Wednesday, October 25th | What You Say is What You Become (pt. 1)

Hello, everyone. Today is Tuesday, October the 17th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm Jon Galantis. And you're listening 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 for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 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 Psalm 96. In verse 9, it says, O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, tremble before him all the earth. I love this tension that we read in this verse where we talk about worship and then we talk about trembling, because there's an amount of fear, a healthy fear in who God is that goes along with that worship. God is literally awesome. He's awe-inspiring. And there's a certain level of fear in that. Not that we're scared of him, but we are in awe of his power. It reminds me of a song I wrote once. It's like, Jesus, Jesus, you make the darkness tremble. Jesus, Jesus, you conquer fear.

We're actually getting a copyright claim right now. Really that quickly. Ooh, is that Hillsong?

I think so. Ellie's been listening to that song a lot. Speaking of things that Ellie's been doing a lot, she's been complaining and griping about her neck hurts. Chronic neck pain. So here's what I did. So let's back up. I hate going to the doctor.

I can't stand it. Most people, especially men, don't like going to the doctor. So I have just refused to go. And so then Ellie was like, I'll fix you. I'll just make an appointment for you and put you in the car and drive you there. So with the dentist, that was what she did, because I didn't want to go to the dentist. And then she did that with the eye doctor, because I didn't want to go to the eye doctor. And then my last physical, she was like, I'm just going to make the appointments, and then you're going to go. Now, here's the mental picture.

I'll let you continue in just a second. Here's the mental picture I have in my head. Ellie sneaks up behind you, bag over your head, and just shoves you into the back of the car.

And two wheels it out of the driveway. There's like a rope around my neck. It's like a fight for my life.

No, I just hate it. But she's like, I made the appointment. So now you're honor bound to go. And I'm like, well, I don't really want to. But then it's like, my sister works for the dentist, so I'll make her look bad if I don't go.

Or then, you know, it's a small town, like around here, people know who we are. So I kind of have to go. Anyway, fast forward to last weekend. She's complaining about her neck hurting. Can you please rub my neck? Can you rub my neck?

Can you please? I'm like, Ellie, your neck's been hurting for like a year. Like me rubbing it is not going to help. Will you please just stop talking and just like rub my neck?

It hurts. So I was like, I think I see a way out of this. I was like, you have to go to the chiropractor. And of course I knew she was like, I'm not going to a chiropractor. So I just made the appointment for her. I just called them up and I was like, I'd like to make an appointment for Ellie. And I can hear her from the other room and be like, I'm not going. And they're like, yeah, we'll just send you over the paperwork if she wants to fill it out. And I just, I printed it out at the house and I took it to her and I was like, fill that paperwork out.

She started filling it out and she just went and now she has to go four times a week. But she doesn't want to. But I'm so happy.

This is how it feels. Like I never knew that I could just turn it around on her. I thought it was like, I don't want to go to the eye doctor.

I don't want to go to the dentist, but she makes the appointment and makes me go. But I can do it too. And I feel great. And I think she's going to feel great cause she won't have neck problems anymore.

I think you might be right. I need to go back to the chiropractor myself. Have you been lately?

I went on Monday. How are you feeling? I feel great.

Yeah. I feel great. It's, I mean, it works for me. I know some people have different opinions about the chiropractor. I love it. I love going. It works for me. I will say I haven't been since 2021, but I went for a year before that and I never had neck pain again.

As I was going, like during the duration that I was going, my neck pain stopped completely. Yeah. Stopped.

Not even was better. It was just gone poof. Well, especially with the, with the world we live in now, all the screens that we work on next, I'll bend over and hunched over and everything. You gotta, you gotta have things put back in the right place. Fellas. If your wife doesn't want to do something, just make her just hold on. Hold on.

Let's not give that as a blanket statement. If your wife promise it worked, if your wife is not taking care of herself, you might have to strong arm her into taking care of herself. Yeah. Yeah. Just make her do it. But not like if she doesn't want to do something, just force her to do go behind her. No, go behind her back and pull the strings. So to where she's honor bound to kind of do it is what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying.

You know what I'm saying? Like, I feel like this is going to be turned into problematic advice. Manipulate, just manipulate the situation. You don't have to manipulate her. Just manipulate it to where she'll feel guilty. She's like, Oh, I can't do this to, you know, people that I know in the community.

