Wednesday, November 15th | Oswald Chambers

Hello, everyone. Today is Friday, October the 20th. I'm Ryan Hill.

John Galantis. And you're listening to Clearview Today with After Abaddon Shaw, 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. Shaw 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 of this podcast so you can do just that. The verse of the day today comes from 2 Peter, chapter 1, verse 3, as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue. You are called by glory and virtue. It means when God calls you, you know you are being called by someone who is vastly above you. You are being called by the maker of the universe, the ruler of everything. And so that divine power has given you things that pertain to life and godliness.

There's nothing in him that is corruptible. It says there's no shadow of turning with him. And just, man, just to recognize who God is. Like you said, I think you said this yesterday, that's why we respond with worship. It's because of who he is and because of that glory and that goodness.

Yeah. A lot of times people get stuck on things like the Bible doesn't talk about this or the Bible doesn't say this, but I love the first part of that verse. It says his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. So while that specific issue or struggle or whatever might not be mentioned in the pages of scripture, the principles to help you through it are. The principles to help you live a godly life are, and that can apply in any and every situation.

That's right. Speaking of situations, I'm in a situation right now. I had a, not an argument, but my wife revealed something to me that I think TikTok revealed to her. And the more I've thought about it, the more I think it's true. She told me, I should have called her and had her say this on the phone, but she told me that if a woman sends a man, especially her man, a text message with a series of questions, that man will pick his favorite one and answer that one.

And I think a lot of women listening to the show are like, yes, girl, slay queen. I asked Melissa, who's our secretary, I said, is that true? And before I even got out, she was like, they'll pick, they'll just answer one? Yeah. Yeah, they do that.

I said, oh my gosh, this must be a far rooted, like a deep rooted problem. So, so honestly speaking, do you do that? I don't mean to do it, but yes.

So like, here's what I mean. Ellie will send me a text message this about the length of a Stephen King novel, right? And it'll be like, Hey, um, we're, are we leaving for the party at five 30 or we supposed to leave at six 30? Like, do we need to actually be there at six 30? Because I don't know what I'm going to bring.

Are we supposed to bring drinks or chips or should we just bring like a charcuterie board or should we stop at Walmart and get some vegetables? Also, do you know what car we're driving? Uh, I don't know if we should take the fusion or if we should take the Honda pilot. Did you get gas this morning? Like I asked you to get also, did you drop off all the stuff for Gavin so that he can stay with your mom and I'll be like, the pilot has plenty of gas. And that's my answer to her. I don't know why that moment her head just explodes.

She'll be like, babe, what about all the other questions? I literally asked you seven other questions. Yeah. I don't know why I do that, but it's, but it is true, but it's not out of malice or trying to be annoying. I just, I don't know.

I don't have an explanation for it. Do you do that, David? Like if, if like when, when someone sends you multiple texts, do you just, or multiple questions, do you just pick your favorite one? Yeah, it depends. Um, if it's something that's like kind of not really important and it's just a bunch of questions, then I'll, I'll either pick my favorite one or just answer the last one or just ignore it. Um, if it's something, if it is important, like it's somebody that I know is like asking me all these questions cause it's important, like work related or something in that vein, I'll just try to call.

Yeah. Just be like, be like, uh, yeah, let me answer these questions. I asked him first because I know that you're actually pretty good about texting back at the risk of sounding contrary.

And I was going to say, I don't do this. Um, I will either, it depends on how many questions there are. Cause sometimes Elizabeth will text me and there's like a series of questions in there. Um, I will either like number my responses like question number one is here's my answer.

Question number two, here's my answer. Or I'll just, I'll just call be like, Hey, too much to text. Can I call you? Yeah. See, I, I've, I've noticed that about you and I actually like that where you number the text out. I tried doing that and I think Ellie said it was, it seemed passive aggressive and she didn't like it.

So I was like, all right, well I'm not going to send back a novel. I guess it could seem passive aggressive. I like that. No, I like it when I list out a bunch of questions, but I don't number them. And then you, and then you specifically, and I've had other people be like, one, here's the answer to this one. Here's the answer to this one. I'm like, okay, that was efficient.

I like that. Ellie didn't really like it much, but she definitely doesn't like to just pick, pick an answer. She, she even pointed out, she was like that I asked that in the middle. So you read like through it and you still only answered one. Like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why I did that. I don't know why I did that.

