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So stay hydrated, stay healthy, and without further ado, let's start the show. You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abadan 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 so glad to be here in the Clearview Today Studio with you guys again.
Thank you for joining us this morning. We've got a great conversation on the books for you guys today. But before we do anything else, we want to introduce our host, Dr. Abadan Shah, who's 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 to the studio, my friend. Thank you. It's great, too, great to be here. And I'm looking forward to today's discussion. It's exciting.
Summer is here. People are traveling. going to uh see God's beautiful creation. That's right.
So, today's topic I'm excited about. Oh, yeah, it's going to be fun. And you know what? What you can't travel without, man? A good podcast, good radio show.
That's what we're here to give you, man. Good traveling content. That's right.
You know, a lot of people have been writing in more and more. We've been reading more check-ins. I read another one from Apple today. This was on Apple iTunes. It says, This podcast is a blessing and impactful.
The content is biblically focused, geared towards practical action. I appreciate the focus and effort of sharing and amplifying sound doctrine. That's one of the things we're big on here on the Cleavery Today show is doctrine. We've been going through Romans 8 for the past, or the book of Romans for the past two or three months because Dr. Shuss has such a huge focus on doctrine.
And this person says it encourages Christians to stand up for their beliefs and to share the good news. To me, starting your day with this podcast is a must. Keep going. Wow, that's awesome. Thank you.
Great review. Thank you. Thank you. And we appreciate you, your comment, your integrity in sharing that. We really appreciate that.
And as I mentioned in the last show, when somebody gives us that positive review, Someone else who may just be passing by, just looking for some great content, as John mentioned, some.
Some radio show or some podcast that would help them have a better perspective, a biblical perspective on life. And they see that and it's, it's, uh, they join in and their lives are changed. One of the interacting, interacting with any platform helps us. I mean, if you listen on Apple Podcasts, you listen on Pray.com, everything's run by an algorithm.
So if you interact with content, the algorithm is going to push that content to the top of the list. And you're making this content available to people all over the world. One of the best things about creating content, you know, any content creator out there will tell you their desire is for interactivity. It's not really for numbers because if we got millions and millions of views on these videos and no one commented, it would still feel pretty hollow. It'd be like, well, I guess there's a bunch of bots.
It would look like we bought all the views, which I mean, which does happen. But I think any content creator will tell you the interactivity is much more valuable than like our most viral video ever was actually one that went viral because we didn't we didn't imagine it going virals that baptism one but it was the comments that made it go viral it wasn't the number of Of views. And so I think all that just to say, now that comments are starting to pour in, especially on Prey, you know, a lot of people watch on Prey, and that's where a lot of the interaction is happening. But a lot also on Facebook and on YouTube and on Apple and Spotify and all those different places. But I think it's the interaction of people.
Writing in. Right. Because you know, one of your worst fears, and maybe Dr. Shah, you can, you can. Talk about this too as a preacher as well and as a pastor, one of your worst fears is that.
I'm giving this message that God has given me. And no one's listening. That's the fear. In one ear and out the other.
Well, not the fear, but that's the, maybe that's the insecurity. That's the whatever. That's what you don't want, is to feel like no one's actually listening. Yeah, that's, I mean, I can imagine that's that certainly sitting on the couch. I feel like that sometimes like, is there anybody on the other side of the couch?
Yeah. But then you get comments like this, you get people interacting, you get people leaving reviews, and that's that shows you that we're making a difference. Yeah, amen, amen. Our verse of the day today, Dr. Shah, is coming from Romans chapter 8, verses 19 and 20.
We're familiar with Romans chapter 8 a little bit here on the show. For the earnest expectation of creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. Creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. Kind of poetic. Wow.
Yeah. Kind of poetic. Because we've been walking through Romans 8, and now we see here we've done our fair share of talking about the suffering of the Christian life. But now it starts to get placed in this wider context of the whole creation. And it opens up this door to this new theme, which is hope.
Well, you just said something. Mention that again. You said this is a great piece of literature. What did you say? It's poetic.
It's poetic. That's right.
That's right.
