Deceived

Hello, everyone. Today is Monday, December the 6th.

I'm Ryan Hill. December the 6th? Did you get a time machine or something? December the 26th. I just want to wind it back. Yeah, I understand that.

I know. Today is December the 26th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm Jon Galantis. You're listening to Clearview 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. Or if you have a question for Dr. Shah or suggestion for a future episode, send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

That's right. And you guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting this podcast, sharing it online, and just leaving us a good review on iTunes, Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasting content, you can leave us a good review. We're going to leave you a link in the description of this podcast so you can do that. We want to set you guys up for success. So y'all can help set us up for success. I love that. I love that relationship.

That's the little give and give relationship. Well, I try to do this. So it's like, we want y'all to leave a review, but now y'all got to go search for the podcast. Y'all got to type it in. No, no. We'll make it easy on you. People ain't going to do that. Just click on the link. We'll make it easy for you.

A little after Christmas gift. That's right. That's right. Jon, you want to give them the rest of the day today? Yeah, man. Today's verse comes from Isaiah 43 and verse two, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you and through the rivers they shall not, yeah, and through the rivers they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned nor the flame scorch you.

Wow. Powerful, powerful verse. God is always with us. Heavy imagery, borrowing from things like Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, the Israelites crossing the Jordan River, the parting of the Red Sea. God continually protecting his people from, you know, not, not sparing them having to go through these difficult times, but protecting them in the midst of difficulty.

That's very true. Speaking of being in the midst of difficulty, I know you were, you were, you called me this morning. You were very upset.

I am in the doldrums. I am having a hard day. Today, today is the worst day of the year. December 6th? December, I wanted it to be December 6th. Your mind was like trying to make it true.

It was rejecting reality. It's December the 26th, which is the day after Christmas. You got them boxing day blues. I am. I wish I brought my harmonica.

I'm blue, da ba dee, da ba die. Well, you can see if my harmonicas in the office. They're not. They're at their house.

So here's, here's my thing. Like everyone's Christmas decorations are still up. Right. And we're still like in Christmas mode. We've just unwrapped presents. Maybe you still even have some Christmas stuff to go do. Like you still have to, you still have Christmases to go spend with your family.

You're still visiting people throughout the rest of December, but we're on the decline. Yeah. Yeah. And we all know it. We can all feel it.

It's like the lights just suddenly got a little more dim. You got the blues hard. I am, I'm Eeyore today. I'm Christmas Eeyore.

I hate that you, I hate that you got the blues, man. Here's my, here's my solution though. I've come up with a solution. We're going to still have Christmas. Yeah. We're going to keep the Christmas decorations up. We're going to still, it's still going to be Christmas. Next year?

No, currently. So you're going to power through this. You're going to, you're going to keep, now that everybody's winding down, looking forward to new year, you're going to show up to the new year's party, Santa hat, everybody, please. You're crying.

You're like crying, please. Happy new year. No, Merry Christmas.

We can still do it gang. It's not dead. End of January, Merry Christmas. Hashtag Christmas is not dead. Christmas is not canceled. Man, this is crazy. Well, Hey, listen.

I'm hanging on. Well, I think, I think the, do you do this every year? Every year. What did you get your family for Christmas by the way? So we got a lot of, a lot of gifts for the kids. Like we got a lot of games that we can play together. That's one of our favorite things to give, you know, gifts to the kids is games that we can play together as a family.

Oh, that's nice. So one of them, we got, there's a game that we like that everybody plays called taco cat, goat cheese pizza. Hold on.

Taco cat, goat cheese pizza. It's similar to war or, or Egyptian rat slap. If you've ever played that.

You're saying a lot of stuff at me and it's coming at me full force early on a Monday because I don't understand what you're saying. I'm going to take it as disrespect. That's disrespect. You've never played Egyptian rat slap. I've never played Egyptian rat slap. I've never played war and I've never played taco.

