Our Shepherd King

Welcome back, everyone.

Today is Monday, December the 5th. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

Or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in and suggest that we talk about, send us a text at 252-582-5028. That's right. You guys can help us keep the conversation in the airwaves by supporting this podcast. You can visit us online, leave us a good review on iTunes and just help keep the discussion of Jesus Christ in the airwaves as long as we possibly can. That's right. So helpful to leave those ratings and reviews on those podcasting platforms.

So make sure if you haven't done so yet that you do that and you invite your friends and family to do the same. Amen. You want to hit them with the verse of the day? It is time for the verse of the day.

The verse of the day today comes from Hebrews 11 verse 1. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. That is a really beautiful verse and it reminds me that there's all sorts of things that I can control in life and there's some things that I just can't control. And that is where faith comes in. It's something that we try desperately, I think, as humans to cling to rather than just let go and let God work through those moments that need our faith.

Absolutely. And faith isn't something that you summon or muster up. It's something that God develops in you. So if you're struggling in that area, pray and ask God to help develop that faith that trusts without having that visual proof.

That's true. And that's difficult because that's not a discipline that we can just get better. I can't get better at having the faith.

You know what I mean? Just get more faithful. I just have to mean it hardest. The same thing I tell the worship team all the time here at Clearview Church. I'm not asking you to mean the songs harder. You can't will yourself into worshiping.

It's something that God works in you if you're obedient to him and you do have that faith. Do you want to tell them? I know we kind of had some things we were going to talk about, but you and I were talking earlier and you were telling me about that story where you got lost skiing in the mountains. Do you want to tell that? Sure, sure. So I thought that'd be a good podcast spotter.

Yeah, absolutely. So back years and years ago when I was a teenager in youth group, I was about 14 years old and our youth group went on a ski trip to West Virginia. There's a ski resort up there. We had a blast. It was a great time.

Loved it. Loved going skiing and my dad went as one of the chaperones and for him and I both, this was our first time skiing. I grew up in Charleston and you know, we, if we see two snowflakes every five years, that's, that's a major thing. That's like a light Christmas. Right?

Exactly. So to go skiing was like a dream come true. So we're learning how to ski and we're, you know, falling a lot, but we're having a good time. And as you ski down the mountain, there's a, there was this route that we had developed where you, you spend a lot of time on the green slopes, the easy slopes, uh, for like easy difficulty. Uh, but I was supposed to take a turn and I, and I missed that turn and I skied down further than I meant to. So are you alone at this point?

I have been separated from the pack because you're downhill going on skis. So there isn't like, Oh, let me stop real quick and turn around. Right. It's just, you're not stopping. We're going down the mountain. Okay. Okay. Um, so I get to the bottom of the, of the mountain and I'm 14 years old. I don't have a cell phone.

Um, I'm, I'm separated from my dad. What's the year? What's the hash? I have 14. What year were you born? 88 88.

What's 88 plus 14. This is in 2002. Yeah.

2002. Okay. I don't have a cell phone. Um, so at the bottom of the, at the bottom of the mountain and I'm like, I'm separated from my dad. I don't know what to do. This is, I've never been here before. I don't know the layout of the mountain. I don't have a map on me. I'm like, I don't know what to do at this point. So my now 14 year old brain. Okay.

Right. I'm like, well, the snow is packed down pretty tight, so I'm just going to take my skis off and try to walk back up the slope that I slid down. Cause it's not very steep. Are you in the woods or is it pretty open? It's pretty open. Okay. It's pretty open. But you are alone. Yes.

I mean there's hundreds of other people there, but nobody that you know and that I know. Okay. Um, so I try to walk back up the mountain does not work. It's very difficult to walk up a snowy mountain in ski.

Sure. So I'm like, okay, put my skis back on, ski back down, take the lift back up. Lift goes to a different place. Oh no. Different, different routes. I'm separated from my dad.

