Thursday, August 3rd | Fainthearted

Hello, everyone.

Today is Thursday, August the third. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart 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 new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. So sorry, I don't know what happened with that phone number. 252-582-5028. That's the one. That's the order that those numbers are supposed to go in.

Or you can email us at contact at ClearViewTodayShow.com. I just will say, it went better than you thought. You just said eight. You said eight a little funny, but it wasn't that bad. That's why we need five star reviews. There you go. A lot of times we will feel bad about the way that we say numbers.

Yes. Please give me compliments. I can feel better about myself.

So if you have the compliments help, and if you guys want to help us keep this conversation going, you can. You can support the show, share it online. You can leave us good, encouraging five star reviews on iTunes. Those help me go to sleep at night without questioning my existential dread.

We are going to leave some links in the description of this podcast so you can do just that. And today's verse of the day is coming to us from Psalm 103, one and two. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Did you grow up? Did you ever visit Methodist churches when you were growing up?

Not really. Maybe once or twice. I don't know what they call it, but they sing this hymn or this psalm in every service. At least the one I grew up. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.

Bless his holy name. Oh yeah, we sang it too. I grew up in Southern Baptist churches, but we sang it for sure.

Every service? No, not every service, but it was certainly in the hymnal. Yeah, yeah.

I remember that. And reading it now, it's one of those things that's just pure praise. Bless the Lord, O my soul, all that's within me. We're kind of making fun of it and laughing at it a little bit, but it is just pure, unadulterated praise. Every single part of me just has to bless his name. It has to praise the Lord.

Listen to the lingo too. It doesn't say, my soul will bless the Lord. It says, Bless the Lord, O my soul.

It's a command being given to yourself. I'm commanding my soul. I'm commanding all that is within me to bless God and to praise him. Even when I might not feel like it, even when my circumstances might not point me to praise naturally, I'm going to force myself.

I'm going to choose to praise God and to bless him and to thank him for what he's done. And these negative circumstances are like the number one cause of us forgetting all the good things. That's why it says, Forget not all his benefits. Because when those storms come, I'm certainly, I'm not thinking about the goodness of God. I'm not thinking about how good he's been to me. I'm not thinking about all the benefits that being a Christian comes with. I'm thinking about this immediate problem right now, and God, I'll do anything if you just take it away from me. And so, a lot of times I've found that just going back and not ignoring the bad things, but just remembering those good things, the goodness of the Lord in those bad times, really has helped me through a good portion of that.

I've got a question from Nicholas R. I think he's right here in North Carolina. Nicholas R. What are some of y'all's weirdest, most irrational fears? I don't have a ton of irrational fears right now. I will tell you that I despise, loathe, cannot stand a cockroach. Absolutely not.

I would prefer a spider. I've known you for eight years, and I've never known them. Cannot stand them. Absolutely hate them. They are detestable to me. I'll kill them.

I'm not opposed. I'm squeamish around them. And that's just something I have to process and deal with. Frogs. Frogs.

Yeah, I did know that. I don't know why. I don't know if it stems from childhood. I don't remember an event with frogs.

All I remember is that there was, at one point, the singularity. Just that one moment of existence. And since that moment, there's been an irrational animal fear of frogs. Hate them.

Let me ask you this. Does it extend to frogs, toads, anything of that nature? Yes.

Yeah. So is it all reptiles, or is it just frogs and toads specifically? I don't love a lizard, or a salamander, or a snake. But if I see them, I'm like, ugh.

But I'm not filled with dread. If a snake came in here right now, I could take a minute and be like, ooh, gosh, there's a snake. And then I could get a tool and get it out. A frog, I'm going through that wall. I'm boring a hole through that wall there. Is it the jumping?

I think so. But I don't know. I don't know where this thing's going to end up. Because even then, if I see pictures of frogs, I get kind of tense. I don't like them.

I'm very, very, very, very scared of them. Really? I didn't realize it was quite that extensive. It's bad, dude.

It's bad. Summertime, for me, I love summer. But that's the dark underbelly of summertime. And especially where Ellie grew up, they had frogs that sound like cows.

If you're not from the South... There's some frogs that are loud. They had a pond in their yard and then deep woods behind it.

And we would just hear, wahh. And I was like, does someone have cows? And Ellie was like, those are toads, babe. Huh?

Excuse? Those are toads. Are they the size of a cow?

