Hi, I'm Dr. Abidhan Shah, Lead Pastor at ClearVee Church and host of the ClearVee Today Show. If you're looking for solid biblical truth in a world full of noise, I want to introduce you to our friends at the Truth Network, your home for faithful Christ-centered broadcasting 24-7. From powerful preaching and insightful biblical teaching to engaging talk shows tackling real world issues, the Truth Network brings you programming that strengthens your faith and equips you to stand firm in God's Word. Wherever you are, whatever you're facing, the Truth Network is here to encourage you and challenge you with bold biblical truth. You can listen live or stream on demand at truthnetwork.com.
Or for even more convenience, you can always download the Truth Network radio app for free from the App Store or on Google Play. You know who it is. I'm in at you today.
It's Dr. Abidhan Shah. Welcome, my friend, welcome, welcome back to the States. How are you? Did you write that ahead of time?
No. That was pretty good. I was trying to think it through. I'm going to tell you, it's good to be back and sitting here with you guys. It was fun traveling, fun getting away with Nicole and having a good time learning.
I was at a conference, but somewhere about the eighth, ninth, tenth day. I was like, it's time to go home. It's time to go home. It's time.
There's no place like home. The Clear Read Today show was calling your name. It definitely was. There was definitely a lot of check-ins. We got one from Randy T. from North Carolina.
I went ahead and checked. It is not Randy. Not Randy. Man, I was really hoping. It's not Randy Travis. I actually looked up Randy Travis was born in North Carolina.
I said, it couldn't be. It's not him. But he did write in and say, hey, y'all just wanted to say how excited I am to have Dr. Shah back on the show.
The insight, the energy, the way that he breaks things down, I've really missed it. John and Ryan have done a great job, but we're ready to get Dr. Shah back on the mic. Toodles, Randy T. Did he write Toodles? No, I just put in Toodles. He said thanks for everything.
Toodles to you, Randy. We're glad to have Dr. Shah back on the mic. Lots and lots of people were excited to hear about your trip. They were excited to hear what all you were up to in Scotland and Wales and the UK, but more than anything else, they wanted you back home on the Clear Read Today show. Thank you.
Thank you. In the weeks and the months ahead, you're going to hear more about some of the sites we went to. They are off the beaten path because we went to graveyards. For example, we went by J.C. Reilly's graveyard or grave site. That's not something that is included in a tour, a typical tour, but J.C. Reilly was an amazing preacher, man of God, the first bishop of this area, Liverpool, and we know Liverpool or say the Beatles or the soccer team, but this was also a very important place because J.C. Reilly was a bishop there, and he wrote among many of the books, one book that has impacted many lives is the book simply titled Holiness, and maybe we'll discuss that in one of our book clubs, but that's an amazing book, one of my favorites.
Holiness. Has it been helping you in your Romans series so far? Yes, but not like I'm reading it right now, but over the years I have read it, and you have to read it and then kind of stop and kind of walk away because there's so much in it, and then come back and go to the next chapter and then kind of leave it and then come back to it. It's deep for a little bit. It's a deep read. Yeah, it's not deep in the sense of a deep concept, but deep in the sense of what he's teaching you about a walk with God that is real, consistent, holy, dependent upon Christ, I mean all that, and so anyways. So some of these are things that are not going to be on anybody's tour. Like nobody says, hey, we're going to take you on a tour of England, and we will stop by J.C. Reilly's grave.
You had to like research and know that that was there and go to the point. Oh yeah, you cannot just show up in Liverpool and say, where is J.C. Reilly buried? It doesn't work like that. Would they know who you're talking about?
No. Where Britain is right now, England or Scotland and Wales, I would say majority of the people are not believers. It's kind of sad because they have some of the most beautiful churches like the world.
They do. I was talking to a gentleman who was a Christian leader there, very prominent, if I mentioned the name everybody would know, and he said, yeah, Christianity is coming back, and there's kind of a revival of Christianity, but it's more kind of like a traditional kind of thing, so I was like, that doesn't make any sense. It's really not reviving if you're simply going back to medieval roots because that's what makes you more English or something. That's not Christianity. Just like a rediscovery of tradition. Probably. Okay, I'm glad.
