Monday, April 3rd | Job and the Resurrection

Hello, everyone. Today is Monday, April the third. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm Jon Galantis. 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 visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for future episodes, send us a text to 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

That's right. You guys can help us keep this conversation going by liking this podcast, sharing it online, leaving us a good review on iTunes, Spotify, absolutely nothing less than five stars or I will come to your house and I will find you and I will pop you. Do not leave us a four star review.

That is not cute. Nothing motivates people like threats. I don't want to threaten you guys. In fact, I'll tell you what, all I'm going to do is I'm going to leave you a link in the description of this podcast.

We won't come to your house, but do please leave us a nice review. I need a little bit of Jesus in my life to start my Monday off right. Will you read me the verse of the day?

I would be happy to. Ephesians chapter two, verses four and five, but because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved.

That is one of my favorite passages in scripture, like the opening of Ephesians two where it's talking about you were dead in your trespasses. You know, I wasn't lost. I wasn't blind. I wasn't finding myself. I was completely and utterly dead. You know, because if I'm lost, I can be found. If I'm blind, I can find my way back or I can do something. But if I'm dead, there is no hope.

There's nothing. And so it's only God because he's rich in mercy who made us alive in Christ. I love that. I've always loved that verse.

That's right. And we're going to talk some more about that later in today's episode, what it means to be made alive. We're headed into Passion Week. We're talking about Easter, especially in light of the resurrection.

So that verse lines up perfectly with what we're going to be talking about today. I had someone send in a question. Okay. And this is, I think, one of my favorite topics to talk about because I do it literally almost every day. My diet is so poor. Oh, Michaela H. Michaela H. questioned in, what's the best? I think because since we talked about fries, people really want to know our opinion on food. Food questions always get there.

Especially in the South, people love to talk food. Michaela H., what's the best pasta and sauce combination? Oh, this is right up your alley.

Michaela, my girl, I'm going to tell you. This is my jam. Ziti.

So it's like my small tube. And I don't know if it's vodka sauce or if it's just Olive Garden's five cheese alforno sauce, but that junk is right. I would say Ziti with vodka sauce is my favorite. Respectable.

All right. I'm going to go an Alfredo. I love an Alfredo sauce. And with either fettuccine, because that's kind of the classic fettuccine Alfredo, or cheese stuffed tortellini. Yeah.

Yeah. Cheese stuffed tortellini is good. So you're always an Alfredo sauce. We do.

Not always. I mean, I like other sauces, but that's my favorite. My number one top tier, like nothing else beats this. Fettuccine Alfredo, grilled shrimp, mushrooms, broccoli. That's almost my wife's exact order. That is peak.

That is like, you will not, that is the goat that you will not come close to that. That's almost Ellie's complete exact order is fettuccine Alfredo with shrimp mushrooms and broccoli. Absolutely. 100%.

That is the best. You cannot convince me. If she doesn't get that, she will get also Alfredo. Ellie is an Alfredo girl. I'm okay with Alfredo. I don't, I don't mind it, but I don't know. It's creamy. It's thick.

It's like, I don't know. I want something kind of, kind of savory in my pasta. So I typically go a red sauce, like a marinara, but I'll tell you what I've been into. Now y'all are not going to believe me on this.

Don't tell anybody I told you this. Spaghetti. It really doesn't matter the pasta noodle. I would say spaghetti pesto.

Okay. A nice spaghetti, olive oil pesto, or even just olive oil and basil. It's very light.

Great stuff. Great stuff with a little salt, a little Parmesan cheese. It's so few ingredients, but I'm telling you, it'll change your life. And it's green. So you can trick yourself into thinking it's healthy. It's a vegetable. This is a vegetable. I'm eating healthy right now because the spaghetti is green. My bowl has green stuff in it. Ipso facto salad.

