We've learned how to care when we don't have to. We've learned how to pray. We've learned how to fast.
Now it's finally time to get into action and do the doing. Right? Nope. And we're going to talk about it. Coming up right now on the Cleavery Today Show.
You're listening to Clearview 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. Welcome to the Clearview Today Show.
We've been walking through the book of Nehemiah right here in the studio with our host, Dr. Abadan Shah. And if for some reason you're listening today for the very first time, we want to say welcome. Whatever God has brought you here, we know He's brought you here for a reason.
So we want to help you figure out what that is as we go through this conversation in Nehemiah. If you are listening for the first time, let you know Dr. Shah 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, another great conversation on the books today.
Yes, and we're ready to go and really, with Nehemiah, do something. Yes. But we have to wait. Oh, no. Why is that?
It's not to thank the sponsors, is it? No, because Nehemiah had to wait. Oh, I had to wait. All right, sit down, get comfortable. We're going to wait.
My mom used to say, we would hurry up and wait. Hurry up and wait. Yeah, my parents used to say that too. Hey, stop rushing me. Hurry up and wait.
Well, while we're waiting, let's use this opportunity to thank our sponsors. Yes, as you guys know, the Clearview Today show is made possible by very generous giving, very generous donations every single month, not only by listeners like you through platforms like Pray.com and through Abhadansha.com. And we do want to say thank you very much for all of you guys who give monthly, but we also want to thank our sponsors, particularly Mighty Muscadine, LaBlue, Ultra Pure Water. WatchSafe is a very, very prominent sponsor. You know, WatchSafe has actually been blowing up here lately.
You know, yeah, if you've not heard of WatchSafe before, you can find all of the information in the description below. But it's basically a very safe way for your kids to access Christian content on YouTube. You know, kids are addicted to YouTube nowadays. And instead of telling them, hey, you're not allowed to go on there at all, WatchSafe is a great app that lets you monitor and allow certain things. Certain permissions for Christian content on YouTube.
So, very, very thankful for all of our sponsors today. You know, Dr. Shaw, this whole waiting thing, I'm ready to get into the action, right? I'm ready to come in. Yeah.
I want to get to work. But Nehemiah said, We got to wait.
So now we come to Nehemiah chapter 2, and it begins with verse 1. And it came to pass in the month of Nisan. In the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, That I took the wine and gave it to the king.
Now, we typically just read past that and get into his conversation with the king. But let's stop and look at the calendar. The month of Nisan is April in the Jewish calendar.
Okay, April. If you remember, the story of Nehemiah began with the month of Kislev, which is December. Oh.
So December is when he hears the news, he weeps before God, and all that. This is April.
So, how many months has it been? I mean, four months. Four months. February, March, April. Yeah.
So four times, let's say 30 days a month, just about 120 days. 120 days. He Doesn't do anything. Oof. That's tough.
That would tear me up. That would tear my nerves. Four months passed between the time Nehemiah heard about the plight of the people and he prayed to God with weeping and fasting. And the time that he went to talk to the king. Four months.
There's a bunch of people who work construction who are like, eh, sounds about right to me. Just four months. You know, don't do anything.
Sounds right. The thing is, you know, yes, there is a time for action, and we need to move, and we need to move fast, and we need to move decisively, but there is also a time of waiting, waiting patiently.
Now, what exactly was Nehemiah waiting for? I think probably for God's timing. And you see that repeatedly in the Bible. Think about Moses. Moses Was God's man to lead the people, the Hebrews, out of Egypt into the promised land?
He had to wait. How many years? 40 years. 40 years. That's crazy.
40 years. Jesus, God's Son, came into this world. He had to wait. 30 years. 30 years.
30 years. 30 years. Yeah. My mind went blank for a second. I was like, wait a minute.
How many years? I'm reading Exodus in my morning devotions now. And it's crazy how, like, you can read it, especially early in the morning. You, just like you said, you brush right past that. Moses waited 40 years.
Yep, I remember that. That's part of the story. 40 years. Then you come here and you start talking about it. You're like, dad, I haven't even been alive 40 years.
That's longer than my life. I'm 34 years old. I haven't even been alive that long. I've been in America since 1991. Forty years would put me in nineteen Oh, wait.
86. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Because I was born in 88.
So 86. In 1986, I was in, because 89. I was in eleventh grade, I was in What? Seventh grade, right? No, not really.
No, you'd have been 80. Eighty six, you were in seventh grade, you said? Right. Wasn't I? Eighty seven.
So so so so eighty nine I was in eleventh grade. Uhhuh. Eighty eight I would be in tenth grade. 87 being ninth grade, eighth grade, eighth grade, yeah, yeah. Middle school.
