's delicacies off his table, to not bowing before the statue, along with Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, to all of these things. He's always standing for the truth. And it's not just standing like, oh, this is my conviction. He's standing because he knows the people who are opposing him or challenging him.

And they need to know about the living true God. And I think it's telling that God protects him for that. And it keeps enabling him to do that. Like all these things that came against Daniel, you know, God protected him, not just because he believed, but like you said, he was doing those things so that he could win souls. But he was like that under the Babylonians. But when the Babylonians were overtaken by the Medo-Persian empire under Cyrus, Daniel was like, oh, Daniel did not stop. He continued to be strong in his faith, in his life. He was told that Darius made that decree kind of foolishly, that everybody should pray to me or to our gods, whatever, whatever. And Daniel knew what was happening. And he went home, as his custom was, opened the windows towards Jerusalem and he prayed.

Now, that's not just like a prayer, like a ritualistic, you know, this is what Jewish people should do. No, what he was saying is, this is the truth and nothing and no one will make me compromise. It's not just, let me continue what I was doing. It's, I'm going to show you.

I'm going to make this point intentionally. You're about to be witnessed. It was a display.

It was active. It was an outpouring of his belief. And each time these kinds of things happen, you know, they would get in trouble, you know, like there was an ultimatum on them, like, okay, you don't have to eat it, but at the end of the month, you're going to look pale and gangly and we're going to have to kill you. Or you're going to be thrown into the fiery furnace, or you're going to be thrown into the lion's den, like he was under Darius. And each time when they came out unscathed or Daniel came out victorious, it was an opportunity for God to use the king to send out a decree and saying, the God of these people is the real God.

Now, keep in mind, we don't find much evidence of this in secular literature, but we can imagine why. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

This isn't a story that would see a lot of airtime, I guess, outside of the biblical context. Right. But in the Bible definitely is mentioned that, you know, Darius sent out a decree saying, if anybody prays into anybody else other than the God of Daniel, you know, you will be thrown into lion's den, sort of. Yeah.

Yeah. And we tend to think of that like, well, Daniel wasn't really a soul winner because he wasn't out there preaching to the masses. I just know these stories, but look with the king because of Daniel's faithfulness. The king had massive reach.

Right. And I believe through that, many people heard the gospel somehow. Of course, the Bible doesn't go in detail, but that's how you know.

They heard the truth because I'm sure they must have investigated. So what faith is this? This is the Jewish faith that the king has just decreed. All right, well then we're going to have to learn about this. All right, let's learn it. Let's bring in the scribes.

Are there any rabbis, they didn't have rabbis at that time yet, but are there any teachers of these people who can teach us about their faith? Oh, yes, we do. Here it is. What is your faith about?

Well, our faith is about, the promise God made to our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that through you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Okay. What does that mean? It means that someone is coming through our line who will not be an ordinary human. He will be fully God, become fully man. And he is going to come to the line of Judah.

He will come to this tribe that is remaining, that you happen to bring here into your land. Okay. All right. Well, what do we do next? Well, you have to believe that he's the only way.

And then you will have forgiveness from God and you will have hope everlasting. Okay. We will do that. That's right. That's what we want. So you see how the gospel must have propagated. See, we don't see that.

We don't spend time thinking about the ramification, but that's what happened. Right. Right. They're more than cute little bedtime stories that should remind us to have faith in God. Right, God closed the mouth of the lions and everything was good and everybody lived happily ever after.

So see, if you just trust God, you'll be okay. No, it's much more than that, right? Yeah.

Oh yeah. There's a prize. That's what the whole thing is. It's like, hey, listen, you do this. You are active and remembering how God has helped you. You go active and you go out there and you be wise and you win souls. There's a prize waiting for you. That's right. There's a message or maybe even a book there somewhere.

Life after the Lion's Den. Ooh, Ryan. Don't say it on the radio where people can... Forget you heard that, everyone. I said it first. Let me go ahead and write that down.

