Tuesday, May 23rd | Our Time in Turkey

Hello, everyone.

This is Tuesday, May the 23rd. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. And you're listening To Clear You Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearYouTodayShow.com. If you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at ClearViewTodayShow.com. That's right. You guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show, sharing it online, leaving us a good review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you may get your podcasting content from.

We're going to leave a link in the description of this podcast so you can do just that. But Ryan, today's verse of the day... Comes from Colossians chapter four, verse two. Continue earnestly in prayer.

Be vigilant in it with thanksgiving. Yeah, I love that language. And I think Paul's language is so intentional. Paul is a master writer.

If anybody who wants to learn how to write and write with intentionality, you should read Paul. Be vigilant in your prayer with thanksgiving. Those are two things that you don't think of being vigilant.

Because vigilant is like, be on your guard, be watchful, be active. Thanksgiving and prayer, they're sort of passive, sort of floaty, ethereal things. Like, I'm just so thankful. He's like, no, I am thankful. I'm going to make sure that God knows that I'm thankful. I'm going to make sure that I'm talking to God. I'm vigilant in my prayers. We oftentimes think of prayer as like sort of a last ditch effort.

I can't do anything else, so I guess I'll just pray for you. But prayer is how we do battle. Prayer is how we fight those battles in our lives.

And I love that language. Continue earnestly in prayer. You know, sometimes you might not get the desires that you bring in prayer.

You might not get those right away. God may tell you no. But that doesn't mean that he's not answering prayer. So don't ever for a second think that God doesn't answer your prayers. Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes the answer is wait.

And sometimes the answer is yes. But we've got to continue earnestly in that spirit of prayer. I am so tired today. I am so... Continue earnestly in the spirit of the podcast. I'm so tired.

My son, I don't know if you guys know this, but the Mario movie, the Super Mario Brothers movie is out on digital. I have yet to see this movie. Okay. It is cute. I'm not going to lie. It is really cute. I grew up playing Mario games. I was going to say, I know you're a big Mario fan.

I love Mario. We went and saw it in theaters. I'd give it a 10 out of 10. People are roasting it, but I gave it a 10 out of 10. If you've got kids and they like Mario, perfect film. But it's now out on digital and Gavin wants to watch it 24 seven.

It's on all the time in my house. And I'm, I'm, I'm not going to lie. I'm a little Mario-ed out. You're no, are you getting, you're getting fire flowered out.

I'm getting fire flowered out. Did I ever tell you, I know I told you, I don't think I've ever told it on the podcast. I had a chance to meet the voice actor of Mario. So the guy who goes wahoo in all the games and stuff, Charles Martinet, he's, he's a famous, famous voice actor in films and video games. He was also, he was Alduin in, in Skyrim. No, that was Mario? Yeah, that was Mario. Yeah.

Have you ever played Skyrim? The main villain, the main dragon is also voiced by Mario. Deep, like gravelly scary voice, but he's also Mario somehow.

Not really want there to be a DLC where it's Alduin but has Mario's voice. So I was at Comic-Con in Boston in 2016, the same year I went to meet Stan Lee and I kept seeing this guy like at a table and I was like, that looks like Charles Martinet. And I was like watching him.

I was like, Oh my gosh, that's Charles Martinet. He was not on the list of, of like people who would be there. No, he was not on the list. Was he there as like a featured person or was he just there? I think he was just there. I don't know because he was at a table, but he was like not on the other side of the table where people could come meet him. He was just there talking to other people. And I was watching, I was like, that's Charles Martinet. Now he may have been doing something that he, they asked him to be there.

I don't know. But I saw him and I was like, Oh my gosh, that's him. So then I'm, I'm like panicking cause I'm there to meet like Charlie Cox and Ming-Na Wen and like all these other celebrities that I paid for.

But I see Mike, like my hero, like Mario right there. So I'm like, I got to think of the right thing to say. Like I got to tell him my story because everybody always, you know, comes up and tells them their life story, but mine will be different. He'll, he'll, he'll want to hear mine. Exactly. So he starts walking towards me.

I kid you not. He starts walking right towards me. I'm like, this is it. I just gotta be like, Hey, I'm John.

I'm your biggest fan. Like I've been playing Mario since I was a little boy and he's getting closer to me. He walks right past me and I go, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. And he walks right past and I didn't, I was too ashamed to go out. I wanted to flag him down, but I was scared. I was scared. So I didn't do it.

