Thursday, August 17th | He Who Has Ears

Hello, everyone. Today is Thursday, August the 17th. I'm Ryan Hill.

John Galantis. And 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 new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

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We're going to leave a link in the description so you can do just that. And today's verse of the day is coming to us from Exodus 23, 12. Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and that the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed. I love that this is God saying, Hey, you need that time to rest. And this is not like, put your feet up and just like chill with a coconut with a straw sticking out of it.

This is somehow in the, in the wilderness, they had that. This is God saying, I want you to rest in who I am. I want you to rest in your relationship with me. I want you to spiritually refresh yourself, because we can get so busy, even us in like a ministry context, we can get so busy working and doing stuff and even doing like church related ministry stuff that we forget to take time and say, God, thank you for being who you are. Thank you for being amazing and wonderful and merciful and loving and just.

And thank you for having a plan for me and for forgiving me. And we need that Sabbath. We need that time to refocus our mind and our relationship with God, because it's our heart. I mean, the words of the hymn pop in my mind, our hearts are prone to wander. Yeah.

Yeah. And we get so, and I think humans are this way or maybe, maybe it's just me, but I think as humans, we tend to think like, okay, work hard for God. Six days, you shall do your work, right? Make sure that you are like that parable where they, they took those talents and they duplicated them. Like, yeah, this is good.

It must be good all the time. And if I'm, if it's good for me to do it six days, then doing it 12 days is even better. And if it's good to do it 12 days, then I should do it 24 days. And I go and I go and I go and I try and I'm, I'm just focused on earning and I'm just focused on achieving and accomplishing and those things are good, but it's not sustainable all the time without rest. If I don't recharge, especially spiritually, like, I mean, yes, of course you rest your body, you rest your mind, you relax, you go on vacation, you, you do the things that you like to do, but if you don't refresh spiritually, um, then, then you're going to burn out and you will not, not, it's, it's not a matter of if, but just how long it takes to get there. You will start to resent the church and you'll start to resent God because you'll, you're going to feel like nothing I ever do is good enough. I've done all these things and now my focus is on the things that I do and why I still feel unsatisfied. It's not because God's unsatisfied with my work. It's because I didn't take that time to commune with him. Yeah.

God desires that we would rest in him. Uh, I got a gripe today. Oh, a gripe? We are bringing back the gripe vine. Oh, the gripe vine. Welcome to the gripe vine. Pluck the gripe off the gripe vine. I had someone, I had someone write in and say, you guys don't do the gripe vine segment anymore. So today's gripe is about how y'all tell me how to run my own show.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. People who insist on communicating via email. Now here's what I mean. Here's what I mean. Okay.

There are people, especially Christians and, but I think, I think, well, maybe I shouldn't say especially Christians, but Christians are not exempt from this. We, this is 2023. I can understand in the nineties when it was like, that was the new hot thing. Like, dude, make sure you make sure you email me that I want to have that in my email. But we are well beyond that. Like with instant messenger came out, then text messaging, like, like just cell phones calling, like there's, we're beyond email being primary, but there's still some people who like I'll text them and be like, Hey, did you get my texts?

They're like, listen, I would love it. Honestly, the best way for you to get in touch with me is over my email because that way I can check it. And so I can be, that's a load of horse, horse manure. That is menyo. Okay. The reason people want you to communicate over email. I've not realized you felt this strongly about this.

I can't stand this. It's, it's such a pet peeve because people want you to communicate via email so they can ignore you now. So there is a flip side to this because I am one of those people who I really like communicating by email, but my email is open on my laptop 24 seven. Like, I mean, it comes to my phone. It might as well be a text message for me. So that's kind of a way for me to differentiate.

Like there's some people that I have to communicate with that I don't have their phone numbers for, but email is the way to go. Oh God. So I do like that, but I understand what you're saying. Like, like email makes it very easy for things to be ignored. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

And that's, it's by design. College professors are that way. Um, colleges that I've been to in the past and even like a little bit in high school, like I'll get it. I'm not going to text my professors. Okay. I get that.

But then I'll call their office and ask to speak with the secretary. Hey, is he in? Um, he is, but he's, he's in the middle of something at the moment. Oh, like it's like, could he take a two second phone call?