Contact the Copyright Office. Yeah. I mean, seriously, we think about a one and done story, like the Lion's Den, Daniel made it out, the King decrees, yay, wonderful. And then you're on to the next chapter in the storybook. But that was a launching point for the gospel in Daniel's life and through his impact, through the King's decree. Absolutely. And now if you tie this in for time's sake, I want to go to the book of Revelation.

Okay. Revelation chapter 20, verse 12. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works by the things which were written in the books. And anyone not found written in the book of life was cast to the lake of fire.

Now, Revelation 3 5 earlier said, he who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments. And I will not blot out his name from the book of life, but I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. So this is Jesus confessing the name of people in the book of life before the father and his angels.

So who are these people? They're the people who got saved, saved since the beginning of time by different people who share the gospel with them. And so also here, what we're seeing is Daniel sharing the gospel and many got saved in that Babylonian or Medo-Persian empire. And when the books will be opened one day, those people are coming to life because of Daniel. Talk about wisdom.

Yeah. And I mean, talk about a prize. Like we have somehow tricked ourselves into thinking that not going to hell is the prize. As like, Lord, in my humility, I just submit all to you and I'm a worm. And as long as I'm just here and I'm passively just floating in your presence somewhere, that's all I need. When he says, I've got so much more stored for you. I've got so much in store for you.

And you act like you don't want it. Should we tell the posture of God, I want to be excellent for you. I want to do great things for you. I don't want to just exist for you.

Yeah. Like imagine if you go to your job and like, you're really trying to climb this ladder, this corporate ladder. You're just trying to be successful, make an impact at your job. But you're like, I'm just here. I'm just floating around in whatever you tell me to do.

I'll do it because I'm obedient. Like you're not an asset at that point. You're just, you're there. Yeah. Yeah.

And, and what is interesting here is I want us to just to clarify, maybe somebody may have misheard it. This does not mean that we will become like stars in the, in the sky. Like, like, you know, Lion King, you know, what are those stars? I remember all those Kings of old. What the host of heaven are the angels.

And they are sometimes referred to as stars. What Daniel is really saying here is this, those who are soul winners will at the resurrection shine with the same glory, like the angels. I want to be a soul winner. The fact that we know about the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus. I want to shine one day.

That's right. If you guys enjoyed today, this topic, you have suggestions for future topics. Let us know by sending us a text to 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. And while you're there, you can click that donate button and partner with us financially. We're grateful to all of you who have contributed and continue to contribute as we seek to impact as many people as possible with the hope of the gospel.

Amen. We had a fun question today. Dr. Sean Marcus T says, I'm introducing my young daughter to VeggieTales for the first time.

Are there any episodes you would recommend? Oh my goodness. Remember the Jonah one?

I didn't watch, I didn't grow up with VeggieTales. I'm lacking. This is his. I love the Jonah one. The Jonah one is pretty cool.

Yep. That's the one you need to watch. The Jonah one is great. What happened in the Jonah one? I mean, it's the story of Jonah, but it's just, it's the veggie, the veggies are telling it and it's the, isn't the caterpillar Jonah?

I think so. I think the caterpillar is the one who plays Jonah. I don't know why there's a caterpillar in VeggieTales.

They brought him in for some reason. Yeah. And it's kind of funny because, you know, how we talked about how Nineveh was wicked and how the people of Nineveh were just evil. And in the VeggieTales, they're evil because they slap each other with a fish. Oh no.

But think about it. Remember, we talked about Dagon, the fish, all that, and how there was a bass relief on the, on the gates of Nineveh. Well, that's why they did the whole slapping of the fish. Yeah. There's some spiritual symbolism in VeggieTales for it.

They're deep. I mean, like you watch them as an adult. You're like, okay. But as a kid, it's just vegetables slapping each other in the face with a fish. Who doesn't love that?

Yeah. Anyway, Marcus, let us know what you think. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.