Hopefully that's one step closer to Christianity than where they are right now. So anyways, not going to get off the subject that you have in mind, but just wanted to mention that. No, not at all.
Not at all. I thought that was really interesting, and I'm glad you had a good trip. You know, while you were gone, there was plans to do some shenanigans here in the States, and then on Monday, you came back Sunday, right? Yes.
So the following day, well, you came back Saturday night, and you preached Sunday. The following day on Monday, I didn't even want to talk about this on the show, but I thought it was so funny, and I thought it would have died down by now, but it's not. People are still outraged. You know who Katy Perry is. Yes. So her and five other, I don't even want to call them celebrities, because two of them, I think people have heard of. One of them is only famous because they're marrying Jeff Bezos. They blasted a bunch of women up into space, right? Like in a rocket ship.
Like in a rocket ship. Blue Origin, that's Jeff Bezos. Yeah, I heard about that.
We have a friend who did some work for them, and I talked to him about it, and he was like, yeah, it is what it is. So they launched these six women up into space. Three of them are fairly well known. The other three are actually qualified astronauts. So of course, no one's talking about them. Yeah. But one of them is Katy Perry. One of them was Gayle King, who I think is that NBC worker. Okay, yeah.
And the other one's famous is Lauren Sanchez, because she's marrying Jeff Bezos. Oh, okay. So this was supposed to be like the first, there's no pilot. The spacecraft was fully auto-automated. So it was the first all-female crew up in space, right?
So you think, oh man, it's like this historical event. The entire ordeal lasted 11 minutes. They were in space for four. Four minutes. That's it.
Which I mean, okay, cool. Wow. Here's my question.
That feels like enough time to turn. Why are we sending pop stars up into space? The project costs half a billion dollars. Half a billion dollars? And I can't buy eggs.
Wow. Probably because they're just that, pop stars. I can't buy.
Would we have generated the same amount of buzz had Katy Perry not been included in that lineup? No, not at all. I can't buy, I can't buy a three bedroom house for under half a million dollars. Right. But we've got money to send 80 people. So here's the fun thing. Here's the fun thing. People, she came back down, right? And they said, what was your experience about the whole thing? She said, I'm so connected to love right now. To what? To love. Love. L-O-V love.
L-O-V, yeah, to love. What does that even mean? Who knows?
This is holding space for queer media all over again, but we don't know what it means. Well, I would say Katy Perry needs to really go back to her roots. Oh yeah. You know, she grew up in a pastor's home from what I remember.
That's true. And hearing about her years ago. And her parents are sort of, they sort of defend her and not defend her like in the sense the things she does or the songs she sings, but they often talk about, you know, hey, we pray for our children and that's what we need to do. And so I don't know how they feel about all the stuff she has written and sang. It's pretty out there.
It's pretty out there. And I'm hoping maybe this may open her eyes to her, the mortality of her life, and also maybe how insignificant you are, because that's one of the things astronauts say. Right, yeah, say something like that. Yeah, not love. I'm connected to love.
I'm connected to love. So Lauren Sanchez, who was Jeff Bezos' fiancee, came down. They asked her, you know, they asked her to reflect on it. And she said, you know, it made me think about how on this earth, we're just all in this together. And everybody's like, what does that mean?
Huh? Pretty much everyone on TikTok is like, we don't get to go. Can you tell we're kind of mad at you? Can you tell we don't want y'all doing flips up in space and then preaching to us about love? We can't pay our bills. You could have used that half a billion to maybe help some people out.
Yeah, you could have done several different things with a half a billion. But people have been talking about this for a long time, but just how out of touch these celebrities are. Oh, they're like, they think, especially because a lot of them are very left leaning and they lean on this thing where it's like, they're the main character of this story.