I'm healthy. What were you going to say? Oh, I was going to say, I saw on TikTok, it was this baked spaghetti recipe. So it was, you make the meat sauce like normal, cook your noodles like normal, except you put your, you toss your noodles in Alfredo sauce. So you have the meat sauce over here, but you toss your noodles in Alfredo. Is it red? It's like tomato sauce in the red sauce?

Hold on, hold on. Okay. You're making the sauce separate from the noodles. Okay.

Okay. A third component is you bring in the Alfredo for the noodles. So now you have noodles and Alfredo and your meat sauce is over here. My question is, is there, is there tomato sauce in the meat or is it just meat?

Yes. No, it's, it's like a meat sauce. Okay. Like, like a marinara. So say it again.

So I'm curious here. You're making your sauce, however you make your sauce, marinara meat sauce over here. Okay. Okay. Cook your noodles and then toss your noodles in Alfredo.

Okay. Noodles and Alfredo into the baking dish layer on top, the meat sauce, melted cheese, shredded mozzarella, ideally mozzarella on top of that baked in the oven, the creamiest, most delicious baked spaghetti you will have in your existence. But you don't drench. Do you, when you say toss it in the Alfredo, you mean just kind of lightly or like drench it in? Yeah, just like coated in the Alfredo. Not like, I mean, I'm not talking like there's Alfredo standing in the bottom of the thing. Like you're just using enough Alfredo to kind of coat the noodles.

Yeah. It makes them creamy underneath the meat sauce. I feel like that would be a bad move mixing like tomato sauce and Alfredo sauce, but I'm, I love pasta so much.

I'm going to go for it. It's so delicious. It's because at the end you still get the spaghetti.

I mean, it's still like spaghetti topped in cheese, but the noodles are just kind of like this creamy underneath the sauce. It's so good. I'll try it.

I'll definitely try it. I'm hungry now. Kayla, that's a great question. You guys send in your questions cause we love talking about this stuff, especially food. We love talking about that on the podcast and we're going to ask Dr. Shah later with his, I think he's a fettuccine Alfredo guy.

I think so. I think he's a, he's that or like a lasagna guy. I don't know.

I don't really see Dr. Shah eat a lot of pasta. Lasagna maybe. Yeah, maybe. That's a good one. I don't know. I don't know.

Well, like we, like we've mentioned, we're going to pose that question to Dr. Shah toward the end of the episode. But on today's episode, we are continuing our discussion as we're leading toward Easter, looking at Jesus's resurrection specifically today, we're talking about the resurrection from the story of Job. That is the epitome of a bad day. What was that? What was that?

Like kid's story, Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Yeah, that dude really had a bad day, but not as bad as Joe. Not nearly as bad as Joe, but even in that we can see glimpses of not only God's God's providence, but we can see glimpses of the resurrection pointing ahead toward Jesus and what he did for us. We're going to get Dr. Shah and bring him in in just a minute. But if you have questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028, or visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com.

We'll be back after this. Well, good morning, afternoon, evening Clear View Today listeners. My name is Jon. And I'm David. And we just want to take a quick second and let you know about another way that you can keep in touch with Dr. Shah's work. And that is his weekly podcast series, Sermons by Abaddon Shah, Ph.D. As a lot of you may know, or maybe some of you don't know. If you don't know, you do now. And if you don't know, then maybe just hop off the podcast. David, hop off the podcast.

I'm just playing. Keep listening. Dr. Shah is actually the lead pastor of Clear View Church in North Carolina. Every single weekend, he preaches expository messages that challenge and inspire us to live God-honoring lives. Well, one of the four core values of Clear View Church is that we're a Bible-believing church. So every sermon is coming directly from scripture, which is great because that guarantees that there are timeless truths that are constantly applicable to our lives. This is a great resource because whether you're driving, whether you're cleaning the house, whether you're working out, you can always benefit from hearing the word of God spoken into your life. And God's word is always going to do something new for you every time you hear it.