No, and I've never played, what was it? Taco? Taco cat, goat cheese pizza.

That was a little, that was a little niche that like this not quite as popular, but you're just saying nouns. Essentially you go around and you say, you, you, you say the words in that order. So if I was to go first, I would say taco and I would lay the card down in my hand and hope that the card did not match what I said. Now, if I laid down a card that did match what I said, so if I, if I say taco and laid down a taco card, the first person to slap the cards gets the cards.

That sounds kind of fun. So you want to kind of pay attention. There's some special cards in there. You got to do some special different things, but you got to pay attention to the order.

You always keep the words in the same order, but you just lay down the top card that you have. Oh, I got you. Yeah, that's kind of fun. So I got the Christmas version, which I'm going to get, I'm going to butcher this order, but it's like, it's like Santa reindeer elf candy snowman. Oh, same game. Just Christmas Christmas themed. Okay.

Um, I got, uh, Elizabeth, a really nice teal mug or cup that keeps like cold drinks, cold hot drinks, hot. Um, and I got Noah, some Pokemon cards. Oh, cute.

And there's other stuff too, but those are the ones that are like on the forefront. Yeah, that's cute. Well, it sounds like you had a good Christmas. So I'm hoping, uh, what did you guys get? Uh, well, uh, I got, uh, I think my sister got me an air tag. Uh, I got a couple of books, pretty, very low key Christmas. We had a lot going on with the new baby and stuff.

Yeah, that's right. You guys got, uh, we had a lot going on. We had a, we did a very low key Christmas. I think I got a couple of books. Uh, I got my sister.

Why did I get my sister? I let Ellie, I let Ellie pretty much take care of all that. Elizabeth does most of it. Yeah. Yeah.

And they're like a shared note that we can kind of drop ideas in the midst of pregnancy. I had her taking care of all that. So, but she likes it. Yeah, she liked it. Well, in today's episode, we're talking about the account that we find in Genesis where Sarah, I Abrams wife, before they become Abraham and Sarah Sarah attempts to take matters into her own hands regarding God's promise.

Right. Uh, we're all familiar with this account between her and Hagar, but we're going to bring Dr. Shia and in just a minute to see if we can shed some new light on exactly what's going on here and the implications of Sarah's choice. If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at two five two five eight two five zero two eight or visit us online at clear view today show.com. We'll be back after this.

Hey there listeners. My name is John and I'm David and we just want to take a second and talk to you about Dr. Sean Nicole's new book, 30 days to a new beginning daily devotionals to help you move forward. No matter who you are or where you are in life, you're going to get stuck. You're going to have goals that you just can't seem to reach and you're going to be looking for some new way to start over. Unfortunately, life does not have a restart button, but here's the good news.

God's mercy is new every day, right? And so that means every day is a new chance for you to start over. Now, Dr. Shah and his wife Nicole have written a new 30 day devotional in their 30 day series designed to give you practical tools for starting over. No matter where you are in life's journey or what pitfalls you've encountered, this devotional is going to help you move forward. Refocus your mind on God's truth and meditate on his word and you guys can pick up a copy right this second on amazon.com unless you're driving.

Yeah, don't shop and drive unless you're driving. In which case, wait till you get home, but we're going to leave a link for you right here in the description of this podcast. So it'll be waiting for you when you get home. That's 30 days to a new beginning daily devotionals to help you move forward. For the remainder of November and all through December, we'll be sending a free copy to anyone who supports the podcast by visiting us online and donating to the show at clear view today show.com.

That is a very, very good incentive gang. That's 30 days to a new beginning daily devotions to help you move forward by Abaddon and Nicole Shaw. Thank you guys so much for listening. David, you want to jump back into the show? Let's go. All right. Welcome back to Clear View today with Dr. Abaddon Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com or you can send us a text at 252-582-5028. Dr. Shaw, welcome to the studio today. It's hard to believe this is the last week of 2022. I know it's crazy. And what a year has been.

