Monday, May 5 | The Cosmic Power That is Sin

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You can use promo code T-O-D-A-Y at checkout to get 10% off your next order. It's going to save you money and it's going to support all of us here at the Clearview Today show. So stay hydrated, stay healthy and without further ado, let's start the show. You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis and we are here in the Clear View Today studio. Mr. Rogers style, we are glad you've chosen to be here with us today. I thought you were going to say, won't you be my neighbor?

No. Well, so they've been, uh, I don't know if you guys know this, but they've remade Mr. Rogers into a cartoon called Daniel Tiger and it's called Daniel Tiger and it is, it's just Mr. Rogers neighborhood with a cartoon, with like a cartoon tiger. And my son is absolutely obsessed with it. Loves it. So I tried to show him Mr. Rogers.

He didn't like it. So he liked the Daniel Tiger, which is the exact same show. It's bright, flashy, animated. Yeah.

And it's more 20, 25. Oh, definitely, definitely. But we are glad that you're here in the neighborhood with us today. Want to introduce our host who is Dr. Abbadan Shah.

He's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor and the host of today's show. The studio audience loves you. Welcome to the studio.

Welcome to the studio. Today's check-in is coming to us from right here in good old North Carolina, the Tar Heel state. It's coming from Jack T. What do you think the T stands for? Tar Heel.

There you go. Jack Tar Heel says, Hey, Dr. Shah and the Clearview crew just wanted to take a moment and check in and say thank you for the incredible work you're doing on the radio. I've been listening to the truth network for over 10 years. Shout out to the truth network and just discovered your show. A couple of months ago, your recent episodes on sin have really hit home. I lead a small group at my church, and I'd love to use some of Dr. Shah's sermons or discussion points from the series as part of our upcoming studies. Would it be okay if I shared those with my group?

Is there any resources or outline you recommend that goes along with them? Thanks again for all you do. God is using this ministry in a powerful way.

Blessings, Jack Tar Heel. Absolutely. Thank you so much, first and foremost, for watching our show, for listening to our show. And please spread the word, let other people know about it. And all my notes are on the blog. That's right. So you are welcome to go there and glean from them and make them your own.

I even sometimes recommend resources, books and articles and dictionaries that may be of benefit to you. So by all means, use it and build God's kingdom. Our goal at Clearview is, of course, to make Christ visible. But how do we do that beyond the four walls of our church? We are trying to equip people to go out there and reach more people with the gospel of Christ. That's right.

And we just got the PayPal link set up on AbaddonShaw.com. So it's only $40 per sermon where they can access. Right. Right. They only have to there is a there is a payment plan. There's a payment plan. And there is another $30 upcharge for accessing the sermons. But after that, it's only 40 per sermon. Right.

By the way, everything that John said is not true. They're 100% free. They're all free.

Yeah. And there are literally hundreds, if not in the thousand. I think there's at least 700 or 800 sermons, maybe more easily. Altogether 900. 900 sermons? In my lifetime, I preached close to 2000 messages. Wow. But on the website, there are 950, I believe some messages or maybe 920. I'm not quite sure. But it's up there. Yeah, that's that's 1000 sermons for absolutely free on AbaddonShaw.com.

You can use them any way that you want to. And Dr. Shaw, I got to say one of the things that I've always respected about you will read the verse of the day in a second. But you never re-preach a sermon.

I don't. I think that's one of the things in 25, 26, 27 years that you've been preaching here or just preaching vocationally never once, never, none that I've seen. And I'm sure you've never done it, which is, I'm just going to dust off an old sermon because I didn't have time to write one this week. It's like, no, I'm writing a sermon this week. Well, I learned that from my dad. Dad never, ever re-preached a message. On principle?

On principle, never did. And there were times that I would say, oh, I remember that message. That was good. Oh, good. I have those notes. But he would not like say, okay, let me re-preach a message.

Kind of like a candy stick, my sugar stick. Never. And so I learned from him. And now I would say after having been preaching for maybe three, four years, I realized why he didn't re-preach it. Because when you re-preach a message, again, it's not wrong.

There are pastors who have done that and done phenomenal work with it. For example, R.G. Lee would preach payday someday. It's a famous message of R.G.