Because that's a problem. They're about this big right here. They're huge. I was like, oh, that's the stuff nightmares are made of. That's what I'm scared of, man. Yeah, that's my irrational fear. I can't stand a frog.

I did have one when I was a kid. One of those fears that you have that don't make any sense. I always feared, anytime there was a bowl or something being poured into a bowl, like cereal or soup or something being emptied into a bowl, I was going to lift the bowl off the table. But for some reason, the bottom of it was going to be stuck to the table, and it was going to go everywhere. I was worried that, imagine you're pouring a bowl of cereal. Cereal goes in, milk goes in, because I'm not a wild person. Milk goes in after the cereal. And then you lift the bowl up off the table. But imagine that flat bottom is stuck to the table. And so, everything in the bowl spills out everywhere. I have no idea. That never happened to me once.

I never saw that anywhere. But I can remember, that had a choke hold on me for three years as a kid. It's like a kid being scared they're going to get sucked down the drain.

You just don't make sense. I would go to lift it, and I would just touch the bottom of it, just to make sure it was still intact. It's going to come off. I picked it up. That's pretty funny.

You need to tell that one to pass it off. I'll let him know when he gets in. I want to know from you guys, our listeners, are there any irrational fears that you have?

I know this doesn't make sense, but it still is part of who I am, this deep-seated fear that I have. To let us know, text us at 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. We're going to grab Dr. Shah, and we'll be right back. This is actually the second book in the 30 Days series. The whole point of this devotional is to help us get unstuck from the ruts of life. 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, 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 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. Ellie, you ready to get back to the show?

Let's do it. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadan 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 or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028.

That's right. And if today's your first time ever joining us here on the Clear View Today Show, we want to welcome you, let you know exactly who's talking to you today. Dr. Abbadan Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of Today Show. You can find all of his work on his website. That's AbbadanShah.com.

Dr. Shah, I have a question for you. Have you ever had something in your life, maybe when you were younger or like teenage years or something, that was sort of an irrational, almost a silly worry or fear or something that you were like, this concern is on my mind, but there's no chance of this possibly happening? Growing up, there were many, but one I had was of dogs initially, because we had some vicious dogs that people had just to protect themselves.

In that part of the world, people don't have any arms to defend themselves. So it's kind of big, mean dogs. And I walked by one behind a fence, and he just barked at me so loud. I was terrified the rest of my life. How old were you?

Gosh, I was like maybe eight or nine years of age. Do you still not like big dogs? I'm okay with them now. I'm okay. But still, that fear came in.

Our dog is big, but still. People have those silly fears. Like we even talked about earlier, frogs.

There's nothing dangerous about a frog, but they fill me with such animal terror that I just can't get away from it. There's those things that are silly and make us respond in certain ways. Fear can do that.

It can make us do crazy things, or it can make us not do things that we ought to do. Well, people use fear. News media will use fear to control the masses. Governments use fear to control their policies and to promote certain policies.

Hey, you've got to do this. Or some other fear-mongering while other things are going on. So fear is a choice weapon, I would say. It makes people react. People don't react when their people are calm and they're level-headed. They think things through. They calculate the risks. If I'm afraid, I'm going to start making dumb choices. Even if I'm not being coerced by someone else, just me being afraid, I start reacting and I start moving stuff into position and doing missteps. Of course.

Fear never results well. That's related to the church that we're talking about today in the series that we've been going through, the seven churches in the book of Revelation. It has been so amazing to hear from you guys how this series is resonating with you and how you're enjoying these episodes. Today's episode, we're jumping into the second church in the book of Revelation. The city of Smyrna. That was one of the ones that you actually got to go to and see.

This is present-day Izmir. We not only went there, but we stayed in Izmir as we went to different places. We stayed there at least, I would say, three to four days. It was probably our longest stay anywhere.

It's kind of funny. We were walking. I walked by myself down to the shops and stuff like that.

They took us out to eat really good foods by the seashore. Then we left and I saw a bookstore that I had seen on the way in. I'm like, hey, I'm going to go over there. So I went there, looked around, got a couple of books, and then by myself made my way back. I'm walking around by myself in Turkey. I'm sure there are places that I won't do that in Turkey, but here it was like, I'm just walking around Izmir. There was a video that showed with all the arches, like all those arches that looks like that scene in Inception with the mirrors.

