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So thanks for your support. Thank you to Mighty Muscadine for sponsoring today's show. Now let's get started. You're listening to Clearview 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.
Welcome to the Clearview Today studio. We've got a great conversation for you guys today, but before we do anything else, I want to welcome our host to the studio. Why are you always looking at me silently? How shall I look at you? You're sitting next to me. I want to welcome our host. I'll get you out of my ear.
I want to welcome our host to the studio, Dr. Abbadan Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show, Dr. Shah. Welcome. I'm feeling good today. I want to give you some air horns too. Thank you.
Someone I can look at straight on like a normal person. There you go, instead of the side eye right there. That's one of the things when you got the couch, you got to do like that right there, but it's good to see you. You guys as well. Looking forward to today's show.
That's right. Amen. Hey, look, let's start off. Let's start off right. I feel like I came at you sideways a little bit.
No pun intended. Let's, let's get things back on the right track with the word of God. Dr. Shah, today's verse of the day is coming to us from Galatians 5 22. Oh, this is one of my favorites, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such there is no law. Wow.
What a great, great passage. There is no kiwi in it. No watermelon, no turbo banana. So I never heard that song. Yeah.
You have to go to camp for that. That's a Christian. You have to go to Christian camp to get the fruit of the spirit is, you know, what is very important to understand is that Romans and Galatians go hand in hand because in both of these books or these letters, Paul is emphasizing the fact that there is a life that is lived under the law. And then there's a life that is lived under grace.
Now don't misunderstand. It does not mean that under law means it's just legalistic under grace means it's lenient. Right. Right. There's a difference then when we say law versus grace, we're talking about a life that is lived by self and then there's a life that is lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. Right. The life under grace is the power of the Holy Spirit life.
Right. And so when Paul is done contrasting the law versus grace, he gets down to the works of the flesh, which are coming from doing the law. And it's not law as in like, I don't steal, I don't murder. I honor the Sabbath. I honor my parents or, and I don't take God's name in vain.
No, no. When we say law here for a Christian, it's trying to live in the power of the flesh. Right. And so right before the verse you just read, Paul gives us a list of the works of the flesh.
And you want to read that as well? I certainly can. Because, because that helps us contrast the fruit of the spirit. By the way, it's not fruits. It's singular fruit of the spirit. That's exactly right. Because when the Holy Spirit comes into your life, he does not just say, Oh, so you are so and so, uh, I'm going to give you love.
You are so and so I'm going to give you joy, you peace and patience. No, it doesn't work like that. He brings all the fruit.
It means it's a basket with different kinds of fruit to, uh, to work out in your life. That's right. Yeah.
For you to bear. Yeah. You want to read the, I can read it. Yeah, you got it. So Galatians five, uh, verse 19, it says, now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, Pharisees, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
So these are the sharp contrast from the fruit of the spirit. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, again, says there is no law. It does not mean that, uh, there is no law against these things and that these things are like, uh, kind of, um, just society gone overboard that there is no law, nothing to control and hold people accountable.
No. What, what it's saying is the law is powerless against such. There is no law means law cannot help you fix these things. Law can only show you that these things are evil. We've, yes, we've talked about this on the show and I'm sure we'll talk about it more as we continue through Romans because this series through Romans, I think will take us through the next several weeks of the Cleve today. Romans is, is proving to be a, uh, not a complicated book, but a very deep, illogically rich book.
Uh, we've talked about this. There's a, there's a misconception that because Paul quote unquote comes down on the law, the law is bad. The law is, is, is right. I don't want to say that people think it's wicked, but it's contrary to the things of God and that is not true.
Right. So would you say that law is, it's incorrect to live under the law, but that does not make the law wicked or bad. Well, we need to rethink the purpose of the law and not rethink. Let's just go back to the word. So when it says that again, such things, there is no law, it does not mean that there is nothing prohibiting these works of the flesh.
That's, that's not, it's this meaning. Uh, it's, it's almost like such things cannot be held back by the law. Uh, these things, the law can only tell you what is wrong. The law can show you the way to a good life, but the law cannot enable you to do right or wrong. That's a good way to put it. The law can't help you in the sense that it can't help.
It can't make you live properly, right? There's, there's no power in the law. It's like looking at a ruler like a measuring stick. The ruler cannot help the building be straight or the angles to be exact. The ruler can only tell you the building is not straight.
