I'm doing great things for the kingdom of God. God has given me dreams and aspirations, and I'm seeing it on the horizon. And you would think everybody would be on my side, but that's not always the case. How do you handle it when people oppose you? Let's figure it out together.
Coming up right now on the KB Today 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.
Welcome to the Clearview Today Show. We're so glad you're joining us for another great conversation here with our host, Dr. Abadan Shah. And if you're listening for the very first time today, we want to say welcome to the show. We're glad you're joining us.
And we're going to let you know who's talking to you today. 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, there's so many things that I want to do for the kingdom of God.
And the great thing about it is, I'm doing things for God.
So everyone is going to be happy about it, right? No. It's a real glitch. No, my word. No.
Yeah. Anytime there is something worth doing, there will be opposition. Just expect that. The best of the best people out there who are doing great things, and it seems like, man, they're loving life. They are just, you know, things happen and they just go from one to the next victory.
But if you get close enough to them, or if they ever share their heart, you will find out that they had to face sometimes incredible opposition to get to where they are.
So, looks can be deceiving. You know, but we've talked about this: how the opposition can sometimes come from your own fear, how the opposition can sometimes come from, I'm not the leader that I'm supposed to be yet, so I have to wait. But it's a very different thing when I have active opposition from other people, right? Enemies. It can be very discouraging.
It can be a temptation to abandon the ship or abandon the project because if you're encountering this opposition, clearly this isn't meant to move forward. And I like what you said, too. Where anytime you try to do this, there's going to be opposition. Because I think what we think is, I'm not big enough to have enemies. I'm not important enough to have enemies.
You know, Moses, he got enemies. King David, he's got enemies. Important, big, big people. What am I doing that I would have active enemies? You start following Jesus Christ as a family, as a couple, you will have opposition.
By yourself, you start following Jesus Christ. You'll go against the grain. There will be opposition. As I mentioned a few moments ago, the best of the best people I've known who on the surface seems like, man, they're having the time of their life, no opposition, no problems, no walls that they have to climb, And then, if they ever share their heart, you find out: wow, you had to deal with that? And sometimes very messy, ugly situations.
Yeah. I'm excited to dig further into this conversation today because I think it's going to be so helpful for people who are encountering that opposition, who are tempted to maybe abandon the project or abandon this calling that God has placed on their lives. And we're going to create a clearer view on what it means to handle the opposition that you come up against. How do you work through that? How do you deal with opponents?
And just like everything here on the Clear View Today show, it wouldn't be possible without our sponsors. That's right. We want to thank all of our sponsors, particularly Mighty Muscadine, LaBlue, Ultra Pure Water, Watch Safe. These are all organizations who have partnered with us in bringing you a clearer view of the gospel. You know, Dr.
Show, we talk about opposition, we prep for opposition, but then how to handle it when it actually comes? How do we make sure that all these things that we're talking about here today don't fly out of our head the second external conflict rears its ugly head? Right.
Well, Going going back to Nehemiah's story. He arrives there, seven hundred miles' journey. He comes and he rests for three days. And it may seem like, man, three days is a long time. 700 miles is a long way.
It's a long way. This is not on a train, like some train, fast train in France. This is not riding in a car or riding on a bus or flying, of course. No, this is probably on horseback or camelback. And he makes his way into Jerusalem.
He's exhausted. He's tired. Three days' rest. And he's ready to go.
Okay, three days' rest. You know, there is something about the three days there. If you think about it, again, I don't want to spiritualize this more than it needs to be, but I think there is a little bit of a hint A hint of what Jesus did for us. He was buried for three days. And on the third day, he rose again.
And that's what he does. Listen to that in verse 11.
So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days. Then I arose in the night. There you go. Three is an intentional number. Yeah.
I believe that the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is about Jesus Christ. That's right. Amen. That's right. I believe that first, when you interpret the passage in its context, in its context.
That is the meaning. And then there is application. But even when I introduce it or or I interpret it in its context, I cannot get past the Three days and I arose. That's right. He could have just said I rested, and he still would have been ready.
I rested for three days. But he said specifically for three days. Yes. Yes, that to me is very important. And then I arose.