I take the best way. Honestly, the best way is just to email him. Just go ahead and send him an email.

It just grinds my gears into the dirt. Take a two minute phone call. Let me talk to you for five minutes. I'll get to where I need to go and then you can go get where you need to go. But I don't like this.

Hey, go ahead and submit that email and then wait for 24 hours, 24 to 48 hours for me to check my inbox and see it. If you'll circle back to my previous email, I see stand that part of the speak. And some people, some people aren't even like, even if you're a college professor, I sort of kind of get it. But there are some people who that's just how they, that's just how they do.

Listen, man, the best way for you to get in touch with me is just over email. I might fight. I might would fight that.

I might be at the point where I have to fight the next person who says that. Well, awful. Don't let that deter you from emailing into the show. Contact that clear view today show.com because I'll, I'll respond to your email. But guess what?

Guess what else? We give the email once. We give the text, the phone number like 20 times per episode.

That is true. You can text. You can text in. You don't have to, you know what? Take a breath. You're getting worked up.

Calm down. It's going to be OK. Nobody sent you an email. It's OK. I'm good. I'm good.

Go ahead and transition us. We're going to, we're going to dive into our show in just a second. But if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, text us at 252-582-5028. You can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. If you want to send an email, it's OK. You can email contact at clearviewtodayshow.com.

But there's other options. We'll answer you even if you don't. Yes. If you text us, I'm going to answer you. We'll be right back. 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 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. 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.

All right. 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. If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028.

That's right. 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's show.

You can find all of his work on his website. That's AbbadanShah.com. Are you okay now? Are you better? Did you have a chance to clear your head? I'll be all right.

I'll be okay. I went and I got some coffee. I put some toasted brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tart creamer in it.

That was way too many words. Wait a minute. What kind of creamer? I'll go get it. It's toasted brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tart creamer.

I got it at Walmart. Honestly, it's messing me up a little bit, but I didn't want to start the day angry. I didn't want to start the episode angry. Dr. Shah, I showed a side of myself I'm not proud of because we did the gripe vine and we talked about how people, they want you to communicate with them specifically over email. I'm like, hey, I'm going to give you a call in the morning. I tell you what, I tell you what, best way to do it would be over email.

I was like, well, I've got a block of time free at 10 to 11. Maybe we could talk on the phone and get this resolved now. I hear you, dude.

I hear you, but email is the best for me. It's very annoying. They're trying to tell you in a roundabout way, I'm not going to be answering you right away. You're not a priority. He gets it. Have you run into that when people just want you to email them? It's frustrating. I have to pick and choose what I want at that point.

If you're really that important to me and if you're that, what I need is so imperative for the kingdom of God or for my own personal life or family that, okay, we'll go, we'll play your game and do your thing. But at the same time, I'm so ready for this relationship to move on. Exactly. Yeah. We're not going to be friends. Yeah. No, I'll email you.

That's what we'll do. I found too that it's a lot of people like from our generation, millennials and younger, that just hate a phone call. I don't want to talk on the phone. Why don't you email me?

That way I can read it behind the safety of my own computer. I don't love talking on the phone, but what I do like about it plays into actually what I consider to be one of my flaws is my impatience. I want this resolved right now. The closest thing to get it resolved right now is a phone call or go meet them in person because it's really hard to ignore someone when they're in your face like, hey, I need this done or I need this.

I'll be with you in just a second. I tell you what, can you just email me this problem from across the room? Oh, that's too funny. Well, speaking of email from across the room, you don't want to jump to an email when that person is in earshot. Oh, Ryan. Ryan. Why don't you just jump into a conversation?

We're getting silly with that. We want to jump into a conversation today. We've gone through the seven churches in the Book of Revelation. If you missed those episodes, go back and listen to them.

Check them out on the podcasting app. Phenomenal discussions about these different churches, these misunderstandings we have about the letters in Revelation and how they apply to us today. In this series that we went through here at Clearview at our church, there was a message tagged on the end that was still part of this series. It wasn't on a specific church, but it was sort of an overarching principle about what these letters meant for these churches and what they mean for us today. That's right. Each of these letters end with the refrain, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Churches. That's right. And so these churches, think for a moment, they not only failed to hear the voice of the second person of the Godhead, but also the third person of the Godhead.