Lee. Bailey Smith, the evangelist, would preach on the parable of the sower. A great message. A great message. Hundreds of thousands of people have been saved on that message. So there are messages that are very famous to those particular people. And they have been preached again and again. Spurgeon had a message like that. So nothing wrong with that.

But I feel like, and I think that's why my dad did what he did. When you re-preach a message, it's no longer fresh. It does not have that sense of passion and life and energy in it. Of course, the Holy Spirit can use anything. So I don't want to say it doesn't have the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit always there. But it doesn't have that passion and energy that I just baked this. I just put this together. I'm still fresh on the research. I can still talk about what resources or which resources are good and which ones were okay. I can talk on this sermon for another hour. You can always tell when a meal is fresh out of the oven or when it just got microwaved from the fridge from the night before.

You can reheat it to the best of your ability, but there's no substitute for fresh. That's right. Yeah. Now you may take the same passage and bring out certain points that you brought out before when you preached on that passage, but it still needs to have a different break. It needs to be alive.

It needs to have relevance for that day rather than, I preach this, man, this is my favorite, favorite fishing rod. And here we go again. Maybe not. Maybe not.

Don't do that. Yeah. You would say that Dr. Shah's messages are fresh, never frozen, right?

Ah, fresh never frozen. And we'll move on after this, but it also helps other people. And what I mean by that is when you write a sermon every single week, you compound that up over 30 something years, you've now got 950, 960, 70 sermons that other people can access when they're in need of something like a, like a Jack Tarheel over here, wanting to preach something or wanting to share something.

There's a wide gold mine on abaddonshah.com just waiting to be mine. Yeah. The whole thing of putting these messages online began in 2011.

Fantastic. That's when I started my blog site, abaddonshah.com, just like my name, abaddonshah.com, began that 2011 and really earnestly put the messages on there in 2012. So just since 2012 to 2025, how many years is that?

13 years. That's about 950 messages. And just for you guys. So, you know, abaddonshah.com is getting a massive, massive overhaul. That'll probably be live in the next few days.

Working really hard to get that live. But speaking of preaching, I was going to say, speaking of messages that are fresh, never frozen. That's right.

That's right. It is time for our segment, pick it up and preach. Pick it up and preach. We're going to revisit that. People enjoyed that. They wrote in and said how much they enjoy that. Some people even said they were going to incorporate that in their student ministries, which I'm bad.

That's awesome. Pick it up and preach is where you have two random objects, a random object per person. And you pick up that object and you preach.

You give us a short little message or devotional thought that will help us grow in our walk with God and our deep in our understanding of the Bible based on this random item that you've just received. I'm ready. So gentlemen, I have two objects picked out for you today. Let's do it.

Let's do it. First object for you. It's like a hairbrush. It's a little, it's a little handheld fan. It's a fan. Okay.

And then John. Okay. It's a giraffe for you. I thought this, this fan was going to take off like a helicopter. It has several modes.

One is cooling and one is really cooling. So take a few seconds. Look it over.

Think about what you can talk about based on that item that will help us grow in our understanding or appreciation of who God is and what he's done for us. Do you have any preference on who goes first? I do not have any preference on who goes first. I'll let you choose. Well, dr. Sean went first last time. So John, you want to go first this time?

I should not have let you choose. Well, okay. So a lot of times you can see here, this is a giraffe. This giraffe, by the way, is made out of pure 100% olive wood from Bethlehem. Just like the giraffe. A lot of times we walk around with our head in the clouds, right? We have a vision for our life. We can't see the ground because it's so far away from us because we're walking around just, you know, pie in the sky, head in the clouds, and we have our own vision for life. A lot of times when a new giraffe is born, they will actually fall very painfully to the ground. Life can be a lot like that. Sometimes if you're up here and you're on cloud nine living in your own life, sometimes God will help you be born again in such a manner of speaking as to fall to the ground.

It's going to hurt, but ultimately it's going to help you regrow back to where your head could be, metaphorically speaking, in the clouds, in the right way. I love it. I really didn't want to go first. I did not want to go first.

Wow. Well, that gave me some time to find that Bible verse, which is from Matthew chapter three. And this is the words of John the Baptist or John the Baptizer. He sees Jesus coming towards him and, you know, he tells those Sadducees and the Pharisees that they are brood of vipers, on and on and on. But then he says in verse 11, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. So we kind of sort of stop there, that John's baptism is simply baptism of repentance, but the baptism that Jesus baptizes us with is with Holy Spirit and fire.