Again, that is very much important because that is a type of what Jesus did for us. He came down. When you didn't have to? He left his throne and came down to save us, became like us, suffered for us, gave his life on the cross for us, and then he was buried for three days. Where?
In the tomb. Which was where? In Jerusalem. In Jerusalem. I got you, gotcha.
So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days. Nice. I love those moments. I love those moments when you're reading the Bible and little details like that continue to fall into place. You're like, oh, and that, oh, and that detail points us to Christ.
It's just, it makes scripture come to life. As you're reading it, it just reinforces God's word to you. We did a yeah, we did a series on that where it was like. All these types of Christ, all these little, these little glimpses that you see, a lot of the times we're like, oh man, isn't that cool? The Bible's one story.
But we always take it because now it's important to the story of Nehemiah as well. It's relevant to the story that's being told, as well as it's relevant for us. You see, anytime you say something like this, there will be those who will say, wait a minute, wait a minute, time out. Are you telling me seriously that Nehemiah doing this, coming to Jerusalem, three days resting, and then rising up in the night? And if I can add more details, and a few men with me, and remember, Jesus did not go and show himself to the whole city of Jerusalem.
He did not go all over Palestine again, but He did not go to the Roman Empire, and he And to Rome and said, Here I am, your prefect tried to kill me, but here I know he didn't do that. He only met with his own. Just a handful. just a few hundred of them.
So all of this.
So people often say things like. Are you telling me that this is what the author of Nehemiah intended? that you would see Jesus here. Come on, that's that's not possible. They did not know all that stuff.
All that is reading back into the text. That's what they will say, you're reading back into the text, and that's a hermeneutical fallacy. And I will disagree with them. I believe that we give those people Very, very little credit of how much they understood the coming of the Son of God. I believe Adam understood the coming of the Son of God.
Now, he didn't know exactly Bethlehem because Bethlehem wasn't there. Right.
Bethlehem would still be several thousand years down the road. Right, right. But did he not understand that someone was coming through? His lineage? Yes, he did.
Did Eve not understand? Yes, she did. Did Cain, Abel? They understood. Down the road, did Abraham, Isaac, Jacob not understand?
Yes, they did.
So the question is: did Nehemiah understand? And people will say, no, he was just a cupbearer. who was concerned about his people? No, sir. he understood very well that what he was doing was protecting The plan of salvation, the only plan of salvation.
and that is the Son of God. Who are still to come? Yeah, we did an episode on that a couple shows back where we said that. You know, it's not just that he's moved for the Jewish people because those are my people and I have to do something. It was that this is God's plan.
And if not for Nehemiah, it's not going to get accomplished or it won't get accomplished through him. Dr. Shah, where do you think this pervasive issue of thinking that the people in the Bible knew less than they actually did comes from? Of us looking, I guess, looking down on how much they were aware of God's plan. I mean A couple hundred years ago, this would not have been even a discussion.
But in the past Couple hundred years. because of historical critical studies. people have begun to doubt how much the ancients understood the coming of The Son of God, the Promised One, the Man of Promise. They have begun to doubt that. And that doubt is not just out there In the liberal theological realm, sometimes it's also in in some of the dispensational theologies because they say, Oh, they didn't understand all that.
No, to them it was just be a good Jewish man or a Jewish woman. And wait on the promise of God. What is the promise of God? Oh, His faithfulness.
So Is there a Messiah coming? Oh, if you read Isaiah, maybe there's something there. Did Nehemiah understand that? Probably not. And we vehemently disagree with that.
We say. that from start to finish Jesus is everywhere. First, interpret the passage in its context. And yes, we're doing that. And when we do that, we not only understand what Nehemiah is doing it, but we're also seeing the deeper thing that is happening, the unfolding of the plan of salvation.
Because He came to Jerusalem. It didn't say Antioch. It did not say Bethany. It did not say Alexandria, Egypt, or Rome No, it's Jerusalem. This is the place where Jesus came.
He was there three days. Jesus was buried three days. Then I arose in the night. Jesus arose early in the morning. I and a few men with me.
He did not go and show himself to the whole world. He went only to a few, select few. Why not the whole world and say, Here I am, y'all try to kill me? Here I am.
So, Pharisees, don't you believe? No, because now is what's going to be by faith. I told no one, it says right here in verse 12. I told no one what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem. Nor was there any animal with me except the one on which I rode.