I know we've seen, we've seen God, but you know what, that we have seen God work mighty ways in 2022. I'm grateful to have gone through it with both of you two guys. Absolutely. Same here, same here. Grateful for y'all.

Amen. If you guys are joining us today for the very first time, unfamiliar with Dr. Shaw's work, Dr. Abaddon Shaw is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. And you can follow all of his work at his website at AbaddonShaw.com.

That's right. And speaking of his website, you can go there and check out the manuscripts from his past messages. You know, we, a lot of times we'll reference a message here on the show. If you're curious about those messages, you can find all of those manuscripts on his website, AbaddonShaw.com, or you can find those sermon videos on our church's website, ClearviewBC.org. You know what else you can find on AbaddonShaw.com?

What else can you find? Well, I know we've talked about it once, but you can find a link to 30 Days to a New Beginning, Daily Devotions to help you move forward. You may or may not have just heard an ad about it, but if you didn't hear the ad about it, this is an amazing devotional. Make sure you pick up your copy today. We're going to leave a link in the show notes of this podcast. If I could just hand you a link through the camera, I would. You could just click on it in real life. Just deliver you a link.

Yeah. Or I could just, honestly, I would probably just hand you the book if I could do that. But this is an amazing devotional.

Make sure you pick up your copy today. That's right. So Dr. Shaw, today we, I know we normally do quotes at the end, but this quote from one of your recent messages has stood out.

I think it struck a chord with all of us. We were talking about this. You said that doubt is one of the choicest weapons that the enemy uses against us.

Oh, isn't that the truth though? Oh man. It just, when, when you said that in the message, I was sitting in the pew and whenever you said that it was like a light bulb went off.

Like, yeah. Did you say it like grew light bulb, light bulb, that was pretty good. Do it again.

Light the bulb. I was going to do it too, but I can't, there's no way I can, uh, but that it's so true. And it's so such a captivating realization that that doubt is not just something, you know, it's just kind of this ambiguous thing that we struggle with.

It's a weapon of the enemy. And you talked about this in one of your recent messages. This whole month we've been going through, um, this sermon series dealing with the life of Abram and Sarai. And you talked about that in one of the, one of the recent messages about doubt and its implications and ramifications in the life of those two individuals. Everybody in this world, saved or not, goes through doubts in life. And whether they believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior or not, they still have doubts about quote unquote God, what is he doing?

Where is he? What's happening? And then when it fleshes out, you know, they have lots of gods or, you know, atheistic gods, you know, the atheists do worship too. You know, they may claim they don't, but they do. But the point I'm making here is that everybody goes through doubts, but people saved and lost learn how to cope with them. Lost people learn how to cope with them by becoming either fatalistic or they become sort of like, you know, this life is all there is to it. Achieve as much as possible. Make this, this world a better place and then leave. And that's it. That's it.

You're off the stage and your act is done. Saved people also go through doubts and they have their own ways of dealing with it. And sometimes it can also be fatalistic. It is what it is. Or a sense of, yes, I believe in Jesus.

Yes, I believe the Bible is God's word, but do you truly believe that God is working all things together for good? They may say it and say, yes I do, but really truly they don't believe that. Right. They know it's the right answer to give. It's the right answer.

They don't want to make God mad, but internally they don't believe that. Right. And so doubt across the board for all peoples is how you cope with it is the key. And for believers who have a living active faith, I hate to even qualify that because all believers should be just believers who have a living active faith should have better ways to handle doubts and not copy the ways of the world. One thing you told me one time, I think that's really helped me a lot through life.

I can't remember it. This was years ago that you told me this, but you said that God's plans for us, they require patience and faith, but a lot of times what doubt creates in Christians is this need to act like I need to take this into my own hands. I need to start acting right. That's what the world does. Right.

Right. It's just something that has always struck me about you that you're not one to sit and wait, but you're patient at the right times. You're patient at wise and discerning times to see how God is going to move. And I think a lot of things that Christians struggle with is when to act and when not to act. But I'll be honest with you.

