Tyranny (Pt.2)

Today is Tuesday, November the 22nd. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. And you're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or if you have any questions or suggestions for future episodes, send us a text at 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. Make sure you follow along with Dr. Shah on his blog, AbbadonShah.com, and you can support us financially by visiting ClearviewTodayShow.com. Every time you give, it builds this partnership between us where we can go out together, standing shoulder to shoulder, and reach many people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's right. And you guys can help us keep the conversation in the airwaves by supporting this show, supporting the podcast, sharing it online, sharing it on Facebook, sharing it on Instagram, leaving us a good review on iTunes, leaving us five-star reviews. Every single time you guys do that, it helps us take the gospel and push it further into the world. And that's what Jesus has commanded us to do. Absolutely.

Share it every way you can. If you have to draw it on a piece of paper and crayon and slip it under your neighbor's door, do that. Yeah, absolutely. I was agreeing, but I was like, kind of barely processing what you're saying. Yeah, do it, man. Yeah. If that's what the Lord's called you to do, do it. Sure. That's what he's called my son to do.

Yeah. The rest of the day today comes from John 16 33. These things I have spoken to you that in me, you, let me start over.

You got it. These things I have spoken to you that in me, you may have peace in the world. You will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. I needed to hear that today. Be of good cheer.

I have overcome the world. That's a good reminder for us. A lot of times we get distracted by the world. We get, we get, we get focused on our problems. We get focused on, you know, the situations that we're dealing with, but Jesus reminds us he's already won the battle. Yeah, that's right.

He's already overcome. We tend to doom scroll. You know what doom scrolling is?

Just scrolling. I'm almost trying to get bad news. I feel bad about the world. I'm scared. I'm anxious. I'm just going to keep filling my head with it and filling my head with it.

Jesus said, all that stuff, I've already overcome it. So just be of good cheer. Be happy. Be at peace. Absolutely. I love that. And I like what he says up front.

These things I have spoken to you that in me, you may have peace. That's right. You don't have to keep looking for any news source. You don't have to listen to this radio show.

No, no, no external source apart from me is going to give you that piece. Yep. Yeah. Amen. I got a, uh, I got a proposition for you. Okay. I will give you a million dollars.

I like where this is headed. Cash in hand. Cause that is the only way I deal.

Those who are listening, he's like, I can't, can't see this, but I'm, I'm extending my hands for some cash. You have to drive from the Atlantic ocean. There's a specific parking spot that saved for you. Okay. You have to get in the car and drive to, did I say the Pacific? I mean the Atlantic ocean where we are on the East coast. Yeah.

You said from the Atlantic ocean, from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific. There's another parking spot right there. Okay. Uh, you cannot, it's like speed, but in reverse, you cannot go over 35 miles per hour.

The car will not allow you to go over 35 miles per hour. Um, you can start whenever you want. Like you can prepare, you can get whatever you need, but once you start, you can't stop. What I mean by that is like, you can take breaks, you can like stay in a hotel for a few days and recoup, but you can't like go back home.

Okay. So not driving nonstop. You don't have to drive nonstop.

You can take as long as you want to take, like you can stop at a hotel, take a few days, weeks if you want to recharge. I mean, life's going to go on without you back home, but you can, you can take breaks, but you cannot like get, once you get like to your hometown, you can't like stop going about your life and then try to resume. Yeah.

You can't like, you have to drive from there from ocean to ocean and then back at 35 miles per hour. That's a tough one. Yeah. I feel like I'm going to go ahead and say yes.

And it would be a question for me of do I just bite the bullet and do it without my family? Because I mean, that's, that's going to take some time. Like that's, I mean, I would imagine that's probably a couple of weeks, right? Well, you can get to California, you can get from here, you can get to California in about four or five days, but that's driving like normally not at 35 miles per hour cap.

I would say you could probably complete it. Is it there and back? Yeah. There and back again.

A Hobbit's Tale by Bilbo Baggins. That's like a month. I feel like. Oh, I would say a few weeks, a couple of weeks. I would take it and I would either, I would either just do it without the kids do without Elizabeth and just be like, Hey, I got to do this. It's going to earn us a lot of money for our family.

I'll, I'll see when I get back. I love you. Yeah. And just power through or we would like over the summer, like we would just take the kids and like, that's our adventure.

And then we'd get a million dollars for it. Right. A road trip like that with five youngins. That's a lot. That is a lot. Not that you got bad youngins.