Well, Luke Timothy Johnson, who was for many years New Testament professor at Emory University, written books on New Testament studies, introduction to the New Testament. A lot of wonderful content has come through him. Again, like anybody, I don't accept everything that a scholar writes, but when you find someone who does write a lot of academically strong, but also biblically accurate interpretations of scripture, I follow them. And Luke Timothy Johnson was one of those that I follow. And he said about this.
This half of Romans 8 that we find this passage in. He said he called it one of the most stunning Pieces of rhetorical art in the New Testament. Wow, that's high praise. One of the most stunning pieces of rhetorical art in the New Testament. I would say one of the most stunning pieces of rhetorical art anywhere.
In all of human history. I would say that. I agree. Because when you read it carefully, I mean, here's where you find the life in the spirit. But it's more than that.
Here's how you find this whole creation. Calamity passage. Here's where you find Romans 8:28. And we know that all things work together for good. Here's where you find the passage about nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I mean, this is all in the latter half of Romans chapter 8.
So now we are in that, in a beautiful passage, which forms the life verse of a lot of people. It's kind of cool because you go through so much. We've gone through so much going through Romans. I don't want to say negative, but just the down, like the valley. You know, you've got your peaks and you've got your valleys.
And so we've been talking about sin and death and flesh and the suffering. But now you start to see that all of this is not an end to itself. There's a hope on the other side. Yeah, it's beautiful in the trajectory that Paul writes because you get all of that mire, the sin, death, flesh. This is where I find myself.
And, you know, many of us reading along with these words echo Paul's words and saying, oh, wretched man that I am, who deliver me from this body of death. But then we're focused on. The ascent, the actual deliverance. The actual hope on what we can cling to, knowing that there's another suffering. And there are pastors out there, Dr.
Shah, who would say that, that Christian life is suffering. Period, the right. Yeah, and that's where we are now in Romans chapter 8 and verse 18 onwards. Here we find out Paul gives us this maxim, this truth. He says in Romans 8:18, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Literally It is the sufferings of the now time what you're going through right now. are not worth comparing to the prostane melusan doxa, which is the destined coming glory. I said that in Greek. Yeah, yeah, yeah. God bless you.
Yeah, bless you. Prostane melusan doxan.
So the the destined glory, the glory, the coming glory. That is to be apocaluptum ni, which is uh from a copolu uh apocalypto, which is the unveiling or uncovering.
So this destined glory which will be uncovered In us.
So, the glory is not just some bright light at the end of the tunnel. The glory is not just in the face of Christ, or the glory is not just in the face of, say, Moses and Paul or all the saints of old. The glory is revealed in us. Yeah. Yeah.
And that is What Paul is now introducing in his discussion of the Christian life. Glory is one of those Christian buzzwords that a lot of people will throw around, even myself included, where our purpose is just to glorify Christ. We want to manifest God's glory. But I don't know what glory, you know what I mean? Like, glory, you see it is like that Super Saiyan aura.
Do you think it is glory like when you see the? The eclipse. Yeah, yeah, glory. Does that make you cry out? Glory to God.
Glory to God for you. You ever talk about that?
Well, there's not much to talk about. When I saw the eclipse in 2017, Dr. Shah took us all down to Georgia to Tocoa Falls. And I was kind of being silly, but also I was really in awe when the total eclipse happened. Everybody took their glasses off.
I was just like, glory to God. Glad. Which I was like really feeling it. But at the same time, I was like, this is pretty. This is.
This is... This is a. I mean, there's a reason that God says the heavens declared. Yes, this is an aligning of the heavens. That's what I was like.
And like, there's always the scientific aspect of here's exactly what's happening. But then there's the beautiful aspect where this is really beautiful. We're seeing something that probably we will never get to see again. But here, when Paul talks about that, it's not just some glory in the sense of the heavenly celestial bodies aligning. This is glory in us.
What does that mean? It means, to start with, that suffering is not meaningless. What you and I go through in life.
So let's just talk about suffering for a moment. Sufferings can be just things like physical problems. Cancer treatments. Sufferings can be migraines. Sufferings can be financial problems, deaths, loss of job.
Sufferings can be relational problems. that can be contentions in marriage, uh strange relationships between family members, uh divorce, separation, all of this falls under those relational sufferings. Or sufferings can also be deeper than that. This is where we are suffering. As in denying self.
