There's disunity in America, there's disorder in America, there's discouragement, and it's so easy to point the finger and say, they, they, they. But what about us? Let's figure out how to share that responsibility together. Coming up right now on the Clear Beat 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 with our host, Dr. Abadan Shah.
For those of you guys listening for the very first time, 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, great conversation on board today. Absolutely.
And we've been camping out with prayer for a long time, but Nehemiah is such an interesting book in that it always finds a new way to shine a new light on something that we've talked about. Talking about prayer, talking about fasting, talking about how to seek the Lord and how to step up when you're called to do something. That's right. You know, the world can provide you a lot of alternatives to how to achieve leadership or how to achieve success. But the story of Nehemiah shows us clearly how it looks to follow God.
And Christians are some of the world's worst, Dr. Shah. Tell me what you think about this. The world's worst of being like, well, I just don't want to say nothing. You know, live and let live.
I'm going to let them do their thing. You know what? The Lord's gonna handle it. We'll just let the Lord handle it. I'm gonna sit back here and I'm gonna just love Jesus and do my part.
Yeah, and that's why we are in the mess we are is because Christians haven't stepped up. That's right. And so I think there are things happening, and Christians are stepping up into the public square and making a difference and speaking out. And so there are good days ahead. I would say these are the Nehemiah days where more and more people are stepping up to restore the walls around the city of Jerusalem.
That's right. That's right. You know, we want to keep talking about that. But before we do, we want to thank our sponsors. You know, our sponsors are the people who help us make this show possible.
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You can write in and let us know: 252-582-5028. That's right. Dr. Shaw, on yesterday's show, we talked about fasting, right? Fasting and praying.
How do we do it? How much food do we give up? What does it actually practically look like when we fast? And we want to continue that conversation today, going into Nehemiah's fasting and his praying over Jerusalem. Yes.
The first thing Nehemiah did was he fasted. He spent some time just refraining from food so that he could dedicate that time to mourn and grieve and pray, because that was the second thing that he did. He prayed. And it was not just some weak, anemic prayer. It was an agonizing prayer.
It was as Jacob wrestled. With the pre-incarnate Jesus, Nehemiah, in a sense, is wrestling with God.
Now, when we say wrestle, it almost seems like. We are trying to get God to do something He doesn't want to do. Like we're trying to subdue God or something. Right, and that's not true. When we're wrestling with God, it's we're showing God how serious and how earnest we are.
Now, people don't realize that wrestling is very intense. It's a very intense sport. I've never wrestled like professionally, like in school or whatever, but I've had friends who wrestled. And I tell you, when you are wrestling, and I'm saying professionally, not just like in high school or some, you know, fussing and fighting with someone. That means every part of you is engaged in that activity.
That's right. And it's intense because any moment you let up somebody is going to use that as a leverage to pin you down.
So when you're wrestling with God, it's more about showing God that every part of you is engaged in this activity to seek Him, to move, to seek Him to do something. In our circumstance, in our situation, that's what we mean when we say resting with God. And here Nehemiah begins that prayer, which although the word is not used, although the metaphor is not here of wrestling with God in prayer, but you can see it. You can see the pattern.
So he begins by looking up in adoration. This is not a long drawn out Praising God for who he is. I mean, just one verse. That's it. And I said I pray, Lord God of heaven.
In other words, Heavenly Father or Heavenly God, O great and awesome God, you who keep your covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments. That's it. That's it. He praises God.
Now, I'm not here telling you, don't praise God in prayer. What I am saying is, don't waste time in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we just want to thank you for this day. God, thank you for this food that we're about to eat. Thank you for your goodness, your love towards us, your mercy, your unfailing love, your kindness, your generosity.
Thank you for our plates, God. Thank you for these chicken nuggets. Thank you. The mommy made us some fries. Take these krispy cream donuts and bless them to the nourishment of our bodies.