That's right. Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. And I hadn't, it's funny because I sat through eight or seven sermons and then the beginning of the eighth before I realized like, oh yeah, the Holy Spirit's also talking to these guys. Oh, so it's almost like a bookend of each letter. The opening is Jesus telling them, and then the letter is signed, not just by Jesus, but also the Holy Spirit. From the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses, a thing is established. So here, each letter is established by two different witnesses.

One is Jesus, when the second is the Holy Spirit. I loved it because in realizing that, it opened up, and I think this is kind of the thing about the Bible that I've really fallen in love with these past, maybe this past year as we've been diving into theology and you've been helping me write some of my papers and think deeper about doctrine, is that when you make small realizations like that, it opens doors of new thought. Like, okay, it's almost like jazz or almost like art in a way that like, I just realized something.

Okay, now I understand that. Now there's worlds of conversation and worlds of thought and introspection to be had about this. Many more pathways have opened to me. Those small realizations open doors of, I think, reflection.

And to me that's very beautiful and it's inspiring and it's fun. Yeah. See, the idea of the Holy Spirit being intricately involved, not only in individual believers' lives, but also in a church's life, is something that I believe has been neglected. And people used to think that the book of Revelation or the apocalypse doesn't say much about the Holy Spirit, but now scholars have done their research and either directly or indirectly, the Holy Spirit is alluded to about 31 some times in the book of Revelation. That's incredible.

That's a lot. Yeah. And I feel like most people don't have a very good understanding of exactly who the Holy Spirit is. We have our interpretations and we have our ideas, but I feel like many times this member of the Godhead of the Trinity just is so misunderstood and even neglected.

Yeah. I see in my mind when I think people see God the Father as the Zeus figure with the white beard and the white robe on the throne, and then they see Jesus as the younger version of him that's still got the dark hair and the beard, and they're both humanoid in fit, but then the Holy Spirit is this mist or a dove or a fog, and he's this bodiless, almost as if he's not a person. He's like the force.

Or the energy force or something. No, he is a person just as much a person as God the Father and God the Son, albeit his role is different. So all three are persons, right?

Persons with emotions, with intellect, with will, with understanding, with emotions and all of that. Each of them are persons, but God the Father is God the Father. He is the one who sets the tone. He's the one who sets the direction.

He's the one in charge. The Son is submitted to the Father and he obeys the Father freely and immediately. And with a sense of humility, he obeys the Father completely. And then the Holy Spirit who is subjected both who subject to both the Father and the Son.

And he also does that freely and lovingly. And there's perfect agape love in the Trinity. And this is not something that the church created or Nicene Creed came up with or Chalcedon or Constantinople or Laodicea.

No, this is not coming out of some council. This is coming from the beginning of time. Just because it was not codified at some council in the Old Testament times does not mean that the idea of the Trinity wasn't there.

And we take this even further in our misunderstanding. I know we've said this on the show before, but we tend to think that the people in the Old Testament had no clue what the Trinity was, had no clue who the Holy Spirit was. All they knew was that there's this force called God and I obey him. Yeah. This is his oneness of God.

Yeah. But this was not just a oneness. I know the Shema, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and that's a hundred percent true. We do not worship three gods.

We do worship one God in three persons, which may be hard for some people to understand, but if you study the Old Testament, yes, you find the Trinity there. Of course, the word is not there in the Old or the New Testament, but the concept is there. Go to Genesis 1.1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Okay. We know this is one God. And then the earth was without form and void. Darkness was on the face of the deep and the Spirit of God, there is a second person or the third person of the Trinity, was hovering over the face of the deep. And God spoke, said, said, yes, let there be light. John 1.1 gives us insight on that speech God said, because he begins his gospel with, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

There is the second person of the Godhead. So all three are in the first two verses of the book of Genesis. And sometimes you have to take the mirror of the Old New Testament to understand the Old Testament. And I think that's one of the things that trips us up is that we love, and I don't know why this is, but we love to separate the Old and the New Testament as though the Old Testament is yesterday's news and we have something new and fresh and exciting and fun and that that's where we camp out. And the Old Testament, it may reveal some things about Jesus Christ, but it's no longer applicable for us.

