Wednesday, April 19th | A Messenger Before the Lord

Welcome back, everyone. Today is Wednesday, April the 19th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. You're listening to Clearview 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 for Dr. Shaw or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. That's right. You guys can help us keep this conversation going by supporting this podcast, sharing it online, leaving us a good review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you might get your podcasting content from on the regular.

We're going to leave a couple of links in the description so you can do just that. Before anything else happens, let's open up the Word of God. Let's read the verse of the day.

That's right. The verse of the day today. You want to read it, John?

Yeah, I'll read it. It's Colossians 1-22. We've been hanging out in Colossians a little bit here lately. In the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight. That verse points to, of course, Christ's death on the cross, but Christ's death on the cross did much more than just take our sin away from us. We focus on that part a lot because Jesus died to forgive us of our sins.

Yes, we've all heard that, but there's this great exchange that happens with the cross is that Christ died for our sins and he gave us his righteousness so that we are able to be presented holy and blameless and above reproach, not because we are just sinless, but because we have Christ's righteousness. Yeah, our actions and our works, our good deeds and our actions that we take here on earth, they don't make us righteous. Christians are not perfect. They're just forgiven. We know we're not perfect. We know that we sin and we know we have weaknesses and inadequacies and sinfulness and immaturity, but at the end of the day, Jesus's love and his sacrifice on the cross means that God looks at us like you said, Ryan. He looks at Christ's righteousness that's applied to us. It's not anything that I've earned. I just reap the benefits of Jesus's sacrifice because he's a God of love.

That's what that means. We had a question come in from Howard L. I kind of like this one. I was kind of excited to talk about it. How are your writing projects coming? We got a lot of writing projects here. There are lots of things in the pipeline. That's very exciting. We've got one that I think we can talk about this.

One is called First Gospel that's coming up. I've been working with Dr. Chuck closely on it. It's coming well, Howard. It's coming really well.

It's going very well. There's a little process that's involved. Usually, a lot of the holdup on that process is in the area of formatting. I did most of it. The book, just that one book, comes from a series of messages that Dr. Shaw preached. He wrote the messages. Then I took the messages and I put them in book format, but not formatting.

I rewrote them to make sense in a book, split them up into chapters, added contents, personal stories, stuff like that. Lots of dashes. Two drafts.

Two drafts. Added lots of dashes. M dashes. So many. M dashes. Too many. Me?

I feel like I've talked to you about this in the past. I don't know. Typically, when you say, hey, it's not really customary to have this many dashes in a work like this.

A non-fiction. Right. It's a long dash. It's not really done. We're going to go ahead and take those out in favor of other more mainstream punctuation. You feel like when you have that conversation with somebody, that something's going to take root there.

That's going to resonate and behavior's going to change. Could be. Could be.

It has not. In fact, I feel like you're adding more dashes, maybe just out of spite. It's not obvious to me that the dashes aren't what's making the work credible.

The dashes are no. So an M dash, for all of those out there who don't dabble in this kind of field, is when you mark off additional information in a sentence if it's not essential to understand the sentence. So it's kind of like, it's not parentheses, because parentheses kind of clarify stuff. The M dash is like, hey, here's a sentence, and then here's kind of an afterthought. It's a clause. Yeah, it's a clause.

It's what you're setting aside. And I read a lot of fiction. A lot of fiction. M dashes are used for that in fiction. However, my friend, the works that we are working on here with Dr. Shah, non-fiction.

It's non-fiction. It's true. But I think the dashes are very pleasing to the eye. When you see it, it's a mark of professionalism.

And you are wrong in that regard. And I think, and I'm convinced, honestly, that the more dashes... I would put a dash per paragraph if I could. Jon, let me just be real with you for just a second. You would put a dash, I think, per line. Yeah.

I would put a dash in my son's name. Don't say that. Don't say that like that's a good thing.

That's not a good thing. Because a lot of people go overboard with their commas. They want to make their sentences really flowery and perfect. And then a lot of people just have five words per sentence, five words per sentence, five words per sentence. So an M-dash is a good way to kind of add on another sentence without having to start another sentence.

It's like right when you started that sentence, you said an M-dash is a good way. Nope. Immediately wrong.

Right there. We're wrong out of the gate. Do you not like them? Or do you think there's too many? No, I think that they are wrong grammatically. No.

For what we are writing. No. Yes. Absolutely not. Oh.

Well, I hadn't considered it that way before. But it's coming out later this year, hopefully. If everything goes right, we're going to pitch it to a publisher later this year.

So hopefully it'll be out by the end of 2023, maybe early 2024. But you guys can read it and you'll see. Now hopefully all my dashes will still be there. But as Ryan's in charge of formatting, I don't know.