It's just, it's just not straight. So some people focus on the law. It's like that's law.
That's what we got to do. And it's not like the ruler is wrong or the measuring stick is bad. No, that's not his purpose. It cannot help you. That's a great point. It can't do something it was never intended to do. It just made me, it just made me think of a very silly example.
It's not at all like a point, but it just made me think of this. Like a lot of times I'll be cooking and I'll have Ellie taste it. She'll be like, Ooh, I don't like that. I'm like, Oh, does it need more salt?
She's like, I don't know. That just doesn't taste good. I'm like, should I, should I put some more sour cream? Should I put some more salt?
Do you, does it need to be a little hotter? I don't know. I just don't like that. That's, that's not good, but it's like, she is the law. At that moment, Ellie is a law. But in reality, you know, she can help you. If you pressed her, you said, Hey, look, please, I need your help.
What do you think? That she would probably end up saying, yeah, go ahead and put some salt in it or let's, let's put some milk in or something. You know, she will say that the law cannot do that at all.
It cannot do that at all. And so contrasting that with the fruit of the spirit, it does not say the works of the spirit. That's a good point. And, and so this is not the fruit of your spirit. This is the fruit of the spirit.
Yeah. So, so the spirit is the, I say work, not, I'm trying to say work carefully. The spirit is the thing that has happened, the presence of the spirit. And now the result is these things, right?
The fruit is, are, are born by the spirit in your life. Right. Right. So the spirit does that work? Does that mean the law is gone or the law is useless? Absolutely not. The law tells you what is right and what is wrong, what is a, a, a, in a boreance to God and what is the secret to a blessed life. Yeah.
But the law cannot enable you, but the Holy Spirit can. Yeah. You know, we've been a great picture. Yeah, it is.
It is. We've been talking a lot through the book of Romans and all the doctrine that comes along with it. And I really want to encourage people to go back and listen to the start of when we, we, I'll link to the first episode when we really started walking through Romans really hard. But you know, Paul kind of tells us that. He tells us that there's two roads for the Christian to take, right? You've got the road of sin leading to death.
And we've been talking a lot about that. We've been talking about sin as a cosmic power, death, the flesh, but then there's another road. And we wanted to kind of talk about that today, that, that road of obedience, you know what I mean?
We think it's an easy thing. Just obey God and it's going to lead you straight to righteousness. And yet Paul talks about this daily struggle that we have to take that road.
That's right. And so for those of you who are wondering where we are in the book of Romans, we are looking at Romans chapter six and verse 15 onwards. So here, Paul talks about the law and how the law, you are not under law, but under grace. What an important verse.
And then yet it is also a verse that often confuses people. Like Paul, we were tracking with you about this whole dead to sin, alive to God stuff. We were tracking with you that, that we are to, you know, present our bodies as, as instruments of righteousness to God. We are not to let sin reign in our mortal body. Paul, we're with you. But then all of a sudden he says, for sin shall not have dominion over you. Okay, great.
For you are not under law, but under grace. Oh, wait, wait a minute. All of a sudden we are, we are, we are thrown off. Yeah.
Yeah. Confusing because you feel like we're, we're keeping all these things of obedience. We're working, we're doing all these works. We're following the standards set before us, but then we're under grace. So then do we just get to do what we want? Is, is, do we just get a free pass in life?
How does that work? Is it, is that characteristic of Paul to suddenly switch it up on you or is it more like we have to understand how Paul writes and how Paul thinks? Yes. It's the second part, which is we need to understand what he's doing here. He is, I mean, of course he is full of the Holy Spirit. He is the mouthpiece of God here, but also the way God designed this man, Paul.
I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing that he was able to, you know, create this argument and explain his thought of how the Christian life works. And then he anticipates again, all under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God. He anticipates that there will be a question.
What about law? True. So sometimes Paul is moving like, you know, one step a second. And then it seems like he's moving three steps per second.
Yes. Like he's moving fast. All of a sudden he stops and he backs up two steps. I think there's a lot of new Christians or people who have just started reading Paul, who are, who are like, yes, preach it, Dr. Shaw. Cause I've definitely felt that when I read Paul, sometimes I'm like, dude, you are, you are just like saying the same thing over and over and over. And then the next line I'm like, wait, what, where are we? It's like Paul is a tour guide in a museum and he's walking around showing you the different exhibits and you're walking very close behind him. And then suddenly he stops and goes back to something and you, Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. But he knows the question that you don't know to ask yet. Right.