I was in middle school. That's wow.
So imagine Moses waiting the whole time since I was in middle school till today and saying, okay, now I'm ready to bring God's people out of slavery. Yeah, if that had been you, you'd have been called in eighth grade and now today you're ready to start. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be crazy. That's great.
It's the twins. And maybe, maybe talk about that for a minute because we have this idea from, I don't know if it's from Hollywood, I don't know if it's Western specifically, but it's like I have to be important and be successful while I'm young.
So that I can live out the majority of my days in comfort and peace. We're such a right now culture. Yeah. And we see a few people who are successful overnight successes. Man, they they went from nothing to all of a sudden they are they are the thing.
Everybody's talking about them. But then there's also the other side of that life. And and my question to people is, are you willing to do that? Are you willing to move to Nashville? Right.
Are you willing to move to New York City? You want to be that that next Wall Street, you know, the this like Wall Street mogul. Mogul. Right. Exactly.
Then then you cannot do that sitting where you're sitting. You got to move. Oh, no, no, no, no. I want to do it right here.
Okay, then it's going to take time. Yeah, they think the internet, they think because the internet came, now I can do it just sitting right here. Right, yeah, I can see it from my phone, which means I got to do it right here.
Some things. But when it comes to the things of God, waiting. Is key. Charles Stanley, you know, one time pastor of First Baptist Atlanta, he had a great ministry called In Touch. And, you know, in many ways, he's touched so many lives, even mine.
I met him one time. He said this: He said, waiting is one of the most difficult things in the Christian life.
However, it is never wasted time. God teaches us his path, changes our circumstances, keeps us in step with Himself, prepares us for His answers, and uses times of waiting To sift our motives and strengthen our faith. Faith. Amen. I love it.
Now, every one of those things are very important.
So, if right now you feel like you're in that holding pattern, it's not wasted time because God is using this time to teach you his path. He's using this time to change the circumstances because we're thinking, well, if he called me, Come on, step on it, make it happen. You should have already figured all this out. No, God is working in the entire universe, not just this planet Earth, the entire universe, and He's lining everything together. Not that it takes God a long time to do that, but His plan is perfect.
And to be perfect, every cog has to connect. and lined up just right. Even the blade of grass that is growing in your front lawn has to line up just right. That's what God is doing. That's a great way to put it.
It's not that it takes God a long time, it's that He does things at the right time. That's right. And He changes our circumstances. As I mentioned, He keeps us in step with Himself. I mean 30 years ago, I did not have the mindset I have today.
I did not have the wisdom I have to day. And for me to want some of those things to happen today, I don't have the wisdom that I will have in five years from now and 10 years from now. And 20 years from now, because if I get those things now. I will completely make a mess out of them. That's a hard truth for a lot of Christians to swallow.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was hard for me that you're not the, like, you want the success.
Now, and you want the or even the result right now, but you're not the person you need to be. Yeah, you're not ready for it. It's a hard thing to hear. Yeah. You know, I used to read Spurgeon's biography and many times.
I mean, I've read his autobiography, which really was put together by his wife and all that. But I've read his other biographies. I've read The Forgotten Spurgeon. I've read The Heir of the Puritans. I've read so many things on Spurgeon.
I mean, if any person I've read a lot on, it's probably Spurgeon in the Christian realm. Right. And I was always just Just Yeah. amazed by the fact that before he even turned twenty he was pastoring. And Just his first church in the little village, you know, he didn't go to Metropolitan Tabernacle.
I mean, that's not where it began. Right. He didn't start actually in Park Street pulpit. He was actually pastoring in a small little country church. and the church began to grow.
And so I've often been like, man, he was like, and I can't remember the exact age, like 18 or something like that. And imagine People coming from everywhere to hear you. Wow. In a small little village in the eighteenth. Fifties 1850s.
They used to call him the modern Whitfield. Wow. Whitfield lived over a hundred years just about a hundred years prior to Spurgeon's birth. But they when they heard about Spurgeon's preaching and his his giftedness, they called him the modern Whitfield. Wow.
And then he's called by a church, and he's supposed to meet. This person from that church. Yeah. And it's kind of a funny story. But I'm sure it wasn't funny to Spurgeon at the time.
So he goes to this place. And the the the host I don't know if it was a restaurant or a meeting house, whatever. The host invites Spurgeon and has him sit in a room. Then the person who's meeting with Spurgeon comes. And the host mistakenly takes that person and puts them or hostess puts them in another room.