I can guarantee you they will not be. I leave some. I do leave some. But I don't leave all of them. Howard?

In fact, I don't leave most of them. Howard. You know what? Writing projects aren't coming well, Howard. They're not going well.

They're a source of some tension, in case you hadn't picked up on that. Speaking of writing projects, I'm really hoping that we've been in this series on Malachi. I'm really hoping that one day we can turn this into a writing project.

That would be my goal. And I've talked to Dr. Shah about it a little bit, is to turn Counter Shock, which is the series that he preached on Malachi a long time ago, into a book, a release. Because I think Malachi is one of those books that people kind of gloss over.

But being the last book of the Old Testament, there's a lot of context that I think is taken for granted. Very significant. So we're going to continue our discussion through Malachi today. We're going to get Dr. Shah, but if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, if you are concerned about John's overuse of the m-dash, write in and let us know by texting 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

We'll be back. Hey there, listeners. I'm John Galantis.

And I'm Elli Galantis. And we just want to take a quick second and talk to you about Dr. Shah's and Nicole's book, 30 Days to a New Beginning, daily devotions to help you move forward. You know, this is actually the second book in the 30 Days series. And the whole point of this devotional is to help us get unstuck from the ruts of life. You know, when it comes to running the race of life, it matters how you start, but a bad start doesn't ultimately determine how you finish the race. You can have a good finish even with a bad start. And that's where this book comes in. No matter who you are or where you are in life, you're going to get stuck.

Instead of going out and buying some gadget or some planner, like I know I've done several times. I know that's right. It encourages you to find your fresh start in God's Word. Life doesn't have a reset button, but our God is a God who does new things.

His mercies are new every day, which means every day is a new chance for you to start over. You can grab 30 Days to a New Beginning on Amazon.com. We're going to leave a link in the description box below. And if you already have the book, let us know what you think about it.

That's right. Send us a text 252-582-5028. Share what God has done in your life through this devotional. Hey, maybe we'll even read your story on the air. Elli, you ready to get back to the show?

Let's do it. 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 new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. That's right. And if you're joining us for the very first time today, we want to welcome you, let you know who's talking to you this afternoon. Dr. Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's episode.

You can find all his work on his website. That's AbbadonShah.com. That's right. And I'm excited, Dr. Shah. We are back talking about Malachi today.

Yes. We know we, we heard from so many people about this book and how powerful it is. And the radio shows really spoke to their lives. And so we're back in. I'm ready for this one. Malachi is fascinating. Yeah, Malachi is so fascinating.

It really is. It's just one of those books that you read and you don't expect it to, but you get like, you get hype. Yeah. You get excited to just continue reading. Well, I was talking to you before, but like Nehemiah is like one that I get hype on.

I'm like, oh, this is, yeah, Nehemiah, let's go. Yeah. Malachi is like, man, this is interesting.

It's like kind of subtly interesting for me. You find Christ all throughout the Old Testament. Okay. And especially in the book of Malachi, this is not just like hardcore pulpit thumping, revivalistic meeting, you know, the fire and brimstone type. No, there's so much about Christ and who he is and what he does for us.

And so I don't want us to forget that part either. Absolutely. You know, I think that's kind of interesting because it is, Malachi is sort of bookends this 400 years of silence where we just don't hear from God at all. And then I guess is the very first thing that we hear from God coming through John the Baptist after that 400 years. Yeah. So that's it. Is John the Baptist considered a prophet?

Oh yeah. Is he the last prophet before Christ? He was, oh, you could say that. I mean, he is the one, you know, who initiates the new, the new age that has come, the fulfillment, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. The wilderness is not just, you know, him in the Judean desert by the Jordan river or whatever. No, the voice of crying in the wilderness is a spiritual wilderness as well. Is the wilderness in Israel's history, in the Jewish people's history. So it's a lot of meaning there when it says a voice of one crying in the wilderness.

And you kind of see that in Malachi, like the, I guess the prophecies in Malachi point to John the Baptist? Oh yes. Oh yes. We're going to see that today.

Very nice. So we've, we've talked through Malachi for a little bit, we've, we've, we've gotten into chapter two of Malachi, talking about how, you know, God is holding his people responsible, specifically the religious leaders for their shortcomings for them, you know, just kind of going through the motions, them, them falling away from being obedient to God and having a love for God. And so today, you know, we're continuing that discussion where God, you know, talks about being wearied by his people, which is language that's, that kind of breaks my heart to hear.

And even more, you know, it's talking about how God's going to refine them with fire. Now, you know, that makes me think of a joke. Can I, can we talk about the joke? Yeah, let's do it.

