Tuesday, September 12th | Domain Sermon Recap

Well, today is Tuesday, September the 12th. I'm John Galantis.

And I'm Elly Galantis. And you're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abidan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or if you have a question for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in, suggest that we talk about here on the show, send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. You guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the podcast. You can share it online, leave us a good review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasting content from.

We're going to leave a link in the description so you can do just that. Elly, you want to read today's verse of the day? Sure. 2 Corinthians 10, 3 through 5. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Something that the church in Corinth really struggled with was this warring in the flesh, so to speak. Corinth was, and Dr. Shah has said this many times, but Corinth was a crossroads of people who had all pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. They were full of pride. I wish I remember what he was telling me, but it was because it was a Roman colony that Julius Caesar kind of rebuilt, and he filled it with all these slaves and all of these captured people and these indentured servants and all this stuff.

Once they had built themselves up to be the people they were, they were so full of pride. Paul's writing to them to say, listen, you may be flesh and blood, but that's not our weapon. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Ultimately, we have to take it to God and pray to him and ask him to help us get through those times. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what he says, that our weapons of warfare aren't carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds and casting down arguments.

Something the Christians love to do is just argue, just for argument's sake. How are you? It's good to see you in here.

You're usually not on this side of the camera. You know, for anybody wondering, usually this is Ryan and Dr. Shah are kind of bantering with me here, but they're both in Greece. And David as well. David as well. Nicholas. And Nicole as well. Nicholas, yeah, our camera guy.

We are a skeleton crew today. We got Adam in the back. Thank you, Adam. Make sure to capture my good side.

Every side of Ellie's is pretty good, but you guys can kind of see that on camera. It was kind of funny because Saturday evening we were sitting in the sanctuary after service, and they already knew they were going to Greece. And some spots opened up and we were kind of joking around like, haha, I'll go. For those who aren't clear, David originally was not going to Greece. He was going to be here with us. We were going to do some sermon recaps, just like we did when Dr. Shah was in India. David was supposed to be in this seat.

Correct. David was supposed to be in this seat. But then we were all joking around, I'll go to Greece, I'll go to Greece. And David was like, yo, I'll straight up go to Greece. And they were like, David, the plane leaves in like 16 hours. He's like, I'll go home and pack tonight. I'll go wash my clothes right now. I'll get my passport from my mama right now.

I'll stow away on my plane if it's what it takes. And that's what he did. He went, he bought the airline tickets right then and there, went home, packed, got his passport, was on the plane to Greece within 16 hours of deciding to go. I said, golly, to be young and single where I could do that. I'm stressed out.

Normal packing, like I've prepared for months, let alone trying to do it like the night of, decide I'm going to Greece and go home and pack. Dr. Shah is filming with David and Nicholas and Ryan and all the staff, they're filming a short, small documentary on the apostle Paul and his second missionary journey. So that's where they are. But this is where we are.

And we are going to be going over some of Dr. Shah's sermons just like we did last time when he was in India. But Ellie, you've been the subject of many jokes and roasts over the course of Clearview today. And never once have you had the chance to actually defend yourself. No.

Is there anything that was said that you, you now have the spotlight if you, if you want to say anything to kind of clear your name, step forward now. Believe it or not, there's been so many, I've actually forgotten them. Most of them. Ain't it funny how life works?

Ain't it funny how that works? There's so many I can't even remember. Do you have any? But there's one in particular that sticks out in my mind that I do remember offhand. And that's the complaint about me making food late at night. So that one actually never made it to air.

Wow. Because of how much you complain, how much you, how much grief I caught over that episode. We actually pulled it and we never aired it. No, y'all felt bad in post because y'all, because Elizabeth got onto you. It wasn't Elizabeth. No, it wasn't Elizabeth. It was, it was you saying that, that you didn't, you thought it was an unfair, I, we maybe can talk about it on tomorrow's show, but my complaint against Ellie was she would, we would come home and we would make food really, really late at night, like 10, 11 o'clock at night.