So this meeting is supposed to happen between these two people, a very important meeting. And they get put into the room. They're sitting in two separate rooms. And after an hour or so, you know, Spurgeon gets up and leaves thinking, well, I guess that's it. Oh, they changed their mind.
Only to realize either months or years later that that person was there. Oh, it was that much later? Wow. Yeah. They didn't get it resolved the next day.
No, no, that opportunity was gone. Oh man. Oh man. Imagine how you and I would have been if you had this great deal, this album, this play, this opportunity. Yeah, out of lost sleep.
Out of fear. Out of absolutely. And to know that you were sitting in the other room and this big. Big-time executive who could, man, open doors for you was in the other room because of someone's foolish mistake. Livid, yeah, angry.
Like, I know we're, I know, we're like on the radio. We need to think of something clever, but I cannot think of how upset I'd be. No, I can't even, I can't even put it into words. Yeah, and so the word that came to Spurgeon, and he talks about this, it's a scripture, and I don't remember the exact scripture reference, and but but it said, Seekest thou great things, seek them not. Hmm.
You know, you're trying to seek great things, stop doing that. No, huh.
Now it's not against ambition, we talk about that, but it was about you're trying to be this great person, Be careful. Don't try to be great. Just start doing what is right. I think that's a great that's a great point to make. It was not against ambition.
It was more about you're trying to be great. Don't don't worry about that. Yeah, just do what's right. Like it's a different between seeking great things and seeking to be great. I think that's a great distinction.
Yeah, because I think genuinely us and the majority of people who are listening to this, you know, our ambition is for the impact. That was something that you kind of drilled into our heads very, very early on. And not in a way like, this is what we'll do, but it's just, that's your heart. And that's the heart of your leadership is we're looking to make a difference in people's lives. Right, right.
You talked yesterday on our episode about Nehemiah not just seeking to build the walls for his own glory. Like for I'm a great builder. Look at this project that I was able to accomplish. No, he was laser focused on the fact that God's plan was at risk. And that was the goal.
I want to do the next right thing in order to accomplish this goal rather than saying, look at Nehemiah, the great builder. See, our sound engineers found Jeremiah 45. Which is and seekest thou great things for thyself. Seek them not. It's a it's a big difference.
But anyways, going back to the Spurgeon story, before we jump into Nehemiah again, for the benefit of our listeners, we're going then what happened? Later on, church in England in London heard about him, Park Street pulpit and or Park Street, and they called him to come. And he went over there and all of a sudden that that charge began to explode. And it became so big then they had to meet here and meet there, meet in a theater, and they built the Metropolitan Tabernacle. I've visited there before and uh it's just just amazing.
They had to turn away several thousand people every Sunday. Wow. That's incredible. I need to say that. This is the 1860s.
Turn away people and say, sorry, it's full. There's no room. I need to say this before it leaves my mind forever, just so that it's on record that we did it first. What's today's date? May the 20th?
Today, yeah, May the 20th. 2026. Seek not great things. Is a fantastic album title. There you go.
I'm putting that write that down. I had to say it. I had to say it because I know add it to the cue. Seek not greatness. It's going to get in here and it's going to vaporize for it.
There you go. Go for it. Many of you heard it here, folks. That's right. For the first time.
I'm copyrighted tonight. Write it down. Let it be known. I love it.
But I mean, that's what, that's what. And of course, Spurgeon now is a legend. But a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ who has impacted so many, he's impacted my life greatly by his messages, by his story, by how he persevered. He struggled with depression. He struggled with depression, and yet he continued and he made such an impact for the gospel, not just in England, but all over the world.
all over the world. He he touched millions of lives and still is. But he had to wait, he had to be disappointed. But when I used to read those, his story, I would be like, man, when is my Metropolitan Tabernacle? When is that going to happen?
And God had to teach me that that was his story. But your story is no less just because it is a different path. And so don't expect those big things right away. You may have to go a different path and praise God because I don't think I could have handled it. Yeah.
If somebody has said by 20 21 years of age. You'd be p preaching to six, seven thousand people every Sunday morning. How? With whom? Who's going to support me?
Well, you know, God will provide all. Yeah, I hear you. But Where? Yeah. Wouldn't have happened here.
I'm with you.
Well, and I think about, I think about your story, Dr. Shaw, and you know, maybe, maybe you didn't have quite the early trajectory that Spurgeon did. I mean, 22 years old speaking to thousands of people. That's that's insane. Those, those numbers are crazy.
It is. But you maintaining the focus on what God had called you to do instead of chasing notoriety and chasing, like, I want a big crowd. I want to, I want to have my name on all these books. I want to X, Y, and Z. I want to be successful.