And I went out by night through the valley gate to the serpent well and the refuse gate and viewed the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down and its gates which were burned with fire.
So, in a sense, we're like. It it's it's almost like a Needle going in and out of a yarn. It's weaving. The tapestry of the plan of salvation.
Sometimes it is about. Nehemiah doing what he needs to do. Like, I didn't have anything other than the. Animal with me. What significance does it have?
I don't know. It doesn't give me much. Or maybe there is some. I don't see what the significance is. I went out by night through the valley gate, to the serpent well and the refuse gate, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down, and its gates which were burned with fire.
What significance?
Now he's just inspecting the territory. Then I went on to the fountain gate. and to the king's pool, but there was no room for the animal under me to pass. If there is a significance. It may be That That everyone believed.
Mm-hmm. I don't know. Then in verse 15, so I went up in the night by the valley and viewed the wall. Then I turned back and entered by the valley gate and so returned. And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I had done.
I had not yet told the Jews. the priests, the nobles, the officials, or the others who did the work. He didn't tell anyone. I mean, if you think about it, Jesus did not go to the Pharisees, the scribes. The priests The Sadducees He didn't go to any of them.
Well, that's a great point to bring up because you know what's talking about opposition. Like, who else had horrible, horrible opposition in Jerusalem if not Jesus? Yeah. You know, I mean, like, it could be that Nehemiah is showing us the type of opposition that is to come, you know, in Jesus' time. That's right.
Yeah. And now we come to verse 17, Nehemiah 2:17. Then I said to them, You see the distress that we are in now.
Well, Jesus was not in distress.
So the needle with the thread following is kind of right up on top. How Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer be a reproach.
Well, this is what happens after the plan of salvation. On the day of Pentecost, Peter gets up and preaches. Where? In Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, yeah.
In Jerusalem. And all of a sudden, there is a revival that breaks out. And people are saved. You say, well, people who get saved in revival, I think they do. In this one, they did.
And I told them of the hand of my God which had been good upon me, and also of the king's words that he had spoken to me.
So they said so the people said, Let us rise up and build. Then they set their hands to do this good work.
So that is where we are now. Yeah. It's time to get up.
Someone has come, someone, not just anyone, someone who is the right hand, the right hand of the king of Persia.
Now, what do we know about Jesus? That sits at the right hand of the Father. That's right. Here you come. Yeah.
And in that declaration, in that call to action, the people are inspired. They're moved. They're moved to a response. Right.
And you want that to be where the story ends, right? Like, and they all built the wall and they're making a tapoole of right. At least, I mean, we know that there's no story without conflict, but in my life, right, in my ministry, I want that to be the thing where I've thought on this, I've prayed on this, I've fasted.
Now I've come to the people. I didn't share my dream too quickly.
Now I've done all these things that the Clearview Today show told me to do.
Now we're introducing it to the people. We got to work, and everything was good. Unfortunately, it does not work like that. Dr. Shao, where does the opposition come for Nehemiah?
Well, it comes on three fronts. And it tells us right here in verse 19, but when Sanbalat the Horonite. Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they laughed at us and despised us, and said, What is this thing that you're doing? Will you rebel against the king? Who?
What are you doing? They laughed at us. They laughed, they mocked. But then they threatened him. With fear, you're gonna rebel against the king.
No, the king sent him. No, we're gonna tell the king that you're trying to be a king.
Well Wow. These people mean that. I was going to say, sounds like some things that are happening in our world today.
Sounds like treble. Yeah, think about the ways that the world will come against you, right? Like, yeah, they may threaten you, but first and foremost, they're going to laugh at you. They're going to mock you. Especially like Christians in America today.
Yeah, you're going to get mocked. You're going to get made fun of. Oh, absolutely.
Well, the first one is Sandballot the Horror Knight. He was the chief enemy of Nehemiah, the chief. This was the main ringleader. This is the ringleader. And the reason becomes very clear once you examine his name.
Sandballad was not a Jewish name. Yeah. It was a Babylonian name. Sanbalat. Sanbalat.
A Jewish name. What does it mean? It means the moon god Sin has given life. Sin, like sin? No, it's just a name.