And I was like, golly, we should be eating food. We should be eating dinner earlier, but we actually never aired that episode. We pulled it completely. Anyways, my argument was going to be, we don't usually get home till 930, 10 o'clock at night. That's not true. That's not true. Yeah, that's true.

That's not true. We don't get home till 930, 10 o'clock at night. Then we usually, we try to get the baby something, get them in bed. But then that leaves me to fix me something and I don't get myself time to sit down and be still until after everybody else is in bed and asleep. So my, my gripe wasn't that we ate late. My gripe, ultimately the root of it is you do everything slowly. Everything you do is slow. That's because I'm picking up after you and doing it.

No, no. Cause you were, you were slow before even we had kids or we got, we got again, I had you know, you've always kind of done stuff slowly. I've had you as long as you've known me.

What does that mean? Like I've had to pick up and take care of you as long as you've known before we were married. Yeah.

Well you're dating. Yes. I don't think so. Yeah. Yes.

I don't think so. Well I don't want your, your, your mother had a lot more brunt of it, but I don't know if I want to hear this. I'm sorry. Well listen, we're going to take a quick break. We are going to come back to start the show in just a moment. If you guys have any questions, any suggestions for new topics, any advice or, or marriage counseling advice that you could give me, make sure you text us two five two five eight two five zero two eight or visit us online at clear view today show.com.

We'll be right back after this. Hey everyone, my name is Ellie and I'm David. We want to take a minute and let you know how we can actually serve you as you're listening to Clearview today. The Bible paints an extraordinary picture of who we are as a church body. The mission of Clearview church is to lead all people into a life changing, ever-growing relationship with Jesus Christ. A huge part of leading people is praying for them. A big reason that Christians have unanswered prayers in their life is because they're not praying.

You know, first John five 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 Clearview 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 Clearview and share your prayer requests, but the best way is by texting us at two five two five eight two five zero two eight. You can also send us an email at prayer at Clearview B C dot O R G. Or you can download the Clearview 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. Welcome back to Clearview today, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can find this online at Clearview today show.com or if you have a question for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in, suggest we talk about, send us a text at two five two five eight two five zero two eight, or you can email us at contact at Clearview today show.com. Ellie, it's my genuine pleasure to have you here at the table in the studio. Yeah, good to see. Good to be here too.

I'm glad that you're here and I'm glad that we're able to do this. For anybody listening out there who's joining us for the very first time or joining us just for the first time in a little while, Dr. Shah is not here. Nope. He's gone. And Ryan is not here. That's why I'm in his seat.

He's gone. How does it feel? It's good. Is it warm?

Does he keep it warm? Huh? I don't know. I mean, it's been vacant for a little bit. So Dr. Shah, Ryan, David, Nicholas and Thomas, Nicole, Elizabeth, pretty much the entire Clearview staff is right now overseas in the land in the nation of Greece.

They are following Paul. Land of your people. The land of my people.

Yeah, I'm Greek. I couldn't go because of little kids and a wife saying that I couldn't. He couldn't go without me.

He did that for Israel. He didn't get to go without me. Yeah, 2019 I went to Israel and Ellie didn't go. And then in 2020, Ellie went and then we had kids.

And so this year, two vacant seats actually opened up on the... He begged and he pleaded. I begged and I pleaded and I shrieked and I screamed and I cried and I threatened to hurl myself from the very roof of this building. And Ellie said, you are not going to Greece without me. And I was like, so I could go if the other vacancy was yours. She was like, yes, but it's not happening because we have small boys.

Yeah, because realistically one of those is attached to me right now. So David was like, I'll go. And he went and they're actually filming a documentary film on the nature, not on the nature, on the missionary journey of Paul throughout the land of Greece, starting in Neapolis and then going all the way up to Corinth.