No idea. Now 34 year old Ryan. Had I had this mind, I would have been like, Oh, our group is set up in the ski lodge. I'm just going to go there and just wait. Right.

14 year old Ryan did not have that. Yeah. It's like, I got to solve this now. And the first thing I think of is the solution. Yes.

I have to catch it to my dad. So I spent, it felt like hours and hours. It was realistically probably about two and a half, maybe three hours, which is a long time. Wow. But it wasn't like I wasn't, I wasn't out there like in the elements for hours and hours. Yeah. Um, so was your dad cool when you, when he found you or was he like, Hey, this was no, he and I were both pretty stressed. Okay. Uh, so I eventually through like trying to ski around and ski around and trying to figure out, I was like, you know what, I guess I'll just go back to the lodge and just hope for the best.

Just wait. So I walk into the lodge and I walk in and I see my dad like facing away from me, walking down the hallway and I'm like, dad, and I run and I give him a hug and I'm like, I've been found. This is what the prodigal son found. I've been found. I was lost, but now I was found. I've come back home. So we went back to the lodge, sat down, got warm, ate a slice of pizza and it was all fine from there. So I guess, I guess the big, the big thing I'm wondering now is like, when does that panic set in? Like, like you, you get separated. Cause I've done that kind of thing too as a kid where it's like, Oh, ha ha, this is, this is funny.

I'll, I'll see you on my mom in a second. And then it's like, all right, now I think this really, really might be real. And then it's like, Oh good, this is real.

Like this is real. So it was the panic set in, I would say within probably 10 to 15 minutes. I was pretty stressed pretty quickly because my dad was a novice skier as well. Now he's an adult, so he's a little bit more capable than I am, but he's a novice skier. So if he's skiing around trying to look for me, I'm like, yeah, what if he fell off the mountain? Like, what if he fell off the mountain? There was no guard rail.

I mean just off the side of the mountain. So and it wasn't like I could call him on a cell phone. It wasn't like in the mall, like you get separated and you have a page and move the intercom on the side of the mountain. So it was, it was pretty stressful pretty quickly for 14 year old Ryan. But all that to say we went skiing again next year.

Wow, that's crazy. Well, it all worked out fine, but that little, that little panic is still there. I can imagine. I can imagine. So with, you know, talking about snow, talking about the winter, we're going through our series in December as we're approaching Christmas and we're talking about how Jesus today, we're talking about Jesus is our shepherd King.

That imagery is most is something that most of us are familiar with, but what exactly does it imply that Jesus is a shepherd King? That's very important. And we're going to bring Dr Sean in a minute to talk about that. But if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028 or visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com.

We'll be right back after this. Hey there listeners. My name is Kelsey and I'm John and we want to pause the show for just a second to talk to you guys about Clearview Church's original EP Together Forward. Yeah, these are five songs, five original songs that we wrote right here at Clearview Church. Myself, Dr. Shah, David Williamson, our engineer on the Clearview Today show, some of the other guys on the worship team. But sometime during all the shutdowns of 2020, we noticed this really horrible isolationism setting in all over the world.

It was like nothing we've ever seen before. That's right. And one of the things that we've always been about here at Clearview is forward motion and community.

Those are both very important. So the whole heart behind the EP was, Hey, let's just take these two things and let's put them together because we truly feel like that's the antidote to what's happening in the world today. We're right in the middle of writing a whole bunch of new material as a church, but while all of those projects are still in the works, we want to help point you guys towards these songs that God has given us. You can listen to all of them right now on Spotify. Just look up Clearview Worship, or if you want to support what we're doing here at Clearview Church, you can buy it on iTunes right now. And always remember you can support us directly at the Clearview Today show by visiting us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

That's right. Thanks for listening. We hope these songs are as much a blessing to you as they were for us.

Amen. Let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

If you have any questions or suggestions for future episodes, send us a text at 252-582-5028. Dr. Shaw, happy Monday to you today. How are you doing today? Doing very well, and it's coming closer and closer to Christmas, so I'm really excited. I know you're excited. I am very excited. Christmas is my absolute favorite thing in the world.