Okay. The name of the moon god is sin. Still, though, that's a little bit unfortunate wordplay. That's a little. I haven't spent a lot of time doing an etymological research.
By the way, for those of you who are wondering, etymology is studying the root of a word. I haven't done etymological research on the word sin, and it may be connected to this. What does Nehemiah's name mean? Nehemiah's name is the Lord Comforts.
So there's a there's a This is a, what do you call it? A poetic dichotomy. Yeah. That's a big word. The moon God's sin has given life is about to go up against the Lord comfort.
Wow. Even if it doesn't mean sin, like we think, I'm still, if that's your name. Or the name of your god. I'm gonna side eye you a little bit.
Well, you you have these profile you a little bit right you have these two these two players protagonists and antagonist set up against one another and their names capture the greater spiritual spiritual reality of what's happening. Yeah Give give a clearer picture of the the conflict that that is going on. It's not just about the walls.
So, you know, people wonder. Who was Sand Ballard this horror night?
So I believe, and I have done some research in this area. You know God's people faced two exiles. There was a northern exile and then a southern exile. The northern is known as the Assyrian exile. The southern is known as the Babylonian exile.
The Jewish people, Nehemiah and the rest of them, they are Jewish people. They are the exiles of the second exile. The northern one is the name of the north. were the other ten tribes. Other ten other than Benjamin and Judah.
And maybe Yeah.
Now The Assyrians, they're the ones who dragged away those northern kingdoms. Gone. Gone. But they had a policy called re recolonization. Where they would take people from one colony or one place and put them somewhere else and take people from somewhere else and put them in their place.
Just did the old switcheroo. Switcheroo. What was the reason behind that? It is to destabilize them. Because when you are connected to the land, there is a sense of loyalty, there's a sense of patriotism.
And once people are no longer connected to the land, the place, they lose all sense of fighting spirit. What are you going to fight for? Right.
For your family. That's it. Yeah. I'm not going to fight for this piece of land because it's not mine. Yeah.
Yeah. I wasn't born here. I have no connection to this. My ancestral graves are not here. Yeah.
Where are they? Oh, they're like three thousand miles away, or they are seven hundred miles away, or they are two hundred miles away.
So you're not going to fight for this place? No. Whose graves are these? Whose monuments are these? I don't know.
Yeah. I don't know. Good point. These are the people who were here before we did. Wow.
I mean, there are places like Turkey.
Okay. Turkey has a lot of archaeological sites. More Greek sites are in Turkey than they are in Greece. I remember you telling me that when we went to Greece.
Now, Greece has some amazing sites.
Okay, don't get me wrong. You go to Mycenae. Amazing. Both of you all have been there, right? Yes.
You've been to Thessalonike? Yeah. Beautiful. Athens, of course, is great. Olympia is great.
All these places are amazing. Philippi is great. Go to Turkey. And you'll be like Oh my goodness. They brought all of Greece here, other than Athens.
Other than Athens is on a on a on another level. On another level. Athens is wild. Other than Athens. Everything in Turkey is so much more beautiful and Greek and.
And just mind blowing than anything in In in Greece. What happened?
Well, I mean. The Turks kicked out the Greeks. You know, that's what happened. You know, when we talk about the Greek, and I don't know, our listeners are going, where are we going? We were in Sanbalat and the Babylonian.
I'm coming to that. The Greek Nation or civilization. Civilization is a better word. was not just Modern day Greece. But also the western coast of Turkey.
All of that was Greece. The waters between Greece and Turkey, all of that. That's where the Battle of Troy took place. Introas. Yeah.
So Here's where I'm going with this. Once the Turks had kicked out the Greek people from, and this was not that long ago. completely send them away.
Now All those Greek monuments belong to the To the Turks. Those are not their ancestors. Yeah. So it's not like they don't care, but it's not the same level of, oh, these are my people. Right.
So there's no reverence with it. Yeah, same thing in Egypt. Our Egyptian guide will say it that, yeah, these pyramids are amazing. My ancestors didn't build it. I mean, he's honest.
He said, we were Arabs. We are Arabs. We Arabs were not the Egyptians. Right.
And I appreciate the honesty.
So, what happens when you're looking at monuments that are not your own? Oh, yeah, you want to protect them for tourist purposes. Yeah. Yeah. But other than that, it's not, it's, it's, there's nothing.