And then by the time he leaves Corinth, it's still technically the second missionary journey, but he goes on to Ephesus and I think Dr. Shaw is actually going to talk about that in tomorrow's episode. All that to say, Ellie and I are holding down the fort with Clearview today. We got Adam in the back too. We got Adam in the back running the camera because our sound engineer David and our camera operator and switcher Nicholas are both in Greece right now because they are hard at work filming this documentary. Thanks Adam. Yes, thanks Adam. Thank you to Nicholas and David for doing what they do, to Dr. Shaw for making all this possible. It's such an opportunity that God has given to us that we wanted to grasp it and make it all that it was worth. And I just want to thank him too for just allowing me to sit in, to fill the chair.

Absolutely. Well, it's a big chair to fill, but I know you're going to do a good job. And actually that kind of brings us to what we're doing. When Dr. Shaw was in India doing his mother's funeral, what Ryan and I did was we picked a couple of sermons that meant a lot to us that he had preached over the years. And we listened to clips of those sermons and we kind of commented on them. So knowing that we were going to have a week or two stretched where he would be in Greece, I actually asked Ellie, I said, what are some sermons that have meant a lot to you? And so she picked four.

We may do a couple more just depending on their travel schedule, but for this week at least we have four sermons that really meant a lot to you specifically. And this first one that you picked is Domaine, which he preached in 2022. Yeah. Yeah.

It talks about a lot with the spiritual warfare and how to go about that and be wise during that. So I felt like specifically where we are currently, it was a good one to revisit. Absolutely. Because it seems like we've been dealing with that a lot yet again. We're going to continue to deal with it. Yeah. Yeah.

Any church that's growing and that's a comfort to you guys if you feel like you're going through spiritual warfare, it could be that God is lining up something very big for you. So why don't we, why don't we jump right in? This morning, it is great to cross boundaries, but when it comes to the boundaries that God has said, just because you can, doesn't mean you should. You know, in the world in which we live, because you can, I'm going to do it and it must be right. It's not.

Never will be. But now here comes the fourth question. The question is, are there any objections to this idea of fallen angels having relations with human women? Well, there are. Some people have said, listen, Jesus himself said very expressly in Matthew 22, verse 30, for in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.

So people have said, there you go. You know, angels don't marry. So there's this passage must be about something else. Don't forget when Jesus is saying those words, he's referring to the good angels in heaven, not the evil ones who crossed over. By the way, if you read the Old Testament many, many times, the evil of the good angels even came. Like to see Abraham and Sarah, reincarnate Jesus and two men with him. And they ate the food that Abraham prepared, which means what?

They had to have mouths and teeth and digestive system to eat. You know, there's so much we don't understand. And then those same two men went into Sodom and Gomorrah and they were so real that the men of Sodom were trying to have relations with them. So the idea of the spirit world and human world, never the twain shall meet, not true. They were not supposed to.

And they crossed the line. Some other people have pointed out that, you know, this whole section about Enoch and the angels and Tartarus and all this stuff actually comes from 1 Enoch. And that's true. 2 Peter and Jude have actually quoted from a pseudepigraphal book known as 1 Enoch. And pseudepigraphal means it's not in the Bible. It was an important book for the Jewish people. It is not in the Bible.

How do we deal with that? Well, it was true enough, that account was true enough for God to tell Peter and Jude to include it in the Bible. You know, there are a lot of true things that have happened in the history of the world that were not included in the Bible because that was not the purpose. 1 Enoch is a good book to read, but it's not a canonical book.

There's just that one incident and certain things about it are included in the Bible. I know the curious type here. You already are Googling 1 Enoch download. I get it. It always happens.

It's like if I say don't do it, somebody somewhere is like, I'm finding it. I'm reading it. Man, it's about giants and stuff and watchers. Oh, this is fun. Here's my suggestion to you. Be careful about your curiosity. I'm not against extra canonical books like Enoch and Maccabees and all those things. Here's what I found. I may offend somebody.

Just kind of brace yourself. Typically, typically the people who ask me about extra canonical books, the outside, the 66 are usually people who don't read the 66 like they're supposed to. I've been academically studying the Bible for 30 years. I have a Ph.D. and all this.