Please. This is, I heard this long ago, so I'm not a very good joke teller. I say funny things, but I'm not a good joke teller, but jokes sometimes have a play. So one night a chemical plant outside the city limits caught on fire and the alarms went out to all the fire departments for miles around and they came, big fire trucks, you know, I'm a chaplain with the fire department as well. And but it was no good. I mean, they could not control this fire. This is blazing. It's blazing. And then about an hour into it, the president of the company went to the fire chief and said, you know, we have some secret formulas in a vault in the center of the plant, and I'll give $50,000 to the engine company that brings them out safely.

Was this Mr. Krabs? $50,000, right? Yeah. And so the chief is like, okay guys, we need the money.

Let's do this. And so they, they, I mean, they got their suits on and they are about to jump in there, but it's no good. They cannot, you know, control this fire. The president raised it to about a hundred thousand dollars. He said, all right, a hundred thousand dollars.

I need those secret formulas. And just then this, they heard this long siren and a fire truck came just barreling towards them. It was a volunteer fire department out in the country volunteer, you know, maybe you've seen a volunteer. I mean, they're doing the best they can selling chicken plates and all that barbecue and Brunswick stew. I mean, they, and they're like, we're still about $80,000 short, you know, they're trying.

Which is a good try. Yeah. They look, their truck looked like it had been, it just came out of a museum 50 years ago. Are you driving an antique?

How does that work? I know a bunch of retirees in their sixties and seventies, they're barely holding down the sport. A bunch of volunteer fire, firefighters are listening to this in their firetruck right now. They're like, Hey! Yeah, this is familiar.

Yeah, he's right. And these guys in this, this old beat up fire truck, they ran right into the flames of the chemical plant. They didn't even stop to get, you know, any briefing and from the distance, the other firefighters are watching with their big shiny trucks at this volunteer fire department, the truck right in the middle of the chemical plant. And boy, they, those, those old guys hopped off their rig and they began to fight fire with intensity. And in about half an hour, the blaze was out. They did it.

Wow. And the vault was safe. And the president was so impressed. He said, look, I've raised the reward of 200,000. I don't understand how in the world, you know, that old school right there, man, y'all came in and did it. You stamped, you know, stamped out that fire. What are you going to do with the money? The driver said, you know, old school, nothing.

The first thing we're going to do is fix them brakes. You know what? That was a good one. I'm going to give you a hand. That's right.

Give me a hand Ryan. That's one reason I don't tell jokes. No, that was good. That was very, you know, they said necessity is the mother of invention. Like they, they had to fight the fire cause suddenly they were in it. So that's, that's, that's the point. You know, sometimes you find yourself suddenly in the middle of a fire and you go, Whoa, I got to stomp this out to get out. They were not fighting for the chemical plant.

They were fighting for their lives. Oh man. That's hilarious.

Isn't that the same with us though? Like when we get right in the middle of the fire, you're like, Oh, I'm in it now. I got to be serious. Yeah.

I really got to get out of this. And sometimes those fires come in the form of health problems. Sometimes they come in the form of financial problems. Sometimes the relationship problems you know, all sorts of ways and we go wait and you have a sense of intensity. So I hope our listeners, our viewers have a sense of intensity about themselves when we talk about the next few things and it begins in verse 17. This is Malachi 2 17. It says, you have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, in what way have we wearied him in that you say everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he delights in them or where is the God of justice? And I want us to think for a moment because they are mocking God. They're being sarcastic with God. Listen again to that, to that statement.

Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord. That's not like a proposition. That's more of a, you know, like, like I was going to ask you if that was sarcastic. Yeah.

Oh yeah. In fact, the book of Malachi has a very fascinating literary style. You know, scholars have given it different names like judicial speech pattern or disputation speech or dialectical style. I mean, these are different scholarly designation for how this, this, this book is laid out.

It reads like a courtroom drama where the people of Israel are on trial for falsely accusing God of being unfaithful to them, for not coming through for them. Okay. So this is like a courtroom picture that Matlock or a who's a, Oh, the older one. Matlock and I don't know, the only courtroom drama I know is Daredevil. Like a night court?

No, not night court, but the older guy, Perry Mason. There you go. Okay.

I'm dating myself. So anyways, this is like a courtroom. Think about that. And so they're accusing God.

What they didn't realize was that God was their judge, their prosecuting attorney, their witness and their executioner. It does feel like that. Cause he's, that's what he's saying.

He's like, but you wear the word Lord with your words yet you say this. That's what you said. Right. And that's what you said. But you said this right here. And he's like kind of presenting evidence to them, like you said it, this is what you said. Yeah.