So you're choosing the difficult life because you want your life to please God. You want to do the hard thing because others won't do it. But you know, this is what God wants. That's what a lot of missionaries and pastors sometimes do. They take that road of suffering.
And I know not everybody does it. And I'm not even saying that everybody sh is required to take the difficult road, but.
Some people are called to take the difficult road. That's right.
What is that belief or practice that says the more l almost like the self-flagellation, like I I have to suffer in order to become more godly or more more Christian? It's a form of self mortification. And I know there's a place for mortification, which is biblical, you know, put to death the deeds of the flesh. But that's where you are standing in the fact That you have already died with Christ. Standing in the fact that you were buried with Him, standing in the fact that you have risen to walk in the newness of life.
So it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. That's a biblical story. Self-mortification, but then there's also this worldly self-mortification that is like, um, I'm going to Live in self-denial, or I'm going to keep certain things away from me so that I can. Please God by this sense of deprivation. I don't think that's necessarily.
Um true self-mortification. I think that's just like pain. Yeah. In pain, we find some kind of retribution, or we find some.
Some catharsis, I guess. It's almost like a perversion of this biblical truth, which is the suffering, the godly suffering leads to glory. Maybe this is like a perverted twist on that. Maybe twisted one example of that. But really, the one that we're talking about is that through no.
real choice of your own You are living the life that God wants you to live. Like you and your own self would not choose that. Right. If there were no Pleasing God involved, then it's a waste of time and effort to do that. But because God is glorified, like my dad took that small church because God wanted him to go there.
And today we're sitting here and reaping the benefits. I mean, think about the blessings we're doing. It's true. Amen. It's because one man About Close to seventy five years ago, chose the road of suffering.
chose to sleep On park benches, chose to allow people to slap him in the face and pull his hair and kick him. Chose to walk away from his family inheritance that we are sitting here enjoying all of this. I mean, we don't think about that because somebody suffered, somebody paid the price. And they paid the price because Jesus paid the price for them.
So that is I believe true Self- Mortification That brings glory to God. And so. Here we're finding in Romans 8:18 that the sufferings of this life are not worth comparing to the glory of this. which shall be revealed in us.
Now What is this glory in us? Is it just a bright light? No. Is it just the presence of God? Yes.
It's like the dinner plate around your head in those old Renaissance paintings. I know David suggested that, but I don't think so. Not the dinner plate around your head. But in Romans eight, twenty three, it actually describes to us what this glory looks like. It says not only that, but we also have the first fruits of the Spirit.
Even we ourselves grown within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption.
So previously, we were. Waiting for the glory, but here now. It becomes more specific. We are groaning within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption. The redemption of our body So, part of the glorification is the redemption of our.
Body. The eventual redemption that's down the road. I'll get you. Gotcha. Gotcha.
So keep in mind. We have been redeemed unto God. Our body is dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. But. I'm still living.
Right. Even though my body, my members are no longer to be yielded to unrighteousness, they are to be yielded unto God. Right, right.
So I am for all practical purposes. Dead. My hands, my feet, my eyes, mouth, nose, ears, everything, is dead. dead to sin, but alive to God.
So I have to offer my members my instruments as instruments of righteousness unto God. One day I'm gonna physically die. That's coming. Unless Jesus comes before, I'm going to physically die. Mm-hmm.
My body is going to disintegrate.
Some people are buried and then they decompose.
Some people are buried at sea, lost forever, at least for this life.
Some people are. You know, incinerated, and that's the end of that. But the Bible has also promised us that we will be coming back. Even the sea will give up its dead. We will have a glorified, transformed body like Jesus, just like Jesus.
Right. Not like Chris Hemsworth, not like uh, not like uh Arnold Schwarzenegger. Like, like if you don't look like a Hemsworth in this life, I don't think you're gonna look like a Hemsworth. That's right.
People say, like, our glorified bodies, we're gonna have the ideal, we'll be the ideal specimen. Like, I'm gonna have ripped muscle, so there's no need to work out or anything in this life because it'll happen in heaven. No, well, you will be at the prime that you can ever be by the grace of God, but your facial features will still look the same. Yeah, yeah, okay.