Sometimes it's conviction and sometimes it's encouragement. But know that every time you listen to God's word, you're inviting the Holy Spirit to move and work in your life. You guys can check out the Sermons by Abbadon Shah PhD podcast. First and foremost, check it out on our church app. That's the Clear View app. You can get that in the Google Play Store. You can get that on iTunes. But you can also find the podcast on the Apple podcast app or on our website at ClearViewBC.org. And listen, if you've got a little extra time on your hands, you just want to do some further reading, you can also read the transcripts of those sermons.

Those are available on Dr. Shah's website, AbbadonShah.com. And we're going to leave you guys a little link in the description so you can follow it. But for right now, David, let's hop back in.

All right. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, 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. That's right. And if you're joining us for the first time today, we want to welcome you, let you know who's talking to you. Dr. Abbadon Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show.

You can find all of his work at his website. That's AbbadonShah.com. That's right. Dr. Shah, how are you doing today? I'm doing very well. And I'm really excited about the topic today. Yes.

I just want to tell you that right up front. I was going to say we're having a great day, but the person we're talking about today is absolutely not having a good day. He probably is now, but he was not at the time that we're talking. I would say he's probably had the worst day in history.

Yeah. We're talking about Job today, and that may seem a little bit unusual for those of you who track every day with our episodes. You know that we're in this series leading up to Easter, where we're talking through Passion Week. So you're like, why are we talking about Job and Passion Week?

But it'll make sense once we dive into today's episode. Dr. Shah, when we talk about Job, what comes to our minds is just like Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad. He's down on his luck.

He's having a hard time. Well, I'll just tell you this. I haven't preached through the Book of Job yet. I preach the sermons here and there on the Book of Job because I'm not ready to preach on that book.

I feel like I'm getting ready. I feel like I'm getting to that point where I can do justice to that book. And when I say that, I'm not talking about understanding the linguistics, the advancement that have been made in the study of the Hebrew language. I'm not talking about genre studies and our understanding there. I'm not talking about archeology. I'm not talking about the theological, contextual interpretation, exegesis, hermeneutics. I'm throwing out all the big words.

Okay. I'm not talking about in that sense. I'm talking about living or walking in Job's shoes. And it's not just like, man, so many bad things happen to the guy. No, it's the wrestling that he had to do with that fact that God is there. He's walking in God's will. Then why are these things happening? And why doesn't God do something about it? This is the question of humanity.

Okay. So the book of Job quickly has become one of my favorite books in the Bible that I haven't preached from. And I'm not ready yet. It's one of those things where like in fiction, you see it a lot where like you put your characters through the ringer to see what they're truly made of. But I think this takes it a step farther because it's not just being put through the ringer. It's everything that made this person who he was, like on earth, is taken away to demonstrate that he's still who he is because of God. You know what I mean? And his faith in God. And I like what you said in the time that you preached the sermon that was kind of regarding Job. You said he's not just finding hope in God, like this big ethereal something out there that gave me all this good stuff in the first place.

He's finding his hope in the resurrection of Christ, which is why we wanted to talk about it during this lead up to Easter. That's right. That's right. And it's a powerful statement he makes. And, you know, most scholars believe that the Book of Job is the oldest book in the Bible. I'm not talking about the oldest information in the Bible because, of course, then you go to the Book of Genesis. But the oldest book in the Bible, most scholars agree that is the Book of Job.

Wow. How amazing that Job is regarded as the oldest book in the Bible. And yet, as we're going to talk about today, he's finding his hope, not just in God's existence, but in the resurrection that's coming.

The oldest book in the Bible in the resurrection is already glimpsed there. The ultimate vindication for what we go through life. Why? Why is this happening? Many of our listeners, our viewers are probably struggling with this in their lives, where bad things happen to you. I'm not saying for a moment that you are a perfect person or, you know, you've never made mistakes. No, you've made new mistakes. You're not perfect. But things happen to you that were so unjust that make no sense at all.