It'll be good. I've actually, I've employed that sort of technique in a different medium. Women often, not every time, but often will be like, what do you think about this? And you know, you look great. It looks wonderful. I love the way that brings out your eyes. It looks great with your hair like that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

No, I don't know. Like just kind of negatively responding to the compliments. So I've, I've been like, are you really going to sit here and insult my judgment? Are you really going to sit here and tell me that I did a bad job in choosing a wife and finding someone that I don't find attractive? Are you, you really going to tell me that? How dare you?

That's offensive to me. And she's like, why didn't I didn't mean that. But do you see how you said that? And then, then we have a whole different argument and dude, I love that.

I get in trouble. And then that doesn't go well. So, Oh, I thought the point was it works. No, I said, I said, I've done it.

I didn't say it works. I see. I see. Hmm. We need to, this, this got, this got out of control quick.

Yep. Why don't we, why don't we move on? We're just gracefully transitioned out of this. Let us know, let us know how you guys work in your relationships. Especially where doctor appointment making is concerned.

Do you kind of just say, Hey, you're doing this because I need you to take care of yourself or do you sort of let the other person lead? Let us know and send us a text to five two five eight two five zero two eight. Visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. Stay tuned. Cause we're going to get Dr. Shaw and we'll be back after this. Hey there listeners.

I'm John Galantis and I'm Ellie Galantis. And we just want to take a quick second and talk to you about Dr. Shaw'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, 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. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at Clear View Today Show dot com. If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. That's right. Today's your first time 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. Abbadon 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 AbbadonShah.com. You can find his brand new book on iTunes, on Amazon right now. It might be on iTunes soon.

Can we recover the original text of the New Testament by Abbadon, Paul, Shah? Can you give your copy today? This is mine. You can't have this one, but you pick up your own. Dr. Shah, when you go to the doctor, when you make appointments, you go to the chiropractor, you go wherever, do you make those appointments or does Nicole make them for you or is it a little bit of both? It depends on what the appointment is. If it's something as simple as just getting my haircut appointment or something like that, I take care of it myself.

But if it's something more than that, I don't know what can be more than that. At one time, there were things that Nicole would do like doctor's appointments and insurance appointments, or, you know, we got to go buy the DMV and get this done. So I'm going to, I made you an appointment. It's on Tuesday morning at 10 o'clock.

You got to go there and take the test and do that. Yeah. She would do it. Have you ever weaponized making appointments?

Weaponized? So like, I don't like going to the eye doctor, but then Ellie was like, I'm just going to make the appointment. And then you're going to have to go, you have to go. But then I flipped the script on her and I made her a chiropractor appointment and then she went. And she actually saying it's working out better.

It's working out better for her, but she didn't want to go. So you use it as a weapon. I use it as a weapon because she... Oh, that's a whole different level. Mine was a defensive weapon because she weaponized the eye doctor. She weaponized the regular doctor.

She went to the dentist and she weaponized. There was one more. Uh, I can't remember what the other one was. Maybe the eye doctor twice.

I don't know. It was just stuck in your mind as eye doctor. Did you say dentist?

I said the dentist. Yeah. Yeah. She would, she would be like, I would be like, I don't have time. She's like, well, I'm just going to make it.

And you're going, I think it was also like insurance stuff too much. I'm sure that Elizabeth has made appointments for you. Most of the time she's making appointments for the kids, which is, that's a whole bunch to keep up with anyway. So that's kind of what she runs.

Yeah. There was a time where Nicole did make a lot more appointments for me than I did for myself. And that was when I was the only one working outside.

And so I was constantly gone. And you know, this is back in the day where you would count how many minutes you make phone calls and you know, the, the certain number of minutes you get. So it was easier for her to call from the house, house phone to make the appointment. But that's like going back a long time ago. I don't even remember having a phone, like having the phone in the house and like just pick it up off the wall.

Landline. Yeah. But I mean, you know, there, there's still people who are acting and, and using the phone as if we're still back there. Yes.

And it comes to when it, when they text. Yep. Yep.

That's true. All right guys, if you still try to text, like we used to text back in the day with numbers and short, like shorthand almost. Yeah.

They are interpreters as being your being passive aggressive. Don't do that. We don't like that no more.

We don't have a character limit, but I thought it's okay. That's what Boomer says. Like, I thought that was cool. It's like, not no more.

We don't like that. Not no more. What is it? Thank you.

It was what? T Y Y. Yep. You don't like that. No, it sounds like you're mad at me. Yes.

Yeah. I feel like you're upset with me. Like, are you really thinking me like, Oh, like someone says something like someone says a joke and they just respond.