So, don't your facial dimensions, that's just sick, right? Right. So, maybe anything from sin and suffering in this world may be gone, of course, but you will look like you. I won't be like, Is that John? I don't know.
He reminds me so much of John. Like a little chicken. I could also see a little bit of like a Liam Meese. Yeah, it looks like a little bit of Tony Stark in there. Not Tony Stark.
What's the dude's name? Robert Downey Jr. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think it will still be us. But in this redeemed, glorified body, we will have the body.
like our Savior Jesus. Yes, it was difficult to recognize him. One was because of shock, another one because. Um you know, it it was uh a little too fresh. to know if Jesus was The one resurrected.
So Mary Magdalene thought he was the gardener.
Somebody else thought. You know, he was just. a traveler on the road to Maus, who knows? But we will be glorified like him. We can eat like he ate.
Give me some bread and he ate in front of them. We will also Be able to interact with people, walk. I mean, Jesus walked on the road to Emmaus.
So we'll be able to do that. But in this glorified state, there will be a difference. This body will no longer be subjected to sin. and death. And sorrow.
Um So this is Like The body of Jesus. One of the things that you said, and I really want to take this heart, this is one of those, like, this needs to click moments because a lot of people, I think, will take this and say, okay, I need to just wait out the suffering because I'm going to be glorified. But it's the suffering. The way you said it was this. You said, what makes you glorious is your conformity to Jesus.
But what conforms you to Jesus are the sufferings. They're related. They can't be separated. And I think that's really beautiful. I don't know if you got that somewhere, but we need to patent that like quickly.
Yeah, because sufferings, as I mentioned, are the beauty treatments that make that God uses to make us beautiful forever. That's so good. Yes, it is. They're part of the beauty treatment.
So what you're going through in this life.
Now somebody may say, Well, yeah, I'm going through some stuff, but look, I caused it. It's because of my bad choices bad decisions this happened to me. I hear you But that's when Romans 8:28 comes in. What does it say? But we know, and we know that all things, all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
If you are called according to His purpose, He will make even those Undesirable things, even your mistakes, even other people's sins against you. He will take all that and work together for good. That's such a beautiful truth. Like, even, even when I mess up, even the ways that I drop the ball, even the ways that I am disobedient, God can take that and work it for my good and for his glory. And that's, man, that's so sweet to think about because it can be easy to beat up on yourself.
It can be easy to think, man, I really did it this time. I really stepped in it and I've made a mess of things and God can't possibly work this out. No, God, God, in His sovereignty, has accounted for my stupidity. Right. He, or other people's sin, or my sin.
Or our sin. I mean, he's accounted all of that into this equation. And so suffering, those lines that come on our face, our hearts, because of suffering, they make us beautiful and glorious in the life to come. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is wasted.
That's why Romans 8:28, and I know most of the time people use it for this life. Mm-hmm. Oh man, all worked out. I tell you what, thank you for praying. Everything worked out.
But I always want to remind them is that that passage, yes, it can be applied. to the now as a principle, but really in the context it is about The then. Yeah, the next life. Because in Romans 8:29, it says, for whom he foreknew. He also predestined.
to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren, and whomever, and moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called, whom he called, these he also justified, and whom he justified, these he also glorified. That's not here, that's in the life to come. And it's funny how this always gets turned into like a predestination. Because if I just read that, I'd be like, oh, yeah, this is a salvation issue. That's what he's talking about.
You've been predestined. Yeah, I've been predestined. Like, I'm saved because God chose that I would be saved. But it's kind of funny because when you walk through Romans and then you arrive here, it's like, oh, it's very silly to think that this is a predestination issue. Yeah, this is about conformity to the image of his Son, Jesus.
Right. And that conformity comes through suffering, which means that even suffering makes me more beautiful. And more beautiful is not just like, oh, look at how beautiful I am. Beautiful is, look how much I look like Jesus.
So, the sufferings of this life are making you more and more and more like Jesus. And that is beautiful. That is glorious. Yeah, I agree. That is worth.
Waiting for. That gives a purpose to everything, even the difficult moments. God is using them as beauty treatments in your life, making you more like Christ. Your suffering becomes a path to glory. You know what I mean?