She looks down on earth and says, we're all in this together. No, we're absolutely not. There's like billions of Americans saying, you know, we're kind of mad at you, right?
Yeah. Does that not register or not? This should be a wake up call for all these leftist celebrities that you, you, you are not authorities on life issues as you think, or we have made you think, especially over the past decade or so. We have really held up these celebrities as spokespeople on moral issues and ethics and politics.
You don't know, you don't get it. Now, if you have gone to school and studied and have degrees and then went into acting, okay, maybe you can speak out on it. But if not, you're pretending to be somebody else, which is, which is what they are. They're, they're actors and they're, they're pretenders. They're smart people. I don't, I doubt that. Many of them are godly people, Christian people. And when they speak, it's coming from a deeper well. But if not, this shows how surfacey you are.
Oh, he's, I feel like connected to love or we're all in this together. We're not with you. We're not with you. I think more than anything, can you imagine how relieved Rachel Ziegler is right now that the heat is off for her for just a few minutes? Yeah, thank goodness. Someone's not talking about my Snow White anymore. Imagine if Rachel Ziegler posted like, look how dumb Katy Perry is.
What if they'd taken her? Oh man. Oh man. I don't even want to touch that.
I wouldn't touch that with a third time. That's that now for the benefit of our listeners and viewers. That's the person from the Snow White movie. Yes.
Yes. Who was upset because she was upset because Snow White, they wanted Snow White to be played by a white woman. So she was, so she ended up getting it and then she was upset because everybody was kind of making fun of her. So instead of just being like, okay guys, I get it, like going with the joke, she was like, hey guys, like Snow White is a leader. Snow White is a feminist champion. This is the story of Snow White becoming the leader she always knew she was meant to be. And everyone was like, we don't want that movie. We didn't want Snow White in the first place, but we don't want that.
Whatever that is. And then so instead of that, she was like, she was like, you guys are dumb for not wanting that. You're dumb and you're racist and you're sexist. It has been a glorious flop at the box office.
Really? So now, women aren't looking too good these days. Like the women's advocacy if they like, it's just flop after flop after flop. And then they send this all female crew into space and everybody's angry.
Even the women are angry. I wonder if we just need to recover a biblical view of womanhood. Amen to that.
You just, you said exactly what it was in my mind is that's, that's hopefully a turning point for our country, for our culture, for the world to go back to. So what it is, and that, and that is not something that diminishes women. When we say biblical, it's not like, all right, so get the woman back in the kitchen or you know, three paces behind the man.
None of that. What it means is the true dignity and value of who God has designed us to be as a man, as a woman, and find joy and satisfaction in that and glorify God. That's right. And make an impact in this world, whether through your job, education, raising your children, whatever. But all this other feminist stuff that has come out, especially over the past few decades, has done nothing but left a lot of people disillusioned, frustrated, mad, angry, just, just empty, empty. Yeah, there's, you know, you've said this on the show before and I know you've said it from the pulpit and I think we can talk about it a little bit more after the break, but for men and for women, there's a freedom in submission. There's a freedom in obedience, especially when it's to the gospel. Yeah, to God. Yeah, absolutely. So maybe we can talk about that after the break. Yeah, so good.
Guys, don't go anywhere. We're going to take a quick break and be right back with more clear read today. Hi, I'm Dr. Abidan Shah, lead pastor at Clear View Church and host of the Clear View Today show. Every day we bring you bold biblical truth to help you navigate life with clarity and confidence. We tackle the tough questions, dive deep into God's word and bring a fresh perspective on faith, culture, and the world around us.
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That's right, Dr. Shah. Today's verse of the day is actually six verses coming to us from Matthew chapter 21, verses one through six. In honor of Palm Sunday that just happened last Sunday, it says, Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage at the mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her.
Loose them and bring them to Me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, The Lord has need of them. And immediately he will send them. So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. And I think it's so funny to imagine, like we know the triumphal entry is coming, right? But like the disciples who were like, okay, we're just going into the city. Jesus is saying, Go find someone's donkey and bring it here. And if they say anything, just tell them that the Lord has need of it. And they're like, okay, I guess I'm going. Like, you know what I mean? Like I've seen this dude walk on water. I've seen all the miracles, but this is kind of weird.