I don't know if you guys know that, if you haven't been tracking with episodes, but in case you're dropping in for the first time, Christmas is the best. It's my favorite. Where would you say you are, Dr. Shaw, between Grinch on this extreme and like Ryan on this extreme? I would say with all the craziness in this world and life, you know, sometimes life just gets you, I would say I'd rather be near where Ryan's at. Not even in the middle. I mean, middle is great. Middle is where probably I really am, but if I were to choose a position, I would say might as well go be happy and, you know, enjoy life, love the Lord, and have a good time. There's plenty of craziness in this world.

Love the Lord, worship God, put up your Christmas decorations. That's it. So, I'm okay with that.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, if you guys are joining us for the first time, you've never heard the show before, never followed Dr. Shaw's work. Dr. Abaddon Shaw is a Ph.D. in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, an author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. You can follow his work on his website, abadonshaw.com.

That's right. And speaking of his website, abadonshaw.com, we're going to be zeroing in on one of your previous messages today, Dr. Shaw. You've talked, you know, we've talked about Christmas series before and how we handle different parts of the Christmas story. But you preached a message back in 2018, I believe it was. It was part of our royal series. And this message was about Jesus being our shepherd king.

And those are two words that don't often get a lot of playtime together. What does that mean that Jesus is our shepherd king? And why is that important for us? Well, you know, there are a lot of kings in this world.

Now, some have been kind and gentle and truly care about their subjects. But most kings are somewhere between King Louis and Shere Khan. Oh, I love it. I love the jungle.

King Louis. Because they're trying to have something they can't have. What is it? Man's fire? Right? He wants that. Or Shere Khan, where they are always living in fear and hate. Yeah. Fear of this man child who's going to come and kill him. Right.

Or something like that. But then there is Jesus, our shepherd king, who loves us and is willing to lay down his life for us. And when you're going through trials, difficult times, times of, you know, you may be in that hospital waiting room, or in the hospital room, you're in the bed, or you're facing financial problems, or you're facing relationship struggles in your life, you know, to realize that you have a shepherd king who takes care of you, who cares for you, who will lead you besides still waters, who will restore your soul, who will prepare a place, a table for you in the presence of your enemies.

You know, that's a wonderful reminder and we need to be, we need to be reminded of that. Almost every day, we have a shepherd king. We don't have just a king, some authoritarian king who just demands respect and demands taxes and demands whatever. Neither do we have a king who is just, you know, hands off, just whatever you want to do, you know, I love you, whatever you are. No, we have a king who is a shepherd king who is very involved and vested in our lives. At the same time, he also disciplines us at times and loves us, cares for us, and will always fulfill his promises.

Yeah. I love that. I love that imagery that you bring up because Jesus isn't just blindly ambitious. You know, it's not just blind ambition for the sake of gaining power. The power was his before we ever came into the picture.

The authority, and he was already the king, regardless of whether or not we were his subjects. I love that a lot. The thing about the shepherd though that gets me is that it's almost, it almost seems odd to put those two words together because when I think of shepherds, typically what we think of is the lowly, the dirty, kind of outcasts of society that are out in the fields and just tending sheep and they're, I wouldn't say they're pariahs really, but they're the, they're servants. You know, that's typically what we think. Well, yeah, I mean, I've, I'm sure our listeners have heard that. I've heard that messages before where it's like the angels came to reveal this to even like the lowliest of us. Right. The common folk and stuff.

Right. But you bring up, you bring up an interesting point in your message that the, you know, the Bible is actually filled with positive imagery where shepherds are concerned. In fact, we have, you know, I think it's sometimes what happens is somebody starts some thought or idea or a misconception, misrepresentation of history. So one we often hear is, you know, the whole idea of shepherd was, was foreign to ancient peoples.