I'm not saying that, you know, it is a lot of bad children, but like, that's what I'm saying. Like if they come, it's going to be an, I mean, inevitably it's going to be a longer trip. I dread taking the one I got like up to Raleigh.

That's one here. Here's the deal though. Like mine minor to the age now that you, I mean, they've all got tablets. Like you give them a tablet headphones. They're like chilling, watching the interchange, entertain themselves. So it's not that they're just like crazy rambunctious in the car.

It's just like they had tiny little kid bladder. So we're going to stop and pee every hour long. I would also take the offer. I would take the money. I would, I would leave my son with Nana and Papa and then take Ellie. Ellie's a good road trip partner. Yeah. Ellie's a really good road trip partner. We like all the same music. Uh, she more or less likes my podcasts.

Not all of them, but you know, she's, she's pretty chill. Yeah. But enough that it would be an enjoyable experience. Yeah, I would do it.

I would do it. We drove down to Jacksonville for our honeymoon 13 hour drive. It was fun. I loved it.

Most people dread. See, I love a long car ride. Yeah.

If I'm driving. Elizabeth and I took a long road trip before the kids. Uh, we went to visit some of our friends in New Mexico and drove over the course of a couple of days and that was a lot of fun.

Yeah. We were, we were, uh, we read books to each other. Like whoever was, whoever was not driving at that time would be reading through this book series that we were going through. How in the world do you read in the car? Y'all can both read in the car. Um, I can, she can sometimes. Okay. I can't do that. She is a little more, I've seen doctors out when we go on like, uh, uh, staff retreats and stuff would just be up in the mountains like curving rows, like a roller coaster, just falling down mountains.

He's reading a book. Yeah. I'm like, man, that makes me motion. So motion sick. Yeah. It normally does now if it's windy and stuff like that, I'll get messed up.

But if it's just regular, like straight highway, I can read in the car. Okay, cool. So cool. Well, on today's episode, we want to continue our discussion from yesterday. We know if you were listening to yesterday's episode, you know that we discussed the tower of Babel for Dr. Shaw's sermon series tyranny, um, and how that impacted the culture of that day, how that shaped the rest of the events in, uh, in the book of Genesis and in the old Testament. But what we're going to see today is that not only is that true for scripture where there have been people that have been trying to consolidate power, but it's true throughout history. Absolutely.

It's true today in our nation, especially true today. And we've seen that over the course of the past several years and we've seen the effects of that. We're going to talk about that more on today's episode. But before we do that, if you have any questions or suggestions for future episodes, make sure you send us a text to two five two five eight two five zero two eight or visit us online at Clearview today show.com. We're going to go get Dr. Sean.

We'll be right back. Are you looking for some new worship music to go along with all these amazing shows here on the truth network, but today's your lucky day because Dr. Shaw and myself and a lot of the rest of the Clearview staff have been hard at work writing for the last few months. And we're very excited to share Clearview's new EP with you together forward. Not only do these songs sound great, but each and every single one of them were born from a place of genuine worship and prayerfully written by our team right here at Clearview Church.

It's available right now on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, anywhere digital music is sold. So make sure to pick up your copy today and let us know how these songs are helping you, whether they're helping your worship band in your church or just in the car or around in your everyday life. Email us at info at ClearviewBC.org. You can also support the ministry here at Clearview Church by visiting us online.

That's ClearviewBC.org forward slash give. Thanks for listening. Now back to the show. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

If you have any questions or suggestions for future episodes, you can send us a text at 252-582-5028. It is Tuesday, Dr. Shah. Welcome to the studio today. We're glad you're with us today.

Absolutely. This is Thanksgiving week. I'm looking forward to two days from now. Is your house already starting to smell like those Thanksgiving smells? Nicole's cranking food out. Yeah, she's getting there and I can, you know, she'll start cleaning the house.

I mean, that's the first step. She'll start Monday, everything's going to be clean. And then after that, all the groceries are ready. And then Tuesday, Wednesday is usually when everything starts cooking.

Starts getting in motion. Well, some of you guys out there in listener land may be joining us for the very first time. You've picked Thanksgiving week to join us. If you're new to the show, Dr. Abbadan Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, a professor at Carolina University, an author, pastor, and the host of today's episode. That's right. And today we're continuing the conversation from yesterday. So if you missed that episode, you can find it. If you're listening via podcast, you can go back and listen to that episode.