I don't know why I did that, but I did that. I wonder, I wonder if Dr. Shaw's that way where he, 100%. Really? You think so? Yeah.

I think, I think most men are. Do you do it Nicholas? Just give me a, just give me a head nod. Yeah, you do it.

Yeah, I thought so. I don't know. Let us know, especially guys, if you're listening to the show, let us know if this happens to you. If you get a text message, especially from the, you know, your wife or the lady in your life. If you pick one question and tell them, tell us why you do it. Cause I really, I'm, I'm struggling to, I'm struggling to put a reason to it.

There's gotta be some psychological reason to do that. I don't know. Maybe they just skim, maybe they're, but I read it through it and I'm like, yeah, I think it's just the answer that comes to me first. Yeah. Like, yeah, the pilot's got gas.

It's all good. She's like, I have so many other questions. I have so many other questions. Let us know, text it to 2525825028 or you can visit us online at cleareetodayshow.com. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. Hey, what's going on listeners? My name is John and I'm Ellie and we just want to take a second and let you know about Dr. Shah's new book on the market right now called Can We Recover the Original Text of the New Testament?

Boy, that is a long title. True, but it's a very simple message. The original text of the New Testament is not only attainable, but there are lots of different ways that scholars go about discovering it. There's a lot of people out there saying that the original text is lost forever or that it's hopeless to actually try to find it or that there's many texts of the New Testament. But alongside Dr. David Allen Black, Dr. Shah has actually compiled papers from some of the world's leading experts in textual criticism, including one written by himself on various methodologies for extracting the original text. And listen, if you're interested in textual criticism, this book is a great introduction to the field. You can pick up your copy on Amazon or you can buy it from our church website. That's cleareewbc.org. We're going to leave a link in the description box so you can get your copy today. Love that. Ellie, let's hop back in.

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 cleareewtodayshow.com, or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. That's right. We are here today in the Clear View Today studio with Dr. Abbadon Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism.

Dr. Shah, it's so good to see you. Let me ask you this one. Because when it comes to text, right, we all got flaws.

I got them too, right? You mean like text types, like textual criticism? So I didn't mean that, but I do, because I don't have any flaws as far as text type goes. Unless that was like Western priority, then I think that'd be kind of a problem. Is it Western priority, you remember the thing?

Yes, there are people who, they love the Western text, especially French. Okay. Wow.

French people. I'm talking about more like texting on your phone. Like SMS messages. I figured that's what you meant, but I had to throw some textual criticism in there.

I love it. When you're on your Blackberry, as it were. When your wife texts you, because I have a feeling that most women do this, they'll send waterfall text messages. Like they have all this stuff on their brain. They send text after text after text after text. If there's multiple questions, do you pick your favorite one and answer that? Or do you just answer one and then leave the others unanswered? That's a great question.

There are, I used to just sort of just pick the one, the last one or the best one or the one that I know most about and the one I care about and the ones I don't, I just kind of leave them. But now I guess it's just doing PhD work, I've become more systematic even in my answer. I put commas, colons, dashes.

You're like quoting, putting your text in block quotes. And I'm like, the reason I do that is it's different because I feel like if I stop doing it here, it's going to affect and impact the way I do my preaching. And then it's also going to impact the way I write or publish or read papers. So I'm like, let's just keep doing this.

Let's just get everything right. It's going to spill over into other areas. Like the small things, how you handle those are going to spill over into more significant things. Not just me though. No, no.

The way you communicate, the way you communicate is certainly important. I know it's for me, it's like, I'll see all of them and I'm like, oh, I know the answer to that one. I'll answer that one. And so I answer it and then I'm like getting distracted by something else. So now there's like six questions unread.

Yeah. It piles up for me sometimes, but I'll usually find a block of time where I can sit down and be like, hey, number one, here's the answer to this question. Number two, here's the answer to this question.

Number three, and just kind of work through. I say that's passive aggressive though. I think, I think people will get upset with that.

Maybe my wife would get, I don't intend it passive aggressively. I just like, I'm trying to organize, like collect all of your questions and answer them in one full response and send it back to you. It's funny, man. Texting is a really weird form of communication.

Even though it's been around for a while, I feel like we're still not used to it. Like as, as a culture, as people. Yeah. Well, it won't stay the same. Communication is important in any field.