Okay. Now, somebody may say, well, it does make sense. I mean, I can draw the I can I can connect the dots here. But if you think about Job's life, man, it doesn't make sense. But if you listen to the conversations that have taken place between God and Satan, that's when you go, oh, that does make sense. And in this side, on this side of heaven, we may not be vindicated, but on the other side, we will be. Well, you said something to me in the past that's that's really gotten me through a lot of hard times. Like I've come to you talking about, you know, things that are happening in life and things that I'm going through and things that I'm just not I'm not thinking straight on. And you say, you know, trials have this way of clarifying what you really believe about God and about your life and about the future. And it gives you that deeper understanding of God's plan. You know, it's it's it's not just something to grit your teeth and get through. Because then that takes the agency away from God.

Why? It's it's it's not just a test of faith. Just just hang on and then you'll get through it. It's working towards something. And sometimes that something is just a better understanding of who God is.

Yeah. Now, you have to get your teeth to get through it, because you're going to go through a dark time like Job did, where it was not the all the pleasures of life coming from God. I'm not talking about the pleasures of life that come from the enemy or the world or our flesh.

No, the pleasures that come from God, like, oh, man, I prayed for this and this happened in God. Great. And I'm like, yeah, that's wonderful. That's great. Man, life is working great. Like one gentleman we know is like, man, my best day, you know.

And I'm like, yes, yes. I don't know if you're telling the truth or not. You're kind of, you know, forcing your way to feel that way. But if you say it loud enough and long enough and passionate enough that you will start feeling it, maybe that's what's happening.

I don't know. But we're not talking about those things, even if they're coming from God. We're talking about where there's nothing coming from God. OK, good things are happening. But personally, individually, you're struggling.

What do you do? That's where you have to grit your teeth and push through. Because there is a different kind of pleasure, and that's the pleasure of doing God's will. That is a pleasure of doing God's will. And that does not come with, you know, exhilarating emotions or even the joy.

You know, a lot of series are done on joy. You know, it's like, man, I got that deep-seated joy. But there'll be times in your life where you won't have that. There won't be that feeling of joy. It's different from happiness. You know, happiness is what's happening to you.

Joy, I hear what you're saying, but you're still coming back to that emotion. You're still coming back to that little well of water that is swishing around inside of you, right? Yeah. We're not talking about a waterfall, but you're still talking about the little oasis. Just splashing around in that shallow. Yeah. What if there's nothing there but dryness?

Now what do you do? Most of God's people push through when there was nothing but desert. And I appreciate that you say that because I would imagine there's a lot of people who are listening, a lot of people who are watching that are maybe in one of the seasons right now.

They're going through a season of dryness. I mean, that's a great way to put it. And Job went through all of this, but he didn't go through it with a smile on his face. He didn't go through it cheering and singing.

Yeah. Like when his friends came down, they're like, how are you doing Job? This is the best day of my life. This is it, boys.

My day is here. Job wrestled and he stayed faithful to God, but it was a struggle. It was a struggle.

He fought through serious stuff that we can't even imagine. And what's interesting is, and I think we're getting away from this show, but that's okay. I love it. This is great. Everything that you need is going to be provided. When you're going through that, all that you need will be provided for you. God is going to provide you with the energy you need, the strength that you need, the wisdom that you need, the discernment that you need, right people at the right time saying the right thing in your life. You will have all that.

That's right. So don't think that this is just, God is just going to abandon you. But if you are looking for the pleasure of, you know, man, God's blessings everywhere, that's not there. Even the little, you know, water in that bucket of your heart, just swishing around in there. It's not about happenings and happiness.

It's just about the joy. Maybe that's not even there. Your bucket is dry. That's what we're talking about here. That's why you see why I'm not ready to write on the book of Job. I'm not ready to preach on that. I mean, just thinking about, you know, Job and what he dealt with and how he must have struggled and how he had these people who were around him, trying to advise him and trying to, you know, speak maybe comfort into his life, maybe some other ulterior motives.

Well, it's kind of like what you said. You're bringing up something from a dry well. There's going to be people in your life who you feel like they're godly people, but they themselves are dry.