If you're listening on the radio, unless you have time travel, I don't know what time. Hey, I got something I could tell you to do. Go download the podcast app. There you go. There you go.

And then you can listen to it. Because this is part two. Absolutely.

Part two. We talked yesterday about your message, your series of messages titled Tyranny, where we were introduced to the Tower of Babel and how this character Nimrod was trying to consolidate power and make a name for himself. He was sort of like the first secular world leader that we read about in the Bible. But as you mentioned in your message, and I really love this line from your message, by the way, there have been Nimrods all throughout history. That's right.

I love, I love that because of that double meaning of, you know, how we think of the word Nimrod. But there have been people like that who try to consolidate power all throughout history. Can you explain a little bit more what you mean by that to our listeners and viewers what that means and what, why is that significant for us?

Oh, absolutely. Throughout history, every generation, every period in history, every age has had somebody rise up to that position where they feel like they need to control the whole world, right? They feel like they know what's best for you. And not just for you, but for everybody inside and the more people they can control and direct according to their idea of what it means to be, I don't know, happy or successful or a positive member or contributing member of society, whatever it is.

They feel like they have the right to do that. But ultimately, history shows us that all such people have been dictators. And there have been many Nimrods, starting with the one at Tower of Babel, throughout history, who have tried to control people's lives. In fact, as I mentioned to you, Bill Federer's works on history, and he talks about how history can be divided in three parts based on the concept of power. So there's power concentrated or concentrated power, power separated, and then power concentrated. So concentrated power, that's what these individuals do. They try to consolidate power. And crisis is a way to do that.

Think about the Tower of Babel. What was the crisis? The crisis was, you never know. And again, this is a little conjecture. But the context, I believe, helps us tremendously there.

The reason they were building tower, it was to make a name for themselves, but also to, I believe, to kind of stick together and to protect themselves from the next catastrophe of a world flood. Even though God has said this is not the way it's going to be. Just like even today, everybody has an idea of how this world is going to end. So all these policies that are being made, albeit is to make money, but it's based on the premise that it's not the way the Bible says.

We will tell you how it's going to end. And they even throw in that concept of scientifically we can tell you how it's going to happen. But behind it, money is being exchanged. Exactly. I think that's what we've been seeing, especially these past two years is like, yes, there's a crisis on our hands. There's a legitimate crisis. How can I use this to get ahead? How can I use this to make money?

How can I use this to exert control? And there's always, like you said, throughout history, there's always been people who think that way, who see crisis as an opportunity. Right. Like this is the way the world is going to end. Forget about what the Bible says. We will tell you how it's going to end. And let us help you. Wait, better off. Give all power over to us and we will tell you how to live.

Just for right now, just in this emergency time. Right. Trust the experts. And so what I'm saying here is, of course, we need to trust the experts. Great to have people who are educated, experienced in the field or whatever it is. But come on, sometimes we need to think discerningly.

And what we will see is that crisis is a tremendous tool to concentrate power again. Absolutely. You mentioned this in yesterday's episode, but for the benefit of those who may not have heard it, you talked about how that idea, trust the experts, let us do the thinking for you, is counter to how our country was founded.

That's right. Do you want to mention that a little bit on this episode, how our country was set up and why that flies in the face of how we were structured? Absolutely. I'm going to give a two minute history lesson, maybe three. Go for it.

Let's do it. So it goes back to a time period after Islam. Islam began to rise and they left the Arabian peninsula and spread towards the west, towards the north.

And they were moving at a rapid speed. This is in the seventh century AD after Muhammad, his colleagues, his descendants began to spread the religion. And one of the things they did was they cut off the trade from the Mediterranean. And with that happening, one of the things that was exported from the east, especially Egypt, was papyrus. So now papyrus trade has stopped.

So what happens to the west? There is no education. There is no literacy.

How are you going to write? You don't have any papyrus. And if it wasn't for the monasteries where manuscripts, especially the Bible, were being copied and recopied, knowledge would have become stillborn. It is because of the monasteries in Europe that knowledge stayed alive.