For our rug. Thank you for our carpet. This is an actual prayer that my boys do at the table. They thank God for everything. Hey, stop it.
Yeah, yeah. Like, whoever's praying, if they start doing that, I'll pat them on the leg. Focus up. Yeah, okay. Yeah, prayer is asking and receiving.
I stole that from John R. Rice. Prayer is asking and receiving.
So, yes, of course, you can address God. This is an address. Right, our heavenly father or our father in heaven. This is Nehemiah's address. To God.
O Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, you who keep your covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments. That's it. And then He begins by looking inward With repentance. Please, this is Nehemiah chapter 1, verse 6, please let your ear be attentive. And your eyes open that you may hear the prayer of your servant, which I pray before you now, day and night.
Can you get the wrestling? I was going to say, there's that wrestling that's happening day and night. He's locked in, he's engaged, his entire being is focused on what he's asking of God. Yeah, I mean, this is this is. This, these are the precursors to what we call revival or awakening in America.
I don't know if there's a distinction there between revival and awakening, but this is what it means. You would say this is an effective, fervent prayer. Oh, yes. Yeah, we just did a series on James. And I love this because I think it shows two parts of the same thing, which is this prayer, right?
Like we saw in James that like a little child coming before their parent and asking, asking for what you want. But then there's also this other side of it where you're wrestling. You're completely engaged. You're engaged. Yeah, I like it a lot.
I like the different worship, our preaching, our teaching, our ministry, our discipleship, our outreach. Everything should be engaged, not just this. Slipshod. walking Through the garden, just you know, taking our own sweet time. Like you say, well, we need to take time to enjoy life.
Of course, do that. But if it comes to the things of God, you need to be more engaged than that. Yeah, right. I think of it like as actual wrestling. Like, you remember when you were young and you would wrestle with your boys in the floor?
Like, it got to that age where it's like you're wrestling with them and they're so into it. Like, you know, there's no chance they're ever going to subdue you because you're a grown man. They're like three years old. That does change, by the way. Yeah, they do get stronger.
But that's the thing, is like. The fact that they're trying so hard is what makes it fun. Yeah. Right. Versus when they get to be five, six, seven, you start wrestling with them and they're like, I want to stop.
They want to go do something else, play a video game or whatever. And it's like the less engaged they get, the less enjoyable the wrestling is.
So that's a good picture with the spread of like physicality between a father and a little boy, where, you know, how much greater is the divide between us and God? I mean, God is right, He's omnipotent. There's no chance that we're going to even scale in power, but we are completely, just like our little boys are, we are completely engaged in that wrestling. We're locked in. This is a match.
To the finish. Oh, yeah. Like Gavin will give up. If I'm wrestling with Gavin, he's five now. He's going on six.
He's probably going to be like, I'm going to go do something else. But Holden is convinced. He's like, Daddy's going down. And he is like all in.
So that makes it super fun. Yeah, because he doesn't know that he cannot pin you. Yeah. Gavin is like, that's not going to happen. Not going to happen.
That's not going to happen. But Holden is still at that age where he feels like, I can do this. I think I may just make it happen. And one day he'll lose that. I hope in the Christian life we're more like the younger one than the older one who has become so experienced in life or so grown up that he doesn't have the same intensity to say, Oh, I can get daddy, I can do him, I can get him this time.
Why do you think most Christians develop this sort of like God will do whatever he's going to do mentality? He's just kind of like, God's will is his will, and it's not up to us to interfere. We're just going to recognize how good God is. I think I would say two reasons. Number one is bad theology, because there's a theology that says you can do whatever you want to, but God's will is already settled.
It is done. You have no part to play.
Now, they will always, you know. Pedal back and say, well, but you still have a responsibility, but you still need to go on missions, but you still need to say, oh, whosoever will may come. But in reality, when you don't truly believe that, there's only so long you can fake that. That's right. Only so long you can truly.