L O L period. Like, okay. You're trying to fight or, or K Oh yeah.

You don't do K. That's the worst. If I've had a whole conversation with you, you're like, okay, this, see, we don't realize I would have preferred no response. We don't realize how completely and, and how we don't realize how impactful our words are. Like the words that we choose in a text message.

And it's funny because we did a couple of episodes on this either last week or the week before. And we actually got texts being like, I can't believe y'all talked about the power of words and didn't go to the book of James. And I was like, well, you know what, buddy boy, I got something for you today. And all of you, as you were texting and you use full words and complete sentence. I appreciate it.

Proud of you for that. Thank you for not using short hands, but someone, someone wants us to go into the book of James. I was like, well, your road to the right show chapter three, verses one through 12. And it says, my brethren, let not many of you become teachers of knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. Verse two, for we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man able also to bridle the whole body.

So yeah, that's a, and then it goes on and on about what the dangers are of the tongue and how it sets the whole world on fire and on and on. It's kind of funny because he says, let not many of you become teachers. And I wonder if people who are like so gung ho to dive into the ministry, like full force ever take. I know for a fact, I didn't, I didn't ever meditate on that verse or, or, you know, I wonder how that affects people's thinking before they go into the ministry or if it does at all. There's an aspect to ministry that is very appealing and glamorous. And that's the aspect of when somebody is up on the stage and they're, I mean, they are just have the right cadence and they are saying the right words and everything is just flowing and their actions are flawless and their eye contact is happening and, and they're reading the audience and all of that.

Just know the Holy Spirit has not been mentioned in this. So far, but people can. Yeah.

Get all of that and walk away thinking, man, what a life. I can do that. I would love to do that. I would love to be up there helping people. I want to help people.

Same. That's an admirable pursuit. Like you should be proud of me for wanting to pursue this. Like when you go into, when you go into like worship ministry specifically and you'd be watching like all these different like churches that put their services out and they've got like the crane shots, like sweeping across the stage and people are bumping and like the camera's right up underneath the choir and everybody's like, yeah. And it's like, oh man, I could do that.

I want to do that. I am the one. The only problem is the Holy Spirit is nowhere in that equation because the focus is on you. It's about self. And it may be that some fools will respond to that, but it's got nothing to do with God.

They're just impressed by you and they're responding to you. Some of the best messages that I preached are messages where I felt so cruddy, whether I was just sick or things were going on in my life or people were being mean or I was just struggling. And I preached a message thinking, I just want to get this over with.

I want to get this over with because I know this is the right thing to do. And I prayed and said, God, unless you help me, I cannot do this. And I went up there and did it. And I was so weak in so many ways. I was weak, maybe physically I was sick or mentally that I was a little, you know, out of my head or emotionally I was up and down, maybe angry, frustrated, feeling sorry for myself or spiritually confused because things are not where I want them to be. And I'm not sure why God is not answering my prayers. All this is happening. And I'm weak.

I'm weak. But I walked away feeling the power of God take over. And that's when I know this is what true preaching is about. It's not like every message you need to feel cruddy. What it does mean is that every message you should be aware of the presence of God. You should be aware of the person of Jesus Christ. You should be aware that there's some lost soul sitting there. And this may be the final word of warning or direction that would change the eternal destiny from hell to heaven. Something else is happening rather than you getting up there and just knocking it out of the par.

I have people say that, man, you knocked that one out of the par. Like, oh, that's not what I wanted to do. That's not, that's not, and I appreciate you saying that so much, Dr. Shaw, because there are times in your messages where you will, you'll have those moments where you say, this may be the last word of warning that you get. You may not live to see the end of this year, you may not live to see tomorrow.

I mean, who knows what would happen? Heaven forbid you go home and you know, a drunk driver runs a red light and that's the end of your life right there. This is that last moment that you have. And just to, just to hear that gravity in your words and to hear the weight behind what you're saying is just, it really does communicate the weight of what you're doing. Well, I think it's kind of what even what James said and I'm sure that's going through your mind as well as your preaching is that you're going to receive a stricter judgment.

You're held to a higher standard. And I'm aware of that. There are times when I begin to roll and there's that little ugly, evil, Adamic, sinful nature inside of me, which is inside of all of us. It should be dead, right? Because you have to reckon it to be dead. It is dead, but it's not like sort of the ghost comes back and it says, man, I am really good at this moment.