I mean, doctor, you talked about that, like how you, how you text, even that mindset can spill over into how you write, how your publication goes. And you know, we're talking today about a name that we're all familiar with. Oswald Chambers. I thought you were going to say Oswald Cobblepot. Not Oswald Cobblepot. I got excited.

We're not talking about him today. That's the penguin from Batman. When he said Oswald, I got excited. It's either going to be him or it's going to be, remember that big blue octopus Oswald? Yeah. Yeah.

And a little top hat. We're not talking about either of those Oswalds. We're talking about, you pulled out a lot more Oswalds than I was expecting. I was like, how did that name take you somewhere? I got deep references for days.

I can't figure out how to text my wife, but I can pull out children's show references. We're talking about Oswald Chambers because today is the anniversary of the day that he passed away. And certainly, it's significant impact in people's lives. And when people hear Oswald Chambers, most often they think of My Upmost for His Highest.

Yes. Phenomenal, phenomenal work that I've, I've read My Upmost for His Highest. It impacted me and I know the same is true for many people as well. You actually gave me my copy of My Upmost for His Highest. I had never read it before. I had seen it in our resource room when the bookstore was new and I'd heard your wife talking about it a lot. And you gave me a copy of My Upmost for His Highest and I still have it today. I was introduced to My Upmost for His Highest back in India because, you know, of course my dad had copies of it and my church people had copies of it. And so I grew up with My Upmost for His Highest, but I really understood more about it when Nicole's dad gave me a copy when I graduated or the church gave me a copy when I graduated college. And so I still have that copy in my library.

My Upmost for His Highest. And so that's the one I read like really carefully because now I was going in the ministry. I had a whole different set of eyes and heart that wanted to know more about God.

And man, it really touched my life. I remember when you gave me my copy, it was because we had been talking about what to say between songs and worship. And there was this point where I was saying stuff that sounded good the first 10 or 15 times. Then after that, people kind of notice that you're repeating yourself and you're constantly trying to pull something up from a dry well. And I remember you giving me that book and saying, this is a great guide for beginners to start to think deeper.

You're not going to discover this like hidden truth of Christianity, but it will probe you to start thinking deeper. And I remember to this day, I remember that. And every now and then when I go back to My Upmost for His Highest, I remember that just that little reminder to take a moment and think about what this guy is actually saying. Yeah. Oswald Chambers had a way with words.

Okay. He had a way with communicating things that we are going through. We're struggling in our spiritual life. And so when you read it at first you go, Oh, this is so lofty. This is so deep. But when you stick with it, you go, wow, how did he know?

And again, he's not the only one who does that. I know some who go deeper than him and amazing, but Oswald Chambers sort of touches people across the board and is widely popular all over. Even people who may not be on his side of the spectrum because he was more on, I would say the free will side of things.

I don't know. Some people have called him sort of Wesleyan, kind of holiness type. I may not be comfortable going in that direction because I'm not, but at the same time, the principles that he shares are still valid. That's right. I can eat plenty of meat there and spit out the bones. Even in Oswald Chambers, I may not agree with him on a hundred percent, but much of what I've read is pretty good.

And I thank God for his life. Well, I think that's also part of being on that Christian journey is being able to discern what you believe and what you don't believe. And then part of that maturity comes from not right, because we're in a world now where if you say one wrong thing, you as a person are written off. Your career's over because you said something that someone didn't agree with or that someone views as morally wrong.

But you can certainly and should certainly, like you said, spit out the bones, take what is works and what is good and discard the rest. Now today is, so what's the date? Today is November 15th. Okay. So let's go to November 15th. Is that okay?

Can we do that? All right. Let's, uh, let's read this and I'm going to give it to Ryan, November 15th. Let's read it.

This is Oswald Chambers. And the title of this devotional today is, what is that to thee? All right. So if you're going to read the scripture and then read it for us.

All right. The scripture comes from John 21 verses 21 and 22. Lord, and what shall this man do? What is that to thee?

Follow thou me. One of our severest lessons comes from the stubborn refusal to see what we must not interfere in the lie in other people's lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur Providence that is interfering with God's order for others. You see a certain person suffering and you say, he shall not suffer. And I will see that he does not. You put your hand straight in front of God's permissive will to prevent it. And God says, what is that to thee? If there's a stagnation spiritually, never allow it to go on, but get into God's presence and find out the reason for it.

Possibly you will find it is because you have been interfering in the life of another proposing things. You had no right to propose advising when you had no right to advise. When you do have to give advice to another, God will advise through you with the direct understanding of his spirit. Your part is to be so rightly related to God that his discernment comes through you all the time for the blessing of another soul.