And I'm talking about not just religious knowledge, but just knowledge in general. Because they were, in whatever way they possibly could, kept copying and kept transmitting literature and writings. But everywhere else, a dark period descended over Europe, and we call it the medieval times, the dark ages. Now, keep in mind, this happened because of the spread of this powerful army. And if it wasn't for Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in AD 732, Europe would look very different today. So he stopped it, the hammer, the original hammer, the grandfather of Charlemagne, stopped the Islamic troops. And even though dark ages descended, at least Islam could not spread anymore. Now fast forward, fast forward through the Crusades, fast forward to a time of the Ottoman Empire. Now this is the second time the Islamic troops are moving and they're heading towards Europe again. And the year now is about 1453, Constantinople falls, the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium falls. And now the scholars from Greece, they have to run for their lives. They take their manuscripts with them, all the classics in art and architecture, and they run towards Europe, especially towards Florence, Italy. And this gives birth to what we now call, starts with an R, the Renaissance. The people in Europe are like blown away.

What is this? We didn't know this existed. Of course it did.

They just were not exposed to it. Renaissance is born. At the heels of Renaissance, Reformation is born. In 1517, we hear about Martin Luther, you know, nailing the 95 Theses to that door at Wittenberg Church. And so Reformation is born. But 1529, Suleiman the Magnificent, who is the head of the Ottoman army, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, his troops surround Austria, right?

Vienna especially. And if it wasn't for the providence of God, you know, the Ottoman troops would have overran Vienna, and Islam would have again come into Europe. So twice that has been stopped. One in 732, and then again in 1529. And so following that, the King of Spain, because Spain was the biggest empire, the Spanish Golden Age, the King of Spain, you know, he knew, Charles V of Spain, the Emperor of the Holy Catholic Empire, he knew that Catholics and Protestants have to come together, right? If we're going to stop the Ottomans, we have to come together.

And so in 1555, the Peace of Augsburg was signed. And based on this peace, we're now all going to work together. But we have a dilemma.

The dilemma is this. What religion are we going to follow? Are we going to be Roman Catholic? Or are we going to be Protestant? And the principle that came out of the Peace of Augsburg was, whose is the reign, his is the religion. So whatever your king, whatever his religion is, that's the religion you're going to follow.

Now think for a moment. The Reformation is already there. People are reading the Bible in their own language.

Translations are happening. But you do not have the freedom to worship anything you want. It's almost like it's flying in the face of the Reformation. It's almost like it's a return to religious authority almost.

That's right. So in 1558, in England, let's talk about England for a moment. According to the Act of Uniformity, if you are going to be in England, you're going to follow the religion of the King of England, which is Anglicanism. So Puritans, we're going to purify the church.

No, you're not. Separatists, the church is too far gone. Well, if you feel that way, then get out of my land. So in 1607, the Separatists left England and went to Holland. And in Holland, they realized very quickly that the morals are different.

Their children are going off the deep end. And so they left about 1620, and they came to the Americas. Those were the pilgrims. So keep in mind, even though Europe is free and so-called Christian, yet people did not have freedom.

It's not how free actually is it. That's right. The king was still in charge. And more specifically, he was still in charge over your religion. So you can read the Bible all you want. You can have all kinds of convictions, but you better not follow that religion. Or you'll die, or you'll be burned at the stake. So you'll be beheaded, or you'll be drowned in the river. It makes a lot more sense knowing the history of it, because now you start to see that the pilgrims and these people who were fleeing religious persecution actually were fleeing something substantial, like a return to authoritarian form, as far as the church goes. I mean, history is complex. On one hand, we're fighting Islamic hordes.

But on the other hand, we're fighting our own people to just be able to worship our stream of what we believe is true biblical Christianity. So when, you know, think about the, in the early colonies, if you were a Puritan, go to Massachusetts. If you were Baptist, where would you go? Rhode Island.

Right? Roger Williams. You go to Rhode Island. If you were a congregational, Connecticut or New Hampshire.

How about New York? That's Reformed. How about Virginia or North South Carolina? Anglican. These are the first colonies, right? So yeah, you can be Anglican. In fact, a lot of Baptists were persecuted just across the border in Virginia. Some had their hands chopped off for preaching the gospel. We're talking about the late 1600s, early 1700s.

So history is so interesting that persecution followed all the way here. So our founding fathers knew that if we're going to survive in this new country, we will have to be totally done with this power. Hence, they broke up that power into what are the three branches? Judicial, executive, legislative. So we cannot have this one person controlling everything.

And then they put, you know, further stipulations. We know that as the constitution of the Ten Amendments. And then they gave the power to the people because unlike in Europe or in the East or Asia or anywhere else, the people are the king. So the people are the king in a constitutional democracy or a democratically elected constitutional republic.

I mean, think about that for a moment. You have a democracy to elect, but it's a constitutional republic. So you will send your people to vote in your place because you can't leave the farm.