I'm really doing it. And I can sense it when that happens. And I feel a sense of, I can feel the finger of the Holy Spirit on my back or on my shoulder saying, you need to stop that.

That's your, you're running this engine here now. And I back off. People, people, I certainly have noticed that about you over the years, but, but people who are new to your preaching may not, and they may wonder why that is. If you ever watched Dr. Shaw's preaching for an extended period of time, there is that level of emotional buildup, but it never, ever goes where you expect it to go, which is to that, like you said, to that next level, you know, it never reaches it.

There's always that sort of, that sort of fall off. And for some people, what they're looking for is that, you know, they're disappointed because they're looking for that. They want that big hype train, but that's not what the Holy Spirit's calling you to do.

No, no, no. If that big hype train is a spirit-filled appeal for people to see the person of Jesus Christ and hear the truth coming from the word of God, oh yes, let me go over. But if it's just because I am really in the moment right now, there's a stricter judgment coming. So God warns the people, he said, any of you want to be teachers, just know that you're going to have to answer for it one day. Everybody will have to answer, but preachers, teachers will have to answer in a big way. How do we reconcile that for those who aren't teachers, who are just everyday Christians, who are still like, you know, I feel like the words I choose a lot of times, I'm not happy with how I talk or how I speak or how I interact with people? Even for those people, I would say every loose word, you'll have to answer to God for that. The end of the Bible talks about that, where every word that be used will have to give an account. So whether you're talking to your wife, your children, your parents, your neighbors, your coworkers, that man in the queue in front of you or the traffic light, just know that for every word that we speak, we will have to give an account as well. Now pastors, teachers will have to give a stricter account, but all of us will have to give an account. But something else that James does here, we're talking about the importance of words.

He says in verse two, for we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man. You can also make it feminine.

She's a perfect woman, able also to bridle the whole body. Now there are two ways to see the statement. The first way is this. If you can control your mouth, which is so unruly and uncontrollable, you can definitely control the less unruly members of your body. So think about it this way, which is easier to do, lie or murder? It's easier to lie. Easier to lie because murder involves, you got to get a weapon, you got to find a means, a time, a vulnerability, all that kind of stuff. So easy to lie. I'm making makeup stuff and move on like nothing happened.

But if I can keep myself from lying, there's a good chance that I will also keep myself from murdering somebody because you've already exhibited that control over something that's way more uncontrollable. Right. Right.

I've already exercised the first gate. Yeah. That's a good point.

That makes sense. If you're a liar, you are one step closer to being a murderer. People don't want to think about that. People think slippery slope. Yeah. People think little white lies, things like just, it's just part of being human.

Murderers, there's something wrong with them, but being a liar, that just makes me human. It's like several gates to get to the murderer by lying, you've already opened the first gate to the first one. Yeah. Just don't even go in the first one. Yeah. How many gates are appropriate before it's a problem?

How close can I get before it's really not okay? That's a good way to think about sin. I never thought about that because there's definitely sins we excuse, but if each sin is a pathway to that next, that ultimate sin, let's say murder is the ultimate sin. I don't, I'm not saying that, but I say, let's say it is like why, how many gates before I'm like, okay, this is kind of a prize. Yeah. Just walk away from the first gate. Yeah.

Walk the opposite direction. That's true. But the second way you can understand the statement is that your mouth controls your body. Now that may sound strange, but think about it. Things don't just happen. There's always a progression.

We might conceive an action in our minds, but the thought is first expressed in words. That's true. Like you ever talked to people who are like joking around about something, but you can tell like they really want it, but they don't know how to ask for it. So they're just kind of joking and getting at it. Yeah.

Like nobody ever jokes or says stuff like that. That doesn't have some kernel of like, I actually want truth. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. There's a root of truth or a kernel of truth there in there somewhere. So words are the first building blocks to actions. So things move from our minds to our words, to our actions. That's a good way to think about it.

So if you control the, the Genesis, if you control where that's originating from, then you're going to control where it's expressed. Yeah. Yeah. It might be a good, that might be a good way cause some people are, and I know we've talked about this. Some people would say, well I can't control what I think.

It's like, well you can, but in the meantime while you're working on that and while you're praying for God to do that, at least work on controlling what you say. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So James goes on and gives two illustrations to explain what we just talked about. Okay. The first one is a horse and his bridle.

He says in verse three, this is James three, three, indeed. We put bits in horses mouths that they may obey us and we turn their whole body. So think about it. A horse can weigh on an average about a thousand pounds, right?