But then if you were to go one more verse, then I can bring out my object. The little fan. His winnowing fan is in his hand.

Very nice. And he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. His winnowing fan. What is a winnowing fan?

A winnowing fan was like if you were threshing wheat, you would kind of pour out the grain from a basket, and as the as the wind would blow, sometimes they would create wind by fanning it, and the grain will fall and the chaff will sort of blow away. I gotta give it to him. So next time you have the option to share the Gospel, you can say, hey buddy, will you be grain or will you be chaff? And then you just blow him with the grain. Just blow in the face right here. That's it.

That's Pick It Up and Preach. I love it. I love it.

Well done to both of you. That was excellent. That's a fun game. That's a fun game.

I enjoyed. Maybe we need to put Ryan to the test on that. Yeah, I'll do it. I'll have you two guys do it. Maybe get David into it.

Okay, David, you can lead or host the next game of Pick It Up and Preach. I love it. Love it. Love it.

Love it. Our verse of the day today is coming from Romans chapter 5 verse 6. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. We've been talking about this concept of ungodliness and sin and this hope that we have because while we didn't deserve it, that's when Christ died for us.

That's exactly right. You're talking about sin. We've been talking about it a lot and I think a lot of people are really resonating with this topic because it's something that most preachers and most pastors won't talk on and yet it says right here in Romans that Christ died for sinners. We have to acknowledge sin else there was no reason for the cross.

That's right. Why the death? Why the death? The death is because sin has to be destroyed and since we are condemned in Adam and since we have the corrupted nature of Adam, we have to be destroyed. Jesus took that destruction upon himself but since it was not because of his sin, he was not condemned under Adam's guilt and sin. He was like us and yet he was different.

That's the wonderful thing. Sometime back there was an argument that began with a young man and he could not get it when I kept saying Jesus was like us but not really like us and he just kind of bristled up and he just couldn't figure out what are you saying and I said he was like us in the sense that we are. He is man but he was not like us which means he was not just like us and it's because he was not like us that he could die for us. His contention there was that Jesus had to be like us in every conceivable way. And he even brought up an early church father, Irenaeus, and I had to explain to him you do know that Irenaeus supports what I said. Irenaeus agrees with me. Right.

And then I had to show him where Irenaeus does say that. Right. And he actually says exactly what I said which is he is like us and yet he is not.

Right. We like to say that a lot that Christ was like us in every single way. Like he was almost like he was a clone of us so that it counts for our righteousness. Yeah. And yet we also ignore the fact that he wasn't like us. He was not like us. Right. And that's why also he could die for us because he was not dying for his sins. Right. If he were like us in every single way we could have used any old person. Right.

Anywhere. He died and that's it. Right. Because he was dying for your sins that's one reason God raised him back to life because he was not guilty. That's right.

That's right. And his guilt was not condemned in the sense that he is dead. The guilt was condemned on the cross. That's where the punishment of sin was made was on the cross not in the grave. Not in the grave.

Good point. This is why theology and doctrine matter so much because when you start to unravel pieces and threads you realize how connected every single thing in the bible is. If you start to talk about Jesus's humanity well that impacts what you believe about the cross. That impacts what you believe about sin. It's all connected.

It all hangs together. And it's tempting for Christians to think that that's just a semantic argument. The price was paid whether it was paid on the cross or paid in the grave or paid at the empty tomb but Jesus said it is finished on the cross. Now here's if you would like for me to I would like to go a little further please and explain why this even matters today especially in which church you attend because there is a strand of theology or denomination or a way of understanding the bible where people believe that Jesus went to hell for us and I know it shows up in the creed and I disagree with the creed. Right. They believe that he went to hell and he suffered punishment for us.

That is not biblical. Right. I had a guy at NRB the first year when you guys were in Egypt who followed us around and was determined to get on the show and talk about that.

This very time. I remember that. He believes that. Oh yes. And desperately wanted to come on our show and talk about it.