That's not true. Like even the Sumerian gods like Enlil was known as faithful shepherds. The god Marduk, Babylonian god was known as a shepherd to his people. Of course, in Mesopotamia, Enmerkar, the king of Uruk was called a shepherd. This is about 2000 BC, about the time of Abraham. So also Hammurabi of Babylon was called a shepherd.

When you go into Egypt, you know, they had this weird complex, Egypt, Egypt is the most complex place, right? On one hand, they hate the serpent. On the other hand, they put it on Pharaoh's crown, right?

Right. So also when it comes to shepherds, it was an abomination for them. The shepherds were sort of an abomination. So, you know, remember when they, when Joseph's brothers came and didn't know this was Joseph, that Joseph ate sort of separately from his brothers because Egyptians looked down on shepherds, I guess, right? Didn't have this, this, this good view of shepherds. But at the same time, pharaohs are usually depicted, if you ever seen them, with the flail and the shepherd's crook.

Yeah, that's true. Wait a minute. They got the little... Yeah.

What just happened here? I thought you don't like shepherds. Well, we are shepherds to our people.

Huh. So it's kind of a complex relationship. Also in Greece, we find the shepherd metaphor in the Iliad and the Odyssey. I say all that to say this, the idea of God being our shepherd was not something unique or new. Also in the Bible, I mean, think about some of the people that God called to be shepherds. You know, if you go to Genesis 49, 24, Jacob blesses Joseph saying the arms of his hand were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. From there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel.

That's right. So positive imagery. Also Moses, you know, what is he doing in the backside of the desert? He is leading sheep. But then also he describes God as a shepherd setting his people free from Egypt. He says in Exodus 15, 13, you in your mercy have led forth the people whom you have redeemed. You have guided them in your strength to your holy habitation. That's a shepherd imagery. Jeremiah, Isaiah or Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, same thing.

God is depicted as a gentle shepherd. Yeah. Yeah.

And so also in the Psalms, I mean, you see that so much. Yep. Exactly. You know, that's, that's, oh God. And I mean, how can you forget Psalm 23? Exactly.

That's what I was going to say. We actually have introduced that as a worship song here at Clearview very recently. And it's just such a, it's an amazing reminder, but it's also just an underlining of what God is doing all throughout his word.

That's right. Is that he's, he's reminding us that he is the good shepherd and he wants to lead us. Can I read that song?

Yeah, please. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yet though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Only goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Wow. Isn't that beautiful? I love, I love the, just the peace that that Psalm brings. It just kind of just, you can exhale knowing that your separate is caring for you. He's, he's, he's taking care of your needs.

He's meeting, he's meeting whatever it is that's in front of you. I remember there was a, um, there was a funeral I went to as a kid and uh, I saw that. I saw a bunch of like my family who I knew good and well were not in church, but they knew that they could recite that Psalm at the graveside just by memory. And it was just so I think ingrained in our, in our minds. But I love that way that you said that it's, it's an exhale. There's, there's a peace behind that.

And I don't know many other scriptures that have that, that very visceral reaction of everything's going to be okay. It makes me to lie down in green pastures. Not that he's forcing me, but there are times when you don't want to lie down. You have too much on your mind.

You're too worried, too scared, too discouraged, whatever it is. But he comes and says, lie down. And that he leads me beside the still waters, not some raging river, not some, some crashing waterfall, but still waters, very peaceful, calm.

And how does he do that? By reminding us of his promises. You know, you need to go through some difficult time and you feel, man, there's no way God is in this.

How, or how could God allow this? God will send some promise, some, some assurance of his presence and his promise to take care of you. And God's peace comes over you. You still wish that that circumstance would just disappear, right?

Just kind of vanish, but it doesn't. And that's okay because God did not say, I will not allow trials to come into your life. He is going to walk with us through the trials. That's the shepherd king.

That's right. I love that because it just, it just, again, it shows us that God is a God who guides and he protects and he provides just like a shepherd does. But I love even more that this is something that was promised. Just like you said, Dr. Shah, I'm sorry.