I guess we're just going to go ahead and do it. Right where they had to obey. And this is where obedience is so important in the Christian life because we think everything has to make sense. And I'm not saying ridiculous things like God just told me to stand in the middle of the traffic on I-85.
Nothing ridiculous like that, but something like this where it doesn't make sense. Why would God call me to do this? Why would God call me to step out in faith here? Again, not foolish things.
Not like we're going to sell our house and just move into a camper. No, that's not, you need to really pray over that. God has just called me to quit my job. To do what? I don't know. God has called us to just move the city and move from the city and go somewhere else.
Why? Because we feel like God's leading us there. We don't know why. Maybe sometimes those things can really be God talking to you. Sometimes it's just you being irrational. That's a great point. Oftentimes people will cite God said this when you have just the kind of flight of fancy or you run away with your emotions.
How do we tell? How do we know when this is an act of where we need to obey God even if it doesn't make sense versus this doesn't make sense and also it's not from God? Well, here's the thing. In this situation is Jesus himself who was talking to them. So also with us, of course, we have to walk by faith because we don't have Jesus standing before us and saying, go into that town and see where you'll find a donkey's colt tied up and then take it and somebody's going to stop you but you tell them the Lord has need of it and he'll say, okay.
We don't have that. We have to go by faith. But what we do have is the word of God.
That's right. So how do we know that it's God talking to us? It's when it's in his word. And so it becomes important to understand how to read God's word and how to interpret God's word and how to not take it out of context. Right.
You know, those kind of things become important. Studying the word of God and praying, not one or the other, but together are very important in understanding the will of God. Great point.
Great point. Because I think a lot of people try to get by with just, they're like, I don't read the word like I should, but I pray. Oh, I pray all the time. Or it's the opposite where it's like, you know, I read and I study, but you know, I don't pray as much as I should.
I like how you say they do have to go together. I think about it like, I think maybe it's just the season of life that I'm in where it's like, you think about being God's children, right? Because like I've got a four year old and a two year old and another one on the way.
And both of my kids are right now where they will pretty much do whatever without asking. Like I'll be like, hey, Gavin, I need you to pick that up and go put it in there at a clothes hamper. Okay. And I'll be like, hey, Holden, I want you to go see mommy and let's get a diaper change. Okay. And then just go. Sometimes they don't listen, but you know what I'm saying?
There's, there's never any, why am I doing that? Yeah. So like, did you notice in your kid, maybe even in your kids as well, did you notice a shift from, hey, Nicholas, hey, Noah or whatever, I want you to go do this. And they're like, why? Yeah, that, that does happen. Yeah. Either it's why or I did it and you didn't do it. Or you know, just flat out disobedience, you know, I'm not going to do it.
I'm not going to do it. Yeah. Those things happen. And again, it's the older the child gets, the more independent they become, the more their personalities begin to come, you know, come through things like that. And that's when you begin to see that defiant spirit.
And that's where you see the sin, which previously was only in not sharing your toys or mine. Now it becomes more pronounced and more mini us. Yeah. Yeah.
It looks like us. But I think, I think what you said also has, has a lot of merit to where people will be like, no, no, no, I would never disobey God. I just, I just want to know the plan. You know, I'm with you, but I got to know the plan first.
You know, there's a lot of, you know, with, with church volunteers, it's not always that, but especially with like musicians, they can be really like that. Like I, I'm with you, but you got to communicate ahead of time. Like I need to know what's going on. It certainly can be like, I'll do that, but, but tell me why.