He wanted to be on our show so that he could talk about why Christians need to understand that Jesus was punished in hell. Right. I disagree. Now there is an ulterior motive why people believe that but we come to that in a moment but in itself it's wrong because his punishment was on the cross and it was not for himself it was for us. Right. He was the perfect lamb of God and with that said when we read the father turned his face away or we sing that song he was not turning his face away in the sense of his forsaking his son. Why would he forsake his son? His son is guiltless.

Right. But he who knew no sin became sin for us. He who knew no sin is very important. Before we talk about he became sin for us we need to make sure we highlight and underline and circle he who knew no sin. Do you think anybody would throw that up or just maybe even not understand that when Jesus said you know why are you forsaking me that God actually didn't forsake him? Yes they need to understand that because when he said that he was quoting biblical prophecy he was quoting prophecy and this was his moment to say you see that what was said back then my God my God why have you forsaken me this I am the one. This is what that psalm was it a psalm he was quoting was talking about? Yeah this is what he was talking about it was me and that forsaking happened because I took your sins upon myself but no the trinity is never broken he was never forsaken in the sense of separated from his father. That was not a rare moment of weakness. Right this is psalm 22 by the way psalm 22 this was not like now the holy spirit and father are hanging out somewhere and the sun's over within the corner or some other nether parts of the world yeah has been condemned for right now no they're always one yeah for the trinity to break apart we would be in big trouble. Oh yeah we would cease to exist because God is trinity so if the trinity breaks apart then God is less than God. God yes which that doesn't work not only is illogical but boy it's a big problem right so going back to why did Jesus not necessarily suffer in the grave or while he his body's in the grave he is being dragged up and down the corridors of hell by Satan you know some people believe that oh yes yes why is that wrong it's wrong because for one it's not biblical secondly it is used by certain groups or certain theological systems to reduce Jesus down to our level I mean just picture that for a moment Satan dragging Jesus up and down the corridors of hell punishing him beating him what does that do to the second person of the godhead it definitely diminishes his authority 100% at least at least in your mind and in your image I mean think about a boxer who is top-notch I mean he is the best he is at the prime of his career and imagine some dude off the street some scrawny dude is punching the daylights out of him like imagine me just whooping up Mike Tyson right well like who's never let's say Mike Tyson Tyson at his prime right right back then like 90s 80s Mike that's right I'm not I'm not sure whatever happened with that last boxing match if that was a put on or what we'll just leave that yeah I hate that I paid money to see it yeah but imagine if we were to witness that yeah let's say Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali at their prime you are a scrawny dude beating him up now if Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali were to sit across from you what would you be thinking it's like yeah you're the champ but I respect you yeah I don't respect you because now I'm thinking can I take you right right exactly exactly yeah if I saw that guy on the street taking you like I feel like I could probably take yeah it seemed like you're not as strong as you appeared in those matches right you're a different person do you think I might be as strong as you which means that I can do the things that you do which I suppose is the whole goal exactly is the goal which is to say Jesus is not that different from us and we are not that different from him which means what he can do I can do so I was gonna ask you do you think that's an intentional goal of those people absolutely they know what they're they know what they're doing because I've read their works that's why they do it wow wow I've read their books I have listened to their messages that's why they do that and they believe that that's what God wants them to do they believe that that's that's a not only appropriate but that's an intentional message that God has placed in their hearts now I'm not sure if that was the same reason purpose behind the creed but I do know that in the past couple of hundred years or maybe at least 150 years this train of thought or this theological system that has been promoted that Jesus suffered in hell is done with the purpose of reducing him down so that we can raise you up it's kind of twisted very it's a little twisted and I think that it's it's harmful for a lot of reasons number one even if even if someone would deny all that and say no no no that was never my intention that was never my rationale for believing that at the very least we can agree that it undermines the cross because if Jesus truly said it is finished but there's still some work left to do I still have to go to hell and be punished even some more couldn't we have just done that without the cross right and and another thing to keep in mind is no matter how you do do these somersaults to bring Jesus down to your level so that you can rise to to his level it's still not going to work you can do all those theological gymnastics to to to prove that point is still not going to work you can say whatever you want to does not mean that the father is going to listen to you and answer your prayers like Jesus right Jesus did he walked on water he fed the five thousand or probably twenty five thirty thousand if you had the women and the women and the children you're not going to do that right you don't have the same authority you