Yeah. And the question is what do we do with the law? Can I just live a life according to my women pleasure now, since I am dead to sin, alive to God, so I can do whatever I want to. Do you think it's probable that there are people out there who are listening who are like, Hey, look, I'm not Jewish.
And I never was. I don't know what the law is and I don't, I've never cared about it. So I don't have this struggle about the law. Do you think there's listeners who might think that way?
I'm sure they do. And that's why they need to go back and read Romans because Paul doesn't just talk about one kind of law. Of course he's talking primarily here about the law of Moses, which is of course, when you look at the Pentateuch, you're talking about the civil law, the ceremonial law, of course the moral law, most clearly exemplified in the 10 commandments. But there is also the law in the Gentiles. Their conscience is the law. So law is not just something only relegated to Jewish background people. It was also something the Gentiles had to deal with.
So there are people all over the world. So if you've got a value system, like the value system in America today, where kindness is king, be nice to everybody, include everybody. You know what I'm trying to say, this value system in America. Could you say that's a form of law that Paul is talking about? Maybe it's conscience coming through.
That's what I mean. Yeah, maybe it's conscience. People's individual conscience. Yeah, yeah. It's conscience coming through. Gotcha.
Okay. And so even for them, you know, how do you now live? Do you live by the law of conscience? Do you live by the law, the 10 commandments, or do you just do away with them since you're not under law but under grace? Well, Paul tells us in Romans 6, 15, what then? Shall we sin because we're not under law but under grace? Because now, if law is, the measuring stick is gone, should I just, can I just build a house any way I want to?
Can I just take a few cinder blocks and, you know, stack them on top of each other and throw some cement at it and that's a house? And Paul says, no, no, certainly not. Verse 16, Romans 6, 16, do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? Again, the question is, who are you presenting yourself to?
Right. Because that may tell us whether or not the measuring stick is, is helping you. The measuring stick should guide you in your spiritual walk.
The measuring stick cannot build a house for you, but the measuring stick guides you. And so here the statement is, do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey, you are that one slaves to whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? In other words, there are two roads that a Christian can take after they know Christ. One is the road of sin leading to death. The other is a road of obedience leading to righteousness, which means the law is not gone. But now as a Christian, you have a greater appreciation for the law without looking to the law to help you live the Christian life. Sometimes I wonder, I think that's such a great point.
Sometimes I wonder if Paul, and I'm sure he did with the Holy Spirit, but I wonder if he grasped the weight of what he was saying, especially to a Western audience, 2000 years from when he wrote it. And what I mean by that is like to an American ear, to a Western ear, the truth that you're going to submit yourself to someone, you will submit yourself to God, or you will submit yourself to the enemy, is so foreign to our mindset. Because it's like the whole American dream is I don't submit myself to anyone. I'm my own boss.
I'm my own king. And so I wonder like what would Paul say to someone who's living in today's day and age who's like, I don't have to submit myself to anyone. Even if people today may say, I'm not under anybody's, I'm not just slave.
I'm not going to be anybody. Yet still when the light turns green, we go. When the light turns red, we stop. So you can say that, but we are still slaves to something. We may be slaves to that commercial that tells us, unless you buy this, you cannot be happy.
Unless you drink this, you are missing out on life. So we are still slaves. Whether we admit it or not, whether we claim that we are free and I don't listen to anybody, you are still listening. That's true. Right? That's true. Yeah. I mean, you see that in the way people devote themselves to a concept or to an ideal or to a lifestyle even. I mean, people are going to be slaves to something, even if in your mind, that is what you are pursuing as your freedom. That's what you're devoting yourself to. And that radical idea of freedom has been twisted.
So especially on the, I think on the left side of the aisle, this idea that I'm going to abdicate all of my personal responsibility in search of, in pursuit of an ideal, of a goal, of a mission to save the downtrodden. That is still something that you are submitting yourself to someone else's ideology. Right. That's right. And yeah, you're a hundred percent right.
So the question is, you know, what do you do now? You are either on the road of sin leading to death or the road of obedience leading to righteousness. Now, it does not mean that if you disobey tomorrow, you will die. Right. Right. Okay. But you are on that road of sin leading to death. If you choose that path, all that is determined by you is who you yield yourself to.