Where is that place that you filmed the video at? This is actually the second site. There are two parts of ancient Smyrna. The first part is all you see are foundations.

There are no roofs and things like that, no arches. And this is the ancient Smyrna. Ancient Smyrna goes back, I would say, almost to the 11th century. It was an Aeolian city.

These are the names of the regions. So it goes back to the 11th century. And one of its claims to fame is that it was the home of Homer. Not Homer. Oh, I was just about to say like the doughnut guy. Like Homer in March.

No, no, no. This is Homer, the poet. He's the one who wrote the Iliad, the Odyssey. Wow.

Yeah. So it's one of the claims to fame and many may not know, but his original name was Melisigenus. I did not know that. It was not Homer.

I didn't know that. Homer name came later. Huh. Yeah. Melisigenus means the one who is born of Melis.

Melis is the river that flowed by the city. That's where he got his name from. Yeah.

The one who was born by the river Melis. Oh. Yeah.

Very cool. But then the other cities have claimed him too. Everybody's fighting him. Everybody wants him.

Yeah. Everybody's fighting him. He's one of ours. He's one of ours. He's our boy. That's our boy for sure. But Smyrna is like, nah, nah, we got, we got Homer.

Right. I think more than likely he was from Smyrna or, you know, Izmir. And later the Ionians drove out the Aeolians in the eighth century. So the Aeolians stayed there in that region for about three to 400 years. And then they were driven out. And then finally the Lydian King by the name of Eliates destroyed Smyrna around 600 BC. It was just gone.

He's destroyed it. Yeah. And so for the next 300 years Smyrna kind of sat there as just ruins pretty much.

Yeah. Until in the fourth century BC, it was refounded and it was refounded based on a tradition. In fact, when we went to the second site of Smyrna, because I told you about the ancient site, which is the 1100 BC site, there's a big mural on the wall of Alexander sleeping under a tree, Alexander the Great. And he's having this dream. And in the dream, he was told to establish a new city by the foot of Mount Pegos, which is right there. So he founded the city? Maybe not him, but his successor Antigonus and Lysimachus.

They founded the city. Okay. In his wake. Wow. That's incredible. So that's the second Smyrna. So you had the first Smyrna and the second Smyrna.

So when Jesus penned this letter to the church in Smyrna, was it to the first or the second? Second, of course. Second. Okay.

The first is by that time probably already buried. I got you. That was during... Maybe somebody's living there, but it's no longer like it used to be. Yeah. Yeah.

That makes sense. It was destroyed around 600 BC. This would be the second Smyrna that we're talking about. Yeah. By the time of Jesus, the first Smyrna was 1100 years old. See, we're talking about like beyond the Norman conquest.

Oh, that's true. Wow. So how did Christianity come to it? Was that through Paul as well? Yeah.

Yeah. So there's so much we need to understand about how they heard the gospel. Maybe it was through Paul's missionary journey. There were Jewish people there in Smyrna. Maybe on the day of Pentecost, they were in Jerusalem. Remember how they were there and Peter stood up and spoke and people began to hear in their own language what the people were saying, those disciples were saying. So maybe they took the gospel back with them to Smyrna. Maybe it was Paul on the way to Macedonia after he had to flee Ephesus. Remember we talked about Ephesus. There was a riot. So Paul had to run away.

Either way, the Jewish community in Smyrna was divided between those who had accepted Jesus as their savior and those who didn't. Okay. So some had rejected. Some had rejected. I got you.

I got you. And was there any like sort of, I guess, conflict between the two groups? No. Yeah. The group that rejected Jesus was more of the dominant group, like the one that Paul would have belonged to. So there was some persecution going on, you think? A lot. Yeah.

Wow. I mean, the first persecution the church experienced was at the hands of their own family members. I was just thinking that. Like the first wave of persecution. And isn't it interesting that the ones who didn't accept Jesus are the ones who were persecuting the ones who did?

So much more personal. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I mean, everywhere Christ goes, everywhere Christianity touches, those people respond in love and respond with order and respond with, you know, just kindness to other people. But those who don't have Christ are the ones who were persecuting.

Yeah. And it was bad. I mean, think about what Paul said to you.