You can't leave your butcher shop. You can't leave, you know, your occupation to go and vote each week. So you will elect somebody democratically to represent you, but they will do what you're telling them to do. And it's all done with the constitution as the guide.

I like that. And it's not just to fight against the tyranny of the king, but it's also to fight against the tyranny of the majority. How do you mean the tyranny of the majority? Just like, go ahead. It's not just like a bunch of people will just jump up there and just say whatever they want to say.

No, you will elect people who are worthy and capable. Oh, I got you. I got you.

You don't want to be outnumbered even if just because something's popular does not mean it's right. Right. Got you.

I got you. So what an amazing concept. Never in the history of the world has something like this been attempted. Now, here and there, things have been done this way. Like in Israel, the period between Joshua and the judges. Yeah, there was somewhat of this system. Greece had a democracy, but again, the representatives were just, you know, it was not something that you just elect.

These were people who were descendants of descendants who continued the tradition. They were not like voted in. So the representatives that we elect are based on, you know, okay, what's your platform? Are you going to speak for us? Are you going to stand for us? Okay, then we'll elect you.

Yeah. And it's interesting that you say that because it's clear that, you know, talking about the pilgrims that came over, they understood because they had seen firsthand how when that power gets out of control, you know, things start to go south. Those freedoms that we call our freedom, just like us in America today, we say that we're free. How free are we?

And if we keep getting further and further away from our religious liberties, how free are we actually going to be? I'll be honest with you right now, you know, in concept, Americans are kings and the representatives should be working for us, but I don't believe they are right now. Because a lot of decisions that are being made by our representatives, I don't believe that truly represent us. And I think something has, I don't know how to say it, but has been flipped upside down where instead of us being the kings and the representatives working for us, I believe the representatives have become kings. Yeah, I believe that 100%.

They are deciding what is right or wrong. Like we will take care of that. We know what you're saying, but we don't, we don't agree with that.

Yeah. That, I mean, that stems from what we said earlier, but we're saying you're the experts. You think for us that extends in this realm to you're the representative. So we're just gonna, you know, we'll, we'll follow your lead. The word representative, I mean, really is a misnomer at this point because they're not representing us and what we believe.

They've taken that to the extreme. Okay. So we do give representatives that power saying, Hey, look, we cannot research every bill.

We cannot study everything. So please make the decisions on behalf of us. But what's happening with marriage in America right now with this RMA, which is the respect for marriage act, the way our senators are voting is completely contrary to our values. I agree.

A hundred percent. I understand bills that are very thick and you know, they're the man is going to take hours to read that note. I get it there. Please represent us well.

And hopefully we'll have enough of our people speaking out who are, who understand these issues to keep you in line. But we know exactly where marriage stands. Exactly.

God has said in his word, the marriage is between a man and a woman, one man, one woman for life. Right. So here, here's the problem today in America that is being challenged. The 1996 DOMA, right?

Defense of marriage act is being challenged. And it's very tragic. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm praying and I'm hoping that the American people who are the Kings, just like, you know, governor Morris, the penman of the constitution said, the magistrate is not the King. The people are the King. Right. And people have given up that Kingship. People have given it up completely because what's happening is I feel like people are researching all these politicians, all of these representatives, like you said, to kind of use air quotes there.

They're researching them and saying, all right, let me find out what they believe in so I can stand behind that person. But you've completely forgotten that person is supposed to be standing for you. Right. They're supposed to be, you're the one, you're the King, like you said, you're the King.

Right. And here's an interesting thing that Bill Federer does in his book. He, you know, who's the King in America. He says, and who are the counselors? The pastors are the counselors to the King.

Don't misunderstand the King. There are not the representatives, the people and the pastors have to speak up and talk to their congregation and tell them, Hey, listen, this is where we're compromising God's word. This is where we are going off the deep end. This is where we are giving up the freedoms in times of crisis or whatever. We're giving it away to our, to those who should be representing us. Hey, it's time to stand up people to speak out.

That's right. And I hope pastors will do that. Amen.

Absolutely. I hope pastors do that. I hope we have the convictions to do that. Make your voices heard, stand up and make your, make your votes count. Make your voices heard, especially in the realm of politics. So important. If you enjoyed today's topic or you have suggestions for future topics, let us know by sending a text to 252-582-5028. You can also visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com and on that same website you can support us financially. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear View Today.