Wow. Most of us live on the borders of consciousness, consciously serving, consciously devoted to God. All this is immature.

It is not the real life yet. The mature stage is the life of a child, which is never conscious. We become so abandoned to God that the consciousness of being used, I'm sorry, the consciousness of being used never enters in. When we are consciously being used as broken bread and poured out wine, there is another stage to be reached where all consciousness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is eliminated. A saint is never consciously a saint. A saint is consciously dependent on God. Talk about a way with words, man.

Very, very applicable to our daily lives. You know, Oswald Chambers was saved under Charles Spurgeon's ministry. I didn't realize that.

Wow. So when you're reading him, you know, don't be quick to dismiss him as, you know, sort of on the holiness side of things. And if holiness is simply walking holy before God, I'm fine with that.

That's not the problem. But if it's the other doctrinal tentacles that come with it that I'm not comfortable with from a biblical standpoint. But being converted under Charles Spurgeon, I mean, Charles Spurgeon, I mean, that's as, you know, eternal security of the believer, perseverance of the saints that you can get. Yeah. And maybe Oswald Chambers may not go all the way there. Right. Again, I'm not an expert on Oswald Chambers' life.

Although I have read more than just The Atmosphere Is Highest. Here's a book, The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers. Wow. And this guy, just know, he died at 43 years of age. I was just thinking that when you held up that giant book, he died at 43?

43 years old. And those are his complete works. Good gracious. And just know The Outmost for His Highest is called from these different things that he has written. So some of the things that he wrote on are books like Approved Unto God, and really his wife Biddy is the one who took these works, compiled them and put them out.

If she hadn't done her job, we wouldn't have Oswald Chambers today. That's a Proverbs 31 wife. Yes. Like he's written books on biblical ethics, biblical psychology. Again, you may not agree with every little detail, but he was teaching. He was teaching in a Bible Institute and all that. Bringing Sons to Glory, Call of God, Christian Disciplines, God's Workmanship, He Shall Glorify Me, The Highest Good, If He Shall Ask Us, a great work on prayer that actually I read from this very book.

If I may, if I'm not wrong. Yeah, I did see all this. This is me having read this work on prayer. Look, can I read one more here?

Yeah, absolutely. It says, this is his chapter. This is from the Bible Training College, April the 6th, 1915. So that's two years before he died. It was kind of appendicitis he had.

And then, you know, through that he kind of lost his life. And by the way, he's buried in Egypt. In Egypt? We talked about that and I didn't realize that he was buried in Egypt. He was a chaplain to the British soldiers in Egypt at the time.

And remember the British Mandate and all that. And so he was there and that's when he got sick and unfortunately died. See, we were talking about him before the show when he said that he died in Egypt. I didn't realize that's where they had buried him too.

That's where he's resting even to this day. In Cairo, they have a big graveyard for British soldiers. But you cannot just go there. You have to make an appointment and then say, this is the grave that we want to go see. And then somebody will kind of take you there. So I want to go see it next time I go to Egypt is go there and see his gravesite.

That would be amazing. But this is what he said. The secret of the sacred simplicity of prayer. He says, these words were spoken in the supreme moment of our Lord's agony.

Which words? We're talking about Matthew 26 41. Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. These words were spoken in the supreme moment of our Lord's agony.

We are immensely flippant if we forget that. No words our Lord ever spoke ought to weigh with us more than these words. We are dealing with the sacred simplicity of prayer. If prayer is not easy, we are wrong. If prayer is an effort, we are out of it. There's only one kind of prayer, one kind of person who can really pray. And that is the childlike saint. The simple, stupid, supernatural child of God.

I do mean stupid. Immediately you try to explain why God answers prayer on the ground of reason. It is nonsense. God answers prayer on the ground of redemption and on no other ground. Let us never forget that our prayers are heard, not because we are in earnest, not because we suffer, but because Jesus suffered. It is because our Lord Jesus Christ went through the depths of agony to the last ebb in the garden of Gethsemane because he went through Calvary that we have boldness to enter into the holy place. So, I mean, I can go on and on, but that right there, and I'm sure it probably showed up somewhere in the utmost for his highest, but this is coming from his work if you shall ask.