I myself was dragging some of them even to the point of death. So this community in Smyrna was trying to kill those who had left the faith, the Jewish faith, and had become Christians. I mean, I think about even your dad, like, you know, ostracized from his family. It's got to stink because, I mean, here in the South, it's way more common that your entire family is Christian. But then you think about- Which is great. For one, I tell people, don't envy either ancient times like the early church or Christians living in third world countries where there is some dominant religion or ideology that is trying to persecute Christians.

Don't envy that. You know, sometimes people say, well, that's how you grow in holiness back when the church was- Having been through it, it's not fun. I'd rather this where you can call people to salvation. You can use the liberties you have to keep sharing the gospel.

I'd rather have this then to be under persecution because on the outside, it looks like, oh yeah, so many benefits. On the inside, sometimes the church dies never to be brought to life again. So what is the, I guess, what is the missing piece between Smyrna, the Christians in Smyrna being persecuted and then Jesus having to write to warn them? What did that persecution lead to that Christ had to kind of step in and warn them about?

Well, I mean, they were probably tempted to go back- I see. To their own way of life, the old way of life. So Jesus begins in Revelation 2.8 and to the angel of the church in Smyrna, write, these things says the first and the last who was dead and came to life. So we just read that, but we need to read it in the context of the Old Testament. Isaiah 41.4, who has performed and done it, calling the generations from the beginning. I, the Lord, am the first and with the last, I am he. So Jesus is actually applying these titles in Messianic prophecy to himself.

To himself. Yeah. That's what makes the significance there. These things says the first and the last. He's really saying that's me. That Isaiah was talking about.

That's me. Isaiah 44.6, Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. By the way, that right there should tell people to stop saying that people in the past didn't understand the concept of the Trinity. Right.

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. Yeah. Why do we keep saying, well, didn't understand the Trinity until the council? Well, there it is right there. Just because the word isn't in there doesn't mean that the doctrine wasn't clearly there from way back.

Yeah. And there's so many other passages. Of course, we know Isaiah 9.6, his name shall be called, blah, blah, blah, or Isaiah 53. We know other passages. And as blatantly Messianic Isaiah is, it was also one of the most favorite books of the Jewish people.

Interesting. They loved that book. Now, the problem here was something that scholars and pastors and people, Bible students tend to think that there was nothing negative that Jesus- I was just about to ask you that. I was just about to say, it seems like so far he's given them kind of due credit. I know your work, tribulation, poverty, but you are rich. Wait, that parenthesis, but you are rich. It's like you telling your child, I know you're going through a tough time, but you have so much to be thankful for. Read between the lines.

There's so much to be thankful for is another way of saying you're not being as thankful. Right. That's true. That's true. When you have a lot, you're focused on all these bad things, even though they are bad and they do require some focus when you dwell on them and when you make them out to be worse than they actually are, or you just are neglecting the good things in your life.

It is still an indictment. Yeah. They had forgotten what it was to be rich. And so Jesus reminds them and then he reminds them that there are problems coming. Is that kind of where that fear was coming in? Like they're, they're so afraid of all these things that they're, they're sort of neglecting all the good that they have, the riches that they have in Christ. That's right. Don't we do the same thing? Yes.

The one is definitely you have a lot to be grateful for, but the second thing is in verse nine, it says, and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear any of those things which you're about to suffer. So I believe fear was plaguing this church. That's what it is. That's what it is. That's that dwelling, that negativity. And I don't know why, but it feels so good to dwell on the negative.

Like it feels so good to sit and just stew in everything that's wrong with my life. You know, I don't know why that is. And it's, it's just one of those things that we do it so much that after a while we don't even realize how much it stinks and how much it rots and how much it affects our thinking.

What I wonder if it's because that's, it's such a sneaky, insidious thing. It makes believers ineffective. It's like handcuffing ourselves in the battle for the gospel. We, we need to be mobilized by God and we need to be being obedient to him and living the life that we've been called to live. But if we're stuck in fear or like you said, John, just kind of dwelling on those fearful things, those things that are bad in our lives, we're going to be ineffective.

We're going to, we're going to not be able to be used by God. Right. And fear is something that we all struggle with. I struggle with fear. Sometimes people think, I mean, you're fearless.

Not necessarily. A lot of times I have fear, but I have to overcome that and, and, and just trust God that he will bring something good. When I take that step and do what needs to be done, that he'll bring something good through it. So fear is something we all struggle with.