I mean, I'm not always very patient. You know, I have to internally deal with it. And people say, well, you know, let it out.

No, it's not that. Internally deal with it is have a communication with God. And in that communication, you entangle the mess in your mind. So it's not like I'm just keeping it inside. Well, I'm sorry, psychology 101, use it on somebody else.

Right. You know, I'm not internalizing it. I'm not like, you know, holding it all in. No, I am working it out, not by myself, but with God.

And usually it comes after reading his word, a time of prayer, maybe a devotional and just sitting there and just meditating and thinking and praying at the same time in the process of talking to God. Those knots begin to entangle and I'm able to see clearly enough to move forward. Right. Does that mean those knots stay that way and entangled? No, it's a matter of hours, sometimes moments.

They come back together and all bunched up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Have you ever, have you ever seen or talked to people? Cause I know I tend to think this way when things aren't going my way and when doubts start to creep in, I tend to think that because God isn't answering me the way I want when I want it, that the answer is just no. Right.

And then I'm going to either abandon that hope or more often than not, I'm just going to try to make it work in my own power. Right. And it's an old idiom, but you know, God's delays are not God's denials. Right.

And that is so true. Right. You know, just because God is making you wait doesn't mean that he has forgotten you or he has changed his mind or he doesn't care about you. No, he, he, he remembers you.

That's right. He hasn't changed his mind. He does care, but he's working in your life. He's preparing you. He's bringing you to a place where you're ready to receive the promise that was given to you. You know, between, you know, we talked about this in our night of worship, you know, between life is between promise received and promise obtained.

There are two different things. Promise received is where, you know, you begin your life or you face a situation and you trust in a promise of God, but it hasn't happened yet. It's simply trusting in the promise.

Promise obtained is where the promise actually comes to pass. Life is in between. I don't want to get us off track here, but I do want to say this because it's impacted my life a great deal. The things that you've said to me over the years that have truly impacted me and I think changed the way I think there's been two and I think I've said them both on the podcast. That was one of them that you just said, but the other one was most of life is just coming back to God.

And I think that's something that we as humans, I know especially me, is we are internally searching. Someone tell me how life is. Someone tell me what to think about life. And I know that doesn't have much to do with doubt on the surface, but I just wanted to say those two statements have really, because I think ultimately that's what I'm looking for. Someone tell me what to think about life. And it's not, I know it's coming from God, but it's you saying it to me.

And hopefully people listening feel the same way and they go hand in hand. Most of life is coming back to God and that most of coming back to God is between promise given by God to you and promise obtained means you can check, check it off and say, yes, I got where I prayed for, but it took 40 years. Most of life is in between coming back to God. And it's not like a struggle.

Like I'm trying to walk up this, go up this mountain and I slip back down, go up this mountain, slip back down. No, you're learning truths. You're learning truths about who God is. What does it mean to have the Christ life? What does it mean to walk in the spirit? All of this is part of that journey.

And it's not just like I run forward and I slip back or two steps forward, one step back. Those are very simplistic ways of talking about the Christian life. It's much more than that. And the more you grow in the Lord, the more you let him live through you, the more you rest in him. You know, all those principles. I know you're reading David's reading in the book by major Ian Thomas called the saving life of Christ. You know, that's what he was.

Nicole's my wife's dad's mentor, major Ian Thomas. If you've heard of those torchbearers school schools, that's what, that's what they're all about. So am I right on that David? Yeah, it's a, it's, it's a pretty phenomenal book and it's got the stuff that you're talking about, about, I know you said you're learning, you know, how to, how to live the saving life for your learning, how to walk in the spirit. And this book has been a, a huge help, like huge help in learning those things. And I think it's something that I, I'm glad you gave it to me at the time that you did, cause I wasn't ready for it earlier, but I feel like had I not had it now later on, I might not have been ready for it.