Why are we doing it that way? Everything, I will obey you, but it needs to make sense first. That, that's a, that is a big thing. That's been a real treat of having a boy, girl twins is watching them at the same stages because boys and girls are very different. And as they get older, those differences become more and more exaggerated. So watching Noah and Hartley grow up has been, it's been really fun to watch them through those different stages and see here's how girls handle it in general. And here's how boys handle it. Hartley was, is very much like the, uh, tell me why I'll do it, but I need to understand why Noah is, he's, he won't, he's not going to say that outright, but if he doesn't understand why he's just not going to do it and he'll tell you that he did it, but he just won't do it. If he, if he understands why, then he'll have some buy-in and he'll actually be like, okay, I'll do that. If he doesn't, if he doesn't get why, he'll just shrug it off.
Yeah, I did that. I thought for sure Noah would be the type where it's like, Hey, I don't understand it, but whatever man, that's yours. I I'm, I'm hands off, but he's like, no, I'm just not going to do it. So, so it's funny about Hartley because I was going to ask you, maybe this is something we should have. We should have Nicole on the show one day and ask her, do you find that in your marriage where like you're trying to lead in your marriage and you're like, all right, here's what I think we need to do. And you know, that it's not fully fleshed out. Like, like you're still making the plan, but like your wife is like, why, why are we, why can you explain this to me? And you're like, let's, let's get started.
And then we can kind of figure this out and they're like, well, you just have to explain why. Is that, do you know my wife? Do you know my wife? Well, my wife does it too. Yeah.
And Nicole is definitely far more inquisitive. And I think it's, it's it's not, I hate to say it like that, but it comes from just a place of doubt, maybe fear. Like, are we, are you sure, are you sure we're going to go this way? For example, when we were driving in England, okay. Or, or in Britain, I should say, cause it happened different places. I, at times I didn't see a car in my blind spot. Okay. And it's not because I was not looking for the car or not looking in, let me back that up. It was not because I wasn't looking in the mirror, but it's because the traffic pattern is a little different.
Okay. The traffic pattern is a little, you know, you drive on the left side of the road, the steering wheel is on the right side in the car. And so when you're, when you're going through those roundabouts, and it was not even an issue of, oh, we go, you know, counterclockwise and over there you go clockwise.
That was not the issue. I got that. But there is a way when you come to a roundabout, you have to stop and see if somebody is coming. And they're supposed to sort of indicate that as you see them coming around that, okay, I think they're going to come through here.
I need to stop and wait. Sometimes it would make a wider turn. So I thought they were going to bear off and take one of the exits. And so I pull out only to be honked at. They honk over?
Oh yes, yes they do. A long honk, and I was like, yeah, I heard you. I didn't know you were trying to go around. I thought you were so close to that exit. My mistake, my mistake. But that hurt her confidence in my driving. Really?
Yeah, because now she began to say, watch out, watch out, watch out. That's bad. And so I have to say, okay, look, I know a couple of times I pulled out when I should have waited. I get it. I get it.
I made a mistake there. But I am learning how these people drive because some of them looks like so close to the exit, but they keep on going and you go, okay, I got to wait. I got to wait. I got to wait till you get off on the exit. But then there are people behind you start honking. They're like, what are you waiting for?
Go. There's nobody turning. But that guy. So all that to say, it's fear that causes people to doubt because of a mistake or a hesitation or something that didn't go quite right. But then I think I like you zoom out. You even think about this, this interaction with Jesus and the disciples, like knowing that God's plan, you know, God's not like me where it's like, okay, I've got this plan.
I think it's going to work. I'm figuring this out as I go. That's not as I go or the plans there in my mind, but I can't communicate it.
So I just need you to do this. And then we'll I can once I get my thoughts together, I'll explain everything. But God's not like that. Well, in this situation, you know, they were in Jerusalem.
Okay. They were told, be careful when you go to Jerusalem because they want to kill you there. Jesus is in Jerusalem or he's getting near to Jerusalem.
So they're thinking, we've been following this guy. He seems like the promised one. He seems like God's son.
I don't buy the stuff that later on the church realized that Jesus was fully God, fully man. They knew, they knew that the coming one was not going to be like them and yet like them. They knew that he was going to be God's son. They knew that. So they had seen the miracles. They had eaten, you know, the, the, the bread and the fish. They had heard the words of life, all that thing, but now he's in Jerusalem.