Sorry about that. You got to mark that. This is something that was promised to us. I love that because it reminds us that not only is God our shepherd who guides us, but this is something that is promised to us. This is something that was promised even 800 years before Jesus came. I remember you said that in your sermon, that this is something that people were looking forward to the coming of the shepherd, right?

Right. You know, this is a time period we're talking about when the kingdom of Judah, the Southern kingdom was waiting, was facing an attack from all sides, from the South, from Edom, the Edomites were coming against them, from the West, the Philistines of Philistia, from the North and the Northeast was the Northern kingdom of Israel. Your own brothers have turned against you.

You know, that's, that's when it hurts the most, right? You feel like, man, you're going to really pick up a knife against us. And then of course, Syria to the North had built this, you know, unholy alliance with God's people to come against God's people.

And instead of turning to God, the king decided, the king of Judah decided to reach out to the Assyrians who were to the North of Syria. See, sometimes we have this idea that we're going to be shrewd. We're going to be really smart.

We're going to wait. Let me show you how this is done. And that's, that's like the famous last word in a Christian's life. It may work out great in some lost person's life who's not going to heaven, but in a Christian's life when we think I got this one, I know how to do this. I'm going to finagle this one around. Maybe a good point to just stop and go, stop, stop, time out. Don't do that.

Don't go there. And they did. They decided to make this pact with Assyria to the North of Syria and the kingdom of Israel thinking if we get them, then they can put pressure from the North. We can put pressure from the South.

Somehow we're going to win this one. And it backfires because it was foolish to look to them for help because when they came down, when the Assyrians are different, by the way, from Syria. Okay.

So that's what I was going to ask there. There's, there's a kingdom from the South, the West and the North, but the ones in the North are not Assyrians. Assyrians are different. Okay. So they were, Israel was under attack from the Syrians.

So they went to the Assyrians for help. Right. Gotcha. Okay.

We're going to get help from people above you. Gotcha. Right.

Because then they can put pressure from the top. Then you will back away from us. But what they didn't realize is the Assyrians had zero sense of loyalty. So they came against Syria first, then went against North, the Northern kingdom. And then guess what?

They came for the South. Keep rolling right on through. We might as well just keep on going. Yeah. It's like Hitler making that peace pact when, who's the prime minister of England who showed up and said, I signed the peace treaty. You know, that's what we have to do.

I just watched the oversimplified video on that like two days ago. Hold on. But anyway, it's kind of funny because he came back holding that piece of paper and, you know, Churchill and others, I think said, you know, that, that, that means nothing.

Hitler is not going on. Yeah. Chamberlain. That's right. By the way, not Wilt Chamberlain. No, not Wilt Chamberlain. He was there I think, that just wasn't, he was like dunking or dribbling or something.

Maybe not, not even, maybe born at that time. But anyways, so yeah, the prime minister comes back with that and it didn't, didn't mean a thing. They didn't honor that. Like he came back with the paper and they were like, look, it's good. He's like, look, Hitler's invading over there. He's like, no, he's just there.

He said he wouldn't. He's like, Hey, nothing new under the sun. What did he invade? Czechoslovakia? Yeah.

He's like, this is mine. Yeah. I mean, so it tells you, you know, the Bible is so true because that's exactly what happened. Assyria came and destroyed the north, send them into exile and they never came back. Right.

Gone forever. And the next thing he did was he marched to the south and it was by God's grace that the southern kingdom was spared because the angel of the Lord went through the Assyrian camp and in just one sweep destroyed 185,000 of the Assyrian troops in one night. Right. And then comes the prophecy of Micah in Micah five, two, it says, but you Bethlehem Ephrata means kind of, there was a two, two Bethlehems at the time. You Bethlehem Ephrata, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel. It means he will be the rightful King who's going forth are from old from, are from of old from everlasting.

And then verse four, and he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord. Wow. So it's bringing that shepherd imagery back.