I don't know why we love to separate. Well, I think, I think it's that wording, the Old Testament and the New Testament. That itself is a misnomer. We're just kind of conditioned to think, oh, old is outdated. It's been replaced. This is, this is the current.

I heard somebody, I can't, it might have been you, Dr. Shaw, who used the terminology, the First and Second Testament. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that may not be a bad way to say that. As someone said, the Old is in the New, the New is in the Old concealed and the Old is in the New revealed. I think that's a great statement that pretty much simplifies our problems. So the idea of the Trinity is not something that happened in the New Testament or in the early church.

This was something always there. In fact, think about the first Christians were not people out of Athens and, and, and Alexandria, Egypt. They were from, they were Jewish.

Of course I shouldn't say Alexandria because Alexandria had a lot of Jewish people, but they were not like from Memphis or somewhere. They were coming, they were born and bred Jewish people who knew their Bible. They knew their Tanakh. They knew their Torah and they believed readily in Jesus Christ. See, we don't pay attention to that. The first converts, many of them were actually Pharisees and scribes. I like that you point that out because it's easy to think that the, those Jewish Christians were like, they were just won over. Like they were like, okay, I think this makes sense.

I'm going to follow him. But in fact, it's a, it made perfect sense. Let me say this. I don't think they were all the, the, the multitude that was running around eating all the food up. Right. The Piggly Wiggly type. Right. Like the, the, the peasants, the hoi polloi. Yeah. The running around every time he, he made, he was sitting still at lunchtime.

They're like, uh huh. Are you going to do something? Are you going to make something? Show us another one. Show us another one.

Yeah. We tend to vilify the, the Philistines, the Philistines, the Pharisees. We probably should vilify the Philistines. The Philistines. We tend to vilify the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And I get that.

I get that. But those converts that did buy into Christ's message were educated. They understood exactly what he said. That's why he said it to them.

I believe the first converts, uh, the really bona fide ones who were sold out, willing to leave everything behind and follow him were probably the Pharisees. Not all of them, mind you. Right.

I'm talking about a certain number. Yeah. They came from that tribe, not that tribe, but that, that this group, because I don't want people to confuse that tribe as in the tribes of Israel.

They came from this group. But I think you're right. And I think that's another Testament to the Holy Spirit's working. I mean, if his, if his role in his ministry is truly to take the words of Christ deeper into our hearts and our lives, then he certainly would have done that with those Pharisees who knew the word, who understood it, but now the Holy Spirit is working and he's moving in there. They understood the concept of the Trinity.

I don't think it was that much of a problem for them. Yeah. So when it comes to the book of Revelation, also, we need to keep even mind that this concept of the Trinity being in the book of Revelation, especially the Holy Spirit is, is obvious, is there. In fact, the book of Revelation begins with talking about the Holy Spirit. In fact, if I want to read that for just a second, if that's all right with you guys, let's go to the book of Revelation chapter one. And it begins with the verse one, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants things which must shortly take place. And he sent and signified it by his angel to his servant John who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ to all things that he saw.

Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it for the time is near. Now, verse four, John to the seven churches, which are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before his throne. Now, if you remember a message in the opening, we talked about the seven spirits. What are the seven spirits? Those are seven attributes of the one Holy Spirit, right? There's not seven spirits floating around, different ones. And if you want me to explain that, you just kind of go back and listen to the older podcast.

We'll put it in the link because that is one that you really can't make. Cause if you read that, you're going to think there's seven like physical ghostly spirits floating around, but it's, it's not the case. Right. You have, you have to keep in mind the message that I preached earlier on, on that topic where we focused on, I think it was in heartsick that we talked about the seven spirits. And so that's where we have to go back to and remember and study that and it'll make more sense. But having said that, John is beginning his work by mentioning the Holy Spirit. Nice.

I love that. And I think understanding that spirit and even Jesus's tag at the end of it, let him who has an ear, let him hear, you know, we, we start doing this thing where we ask the Holy Spirit to speak to us so we can hear him, but we're either really listening with our ears or we're not listening with our hearts. You know, it's a, it's a thing that people take very seriously because they want to hear from the Holy Spirit, but we don't know how.