Your trajectory was God has called me to this church, God has called me to this community, and I'm going to make a difference from this corner of the world. And look at how God has blessed that and bless your commitment and Nicole's commitment. In, you know, every weekend, you are speaking to thousands of people, maybe not in person. I mean, we have, we're nearing that number in person, but through online services, through things like the Queen Read Today Show, through radio. I mean, you are speaking to thousands of people every week, every weekend.
And God is blessing that focus and your. perseverance through Highs, lows, and everything in between. And then I think the thing for me also is not having to abandon that dream of, yes, I want my name on books. Yes, I want to be able to write books and make a huge impact in the world. I don't have to give that up just because the answer is not right now.
Right. And maybe not in the way that you imagine. It may not be like the big circuit of book tours and preaching tours and all that stuff that when you're young, you think you want because that's what you see every day. And I think one of the things that I've learned from working under you and working here is that the success that finally does come to you is so much better than what I thought I wanted. It's so much more fulfilling.
Absolutely. It's so draining. Exactly. And even that drain is so full of joy and excitement and fulfillment. And it leaves you with such peace.
Yes. You know, yes, there are some tears, there are some painful moments, but when you, when you. are at the tail end of that and you s look back and you go, Wow And you see The reaction of people around you, and you see the support, and you see the love, and you see the focus on God, you are overwhelmed by how good God is. He does not make any mistakes. He did not make any mistakes.
Everything that he has done in my life, in your life, and how he has orchestrated the circumstances, I mean, his providential hand upon us is just right. is just right.
So all that to say the four months that Nehemiah waited Maybe four years for some of you Maybe 14 years for some of you, maybe 40 years for some of you. Don't lose heart. That's right. Because God is perfectly in charge. He is still working.
Don't lose. Buy into the enemy's lives. Don't give into doubts and fears. Don't give into discouragement. Don't let anyone or anything Make you feel hopeless.
Get around people who are full of God. Get around people who love Jesus Christ more than anything else. Get around people who love the word of God. Get around people who are submitted to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Get around people who desire to seek the lost.
And to love one another. Because those are the people who will fill your heart With hope. Yeah. And so, whoever you are, wherever you are, maybe you're a pastor, maybe you are. A housewife, maybe you are Working as a teacher or nurse.
In the military, Maybe you're a seminary student? I don't know where you are. I don't know what's happening in you. Maybe you're looking for employment. Maybe you made some mistakes and you feel like God is finished.
I don't know. Just know that God is not done. Yeah. And maybe you can speak to this on a personal level, too: that the work that God has you doing in that period of waiting, whether it's four years, 14 years, whatever it is, that work isn't going to waste. You know what I mean?
Like we've got a show now, a platform that is syndicated through the Truth Network, Pray, TBN. I mean, it's a Clear View Today show gets around. But this is not our first show. This is not the first time we've ever went into podcasting, radio. You know, we've had shows before this.
And if we looked at, well, okay, this show we started years ago and now it ended, we could see it as, well, that was a waste of time, but it got us ready for this. You were doing broadcasting. In undergrad, right, you know what I'm saying? And if you were like, well, I didn't end up a news anchor, I didn't end up on TV doing the news, so I guess that was a waste of time, right? Then you're missing the fact that God has brought you to this place right now.
Nothing is wasted. Yeah, I mean, years ago, this is back in the early, you know, maybe I would say 2011, I think it is, when we began Hoi Poloi. That was the very first show. Yeah, it was in 2011, I think it was before you guys came, right? I was doing the show.
And this was just talking to scholars or just. The one talking on the show about biblical scholarship and what's happening right now in the contemporary world. And then it sort of migrated into doing what we were doing. Part of Minana. Part of Minana.
We began that show with our whole staff. It was once a week, and we did that starting in 2018, I believe. Yep, we were trying to find ways to integrate because it was all coming from our lunch conversation. Lunch conversations were just all and still are, just one point. Yes, like we don't, like, we don't, we would sit around and we would, you know, we would kind of shoot the breeze and ask silly questions, but then we start talking about our work, we start talking conversations like this, yeah, and so we were ministry leadership.
And it was born out of this idea that it should be getting out to people, people should be hearing this because it's good stuff that's transforming our team, right? Right. And then we, uh, in 2022, by God's grace, we got a show on the Truth Network. Yeah, we were approached. Yes, we were approached, and we're so grateful to Stu Epperson.
I mean, just an amazing, amazing story there of how God used him to give us an opportunity like this. We might, we may tell it one day, yep. Five-day. Five days a week show, Monday through Friday. And then also on theprey.com and then TBN Plus.