They're trying to help you, but it's not coming from God. And just by using the word joy, we know Paul uses that. What we're saying is this comedy show, stand-up comedy or the sitcom Laughter is not there, but you have the joy, don't you?

No, there are times even that is very dry. So a lot of our messages that try to distinguish between happiness and joy, I think in reality, if people are deathly honest, they will tell you, no, I don't even have that. Well, yeah, because it became such a buzzword where like, hey, listen, you might not always be happy, but you have to have joy. If the Holy Spirit's in you, you got joy. So be like, oh, well, I better say that I haven't. So you just smile and you say, man, you've got a great day today, man. I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Just plaster that face on.

There's something wrong with me. Right. But what if we are misunderstanding? And Job's book tells us that, you know, because he had three friends, of course, right. He had Eliphaz, the Temanite, Bildad, the Shuhai, Zophar, the Namathite.

Eliphaz was the oldest of the group and seemed to have more sense than the others. Right. And even though he showed Job respect, he didn't have much compassion on him. In his wise view, his friend, Job, was a good man who had lost his way. And that's why bad things were happening to him.

Kind of blame shifting a little bit. Right. You need to examine your heart, brother. Oh, you know. Well, listen, only you know that's between you and God, but take a deep look. And I know you're not going to be honest with me, so that's okay.

I would encourage you to use this as a time of repentance. Yeah. Oh, gross. That's gross.

But isn't that true how there are people in our lives who do that? And you go, okay. Well, I guess I've sinned. I'll go back and look. Yeah. And then there's Bildad, the Shuhai. In his view, Job was committing blasphemy by questioning the justice of God against him.

I mean, don't we have people like that who say, like, how dare you? Who do you think you are? This is God's plan. This is God's plan. He's got a plan for you.

Yeah, that's right. And he told Job that his family got what they deserved. And he keeps running his mouth that he will also get what he deserved from God, which is more pain and suffering.

This is free for anyone who's listening. That is not a good piece of advice to give to someone who's struggling. Someone's out there like, oh, boy, crossing it out. Maybe your family got what they deserve. No, no. Don't. Don't.

Cross that off your list. In his view, Job should either repent or die, because that's what happens to wicked people. Oh, yeah.

No, that's bad. So in other words, Job was a wicked man who was getting his due, and he needed to repent immediately. And you said these people were his friends, right? He was his friends. These were his friends. OK. Yikes.

OK. These weren't his enemies. Now, sometimes this is what happens in church. This is what happens from the pulpit. Then there are people in our lives who are well-meaning people, but they say and do things that you go... And many times I think we take it, we say, well, they must be right.

If you don't have enough spiritual discernment and the Holy Spirit working in your life, you'll go along with their garbage and go, I guess they're right. Then there are people in our life who are just not terribly mean, not like they're coming to you with a knife, but they like the fact that you're squirming a little bit right now. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Because I had to go through this at some point. It's not right unless you do it too.

They feel like you need to be fixed up a little bit, so this is a good thing for you. This is a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I've felt people like that where it's like... And I'm praying for you, brother. Yep. I'm there.

Call me sometime. Then the corner of their mouth just curls up just a little bit. It's almost like they deserve that. Yeah. This is how you mature. This is going to mature you. Yeah. And I'm going to oversee that. Then there's the next level, which is flat out mean.

They're just loving the fact that you're going through it and they're not. Yeah. Yeah. What do you do? I don't know.

What do you do? If his bucket was already dry, this is like baked in the sun like water will never enter the bucket again. Right. They lit a fire inside, so that made sure there was no more moisture in that bucket at all.

What did we learn from it? How do we handle this? If I may say it this way, without any sense of pride or arrogance, this is the normal Christian life of the truly godly people. When you're really walking with God, this is what you go through, and it's not fun. Just hearing that is comforting.

Just hearing that you're not alone in that. People may fall into that thinking of, maybe I did do something to deserve this. Maybe this is just punishment for something that I have done. But just to hear you say, no, this is the normal Christian life for people who are following after God. This is what can be expected.