don't have the same power so yeah go ahead and reduce him down but that does not mean that if I can by watching this scrawny dude beat up Mike Tyson in his prime that now I can challenge him in the in the ring I can challenge him but I get in the ring and if it's the same Mike Tyson he's going to right he's gonna win the ground like like you can certainly bring Jesus down and diminish him but it's not going to serve you in any way it doesn't I mean the the fact is out there it doesn't is there any even a single piece of new testament evidence that this happened that Jesus ever went to hell there are passages where it talks about that he descended in the lower parts of the earth but what is being said there what is the meaning behind it and maybe that's something we need to cover one day in our radio show or on our tv show maybe we can do that yeah I would love to do that love to explain what that meant and even later it talks about do not say say who is going to bring it to us as if you have to ascend and who is going to go down as if to descend what does that mean ascending and descending we'll talk about it okay that's a great point a lot of times people latch onto these things or maybe they latch onto a particular translation of a verse and then build entire systems and doctrines around it not thinking about the implications so if you create a system around this verse God's word is never going to contradict itself and and it's all born if I'm hearing you correctly it's all born out of a desire for power even if it's a power to do good a power over the forces of nature or the power over reality it's it's all born out of a desire to have what God has here on earth yeah without God in a sense they may not say that but that's what they're doing it they're now they feel like God doesn't have just one son he has me too so I can demand those things forget Jesus well no I love him and thank God for him it's through him I can't but now I can do it too wow very very very presumptuous of you sir yeah that's a very prideful approach and the people who approach God pridefully tends to not work out very well for them there's not work there is some evidence that scripture doesn't like that yeah I think there's several instances where that did not go well in the prideful person's if I'm if I'm talking with someone who believes this or if there's a listener out there who believes this and they're like well I've it's just hard for me to let that go I've always been raised that way we said it in the creeds you know that's I think that's maybe one of the downfalls of putting in the creeds is that it's in generations of people's minds let me clarify that the ones who believe in the creeds okay like like the apostles creed and the the they're not the ones who are going around saying I am now equal to Jesus okay two different groups of people they're two different groups of people okay some of those people don't even have a clue that there there is a creed called the apostles creed they don't have any clue so it is two different groups of people the ones who recite but they're not even thinking about it right and the ones who have this warped theology that now since satan punished Jesus then I am just as strong as Jesus and so I can do what Jesus did because I'm equal to Jesus that those are two different groups hmm how do you think that man I don't we only got like four minutes left but how do you think that manifests in the Christian life like what will a person do now that they think they're equal to Jesus I mean they will think they can do miracles they can heal the sick they can ask demand almost demand just like Jesus with authority and I don't think Jesus ever demanded but he pleaded with the father yeah and he was teaching us how to do the same but they feel like I can do and act like Jesus did so now if that's truly the theology behind it then maybe they really believed that they were doing that yeah in power like they say call things into existence call things that are not as if they are kind of thing yeah and just like Jesus created the world ex nihilo out of nothing he made something so now I can out of nothing I can call things you're not divine you're not God you're not connected to God in that way one thing I agree I would love to yeah that's a great point and one thing I would love to I hate that we're running that time but one thing I'd love to talk about maybe on a future show is that when the bible says that Christians have power within them like resurrection power what does that actually mean because I think people are conflating power and authority through Jesus name with actual like I don't want to use the word thinking they're little gods exactly exactly that they have godlike powers wow that's a great maybe we'll maybe we'll discuss that on another show yeah guys thanks for joining us today make sure you join us tomorrow same time same station we're going to dig dig into another great topic here on the theory today show thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible and don't forget that you can support us on itunes by subscribing to the show and you can always support us financially at cleary todayshow.com john what are you going to leave our listeners with today big things are happening here at clear view church big things are happening over at pray.com we're going to be talking about those a little bit more as the weeks come on in the waiting make sure you watch dr shaw's new series discerning doctrine every single week we release a new doctrine for you over on pray.com that is an exclusive series so if you don't have pray.com go ahead and download it right now it's 100% free thank you for everyone who is following if you're listening to this episode on pray.com right now and you have not followed dr abaddon shaw make sure you go on over to his page do that we're also sending out weekly devotionals every single monday for those of you who sign 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