Anything you say can and will be used against you. Right. The court of the Lord. Like, like, like, you know, you see some of those, those courtroom shows, this is, you know, people's court. The people's court. Yeah. This is God's court. Oof.

I don't want to go to the court. You don't want to be on the stand there. No.

No. You have wearied the Lord with your words means the people of Israel were bringing their leftover rejected sacrifices to God and murmuring under their breath. What do you think they were saying? Everyone who does evil is good in the sound of the Lord. You know, look at these people. They don't go. They don't go to the synagogue. They don't go to the temple and they look at, look, nothing's happening. They're happy.

The children are happy. The grandchildren. And here we are serving the Lord and we got problems. It's like, sounds like church, church people and church thoughts, like I'm doing all this stuff and yet my life isn't easy. I was just thinking the same thing.

I'm volunteering for this and I'm on this committee. But look at this person. I'm there every time the doors open and yet still they, I didn't even get the first seat of the traclinium.

How did you jump over from that? I was thinking about the Corinthians. Yeah. You know, you know, and people do that all the time. They look at others on Facebook, Instagram, whatever, and they see them enjoying themselves on the beach or on their, you know, at the lake or whatever. And they look at themselves going, you know, we're serving God.

I have nursery duty tonight and I'm tired and exhausted and sick, but I can't call out. But look at these people over here posing for their pictures. You know, sometimes I don't understand what God is up to.

Must be nice. It's this, it's this idea that people think there has to be some sort of earthly, tangible, immediate benefit to serve God. And they see that other people that don't follow God have these immediate benefits that we are tempted to want for ourselves and want it right now. Like if God is God, then we should be getting those, not them. Right. And they're actually calling God's character into question.

You know, think about that. I mean, they're saying you are not trustworthy. You're not faithful. You're not good. You're not wise. You're not aware of what's happening to all of us, your servants. You're unfair. I mean, think about all the things they're calling God. That's rough. But I mean, think about it.

How many times we've done that? We may not have said those words, but why do I have to go through all this and look at those people? They don't serve God and they seem to have a better life, especially in this generation today. And I'm talking about the millennials and Gen Zs, where the idea of self being in the center. And as you mentioned, right, Gen Zs are not millennials, they're different.

But they still have some vestiges of that self as a center, right? Some of that self-centeredness. Because that's the world that, you know, millennials and especially Gen Z are growing up in. Every social media platform, every online presence is centered around themselves. I mean, they build their own profile, they build their own presence online. So it's growing up with a spotlight effect, you feel like you're the center of the world, you're the main character. I mean, that's the culture that they're growing up in. So while they're different than millennials, they still have that aspect, even sometimes more exaggerated than millennials do. And you know, Satan loves that because that is the temptation that he used against Adam and Eve.

That's true. But when he came to them, what he was saying to them is, God is holding out on the best for your life. How many people do you know in your life right now or have in the past said that to you? You know, God is holding out on the best, or you're not getting what you deserve.

Or there's a better world out there. And that what he said to them? He's like, so why can't you eat this fruit? Well, God has said in those, you know, are you sure God said that? Maybe he said that because he knows in the day you eat it, you'll be like him, knowing good and evil.

So he's holding out on the best for you. You know, I said this in the last show as well. And again, I want to say that every day, find ways to kindle in your heart a desire to give yourself to God. In those moments when you want to be flamboyant or strong or wise or a winner, you know, stop. Give yourself over to God and say, God, none of those things are good. They're coming from the pit of hell.

They're the enemy's tools. So I am giving myself to you and telling you as I do that, as I'm telling you, God, that you are good. That's right. And you are wonderful to me. And you're, you're so above and beyond what I deserve. Thank you. Thank you, God.

And if I ever for a moment, a millisecond have veered off and thought about those things, thinking, oh, maybe, yeah, I like that idea or I wish I could do that or somebody's holding me back. Lord, you've been good to me. Amen. You know? So anyways, these people are complaining against God.

You know, the old, old enemy is working on them. So how did God answer their false accusation? Listen to this in verse one, chapter three now we're in chapter three, behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me.

Guess what? God is coming. That's why when people say the old Testament, Jesus, I'm like, he's coming right there.

I'm coming down. And the Lord whom you seek, guess what? These people were seeking the hope of Israel. They were seeking the promised one. They were seeking the man of promise. They were seeking the Messiah. They were seeking the pre incarnate Christ. That's easy to overlook that and the Lord whom you seek, because I want to get to right to the action.

What's he going to do? He's suddenly going to come. But that's in there for a reason. You're seeking him. I overlooked it.