There's a heart behind it, because it's one thing to say, hey, Lin, God never promised it'd be easy, which is pretty much just saying, stop complaining, buck up, you'll be all right. There's another thing to say, hey, this is normal. You're on track. This is a good thing.

This is your test. Yeah, I know it doesn't feel good, but this is a good sign that God is working to move into your life. He's going to reveal himself to you in a way that others won't be able to see. It's okay. Keep walking. You may not even be vindicated in this life, and that's also okay. Because that's some of the hardest things to deal with, because Job, at least he got everything back, right? But in reality, we also know that there are times you don't get everything back. Some of the godliest people on the planet since the beginning of time died without getting everything back. So I want us to remember that, yes, God is not out there just waiting to make us feel miserable as some people think.

No, that's not true at all. But at the same time, he allows us to go through these things for a reason. And Job had a glimpse of God. In verse 25, Job 19 25, he says, For I know that my Redeemer lives.

Beautiful. You know, you're going through this. It is to help you know that your Redeemer is alive. It's interesting because I think of Redeemer and I think of Christ on the cross. That's where I typically hear the Redeemer.

You kind of just mentioned it, he had that glimpse of it. But I wonder where his mind is when he's saying my Redeemer. He's buying me back.

He's purchasing me back. The word is goel in Hebrew. It has two meanings in the Old Testament. First, it's kind of a criminal meaning. If someone were to kill a person, the nearest family members was responsible for bringing justice, not revenge, but justice to that person. The second is a civil meaning.

If a person died and lost their inheritance, the nearest family member was responsible for buying back and retrieving the property. But Job is saying here, okay, he is saying there is someone very close to me, my family, who is going to redeem and win back what has been lost. And how do we know who he is talking about? Very next verse says what? Verse 25. And he shall stand at last on the earth. In the end.

In the end. He will stand on the dust. So what is that dust? We're talking about the very dust that covers the grave of Job. Jesus is going to stand on top of that. And he is going to do for Job what only a close goel can do. He will redeem him. He will vindicate him. And verse 26 says, and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God. Yeah, that's the resurrection.

That is the resurrection. See, Jesus hasn't come yet, but the promise has already been given since the Garden of Eden that someone is coming who is going to crush the head of the serpent, the same serpent who came and accused Job in front of God and said, you know, if you take this away, if you take this away, if you take this away, he'll deny you. He will deny you. If you make him a parched and dry, sandy ground, he was going to deny you.

He's going to turn on you. And Job didn't. But how was he vindicated? That was not in this life.

Of course, he got a lot of stuff back. We think that's the vindication. No, that's not the vindication. The real vindication is that after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God.

And people try to use that vagueness. Well, but people in the Old Testament, all they had to do was believe. It went more than believing. He understood. I mean, that shows he understood the resurrection. What he's saying is, in that moment, and there's so much more to the book of Job than just this point, right?

There's so much more. Job knew this much, that he was with God. And when death came, that's when it'll be proven that he was on the right track. Even in this life, everybody said, you have a problem.

You're the problem. Remember, somebody said, you've got a bullseye, okay, get on the other side, and you'll see that I will see God. Man. Amen. I love that assurance. I love that hope. If you guys enjoyed today's topic, if you have suggestions for future topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, and you can partner with us financially on that same website.

We're grateful to have all of you alongside as teammates as we seek to impact the nations with the gospel of Jesus. That's right. We've got a question coming in from Michaela H. Dr. Shale, what's the best pasta and sauce combination? Oh, fettuccine with alfredo, a sauce, and add shrimp to it. Yum. Shrimp alfredo. That sounds like my wife's normal order.

Shrimp, broccoli. Delicious. That is my favorite. Very cool.

Love it. We love you guys. We'll see you guys next time, and we'll see you guys next time, and we'll see you guys next time. We'll see you guys next time, and we'll see you guys next time.