Oh, that breaks my heart. Every time I, every time, every time I watched the Mario movie, I think of that. I think of me just going, I had my chance.

He walked right past. I still think if I ever meet him in real life, I'm going to tell him that story. Charles Martinet, if you're watching this podcast or listening for some reason, please write in 252-582-5028. We'd love to set up you and John. We'd love to make that work. We're going to get Dr. Sean in just a second, but if you guys have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to that number, 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

We'll be right back. You know, 1 John 5 15 says, and if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him. If you're listening to the Clear View Today Show, we want to know how we can pray for you as well. There's a number of ways that you can get in touch with us at Clear View and share your prayer requests, but the best way is by texting us at 252-582-5028. You can also send us an email at prayer at ClearViewBC.org, or you can download the Clear View app on iTunes or Google Play.

You know, on that app, there's a dedicated prayer wall that helps us to get to know what's going on in your life, how we can pray for you, and how we can take any necessary steps to get you moving in the right direction. Thanks for listening. Now, let's get back to the show. Hey there, listeners, I'm Jon Galantis.

And I'm Ellie 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 gonna 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. 30 Days 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 gonna 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. Ellie, you ready to get back to the show?

Let's do it. Welcome back to Clearview Today with Dr. Abaddon 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 to 252-582-5028. That's right.

And if today's your first time ever joining us here in the Clearview Today Show, we want to welcome you and let you know who's talking to you today. Dr. Abaddon Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor, Carolina University author, full-time pastor and the host of today's show. You can find all of his work on his website. That's AbaddonShah.com. That's right. Dr. Shah, I know that you've brought many, many pictures and videos and filming projects back for us to enjoy from your recent trip from Turkey. But I've got to tell you, the things that my kids, they're enjoying the most is the Turkish delight that you brought back. Oh.

They are. It's almost gone. I'm so glad to hear that. It's almost gone. Really?

I love it. Well, I hate to even be this way, but I had like half of that. So when they weren't looking well, I thought it was my good friend.

Dr. Shah brought it this last Sunday when he came back. So what I did was, and this is crazy, but I just took a handful of it, crammed it in my pockets. Like goblin in the corner. Evie saw me do it, which is insane. She did see you do it.

I've been getting threatening messages, like scrawled, sprayed on my wall. Give us the Turkish delight back in No One Gets Hurt. He also, Dr. Shah also brought for my oldest son and your youngest son, these little tops, these little Turkish tops where you wind it up and you like spin it. And Gavin has not stopped playing with it yet, but he can't figure out how to do it. So I have to keep doing it. And he pulls it and he's like really weak.

And it just like, and then he just instantly stops it. So it's like, he's playing with it, but not correctly. Not correctly.

Not correctly. I love it. But it was, it was fun. We, we touched on something yesterday that I know you were kind of talking about Ryan and you were talking about Dr. Shah, where there was this sense of desolation in Turkey. And I thought, because we touched on it yesterday, we actually got some texts of people saying, Hey, we want to hear some more about that. So we moved some stuff around on the calendar to kind of make time on today's episode.

Absolutely. Spent some more time. So Dr. Shah, if you'll just kind of catch our listeners up with this desolation in Turkey that we're talking about.

I mean, people missed yesterday's episode, which if you did encourage you to go back and listen to that one. But what is, what is this desolation of the ruins that we're talking about in Turkey? Well, for me, just like going to a place like Kanya. Kanya is what we know as Iconium.

Okay. This is, you know, we hear about that in the book of Acts. But this city has been inhabited for over 4,000 years. You know, when you see signs outside of the city limits of, you know, our towns and cities and counties like establish 1882 or, you know, 1753. You think, Oh man, this is historic. Wow. His town's been around for a while. 1753.

Just make that BC instead of AD. That's insane. That's how some of these towns were that we were going to visit the cities. Unbelievable. And you know, like this city had been inhabited by of course, various peoples and kingdoms, but, but people like the Hittites, the Phrygians, of course, the Greeks, the Persians, the Romans.

And of course, you know, then 800 years ago by the Seljuk Turks that came through. Like everybody who's anybody has, has inhabited. Oh my goodness. And it was overwhelming for me at times, you know, just walking around, looking at this, when you see what these people accomplished and they're gone and then you see what you are accomplishing and it's nothing and you, it's not even going to be missed. Okay. You feel like that.