It's just, it's a perfect book for the time that I'm in. Beautiful. Wow. So as we're talking about doubt and this kind of universal human struggle, how does this relate to the life of Abram and Sarai?

Yes. When God called him, he was 75, she was 65, 10 years, no, no child. And they struggled and God came to him, reassured him and reminded him of his promises. And you could tell there's a little sarcasm in him when he says, you know, God, what will you give me since I go childless? And the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. You know, he's kind of being kind of flippant about it.

You know, Ben Mesek Demesek means, you know, this, this, this inheritor is of Damascus. So he's kind of being sarcastic to God. So you can tell he was struggling, but God reassured him, you know, you should give him that vision of his, his descendants being in Egypt and coming back to the promised land when the iniquity of the Amorites would be complete, that God has to cleanse the land. He's giving the Amorites, the Canaanites a chance. He gave them 400 years.

See, sometimes people get so frustrated. You know, it's like, how can God kill all those people? How could he tell Joshua to do what he did? He gave him 400 years.

Right. And every sin today was then, and it was worse and worse. So God assured him, God told him all of these things.

Nonetheless, he still struggled. And of course, as you know, Sarah took matters into her own hands. Sarai, her name hasn't changed yet, and decided to give Hagar to Abram. And he slept with her and had a child. And God said, that's not the one.

Right. Now think about how complicated and how messy, I would even use the word horrendous, that family went from, from being like, Hey, you know, we're waiting on a child to, Oh my goodness. We just, we just started one of the mass, most massive global conflicts in history. I don't even know if they were thinking about that far, but just in their own household, can you imagine the conflict between a 85 year old and a 75 year old and a, I don't know, a 30 year old Egyptian handmaiden. Imagine the conflict in this home.

This home was relatively peaceful, but now it's, it's horrible and it brought out the worst in Sarai because she mistreated Hagar. Yeah. You know, sometimes people make decisions in haste. They don't realize the ramifications.

They don't expect emotions to come out through them. They thought, I know what I'm doing and I know this is going to happen. Then that's going to happen. And this is going to happen and it's all good. I figured it out until it actually begins. The engine begins to move forward and you go, Oh, I didn't expect the tracks are not laid by me. Right. The tracks are already laid by someone else.

Now I have to go down this rail. And that's what happened here and it was horrendous. And so, you know, they made that mistake. Yeah. Yeah. And we tend to put all the blame on Hagar. We tend to look at Hagar as the outsider, the one who came in and kind of wrecked this family without really understanding or without really, I think, given the weight of, of blame or maybe not even a blame, but just of responsibility to Sarai and her doubt. Right.

And it was, I would say ultimately the blame lies at Abram's because he should have been a godly husband or leader when she brought her maid servant to Abram. He would say, honey, I know what you're trying to do. Let's wait. Right. And if we sink, we're going to sink trust in God. But instead he's like, okay.

He did what father Adam did. Yeah. Just whatever you said, go along with what you say. And then when Hagar, you know, it was being, you know, whatever's happening between her and Sarah, the whole dynamics changed.

He's like, well, do what you want to do with her. Yeah. Wow.

I just, I just appreciate so much. And you said this in your message, but how the Bible doesn't shy away from the faults of its heroes. You know, if, if we were writing the Bible, we would have everybody looking like these super larger than life, perfect people who never made mistakes, always made the right call. But the people in the Bible were flawed, right? They were, they were, you know, men and women of God and they were faithful and they did made a lot of good decisions, but they also made some bad decisions too.

Yeah, absolutely. And here's one, but you know, Hagar runs off and the angel of the Lord, and if you've heard me preach on this before, is the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. I would say the most prominent Christophany in the Bible is this one. He meets her by this well, and you can imagine well means it's probably an oasis, probably travelers, traders, you know, pirates, whoever they are, are passing through this area. They're probably, you know, giving her a hard time.