What are you doing here? So a sense of doubt is there. And then he's also telling them, go take this dude's donkey. Yes. It's like, okay.
But they went, they went and that, that is why they need to be commended. And there's so much there that I wish we had more time to get into what that really means. Cause it says in Matthew 21 verse four, all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet saying, and it's talking about the prophet Zechariah tell the daughter of Zion, behold, your King is coming to you lowly and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the full of a donkey.
That's very important. Why the donkey? Well, Zechariah was a prophet, prophet of the Southern kingdom of Judah. And he was exhorting God's people to come back.
And he prophesied of the day when God would restore the beauty, the grandeur of Israel. And how would he come? He's not going to come riding on an elephant.
He was not going to come with a chariot. Cause that's like a, like a conquering imagery. That's right.
It's a, it's an imagery of somebody who does not own, but is coming to show his force and, and intimidate you. Yeah. Coming on a donkey. I mean, nobody goes into a battle riding on a donkey.
It's like, you will get killed. Right. Yeah. You're gonna be decimated if that's not, that's not a war animal.
That's not a war animal. Yeah. So nobody rides on a donkey other than the rightful King, because he's, I don't have to prove anything.
You are mine. Right. He doesn't have to come in with a show of force. Right. And Jesus riding on the donkey was fulfilling Zechariah's prophecy and showing that he was the rightful King of Israel, if not the King of the whole world.
Do you think the response of the people would have been different if he'd come in on like a stallion or like a war animal, like, like they would not have been as pleased to see him. Cause the, cause the people I would assume that are fanning him with the leaves and stuff have heard about his works in Galilee and in Judea and stuff. And listen to what they're singing. They're singing Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. The word Hosanna coming from Psalm 118 verse 25. Hosanna is a combination of two Hebrew words and the words are Yeshua, which means deliver.
Okay. Deliver or save and Anna is beg. So it's like, please deliver us.
So if he had come riding on a, on a stallion, it would be more, please have mercy on us. Please don't hurt us. Not please deliver us.
Yeah. Jesus is not coming to hurt us. He's coming to deliver us. Well, that's what the obedience, you know, that's what our obedience leads to is our deliverance.
That's right. It's not like we have to obey this guy and submit to him because if he, if we don't, he's going to punish us with hell forever. He's going to set us free. He's going to deliver us from sin. That changes the way we see the events of Easter of this week of Palm Sunday and that posture of God, I'm going to obey you.
Even when it on the, on paper, it doesn't make sense. I'm going to obey you because I know that you're the one where my salvation comes from. Great point. And I think that's the mark of any good leader. Anytime you, you want to obey someone, it's not because I'm like, I'm scared of this guy and I have to obey him or else. It's like, man, that's someone that I can follow.
That's someone that I can really pledge my life to. Absolutely. Guys, make sure you join us next time. Same time, same place. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clear V Today show. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes if you want to re-listen and you can always support us financially at ClearVTodayShow.com. Jon, what do you want to leave our listeners with today?
Definitely want to say, Dr. Shah, it is so great to have you back on the show. We have a brand new series on Pray.com, exclusively on Pray.com. It's called Discerning Doctrine. Dr. Shah takes us through all these different doctrines of the Christian faith.
A lot of them talked about here on the show, but we dive very, very deep in it. But here's the thing, you're not going to find it on YouTube. You're not going to find it on Facebook. It's only on Pray.com. So if you don't have an account, why?
It's completely free. Why? Yeah, like why?
Literally why? You can go and find all of Dr. Shah. We told you all the exclusive content was coming. Well, now it's here. So you can go download Pray.com.
You can follow Dr. Abbadan Shah. You can also give to the ministry of Clear V Church as well. Thank you to all of you guys who have already given. We are very, very grateful. It's because of giving like that that we can do these exclusive shows. So Discerning Doctrine is out right now on Pray.com.
Go check it out. That's right. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear V Today.