Not that, I don't believe that's true. I believe what you do for Jesus Christ will last forever. But in the moment it feels like, wow, I am not even a drop in the bucket here. I'm a drop in the ocean. Right? Yeah. It made me, and I've had that feeling too. It kind of reminds me of that Percy Shelley poem, the Ozymandias, the look on my works, you mighty in despair, but then it's just in this big desert. It's forgotten. And you think, man, and I know you were kind of saying this in a, when we were talking, I don't know if you said it yesterday or maybe we set it off mic, but these are Kings, these are emperors and they're in ruins.

Powerful, powerful people who built powerful cities and empires and structures, whether they're palaces or tombs or temples, it is just unbelievable. And then you see what you have and you go, well, I live in the land of opportunity, but I'm not doing much with it. I'm not making a great use of it. One of the things that you've said, and there's many things, but one of the ones you've said that has rocked me to my core, I think these past few years is, will it even matter that I lived? And I have never thought that way before.

And now I can't stop thinking about it. Like the things that I'm accomplishing, the things that we're doing as a team for God's kingdom, like a hundred years from now, will anyone care at all that I ever lived? That's a first world question.

I get it. I know people who are just hoping for the basic necessities of life, like food and clothing and shelter may not ask that question. I think they do, but in their own way, but there's a first world question. Does it even matter that I exist? Will anybody even miss me? And who am I? I know I'm a child of God through Jesus Christ. I know I have the Holy Spirit inside of me.

I know that God is real. God is working. But in those moments when you stand against these ruins and you see powerful things, colossal statues, all of that, you just kind of for a moment feel like, wow, is all the stuff that I believe in, is it real?

Will I even matter? What is God doing? Seeing all of these places and hearing you talking about these places, it makes you feel so much more of a connection to history. It's not something that happened so far removed from us. These are real people who really lived and really not that long ago. We as a nation are very young in comparison to other nations, but history itself was not that long ago. I mean, this wasn't some other time far removed from us.

These are people just, you know, a couple of thousand years away. And what helps us in those moments of almost feeling crushed, right, if I can say it that way, is to remind ourselves that history is ultimately his story. You have to put God, the living true triune God, back where he belongs, which is he is the author of creation. He is the head of the cosmos. He is not bound by times. He is not at the beck and call of these kings and emperors. He does not sit there and go, oh, I guess this empire is next. I'm going to try to make something happen to them. He is the one who sets up kings and takes out kings.

He is the one who brings kings and kingdoms and empires in place, and he's the one who makes them vanish. Like, where are the Hittites? They're gone. They're gone.

In fact, up until the 19th century, a lot of archaeologists and historians would say that Hittites were just a myth. Really? Yeah. Wow. I didn't know that. Oh, yeah.

Wow. Because there's no evidence for them. They're wiped out completely.

Just gone. In the heartbreaking, though, like an entire people group. Like, there's not only are you gone, but there's no evidence that, I mean, substantial evidence that you really even were here. I mean, thousands of years from now, if there's like Americans, there's no such thing.

We can't find anything. Yeah. I remember my great grandma used to tell me about this magical land called America. But I think it was just a story. Yeah. You know, we hear about Uriah the Hittite, right? So these are his people. Now, Uriah the Hittite, I believe there was a contingent or a little, what's the word, like a colony up in Israel, what we know as the promised land, right? There was a colony of Hittites that moved down there, maybe after some battle, maybe after some famine or whatever, they moved to the south. And I think Uriah the Hittite, remember David committed adultery with his wife. He came from that colony, I believe. Hence, he was part of the people of Israel. Hence, he was part of David's bodyguard. He was a very prominent person. But Hittites as a people lived in the heart of what we know today as modern day Turkey.

Okay. So it was a powerful empire. They did some amazing things and Bible repeatedly talks about the Hittites.

But up until the 19th century, we couldn't find them. Wow. Wow. Because they were buried. I think what that's doing for me right now, it is this kind of building on what you were just talking about, that no matter how mighty they might've been, no matter how powerful their empire was, God allowed them to come to that place. And just like he brought them into power or allowed them to gain power, he took them out when the time was right. Of course. And he took them out so completely that, like you said, there's just no evidence that they ever existed at all. Our worst fear, like what we were talking about, is a reality for them.