Fake it that you are really intense about this because if you're already convinced, like the game is over. And you know, who who's going to win has been settled. How much are you really going to give into that game? Maybe a little bit to enjoy it. But you're not going to play that hard because If if you've been told, hey, guess what?
At the end of the game, y'all are going to lose. And nothing you can do changes that. Or you're going to win. And nothing you can ever do that will take that away. Yeah, your engagement's going to go down.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, anyway, so that's what. Secondly, I think it's human nature.
human nature. I think with time we the fire goes out. I think with Time And circumstances and the ups and downs of life and the struggles and Unanswered prayers, all those things have a way of dousing our fire, our intensity. And what I love, love, love about Western culture or Western Christianity not culture Western Chr Christianity is because the idea of revival and awakening and awakening, which is found in the Old Testament, not in the New. Because the New Testament, if you add up the years.
maybe sixty five years. But in the Old Testament, if you add up the years, and if you begin with, say. The Exodus. Right, Exodus is where it's no longer just individuals or families.
Now you have a large group of people, a nation. Right? After Exodus.
So if you go to the Old Testament, from Exodus to Malachi, the last word before the silent years leading up to the Messiah, that's close to about. A thousand years? Maybe even Twelve hundred years? Correct from sixteen hundred BC to about the fifth century. That's about what?
Eleven hundred, twelve hundred years. You have time for awakenings. Yeah. Because the fire did go down. Go out many, many, many, many times.
And so preaching for awakening. Was very important in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, there are times that you have to, you know, work out your salvation, or, you know, Paul telling Timothy, don't forget. The faith that was in you. You know, don't forget, don't let the fire go out.
But in the Old Testament, you see that a whole lot more because there's a whole lot more time. Right. Yeah. Western Christianity unlike Christianity anywhere else. East Africa Europe South America doesn't matter.
But Western Christianity picked up on that idea. Maybe people like the Puritans Or maybe from people like George Whitfield and John Wesley and others, they picked up on that idea and really went to town with it. Do you feel like they think that there there are times to ride the wave or do is their philosophy that it's it's always time for revival? Yeah, it's always time for a guy. They felt like, like, like, for example, Richard Baxter.
I went to Kitterminster. Because I really wanted to go see his statue. Didn't realize that where I was located in south of Birmingham, I was following in the footsteps of William Carey. And one of the last stops I wanted to make was Richard Baxter's Chapel, Kitterminster. and his statue outside The the the church.
And I was like, oh, yeah, it's only 40 minutes away. No big deal. It was about an hour and a half away. Wow. And I realized as I was going towards that, Nicole's like.
How long does it take to get there? Maybe 15, 20 minutes. How long did you say it was an hour and a half? Easily. She was like, that was not 15, 20 minutes.
Worth it, though. Oh, 100%. Yeah. But when when he first came to that town, They said you could go for, you know. Alley after alley or or or street after street, and never Here People reading the Bible.
When he left, you couldn't find a single street where someone somewhere was not reading the Bible in prayer. Wow. That was Richard Baxter. That's incredible.
Now, keep in mind, Richard Baxter was not perfect. He was a Puritan. There are some places his theology was really warped. But overall, the revivalistic mindset. He wrote a book called The Reformed Pastor.
the revivalistic mindset really impacted me. And I have tried to have that in my in my preaching, in my You know, ministry. Do you think when Nehemiah came to Jerusalem, he knew that he was coming to build more than walls? Like, do you think he went in with a revivalistic mindset? Yeah, that's good.
100%. I mean, he would even say that here. Listen to verse 6. Please let your ear be attentive. And your eyes open that you may hear the prayer of your servant, which I pray before you now, day and night.
See, that entire tone. is revivalistic. It's an awakening. Again, for those of you who are like, wait a minute, revival is not awakening. You're right.
Revival is more for saved people to get on fire for Jesus. Awakening is what happens in the entire community, in the entire nation. or neighborhood. A nation to the things of God. And then people do get saved in awakening.