I straight up overlooked it as you were reading. I was like, the one that you've been looking for, right? He's on the way. In the entire history of God's people, they've been seeking. And if you read Paul's testimony before Agrippa, you know, in the book of Acts, you see all that, you know, Paul tells them, Hey, look, these people, these Jewish people, my brethren are accusing me, but together we've been waiting for the hope of the resurrection. We've been waiting for the one who will bring us the resurrection. And now they're mad at me because the one who brought the hope met me on the road to Damascus and opened my eyes. Why are they angry? Because we were all waiting on him.

Oh, wait, because they don't like the fact that he is the one. We talked about it a little bit yesterday, but do you want to just kind of briefly let our listeners know why is it a big deal that the, that the people of God were seeking the Lord? Because a lot of people think that God had different plans of salvation for different people in different parts of time. Right, right.

No, no. Let me clarify. Even in dispensational theology, they have prophecy, you know, they have the prophecies about the coming of Jesus. It's just that they, they tend to emphasize the fact that in each dispensation, people were saved differently. So in the garden, it was one way, Noah's flood is another way, Abraham is another way, Moses is another way. And then of course, but Moses is the law all the way up until the coming of Jesus. So these people think, do you really expect me to believe that every Israelite, okay, every Israelite who was in the wilderness, truly understood that somebody was coming and that, that, that, that goat or that sheep or whatever it is they put their hands on was a representation of the son of God coming, the fully God, fully man. And my answer is yeah. I mean, if that's what the Bible says, then it's on you to disprove it. Not for me to prove that the Bible says what it says.

Yeah. And in passages like this, the Lord whom you seek, this is not seeking in the Lord, Lord like early in the morning, I see God and his presence and just this warmth in my life. No, they were seeking like, when is God coming down here? He's got to come down here in our midst, become like us and do what he said he would do. The promise that goes all the way to the garden of Eden, the promise that was given to Abraham, the promise that was, you know, prefigured in all the temple and the rituals and the sacrifices, he's got to do it.

When is he going to do it? And so here's one. And if you read again, Paul's just because I'm going through my devotions in Acts, he tells them, he said, these people are trying to, you know, accuse me, but together we were waiting for this person.

What did I do wrong? Yeah. And you know, so he says, what Malachi is saying over here, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. Suddenly he will show up.

It's going to get you off guard. Just when you think, oh, all life is good. All of a sudden the wise men show up. The 400 years makes more sense now. Yep. Yep. Cause it's going to be sudden after 400, if something happened 400 years ago or something was prophesied 400 years ago, like in the, I don't know, the revolutionary war or something that happened today, I wouldn't have been like, oh, see, I'd be like, wait, what, what is this? Yeah, I'll catch you off guard.

Makes sense. But even more clearly here, even the messenger of the covenant, there'll be somebody coming who will be like a herald, a messenger of the covenant, whom you delight. You love all this Elijah stuff.

Okay. Behold, he is coming says the Lord of hosts. Because the whole idea of Elijah coming back was big in this intertestamental period. I mean, like, like even among the Jewish people who lived in India, you know, and they went back to Israel when Israel was founded and all that stuff in 1948 and all that. But Elijah is a big deal to Indian Jewish people. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So all these dispersed people really waited for Elijah and here it is the mess, the Lord and the messenger of his covenant. Wow.

So John the Baptist and Jesus or Jesus and John the Baptist. Wow. So good. I want to keep going. We've got to stop for today, but I'm excited to continue this discussion on tomorrow's episode. So if you guys enjoyed today's topic or you have suggestions or questions about 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.

Every gift that you give goes not only to building up this radio show, but countless other ministries for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Dr. Shah, our friend Howard L. wrote in this morning. He wants to know, how are your writing projects coming?

Very well. Several things are in the pipeline right now. Of course, the book, Can We Recover? The Original Text of the New Testament, that's scheduled to come out sometime this summer.

Nice. So we're working through that. Also there's an article that probably more than likely will be presented at the Evangelical Theological Society meeting.

It's a text critical article with the Septuagint in, you know, I'll be talking about the Septuagint usages of certain words. That's coming. And of course, a book based on our series, First Gospel, Christ in the Old Testament is coming. Yep.

We talked about that earlier today. Now, here's my last question, because I know we're out of time. How do you feel about all my dashes? You're fine with the dashes. You like the dashes. A lot of people don't.

They're not popular among some at the table, but I just want to know. Ryan is shaking his head about the dashes. Do you feel like there's too many dashes? Well, I just leave it in your hands, in y'all's hands. I appreciate your trust. So do I, because I will promptly take most of the time. There you go. In love, they will be removed. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.