Nothing to brag about. I have barely scratched the surface, okay, of these 66 books. So my suggestion to you is of course you can read Enoch and there's a lot of wonderful, interesting stuff in there, but just keep in mind, make sure you're grounded in this book first.

The 39 in the old and the 27 in the new and then maybe venture out somewhere else because if you're not grounded here, you'll get into a lot of mess. So Enoch, first Enoch, not worthy to be canonical, but it had this accurate account of these fallen angels having relations with human women and then they were punished and the flood came and it was very similar to what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah. But here's the bigger question. Why did the fallen angels do this? It goes back to the curse in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15. You know, when Adam and Eve sinned, God came and he pronounced a judgment on the serpent, on Eve and on Adam. But listen to the judgment upon the serpent.

It is known as the proto-evangelium. Genesis 3 15, he said, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. This is what God said to Satan. That through the seed of the woman, somebody is coming who is going to crush your head, but the whole time you're going to try to strike at his heel.

Now we know post-cross that this is Jesus. Jesus was going to be the seed of the woman who's going to die on the cross for our sins and Satan thought he had victory, but he didn't realize that his head was crushed. You know, when Satan heard that promise, it was not a promise for him. He knew that somebody was coming through the woman. Those fallen angels coming into the human realm were trying to corrupt the seed.

Did you all get that? They were trying to corrupt the seed. They were trying to sabotage the gospel. If only these select angels can enter into the human realm and procreate with enough human women. By the way, they didn't come after men. Did you notice that? Ladies, they came after your kind. Why? Because it's not the seed of the man, it's the seed of the woman.

I tell you all the time, you are under far severe attack than we are every moment. And they tried to corrupt the seed so the gospel would be sabotaged. How terrible is that?

How diabolical, pun intended. How seriously did God take this? Listen to verse three.

This is Genesis chapter six. And the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive with man forever. It means I'm not going to take this anymore for he is indeed flesh. Yet his days shall be 120 years. Some people think that means that now instead of being 900, they're going to be 120.

No, no, no, no, no. What it does mean is that clock is ticking. When God said those words, they had now 120 years before he would destroy the entire planet. What did these fallen angels do that was so terrible?

Listen to this. In verse four, there were giants. The word is Nephilim.

Some people say fallen, but really it is Nephilim. It is giant. In fact, the Greek translation of the Old Testament came to that passage and said gigantes, like gigantic. They knew what they were talking about. And we need to kind of abandon the idea of giants as these big men walking around with a tunic and a club.

Okay. They were big, but they were big and powerful. They were very smart, very capable, a very super society. Did they do anything else? Of course they did. Everything that we're talking about today about bioengineering, genetic engineering, altering the DNA in the mother's womb, all this stuff, nothing new under the sun.

They were doing that. Hey, listen, just because we can doesn't mean we should. Just because scientifically, technologically we can alter all these things doesn't mean we should. So nothing new under the sun. This super powerful race was now trying to alter everything. Listen, I don't have information from the Bible, but just the way I can read between the lines, God said, I'm going to destroy everything. What is everything? Not just human beings, but also animals, which means this, they were also altering some of that.

Listen to what it says here. There were giants on the earth in those days. And also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them, those were the mighty men, Geborim, the mighty ones who were of old men of renown means they were doing things that we will never have the technology to do. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. When Adam and Eve sinned, original sin came in, means now there was a corruption. Jesus is coming, the seed of the woman who's going to die for our sins and set us free.

But when these fallen angels infiltrated the human realm, they took sin to a whole new level. Because prior to that, even though Cain killed Abel, when God said Cain, you're going to be on the run, what was Cain's response? Please, please don't send me away from your presence.

I can't live without you, God. In the line of Seth, in the line of Cain, there were godly people like Enoch who walked with God. So there was still godliness there. But when these fallen angels entered the human realm, they just turned up the volume to a whole new level of evil. So what did God say? Listen, this is one of the saddest verses in the Bible.