Right. So there's a distinction there. Yeah. But what he's saying here is. For the children of Israel, your servants.
and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against you. That's one of the first marks of a revival, of an awakening, that we have to confess our sins before God. This turning away from sin, this reviving of that desire to follow God. It takes place after. The moment of repentance.
It takes place after acknowledging and turning from sin. And this is repentance on a cultural level, like a societal level.
Society or personal or familial, I mean, or church, it's all over. Got it. I mean, why would you need revival if you're if you're Like doing great when it comes to your sin. Yeah, that's true. You don't resuscitate somebody who is alive.
Right. You resuscitate somebody who's unresponsive. Right. And so that's what's happening here. And then he says, Both my father's house and I have sinned.
So it's not like the people in Hollywood, they're bad, and the people in DC, they're bad. The people in the House, in the Senate, and in political positions, and elected officials, man, it's terrible what these actors, and actresses, and these superstars, and these super athletes, and these music, you know. Personalities, look at what they're doing to our culture. No, he said both. Both my father's house and I have sinned.
We pray a lot for revival.
Well, I don't know about y'all, we pray a lot for revival, but I feel like many people who pray for revival don't make it to this point. I've sinned, my father's house and forgive us for our sin. What's missing in our understanding? Because we think somebody else is causing problems. That are affecting us.
We don't realize that we are also. A catalyst or a source. Of that problem. Yeah, I mean, I think you're exactly right. I mean, we've talked about it on the show: how there are cultural problems that are happening, people who are outside of these four walls who are making problems in America.
And all of that is completely true. But it also, how have we, the church, contributed to it? How is our silence contributed? Yeah. You know what I mean?
Just like you said at the top of the show. Yeah, I have to confess my sins. And let's begin. Let's begin by confessing, Lord, the things that we should have been praying about to you. We're not praying about them, we're worrying about them.
Lord, there are things in our lives that are we are compromising. We're looking at things and listening to things that that we think others are wrong for doing, but we're doing them. Uh See. The real repentance has to begin With our own selves, I like how we talked about on yesterday's show, the fasting and the praying, because I remember, you know, we were doing that for a long time where every single week as a staff we were fasting. And it's crazy how when you fast and when you pray, those things come to mind.
You know, the longer you pray, the harder it is to skirt your sin. You got to confront it eventually. Yeah, 100%. I, there was a moment in my life recently where we were going through a situation that wasn't, you know, super dire, but it was important and it was impactful and it was, you know, kind of critical in a timeframe sense. And I went back to our conversations on fasting and prayer because that was not, that was not something that I grew up with.
It's not something that was a part of, you know, regular church culture that I was inundated with. And so, really, our conversations, Dr. Shaw, about fasting and its place in the life of a believer. Or something that I went back to. And so, in that kind of the thick of that difficult situation.
I was fasting and praying. And, you know, it really, it really helped. I felt like I was more attuned to how God was working and was more able to see those moments where before I would have been like, Yeah, that just worked out, or that's just kind of a coincidence, right? But things lined up, and on paper, it 100% God, the way things lined up. That's right.
And you know, those conversations on fasting and on praying, just like we're having on the radio show today, were so helpful and so impactful, in my understanding. And what is also important is it's not just both my father's house and I have sinned. That's very important. But that's not where it stops. Mm-hmm.
Because the next line is we.
So we go from I To we. We have acted very corruptly against you, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses. We what what Nehemiah is referring to here is what we call collective guilt.
So it's not just people out there are Having abortion, or people out there are l trapped in sexual immorality, or people over there are lying and cheating and murdering. We, we are committing an abortion. We. Are lying and cheating and all the rest and stealing. I mean, we.
So we have to Take ownership. Of where our culture is morally and spiritually. What does that do for you as a Christian? Because I know to me, even just hearing that, I bristle. You know what I mean?