A ton. But a hundred pound girl can control the horse because she has the reins, which controlled the bit in the horse's mouth. There's a video, I actually have a video of some of the, some, some girls that go to our church here who's like nine years old and they've got my two year old up on the horse. I mean, it's like a pony, but still he's sitting there and they're showing him, they're like, they're like, do this, do this with your leg. And he's doing it. And the horse is going, and I'm like that little two year old is controlling the horse.

That's insane. And the second illustration is of a ship and his rudder. He says in verse four, this is James three, four, look also as ships, although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. So here's a statement that I heard years ago and it's so true. If you don't like where you are headed, change the way you talk. Wow. That's powerful.

Right? We like to, we like to blame everything but ourselves for our circumstances in life. And even when we do blame ourselves, it's not in an adoption of responsibility. It's more just like, I stink. I'm the worst. I'm a loser. I'm the worst. I'm dumb. I'm the worst person. I'm a loser.

I might just be the dumbest moron to ever lose. So it's interesting that you bring that up, Jon. And Dr. Shaw, you and I have talked about this before, but this is something that I have struggled with in the past. And you know, it kind of creeps up here and there, but just kind of this self deprecating, self denigrating talk. This very negative self focus. And you tell yourself it's humble.

Yeah. It's humility, which is such a deception. It's so sneaky because it feels like you can trick yourself into believing that you're humble because you think less of yourself, but you're still thinking about yourself. It's still self centered. It's still prideful.

It's just in the negative. And I want now I want someone else to focus on making me feel good. Like you're over here. You're trying to like, like build this church.

You're trying to like lead us. You're trying to write your sermon. You're trying to do all this stuff, but now you need to take time out of your life to make me feel good because I goofed up. That's your responsibility now.

That's on you now. I'm, I'm humble. You need to make, you need to raise me up. Take care of me. Raise me up.

Hugh Josh Groban. So someone said it this way. Many of us are speaking our world into existence and I'm sure you've heard that. That's true. That's become so commonplace. I don't even want to say it, but there's, there's a truth in that statement coming from the book of James.

Yeah. So sometimes it's not our own words. We're living up to the words of someone else in our lives. So there are people who have said things to us about who we are, where we'll end up or how we're not good. And we're living up to that.

So you have to be careful about that as well. And so as a pastor, I can predict with high level of accuracy, which way you're headed by the words you use. If you use pitiful words, you're headed towards depression, angry words headed towards violence.

Boastful, prideful words, you're headed towards a fall. Oof, golly. Yeah. Yeah.

Adulterous, flirtatious words, you're headed towards an affair. And David said in Psalm 34 verse 12, who is the man who desires life and loves many days that he may see good? I mean, here's my question to you guys. Do you want to see life? You want to see good days? Yes. Verse 13, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. That's immediately after. The immediate follow up is like, do you want to have a good life?

Do you want to see good days? Then control your tongue. Yep.

And it's not pop psychology. This is God's word. And something else James tells us here very quickly is that our words can cause a chain reaction. Verse five, even so the tongue is a little member and it boasts great things. Verse five, see how great a forest a little fire kindles. Ooh, that's true.

Yeah. Especially we live on the East coast, but I've seen my dad actually had to go over to the West coast for his work to deal with the fallout for some of those fires. And he told me, he's like, you wouldn't believe the amount of land that can get just one spark and you wouldn't believe how many hundreds and hundreds of thousands of acres. There's a reason we have the phrase spread like wildfire. And this tongue is a fire, a world of inequity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and it sets on fire, the course of nature, and it is set on fire by hell.

Bro, this dude is not playing around. Gosh. Yeah. Your tongue is really destructive.

Yeah. And not only that, but it's also a deadly fire. Verse seven for every kind of beast and bird of reptile and creature of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no man can tame the tongue. It means we can get lions to get in a ring and jump through hoops of fire.

We can get whales and dolphins to come out and play with volley balls and little beach balls. How can you tame your tongue? Yeah, we can't tame this one little thing. Yeah. So good. I want to continue this conversation.

I know there's much more to dig into. And James, maybe we can hit this in tomorrow's episode. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, if it was helpful for you learning about how you can control your tongue and thus control the rest of your body, control the rest of your life, text in and let us know what your thoughts are.

2-5-2-5-8-2-5-0-2-8. Or you can visit us online at clearevutodayshow.com. You can partner with us financially on that same website. Be a part of what God is doing here through the Clear View Today show and help us reach the nations with the gospel. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear View Today.