Verse six, this is Genesis 6, six. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart. You know, it grieves my heart when I see people being wicked.

In our world today, there are a lot of wickedness happening, a lot of lying, hating, evil, lust. God was brokenhearted. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth. He was grieved in his heart. So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.

Why? Because now they are corrupted. Verse eight, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Isn't that amazing? Noah, there was one family, one individual who had not been corrupted through this fallenness. How amazing.

But now I can go on and on and we'll talk about Noah in the weeks ahead. What is our response? This is the big question. We say, wow, this is very intriguing. This is very interesting. Wow.

You really got me thinking. I'm going to go home and research. We'll just kind of slow down a little bit. Don't miss this section. What should be our response to this account? Number one, we need to acknowledge the reality of spiritual warfare. Ephesians chapter six, verse 12. Paul says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. That is the battle.

Husbands, wives, when that conflict begins in your home, just know that in the shadows, Satan is laughing. When kids begin to do things, you say, this is the boundary. Don't cross. And they cross over.

Don't think that just kids will be kids. No, the spiritual warfare is already happening. All the craziness in our world, this happening, why is it happening?

Where is it coming from? Ultimately, the source is spiritual warfare. And by the way, Satan and his demons even come to church.

They get here before David does, okay? What I'm saying here to you is demonic warfare is probably the worst when it comes to church time. That's why when you come to church, take this very seriously. The sower went out to sow and he threw some seed and it fell on the wayside. And because it didn't have any root, the birds came and snatched them away.

The birds are the evil one. Satan is constantly working in church. So being here is great, but unless you're taking in the word of God, unless you're submitted to the Holy Spirit, listen, Satan is taking it away, taking it away, taking it away. And now your trajectory instead of following God and having his best on your life, you're going down the path of Sodom and Gomorrah and the fallen angels. It's tough.

Extremely tough. But I think that's what he just said at the end of that clip is the best advice that you can give somebody is you have to be alert. There is nonstop spiritual warfare going around you at all times. And I think the biggest reminder for me that God has been reminding me is that we as Christians are not called to fight.

We're not called to fight those evil powers. What we're to do, our role in spiritual warfare is literally to hide behind Christ and hide behind his word because he that's in us is greater than he who's in the world. But we are hiding behind Christ's victory. It's his victory. It's his reward. It's his battle. It's his battle. That's why we sing that song when I fight, I fight on my knees with my hands lifted high because the battle belongs to him. It's not my battle. It's not my victory. It's not my glory.

It's all his. And so when we talk about these things, just like Dr. Shaw said when that clip ended, it's so that you are alert. Not so that we're rallying the cry for the Christians everywhere to go and fight the good fight.

Don't be blind with your head in the sand. Right, exactly. But be aware that you're not called to fight that.

God is. That's right. That's right. And I think also just to remember the purpose that these angelic beings had, like even in the Old Testament, it said that they were coming down to take, they were trying to sabotage the gospel.

The seat of the woman. Right. Yeah.

They were trying to make it so that Jesus didn't come. And we know from Man of Promise too, if you were in that series that Pashaw was saying that every woman in that was supposed to be raising their son as if they would be the Messiah. That's right.

That's exactly right. So with that, they were trying to corrupt as many as they could. And I think that's something that we tend to, because we're used to human conflict and in human conflict, it's that I desire something and I don't care if you get hurt in the process. These beings' purpose is, I'm going to hurt you. Pashaw is talking about women are even under more severe attack every moment because of them coming for the seat of the woman. But with that, women and men really be plugged into God's word, be reliant on the Holy Spirit and on God, on Jesus.

Use them as your shield, not yourself. Yeah. And I'm going to really, really encourage, I'm going to do this with all the sermons we're going to talk about this week, but I'm going to really encourage you guys to go and listen to this entire service. We're going to put a link in the description.

If you guys enjoyed this topic and you want to hear more, make sure to send us a text at 252-582-5028. Or you can always visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. You can support us financially on that same website.

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