For me to stand before God and say, God, I'm just as guilty of this, the sin of abortion culturally as the people who are actually committing it. We are doing it. What does that do for you? Like how does that how does that as a Christian How do you do that? For me, I think it gives me a sense of compassion for the culture, it gives me a sense of ownership.
It gives me a sense of responsibility because the op the the the the alternative. is to think us versus them. And that will never help the world. That will never bring lost people to Christianity. That will never turn a stray away believer back to the Heavenly Father.
It will never happen.
So we have to say, we have messed up. We haven't done this. Even if you haven't been the person who actually did that, since you're part of the greater whole, you have to say, we. Like like when we talk about kids, You know, I I see in any kind of pastors' meetings or church people coming together talking about what's happening in our community, they'll say, I tell you, kids these days or kids here and kids there. Or If we go more specific, like, oh, in the African American community, kids are like this or like that because of the breakdown of the family.
I'm like, don't say that. Change that and say our kids. Our kids. You say, well, they're not my kids. I understand that.
But if we're really going to make it collective, then you have to start saying that. Doesn't matter what color you are, whether you're white or brown, you have to say our kids or black. You have to say, Our kids, if those are white kids who are doing whatever they did or not. you know, contributing In a wholesome way to society, you have to say, Are kids these days? It unites us, it gives us compassion.
It gives us Ownership And and That's what Nema does here. He said, We have acted. I mean, look, this guy grew up in exile. Yeah. What did he do wrong?
Right. He's never seen Jerusalem before. He didn't do any sin that caused them to be kicked out of the land. Yeah. He's living in the promised land and doing what God told them to do.
Plant yourself. Marry and give in marriage. and build your lives here. He's like, I'm doing it. They have acted corruptly.
They, my people, have acted corruptly. No, he doesn't say he's a we, yeah, that'd be amazing. Instead of justifying and saying, well, it's not me, it's them. He says, We have done this. And praise God for you as a pastor and the host of this radio show that has infused that culture here.
Yeah, absolutely. These are our kids. This is our culture. This is our problem, and it's our responsibility to fix. We don't blame anybody else.
That's right. I don't, and I know how it feels in the world, especially if you're chronically online. But we don't have two Americas. You know what I mean? We've got one American.
Yeah. And I think that's a wake-up call for, I think it's a wake-up call for me to start thinking differently about the state of our culture today. Yeah. You know, there's a collective guilt, but then there's also a collective desire for renewal. You know, there was a time when people were like that.
I'm sure there were bad times where we blamed this color or that culture or that people. But then there were times there were people who took ownership for America as one nation under God and said, We as a nation didn't worry about ethnicity or do they come from the projects or do they come from which side of the tracks they come from? We said, we. And I admire those kind of people. I would say I would put someone like Billy Graham in that category.
You know, you may have issues with him about this, that and the other, but overall he demonstrated that very well. DL Moody, we And I want to be a person like that. Because that's what Nehemiah is doing. He. Takes ownership, and then of course, he looks back to the promises of God.
Listen to verse 8: it says, Remember, I pray the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest parts of the heaven, part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling place for my name. He's reminding God of his promises to his people. You say, is that a part of? Of a good prayer?
P S Oh. To quote scripture and say, God, I'm claiming that promise. Not like name it or claim it, kind of name it and claim it kind of stuff. No, this is claiming in the sense of, God, I see what you've said, and I'm choosing to believe this. Like we said, train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart from it.
Lord, I'm claiming that promise, not claim it and claim it, but I'm believing that this promise will be true because we did train up our children in the way they should go. That's right. And many other things. Amen.
So that's what we mean when we say look back to the promises of God. Claim those promises in your prayer. That's right. There's so much more to unpack in Nehemiah's life and how he handles fasting and praying and how he steps up to the call that God has placed on him. And we're going to have to tackle that on tomorrow's episode.
That's right. Let's do it. Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow. Same time, same station. We're going to dig further into Nehemiah's life and figure out what it means for us today as believers.
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