It's not like, and I've done this too, and I think a lot of Christians are guilty of this, where it's like, I have to get through the suffering because it's going to make me stronger. It's going to make me more durable. It's going to help me to endure even more sufferings. And we've said this so many times on the show, but that makes your sufferings ultimately pointless. Or just for this life.
And there is a truth there, but it's not just for this life. Right. Because then the focus is still on me. At the end of the day, I overcame. By God's grace, but I'm the one that overcame.
Right. Where really it was like the sufferings made me more like Jesus, so that in the next life, there's a beauty and there's a rest that was born out of those sufferings. And to illustrate that, Paul turns to creation. Mm-hmm. I mean, we began this whole program with talking about creation.
Yes. Why that is important. to help us understand how suffering It's beautiful. And then one day that's going to be part of our glory in Christ Okay. Paul uses creation as the example.
So, how does that work? In Romans 8:19, it says, For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing. of the sons of God. Earnest expectation of the creation ketisis. Kitesis is subhuman creation.
Animate or inanimate? Animals or plants? Earth Sea, river, mountains, hills, valleys, everything but humans, universe. All of that is part of this creation.
Something happened to this creation that brought suffering on this creation. And the creation is waiting for our revealing. It's waiting for us to be glorified. And then it explains little further. In verse 20, this is Romans 8:20.
For the creation was subjected to futility, was subjected. We brought sin into this world. Creation did not bring sin into this world. We cause sin. When Adam and Eve sinned, They sinned because they chose to disobey God.
Creation, on the other hand, was saw this unwilling participant who was there They were now guilty. It was now guilty. It says: for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly. In other words, creation did not want to participate in our disobedience. Right.
It was the kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was along for the ride. Long recess because the other kids acted up. Yeah, you ever got onto one of your kids and you know, they were just, you were just around the troublemakers. You were around your siblings who was causing troubles.
And now you're all getting it. 100%. And futility means it's like, oh, I was created for something so much more, but now it has, my existence has become sort of futile. Wow. I am not going to ever, ever, ever meet the mark that I need to meet for the Creator.
I can never truly glorify the Creator that I'm supposed to do. Because of you, and there was violence in the animal kingdom. There was death. and wilting and f and fall In the planned kingdom, things were not going to be beautiful good anymore. They're going to be less than what they were created to be.
Or think about like all the like natural cataclysms, like floods and hurricanes and volcanoes and stuff like that. Yeah, absolutely. All those big, big uh You know, destructive powers will also cause more sufferings and cuts and pains on this earth and the universe. And then, if you add to that, Noah's flood. And I think we're going to need another show together.
Yeah, we'll probably have to. But imagine Noah's Flood, how much water fell upon this earth, how the fountains of the deep were burst open, which means the crust was crumbling And hot magma was was shooting up to the surface. And The Igneous rock was coming to the surface. I mean, just coming. Like like Torpedoes.
Yeah, we think about rain falling from the sky. We don't think about the deep colour. Coming up, bursting from the corner. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
All of that was part of bringing more and more and more suffering upon this earth. And the earth didn't cause it, right? Right. It just has to go through it. And if you think about that, why did God even curse the earth?
If the earth is not guilty, why curse the earth? If you think about it. We were sinful, we had fallen, we were corrupt. How can sinful, fallen, corrupt people live in a perfect world? Yeah, it can't.
So now we have to God in his divine wisdom, the triune God in his divine wisdom, had to now make the world Sinful, fallen, corrupt. Not like he caused sin, but he had to curse it. That's right.
Yeah, it makes perfect sense. We can't live in a paradise being sinful humans. It's impossible.
So he had to say, all right, sorry, earth, because of these fools right here. You have now become substandard. There you go. You've gone from. From like a five-star hotel, like a Michelin star, to now you are.
I don't know. Budget host in Chef Boyardi. Less than a one. You have a less than one star hotel? Yeah, yeah, you're like a fleabag motel or something.
Yikes.
Sorry, creation. But with the hope that one day it's coming back. That's coming back. That's right.
That's the hope that we cling to. Man, so good. We got to unpack this on another episode. Make sure you join us for tomorrow's episode. Same time, same station.
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