I mean, this is amazing. But it all began in, I mean, began years ago, but I would say 2011. And this is 2026. 15 years. Yes, it's taken 15 years to get here.
In 2011, by the way, podcasting now, like anybody and their neighborhood frat guy can have a podcast. In 2011, that was a big, there was a lot of work that had to be put into it. Yeah, podcasting was not as commonplace as it is today. No, not at all. Not at all.
Podcasting started in 2003. It did not take off until like 10, 15 years later. It was a big boom of podcasting. I think you got in. Right before it was Boy Poloi was going when I came in 2013.
That's right. Yeah. You're right.
So it had probably already been there for at least a year or two. That's crazy. It is crazy. But I think about that now. Like, imagine if we said, well, that was a bust.
And we tried Carpa Mignana. That was a bust. And it's kind of silly to talk that way, but I think there are ministry people who think that, who think, well, until God brings me to that point, what am I doing in the meantime? This is all waste, but it's not. Yeah.
Dr. Shaw, we have had the benefit of you pouring into us over the past more than a decade for John and I and reminding us of things like that. In those seasons of waiting, it's not a waste. God is doing things. God is still working.
God is preparing you for what's next. For the people who are listening that have not had that, would you just invest in them for the next few minutes and just kind of encourage them on how they can stay focused on God in that season of waiting? You know, when you follow God, nothing is wasted. That's right. Whether it is Moses jumping the gun and trying to free his people and then trying to kill the Egyptian, even though that was a horrible mistake, God used that to humble him.
God used that to send him to the backside of the desert. Not that his initiative was wrong. But the people were not ready. They were not ready to follow Moses. Moses In a sense was probably not ready to lead all those people.
So he had to go to the back side of the desert, spend forty years. Leading sheep. And it may seem like, man, what a waste of time. You're out there with these. These dumb sheep, you know, we say that dumb sheep.
What's the benefit? How are you going to learn leadership lessons to lead two, three million? Hebrew Hebrews out of Egypt. How can you do that? But God was doing a deep work in his life.
All the previous work that he learned in Egypt, education, military, all those expeditions he made into Ethiopia and into Nubia and other places was not in waste. He was learning the landscape. That's right. And now he was learning how to lead sheep. God put all that together, and he didn't come as we often see in the Prince of Egypt and other places, like a 35-year-old.
Yeah, vibrant young man. Yeah, he came as an 80-year-old.
So, my encouragement to people is: man. If you think you're out of time. No, you're not. God is perfectly in charge. He's got your life in his hands.
He has great things in store for you. Trust him. And step out in faith. The waiting is not wasted. That's right.
God is still in charge. Amen. Amen. So good.
So encouraging for us. And, you know, just like Nehemiah had to wait, you're going to have to wait for the rest of the conversation on Nehemiah. We're out of time on today's episode, but we hope that you got something wonderful from today's episode. If you did, write in and let us know what you took away from today's episode. 252-582-5028.
We love encouraging you and love walking with you through the different seasons of your life. We want to know where you're listening from. That's right. Big thank you to all of our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show anywhere podcasting content can be found.
You can always support us financially as well at Abadanshah.com forward slash give. That's right. Lots of big news coming out of Clearview Church.
So, number one is our Greek New Testament is still available for pre-order. It's going to be available for order very, very soon as soon as we get all the books back from the printer. Thank you for everyone who has pre-ordered that and has left positive comments on our YouTube page and on our iTunes page. Looking forward to the Greek New Testament. You know, if you can't read Greek, we have resources for you, and one of them is a video.
Podcast. It's a live lecture series. It's on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube. It's called How to Read Biblical Greek by Dr. Abadan Shah.
Every single week this summer, we're going to be recording new episodes.
So make sure that you're tuning in for that. Another one is: we have a brand new film coming out. It's a documentary. It's called, Can we say the title? Can we say the title?
I don't know. It's called, it's called. What's it called? No, I'm just joking. I'm joking.
It's called Our Favorite Undertakings. It's going to be released. It's a big premiere happening here on Clearview, June the 28th, and then it's going to be available for digital release right after that. Our Favorite Undertakings. It's the very first feature film ever produced by Clearview Media.
One last thing that I want to let you guys know about, and that is our Sermons podcast. A lot of people don't know that we have a bunch of different shows. Our sermons podcast, Sermons by Dr. Abadan Shah, is also available on iTunes, Spotify, anywhere that podcasts are sold. That's right.
Listen to. They're still selling. They're still sold, distributed. Probably should. We love you guys.
We'll see you next time on Clearview today.