I love what you said there though. You have to trust God in that he'll bring something good when I take that step. Not waiting for God to kind of make you take that step. Not waiting for him to clearly say, okay, now it is time to take this step. But trusting in obedience to God in, in, you know, submitting yourself to him that you will take that step and then God will bring something good as a result. It's a way that I think we trick ourselves as Christians. Like we wait until God like absolutely makes us do something and then we pat ourselves on the back and be like, see, God, I trusted you. I trust. It's like, you didn't, you just got shoved out there because he was tired of waiting on you.

People ask God for an open door, but then they want God to shove them through the door. Yeah. And then, and then be like, Lord, wasn't I faithful? Didn't I trust you, Lord? No. Yeah, I did. I trust, I want to, I, I passed through the door. Yeah. It's not a, um, a word of assurance when it says, do not fear.

It's a command. Do not fear. It's not like, do not fear. Hey man, it's going to be okay. You don't have to be afraid. It's like, Hey, you're, you're fearing. Stop. Yeah. Stop fearing.

Uh, and I understand this personally because I went through persecution as a kid and some of y'all have heard me talk about that, how our power was cut off. Um, I think it was sometime in April, if I'm not wrong, I may be wrong, but we lost power and summers in India. Now people talk about how hot it is. And by the way, I love the hot. Yeah. Yeah.

The hot summers. Hot, hot is awesome, but when it's like 120 degrees hot and it's muggy and it's roof. Yeah. Our hot here in North Carolina is it's kind of hot, but it's not 120. It's like 95. Yeah. Like that's, that's hot. Don't get me wrong, but it's not 120 degrees in the middle of summer.

Nobody's having a good time with minimal AC. No. And at night, I mean, you're, when you get up, you're like soaking wet. Oh man. Oh, that's the worst feeling.

Yeah. There was a time where we used to sleep on a, on top of our house, hot summers, and our power was cut. It was cut because of a general manager who had come to the railway headquarters because you've heard me talk about how our, our church was and our parsonage was sitting in the railway colony.

And, um, the, this general manager came who was, who didn't care for Christians. And we were getting power from the railway substation because in India, the railways are so big that they have their own powerhouse. Wow.

Wow. And so we were getting power and we were getting power from them for years, for decades, even before my dad came to that church, it was understood the church is in the railway zone and so they will get power. How else are you going to do it? Like run a line from some other part of the city all the way, like another set of poles can do that.

They have to do this and they have to pay for it. But he's cut the power and because it was not part of the railways. Wow. It's just one of those things that, I mean, I mean, it's such a cowardly act, but in so many other ways we take cowardice for virtue or for, because it's, because it's, it's almost the opposite of aggression. Like that was very aggressive persecution, but it was also a very cowardly thing to do. And so in that way we can say, well, yes, cowardice isn't a virtue, but then I'm thinking about like Smyrna where we see, we see people are afraid of the aggressors. And so we think because they're the aggressors, the people who are afraid must be, you know, victims or virtuous and therefore that's not a sin. But Jesus does not view cowardice in that way. Right.

Yeah. And he tells them that you will have tribulation 10 days, kind of a parallel to the Hebrew young men, Daniel, Hananiah, Michel, Azariah, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, when they were thrown into, not thrown into the fiery furnace. I mean that, that trial did come, but even prior to that, they were told eat the King's table, the delicacies on the King's table, and they refused because they wanted to stay pure. And they even told the eunuch who was watching over them that, please let us do our thing for the next 10 days. And if we fail, and if we look pale, if we look like sickly, then by all means, we'll eat whatever he tells to eat. So for 10 days, they were tested. And at the end of the 10 days, it came out that they were more vibrant than before. I guess, what is the resolution for this, for the church in Smyrna?

What, what, what are they called to do? If you are tempted to be afraid, just recognize that fear is the enemy's choiceless weapon. That's right. I'm daily afraid, afraid of this, afraid of that, afraid of taking a step, afraid of relationships. There's always fears and there are always tons of what ifs. You have to recognize the what if, and then recognize that it's a fear and that you're the one who is responsible for this. And then recognize the need for God's strength and courage in your life.

That's right. I love that. So important. And I love that reminder that Jesus telling us to not be afraid is a command. It's not just gentle reassurance.

We need to not be fearful, not because of what we bring to the table, because of who Christ is and what He can do in us. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. Or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. You can partner with us financially by clicking that donate button at the bottom of the page. We love you guys. We'll see you next time on Clear View Today.