So the pre-incarnate Christ himself shows up and stands by her. Wow. There's some weight behind that. Yeah. Yeah. This is how you know the Bible is not a human book, right?

I mean, of course, written by human authors through their personalities, experiences, education. I get it. But ultimately it is inspired by the Holy Spirit because I would not have done that.

I would have been like, okay, Hagar's gone. Okay. All right.

You know what? Let's get back to the plan, which is Abram and Sarah. How can we get them counseling? Yeah. How can we protect this? Let's get her out of the picture.

How can we protect this couple who is the couple? Right. Let's just focus here. And what Hollywood does is just kill off that character. Just kill him off. We'll have a season three finale. It'll be really sad. We'll just continue on.

Yeah. But imagine if that had happened. How in the world can we say that God cares for the unborn?

Yeah, that's true. Cause he didn't care for Hagar's baby inside of her belly. How can we say that God cares for those who are abused? Cause she was abused at the hands of Sarah.

We don't know exactly what, should she hit her, cuss her, withhold food from her? We don't know. How can we say that God cares for those who are orphans or whatever, you know, that tells you right there that the Bible is the word of God. And so he comes to her, but he, he comes and not only he assures her, but he also reminds her of something deeper that is taking place as unfortunate as this situation was and as tragic as it was and out of God's will that this was, God has a way of working even our messes into his story. So the angel of the Lord said to her, and I'm reading from Genesis chapter 16 and verse 11, he said, behold, you are with child and you shall bear a son and you shall call his name. We want to say Emmanuel, but it's Ishmael because the Lord has heard your affliction. You know, even Hagar in a sense became a type of the coming Messiah.

Wow. You know, later on in Isaiah, we read about this behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel. And then when John the baptizer was born, you know God came to Zechariah and he said the same thing, pretty much the same thing to her. I'm Gabriel who stands in the presence of God and was sent to speak to you and bring you these good, glad tidings and on and on. And earlier he said the same thing to him, you know, do not be afraid.

Your prayers is heard and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son and you shall call his name John. So amazing how that the same thing that he said to Hagar gets repeated in Isaiah's time at the birth of John the Baptist. And then of course we know that same promise was repeated to Joseph, you know, in Luke chapter two, it says in verse 22, so all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet saying, behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel. So how amazing is that? I mean, it's amazing how God draws his parallels over the hundreds and hundreds of years of his story being drawn out.

I mean, it's just kind of like, kind of like you said, it's how you know that this is the word of God. I could never have come up with something like this. Yeah. I would not have involved somebody who is sort of a negative character, someone who's messing up the plan, so to speak. Right.

And still bring her into it. And later on, you know what Paul did, right? In Galatians chapter four, Hagar and Ishmael became a representation of Mount Sinai, the law. Sarah and Isaac became a representation of the Jerusalem that is in heaven, which is grace. We are not children of Hagar. We are children of Sarah. David asked me that question.

We were working out the other day. He said, man, that's a negative view of Hagar. I said, no, no, no. Hagar is in heaven. How do you know that? Because she gave God a name. In fact, if you remember in Genesis 16 verse 13, then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her. You are the God who sees Abraham never got to name God. Moses never got to name God. David never got to name God, nobody else. But Hagar, this Egyptian handmaiden, got to name God. What a place of honor.

And so she got grafted, not only into the gospel story, but also beyond in representing how the gospel works in our lives. Beautiful. Don't live under the law. Live under grace.

That's right. Amen. That's amazing. If you enjoyed today's topic and you have suggestions for future topics, let us know by sending us a text at 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. Don't forget, on that same website, you can support us financially. We're grateful to all of you and all the support that we've received, all those gifts. Go to not only funding this radio show, but helping us reach countless people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you have a part to play in that mission as well. Amen.

I had a question from Linda B., Dr. Shah. How was your Christmas? Christmas was great. Christmas was good.

Family, friends, church family, church staff, man, I can't ask for anything else. Beautiful. Beautiful. That's awesome. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.