Yeah. See, the thing is when we go to these archeological sites and some of you all have traveled, whether on YouTube or listening by radio or podcast, you know, this is not how those sites existed until archeologists got there. They were buried. And there was a word among the farmers or the sheep herders that, yeah, if you go down this direction about 20 miles and you go by the creek, you'll find some things sticking out of the ground.

And maybe there was something there. And so archeologists from Germany and Italy, I'm talking about Turkey area, mostly Germans, Italians, and then, you know, Americans, British archeologists came. They go over there and they start digging. And after not just months, years of digging, they'll open up a theater. You know how deep and vast some of these theaters are. So dig, dig, dig.

And you have to go slow because you don't want to go too fast and mess things up. So after digging for years, they come to the bedrock of that place, like Ephesus. Ephesus, what's very interesting is that we went to Ephesus and that was like the, one of the highlights of the trip. You know, the library of Celsus is there, you know, Paul and Thecla, Thecla's cave is there and all that.

So it's a lot over there. According to the guide and some of the people who are in charge at the place, they said maybe 15% of Ephesus is being seen. The rest is still buried. And it will take about 300 to 500 years to uncover everything.

If they start digging every day, eight to five. Oh my gracious. When God decides to bury you, he buries you completely.

You are well and truly buried. Yeah. I mean, this is the place, remember that? Where Paul, you know, came in and, you know, all of a sudden they're like, oh, you know, their business of Diana, you know, Artemis goes out. And so they're like, oh no, the, you know, the, the, the, the idol makers get all up in arms and they're like, hey guys, we know that this statue came from heaven. And because this is the great Diana, she takes care of us.

She's our blessing. And this man, Paul is coming and he's causing all this ruckus. Walking through the streets of Ephesus and hearing that, oh, it's only 5%, maybe 15% is what we're looking at. Yeah. The rest of it is bare on. You see these mountains all around us. That's where the rest of the city is.

Underneath. We were walking up the mountain to go to a cave, to check things out. There were some things there, historical. So I'm like, are you telling me that I'm actually walking on the ruins?

He said, yes, of course. This is where much of Ephesus lies. I'm like, why aren't people digging it? Well, I mean, so much has to go into place. You got to have the right people digging it. You just cannot have just anybody coming and dig because you got to have people who are knowledgeable, educated, all of that. And then they have to categorize it and catalog it and all these things have to happen. Then you have to relocate some things. So it is like a four, five, 600 year job. And then you have to manage it. Once you open these sites up, then you have to manage it. So this is manageable.

This 15% or 5%, I don't know exactly what the number was, but this is manageable. When you open the whole site, it's a whole city of close to 250, 300,000 people. If you don't think about, at least I don't think about the scale of archeological gigs. Cause I'm thinking like you're excavating this, like maybe the size of this room or like maybe even the size of like our church building. Like just kind of like, you know, you're digging this building out. But this is a whole city that we're talking about. You think about like our city, like we live in a fairly small town, but if there were a mountain on top of our town, we can't be like, I think a year or so we can get the town out from underneath a literal mountain. Imagine all the streets and the crossroads and the various businesses and the homes and all of that.

You got to dig all this up. Cause you go, and that's something that you've told me when we went to Israel, like you go to like a Capernaum or like one of these ancient cities or like Tel Dan or some, not Tel Dan, the hot sore, like you go, you could see the outlines of buildings and you think, man, this was a small city. It's like, no, this is just what we could recover. Yeah. Like you get in the heart of the place, but not every home. Right. Right. Cause if you look out, you just see that little plot of land and it's like, this was a fairly small city. No, not really. This is just a small glimpse. Yeah.

Yeah. And Ephesus was a harbor, right? So the harbor is still underneath. It's sitting at the same place where it sat for the past 3000 years. So how are you going to uncover that harbor? I mean, what are you going to do with all the present day modern ships and all the cargo that's sitting there? You got to move all of that. So that's never going to be excavated. Yeah. It's just buried forever. It's buried.

Golly. Same thing with Egypt. You know, some of the places we went to like Memphis. Where is Memphis?

Well, you're standing on it. So unless you want to relocate the entire city of modern day Memphis, where are you going to send them? Like kick all these people out of their homes and stuff. Like we got to go. Why?