Yeah. We don't, we don't quite understand what that means. So the next few moments let's, let's dive into that. When do we begin hearing the voice of the spirit? So the Bible has a lot to say about that. I want to read a couple of verses here from one from first Corinthians 12, 13, which is for about one spirit. We were all baptized into one body with the Jews or Greeks where the slaves are free and have all been made to drink into one spirit. So at the moment of salvation, we are baptized into the Holy Spirit. We are immersed into the Holy Spirit. We are full of the Holy Spirit. Now keep in mind before you ask, wait a minute, are you telling me that that person over there who is saved and still messing with sin is just as much full of the Holy Spirit as I am over here or this person over there who is full of love and godliness in their lives?

Yes. To be full of the Holy Spirit, keep in mind, we're not talking about completely surrendered. That's up to you. The Holy Spirit you have is the same Holy Spirit that that Christian has who is still struggling with sin. How much you are submitted to the Holy Spirit is a different question. We don't have different varying levels of Holy Spirit in our life. Like if I'm entrenched in sin, you have more Holy Spirit than me.

And so I need to like boost my Holy Spirit counter in order to be a better person. Yeah. Right. That I mean, that would imply that God changes. That's right.

And he doesn't. Yeah. There's also another verse in Galatians four, six, and because you are sons, God has sent for the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying out Abba father. So whether you're an obedient son or not so obedient son or sinful son, you do have the same spirit in your heart crying out Abba father.

That's right. Romans eight, nine, but you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. Now, if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he's not his.

Right. So if you don't have the Holy Spirit, you don't belong to Jesus Christ. And if you don't belong to Jesus, Christ is impossible for you to have the spirit. So when do you start hearing the spirit? Well, that question really is do you hear the Holy Spirit externally or internally externally is the Holy Spirit talking to every person, every person since Adam and Eve, every person who's ever born hears the voice of the Holy Spirit and the voice is calling humanity back to God. The Holy Spirit is calling every single person since the beginning of time in every corner of the globe. And the, and the statement is very simple. Come to Jesus before the cross, it was come because he is coming for you since the cross, it is come to the cross.

The ground is level and he has already paid the price. But either way, before the cross or after the cross, the Holy Spirit always calls people and has been calling people, every single human being to come to Jesus Christ. I think one of the most difficult things about explaining a concept like this is using language that doesn't, that's difficult to get across those barriers. So what I mean by that is I think if an unsaved person were to say, okay, you expect me to hear the voice of the Spirit.

Okay. Clearly I know it's not going to be an audible voice. So it's, it's an emotion. It's a feeling, right? That's what you're asking me to do is have some sort of emotional reaction. And you're saying, no, it's not a feeling. It's not just your consciousness. There's an actual pull or a longing within the self. And I think it's difficult because like when I don't read my Bible, I don't feel it or I don't even want to say feel, but that's just, I guess the word that most closely resembles it, but I am not as in tune with the Spirit as, as, and so for, to explain to someone who doesn't read it at all, maybe saved, but has no relationship with God or even an unsaved person.

Yeah. It's, it's very difficult to explain a concept like that in a way that makes sense to them. But the internal voice of the Spirit is only for Christians. This is only for those who are believers and that voice will not tell you to get saved. That voice tells you that is not Christ-like.

That's right. That is not the Christ of scripture. This is not some ideal man Christ. No, this is Christ of the scriptures.

What was Christ like? And I'm just talking about just the gospels, but all the old and the new Testament, you are called to be conformed to the image of Christ. So the Holy Spirit will constantly tell you, you know, that impatience, that's not Christ. You know, that bitterness, that's not Christ. You know, that faithlessness, the doubting, that's not Christ-like. And so let me help you become like Christ. It's not like the Holy Spirit is telling you act like Christ. He's telling you, let me make you more like Christ. Wow. So amazing.

And that makes all the difference. We're going to pick up more on that discussion tomorrow, but if you have 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 on that same website. And shoulder to shoulder with us as we impact the nations for the gospel. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.