Okay. All that is determined by who you yield yourself to. That's right. So if you yield yourself to God, then you are obedient to God. Then you are on the road of righteousness leading to life. But if you are yielding yourself to the devil or you're yielding yourself obedient to the enemy, right, then you are on the road of sin leading to death. But then he says in verse 17, Romans 6 17, but God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. So now the question comes, where is Paul going with this?
As he's explaining to you how to live the Christian life where you're dead to sin, alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Law is still good. Law previously exposed your sin, showed how far you were, hemmed you in, kept society in place. We're talking about the law for Gentiles being their conscience. But now as a Christian, the law is still there. It is still good, but it cannot produce righteousness. That form of doctrine to which you were delivered.
What is that? Because that's what we're obeying, right? Right. So here what Paul is doing is he's saying, but God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin previously, you could not help but go down this path of sin leading to death. But, but then there was a change in you and that change was precipitated by your obedience from the heart.
That statement or that, that, that, that phrase obeying from the heart is very important in how we live the Christian life, how we now live dead to sin alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Go back to how you receive Jesus. You received him when you obeyed from the heart, the plan of salvation, right?
That's right. You're a sinner. Jesus came and died on the cross for your sins as promised, as prophesied. He was buried, but he rose again on the third day.
He was seen by many. And if you ask him to come into your life, he will come into your life, forgive you of your sins and take over, right? That's the gospel.
Now, of course, we have different variations in the way we see it in our particular context. For me, I was four years of age and the way I saw it was a four year old had just heard the message the previous Sunday. Dad talking about how Jesus coming for us and that we're all going to go with him. Those who know him will go with him. So I asked my mom, you know, is dad going to go? Are you going to go? Yes.
Is brother going to go? Yes. Well, I want to go. And her answer was, well, well, have you prayed to ask Jesus in your heart?
And my answer was no. Do you want to? Of course I do. I do.
Okay. Well, then you have to pray and ask him to come into your life. And I obeyed from the heart. Did I understand everything about theology or even the theology of salvation? Of course not. I didn't know what justification meant. I didn't know what regeneration meant. I didn't know what sanctification was all about.
I didn't know any of these things, but I know this much. I was all in. I was all in. That's a great point. So also what Paul is saying here is the way you obeyed unto salvation when you were all in, that's the way you have to live the Christian life.
Now it has to be all in. What happens, I guess with most people is they're all in. And then as life hits them, as life come against them, they're, I don't want to say it's their passion that dwindles, but maybe their level of obedience dwindles.
Maybe some of the old, yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially when they come across sins in their life. They're not all in to reject that sin. Law keeps telling them this is sin, but law also shows them if you reject sin, there's a beautiful, wonderful life. Law also tells them I can't help you. In fact, law doesn't say anything. I can tell you you're wrong, but I can't tell you. That's about it.
I'm not going to offer you a layout. I'm not going to give you a solution. I'm just going to tell you you're wrong. Or this is right. Law was also the secret to the happy life, the blessed life. If you read the end of 10 commandments, if we do all these things, you'll be blessed. But it can't help me do it.
It cannot help you do it. So you have to obey from the heart, especially when you come across sins. Yeah, I just thought of another analogy. Like imagine someone being in the gym and you read, you read like the rule book and it says, if you want to have a huge chest, you got to pump, you got to press 225 every single day. It's like, all right, I'm ready. How do I do it? It's like, yeah, you just got to do it.
Take the rule book and lay it on top of the weight. It's like, uh, yeah. Yeah.
It's like, I'm ready. What are my tips? What do you know? You just got to pump it.
You got to do 225 every day. Yeah. Can't, can't really, can't really tell me how to do that. Yeah. Yeah. So now when you come across sins, like for example, um, I would say one of the biggest ones for a new believer is a sin of stealing.
Y'all heard my message before. What do you say to that? The sin of stealing. Like how people, how people would never like, they would never call themselves a thief.
Oh yeah. Like I'm not going to go rob a store. I'm not going to rob a bank. Sure.
Absolutely not. But you steal time. You steal from God. You steal God's resources. You steal, uh, the money that God's blessed you with and not giving it to the church or not giving it to those who are in need. That's right.
Like God says he's going to give me 10%. Yeah. The biggest way we, we steal from God and we've been stealing for years because before we got saved, we didn't know that everything we had belonged to him and so we did not give our tithes. But you see, tithes is still law. That's right. Grace is when you give it, give everything to God. Yeah. Which is why we refer to it as grace giving. That's right.