Right. You trusted in Assyria, you know what happened. Assyria is a wolf. You were afraid of Syria. Well, Syria is, you know, I don't know, a hyena, I guess.

Which scavenger predator would you go with here? But neither of them could help you. Right. And of course, the northern kingdom, your own brothers turned against you. But look, your shepherd is coming. And then it goes on to say, in the majesty of the name of the Lord, his God, and they shall abide for now.

He shall be great to the ends of the earth. And this one shall be peace when the Assyrian comes into our land. So then it happens, you know, we hear in the Gospel of Luke chapter two, it says, Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, watching over their flock by night, and behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them and on and on and on. So this was sort of a fulfillment of the prophecy that was made during the Assyrian onslaught.

Wow. I love how that just picture of the shepherd comes full circle in the Bible. We have these shepherds all throughout the Old Testament. This this idea of God raising up a shepherd for his people, we have the announcement of Jesus's birth to the shepherds.

And then ultimately, Jesus, of course, is our good shepherd. I love just how that hangs together. When you look at the entirety of Scripture, God's birth is just so beautiful.

And I also love the... It's unbelievable. Yeah, exactly. And I love the contrast of imagery of what God says a king is supposed to be. God is supposed to be this shepherd king, and the shepherd king is supposed to lead his people, guide his people, protect his people. And yet, we get these kingdoms here on earth, and all these kings, like you said, are power hungry. They're conniving.

They're trying to get around their problems by flexing their own muscles or making alliances with their enemies. And it just goes to show that God's idea for what a king should be, what a leader should be, is always going to come back to that imagery of the shepherd. That's right. Yeah, I love that. Well, if you guys enjoyed today's topic, the shepherd king, if it's helped you think rightly about Christmas and what it is that we're celebrating, send us some suggestions. Send us your thoughts from today's episode. You can text us at 252-582-5028. You can also, of course, email us at contact at clearviewtodayshow.com, or make sure you're following along on any one of our social medias. You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram. Any one of our social medias? Did you say mediums or medias? I think I said medias. Social medias? Social media platforms? Yeah. We're not on social medias.

Now I feel like a chump. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, whatever you call those things. My bad.

Did anybody think social media is weird? I don't know. Well, my bad. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. You'll find images for Versions of the Day that you can share with your friends and loved ones. You can also find the video podcast on Facebook as well.

That's right. Don't forget that on our website, clearviewtodayshow.com, you can support us financially. Every gift that you give goes to making an impact for God's kingdom as we seek to build this partnership to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We want to end this episode off with a different thing that we've done before. We usually do last minute advice, but it was actually suggested by one of our listeners, Mr. Jim, who is right here in North Carolina that we end on some of our favorite quotes, things, you know, things that have impacted us.

You know, different quotes that have stood out to us and kind of shaped the way that we think. So if it's okay with you guys, I have one that I'd like to share. That's all right.

I think that'd be fun. Okay. So this is actually, this is actually the quote that I used for my senior quote in in the yearbook, my senior year of high school. It's from an Irish playwright named George Bernard Shaw. He, he said, he's quoted as saying, you see things and you say why, but I dream things that never were.

And I say, why not? Wow. Just kind of the, the possibility stuck out to me. And by that time, senior year of high school, I was kind of getting really heavily into like drama and acting and being on stage. So the fact that he was a playwright sort of drew me to that quote anyway. But just that idea of like, think outside of the realm of what is in front of you.

Think beyond what is, you know, immediately visible and just sort of dream in the realm of possibilities. That's awesome. So you can take that one and, and you get it cross-ditch and put it up in your house, but it just right above the take me Ma's as for me and my house will serve the Lord.

Take that down. I don't know if George Bernard Shaw would agree with putting it right next to the Bible because he was not a very, very good believer. He was not, was it? But you know, even a broke clock is right twice a day.

That's exactly right. We can find one more quote by him, but then we gotta be done. He's right out. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview today. Bye.