Because we're going to dig up everything here. But I live here. Not anymore. You're going to go. Not anymore. Gosh. I mean. I was just going to say, these vast empires, these like people who, and I know at the height of their power, they thought just like we think this is going to last forever.

This is it. This is where humanity has peaked. And yet at the same time, all these thousands of years later, we still have God's word. God's word has abided. Those has remained. Those empires are gone.

That's right. You know, I think about Daniel, right? And the reason I talked about Daniel, I talk about Daniel is because the Babylonian empire controlled the Eastern fringes of Turkey, modern day Turkey or Asia Minor or Anatolia.

Okay. It controlled that Eastern fringe. And if you remember, Nebuchadnezzar had this dream, right? And he told his magicians, the soothsayers, the Chaldeans. He said, tell me not only the interpretation, but tell me the dream.

Because that's how I'm going to know you're telling the truth. And they're like, oh, well, we can't do this. No one can do this. He said, okay, you're going to all die. Oh no, no, no, no. Yeah.

You're going to die. So Daniel steps in because Daniel is also on the list because he's one of the wise men of Babylon. And so he approaches the king and said, look, give us some time. We'll find out.

We'll let you know. And of course the king gives him some time and the God gives Daniel and Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, which is Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. He gives them the interpretation. And the interpretation is this, the gold that the statue, it's a statue that Nebuchadnezzar saw. It is made out of different metals or things.

The head is of gold. That is Babylon. The breastplate or the arms are of silver, which is going to be the next kingdom. And which is- Medo-Persia. Medo-Persia.

Right. Then comes the bronze, which is- Greece. Greece. Then comes iron- Rome.

And then it's kind of interesting that the next is the feet and toes, which are partly a potter's clay and partly of iron. And so what is the meaning of all this? Well, what God was telling Nebuchadnezzar is don't think for a moment that you are going to last forever. You're just passing through. In fact, four other kingdoms are coming after you and underneath that multiple kingdoms are coming who are going to control everything. You are a kingdom of gold, but you are just a small part of the vast plan of God. So, you know, move down the list.

Where are we? You know, people ask the question, are we in the last days? I would say, yeah. In fact, we have been for the past 2000 years. Yeah, that's true.

That's very true. It could be tonight. It could be a thousand years from now. I don't know.

You don't know. You think about the timeline, like you were saying, I think in the last episode, you know, if America has only existed for 400 something years, let's say 450 years, and we've been living in the last day for the last 2000, you know, it's not a coincidence that, or it's not even not a coincidence. It's almost painfully obvious that we are in these last days. Yeah. Yeah. These are the last days.

These are the last points. So anyways, all that to say is, you know, when you think about the ruins, when you think about all these things, just know that God has, God is teaching us some lessons, especially about America. And I know something you said earlier is that his, his ultimate purpose is redemption. You know, God's ultimate purpose in teaching us that is not just to remind us, Hey, I'm in charge so you better listen. There's a purpose. There's a, there's a plan of redemption and salvation that if we do listen, if we do follow that plan, we'll be saved and we'll be with you.

You know, it's not just a, what you call it, like a, like a who's bigger, like whose stick is bigger. He has nothing to prove that way. It's just so that it's our, it's in our benefit that we listen and that we submit.

That's right. God is in control. He is, he is the ruler of time. He's the ruler of kingdoms and kings. He sets people in places of power.

He takes them down. Does that mean that we're not going to suffer at times at the hands of evil rulers? Well, look at history if something had to, but even through that, God builds his kingdom, spreads his kingdom and of his kingdom, there will be no end. And Jesus Christ is the Lord of all and every knee shall bow before him.

Every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Christ to the glory of God, the father. And so how do we see all the craziness in our world today? It's going to pass away.

That's right. God is in control. He's going to bring things to end. His timing may be such that America will become just a distant reminder of like the Lycian league. I mean, Lycian league was a powerful idea.

How can we rule each other, rule together without being under compulsion or whatever? But as I stood over there, I mean, even what was there was put together by archeologists. It wasn't left that nice. And here is where we found the principles to build our nation. And now this is lying in ruins. So what are the chances that America will be there? I don't know. I would like to think we will be, you know, there are enough remnants here to turn back to God. So I would like to say we will be.