Yeah. Uh, when we begin to realize that God is only asking for 10%. He could have asked for 90%. He could have asked for a hundred percent, but he doesn't. It's all his anyways. But he's asking for only 10%.
Yeah. Now somebody may say is like, I don't know about all that. Well then I'm not quite sure if you truly understand salvation. I understand the reluctance to give. I get it because you're like, I got to pay bills.
I have this vacation plan. I get that. But to say that, I don't know about that. Then I don't know what you did when you truly got saved. Right.
Because you did not obey from the heart. That's a hundred percent. Your obedience is starting to dwindle as life goes on. Right. Some people get into the Lordship salvation debate. Like, you know, when you receive Jesus as your savior, you also need to receive him as your Lord.
And I agree to some extent. Yes. Lord as in God. Yes. Lord as in master. Okay. But Lord as in everything is now totally submitted to God.
That's a work in progress. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what that doctrine says is once you, once you accept Christ, you've surrendered every single sin. There's not a single sin that you hold onto. And you can't, you can't accept Christ until you have done that. Right.
Right. That's, that's what that doctrine says. Leads me to believe that if you sin, then that's evidence that you were never saved. Well, they have a way to get around is like that's repentance and all that stuff. But still it's a very, very hard doctrine, but some of those people don't believe that you have the spirit of sin left.
You will, they believe that the old nature is eradicated and that is a big problem with that. Yeah. Yeah.
Because what is, what is best sin coming from? I guess. Right. Right.
And they're saying, they will say, oh, it's all external. And it's like, well, if you say so. Yeah. May as well just do it then. Sure.
The way you cheated on your wife or the way you're stealing or the way you're bad mouthing somebody or the way you're full of envy or, or, or covetousness or whatever it is, it seems like it's coming right through you. Yeah. No, no, no. It's not me.
It's outside. I mean, inside, this is a new person. When God sees me, he sees Christ. I get it. And I agree with that doctrine, but the way you're sinning. Yeah. May as well sin. I may as well sin if it's an external factor. If it's an external factor, I could point to him and say, God, that wasn't me. That was that. That was that circumstance. No problem there. In light of this, this obedience from the heart, what do we need to do? What is it?
What is the next step we need to take? I would say in all of these, whether it's stealing from God or a bad habit that you're struggling with drinking, smoking, whatever it is, or it is an uncontrollable temper, you have to completely give it to God. Just the way you obeyed from the heart when you got saved, the doctrine to which you were delivered. So also when you are being delivered from that sin and there will be sins throughout life that God will set you free from, you have to obey from the heart, which means I can get angry and punch, but that fist belongs to God.
That's right. You have to present your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. It means that fist was not meant to punch the wall or the person or the couch or the pillow. That fist was to be used for God's glory. It means it's used to help people up.
It's used to serve him. So obeying from the heart in all these areas means before you do anything, you have to get permission. Before you take that smoke, you have to get permission from God. He said, well, I'm trying, but I feel like I just give in.
I just, I just don't know. Then ask God to take it from you. I've done that. I've done, I've done godly.
God knows how many times I've done that. No, we do those things and I know our time is up. We do those things because in that moment we succumb to the pleasure. That's right. In that moment, that pleasure overrides our obedience. That's right.
That's right. And we say, I'm living for this moment. God, please take this from me, but I really don't want you to. I'm living for this moment. You're a moment by moment person instead of slave of Russia. A slave is not a moment by moment person.
Slave is, that's it. That's my life. That's my whole identity. I'm wholly submitted and devoted to this. Amen.
Wow. Guys, so helpful for us. Make sure you join us on tomorrow's episode. Same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clearview Today Show. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. Don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes and you can always support us financially at ClearviewTodayShow.com. John, what do you want to leave our listeners with? 24 hour prayer vigil is happening on May 23rd. That is very soon. Only a couple of days from now, we're going to be live from seven to nine PM.
Make sure you call us two five two five eight two five zero two eight. We want to pray with you live on the air. You can let us know how we can be praying for you all.
So if you're not following Dr. Shaw on Pray.com, go ahead and do that right now. We are closing in on 5k. We are so close. We are so close to 5k. Go ahead and let's lock it in before this week is out. That's right.
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