It's not something you die for. You're not attached to them. That's a great point. That's all they are, is tourist draw. It's just a bit, just a thing to get people in and get your revenue.
So, is this the type of person that Sam Ballet was?
Well, San Ballot, the Horonite, was part of the people who were resettled from somewhere else. Northern Israel.
So, for him, rebuilding these walls, I mean, I mean, yeah, it's bad for business. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's bad for business to return. It's bad for business because we are in the north, and I have some solid business deals and trades going on towards Jerusalem.
But these Jewish people who claim to be God's people coming back in the land, they're messing up business. Like, if they were my people and I was their people, I would be like, okay, the plan of salvation is back on. But he is like. No, I don't like them. That's true, man.
Some of the most dangerous people is the people where they stand to lose some money from what you're doing. Yeah, you're messing up my bottom line. Yeah, yeah, because I mean, people, man, they will do anything to protect their business. They'll do anything to protect their money. And especially, I think, the wrong people.
You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Well, here's Sandball. Archaeologists tell us that he was the governor of Samaria. The Samaritans, the Bible tells us about them.
Who were they? They were people who had been resettled from somewhere else, maybe Persia, maybe around the Black Sea. They had been resettled into the region which is around the Sea of Galilee, or below below the Sea of Galilee. And north of Jerusalem.
So those outsiders who had been brought in with no connection to the land, everything is established, life is functioning the way that it needs to for them. And then Nehemiah and his group of upstarts come in and want to rebuild a wall.
So it's not just that he doesn't want walls built, he is an ideological opposite. Absolutely. He has no loyalty to the plan of God. He has no loyalty to the Jewish people or the dispersed tribes.
Now, here's what the Samaritans did: because he became a Samaritan. The Horona is Samaritan. They said. Guess what? We are God's people and you're not.
Mm-hmm. It's like, what, wait, wait. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. By the way, if you read the Bible carefully, for a time, these people were completely lost because they are outsiders.
They come into the land. There are some locals still left. Who did not you know, who did not get taken, they went into hiding.
So they come out and they're like, Who are you? I don't know. Who are you?
Well, we are the original inhabitants here. Who are you?
Well, we were dropped off here. And now this is our home. Uh-oh.
Well, yes, it is.
Okay, so what are we going to do? We're going to worship. The outsiders, we're talking about the ones that the Assyrians brought in. We're going to worship your gods.
Okay, great. They had to bring in priests to teach them how to. Worship the living true God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
So many of them were converted. But then, at that conversion, does that sound familiar? They said, guess what? No, I am. Yeah.
Sounds real familiar. We are the people of God, and you're not. Yeah, that rhetoric sounds pretty familiar. Christians right now will be like, wait a minute. Super session about me.
How interesting history repeats itself.
Well, Dr. Shel, we got like maybe two or three minutes left in the show. For the person who's listening to this, there's lots of Bible nerds who are listening to this who are like, I'm loving this. But maybe there's someone listening there, like, what does this have to do with me? Yeah.
How would you connect this to our life? What does sand ballot represent for us? Sand ballot represents the world in our lives.
Okay, we're coming to some application here. There are people who live according to worldly principles and mindset. They don't walk by faith. They walk by sight. They are what the Bible refers to as the natural man.
They don't understand the things of the Spirit of God. They are foolishness to them. And every church has a few sandballads. Because they cannot see what God is doing. They are not sold out to the plan of God.
It is not in their system.
Now, it can be. But it's not in their system as yet. And so. Don't let them discourage you. Because Nehemiah comes and Sandballad shows up.
Don't let a sandball discourage you because there's more coming. Oh, yeah, more opposition coming. That's right. We wish we could talk about it now, but unfortunately, it's a 30-minute radio show. We're out of time.
Well, that's such a great reminder for us on how to handle opposition and how to navigate forward when you encounter opposition. It's not throwing the towel. We're done. We've encountered a roadblock, so now we're going to pack it up and go home. No, we push forward because we know what God has called us to.
And guess what? Right now, the book in Nehemiah, you're listening to the master class on how to handle opposition. That's exactly right. Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow as we continue the conversation about how to handle opposition when it comes up in our lives. Thank you to our sponsors for making today's episode possible.
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