That's what I'm saying. Like it feels like everything that he writes, even though it's kind of bite-sized, it just prompts you to think a little bit deeper. Because we all have that collective understanding of what we think Christianity is, what it's like, but it's not that it's like, hey, that's completely wrong, but it's just incomplete. He helps to paint that complete picture.

That's right. I love the way that you said it before, Dr. Shaw, is that the Christian life is simple, but it's not simplistic. It's easy to grasp because, I mean, Jesus says, have the faith like a child, but there's so much depth. There's so much richness to a relationship with God, to growing in your faith, to having people who are older than you, who are more mature than you, pour into you and kind of teach you things that they've learned along the way. I mean, there's so much.

There's so much to be learned. That's right. Do you think that where he's in that November 15th one that we read where he's talking about not interfering with people's lives, it almost seems like he's practiced that in my utmost for his highest by he's not like telling people, hey, you have to do your daily devotions and I'm coming to your house to make sure you do it, but by writing them and providing them with the resources. And I feel like you've done that as well with your devotion. Oh, thank you.

Thank you. I'm learning so much in writing those devotionals because it's not just giving tons of information or even accurate information or even proper exegesis because I want to have that, but it's giving that one sort of pregnant truth that gives birth in your heart and your mind, that when you truly understand it, you rejoice, you're happy, you get it, and it just changes the course of your day. So he had an incredible God-given ability to do that. Here's another work.

This is called Biblical Psychology. He taught classes on that. And I want to read a section if that's okay with you guys. You said that title earlier and my ears were like, hmm. He says it right here.

Let me see if I can find another one. He said, the brain is not a spiritual thing. The brain is a physical thing. Memory is a spiritual thing and exists in the heart. The brain recalls more or less clearly what the heart remembers.

In the Lord's parable, talking about Luke 16, 25, when Abraham said to the rich man, son, remember, he was not referring to a man with a physical brain in this order of things at all. There are other passages which refer to the marvelous power of God to blot certain things out of his memory. Forgetting with us is a defect.

Forgetting with God is an attribute. Wow. Wow. That is deep. It's crazy how he can take these simple truths and expound upon them in a way that's new and feels fresh. And it makes me look kind of inward. For those of us who are listening who are not in our daily devotions as well as we should, what is your encouragement? It will change the course of your day. And I know we're busy. I get busy.

And for the past couple of days, I've been very busy. And so one of those days, I said, let me go ahead and finish this, and then I'm going to do my devotion. And inevitably, I didn't do my devotion. I knew it was going to come down to that, and I will be rushed. And then phone call came, and then it's like, I got to go because I have a meeting.

So devotions got skipped. And it impacts my life. Not that I have a horrible day, but focus is not where it needs to be. So my challenge to people, my encouragement to our listeners, our viewers is do this because you need it. It's going to change your day. It's going to change your interaction with your family. It's going to change your interaction with your co-workers, your friends. It will change your interaction with lost people, with people in general. It will change your interaction if you truly have that heart to read the Word of God. Definitely read the Bible first, and then that devotional that's going to fill your heart with spiritual truth. Amen. That's right. And I mean, we've talked about them on the show, but two great resources for you are the books by Dr. Shawn, by Nicole, 30 Days Through a Crisis and 30 Days to a New Beginning, written with different purposes in mind, but both with those bite-sized times you can spend with God in the morning, 30 truths to get you through either a crisis, a difficult time in your life, or to help you get unstuck.

A lot of times we feel like we're just spinning our wheels, feel like we've just kind of like started circling, like the Israelites started circling the mountains, circling the mountain. Those are great resources for you. They're available anywhere you can find printed media. They're available on Amazon. If you're local, we have them here at our church, Clearview Church. If you're interested in those, text into the show, 2525825028.

We'd love to let you know how you can get your hands on a copy. What if I just hate reading and I just want to listen to them instead? Surely I would never find books like that on Audible. Well, you're in luck because they are both on Audible. Excuse you?

Excuse you? I am excused and they are on Audible. But the thing is, these are only two, and so I know that there's probably, it's disappointing because I know there's never going to be any more 30 Days devotionals.

Well, I'm glad that you said that because 30 Day devotionals is actually a series and there are more in the pipeline. Stay tuned for more information. Can we talk off mic about you constantly correcting me on the show because it does get... I would love to talk off mic about that, but we're going to need to talk off mic about you coming to the show with correct information. Okay, I got it. So let's have that conversation.

Okay. You guys enjoyed today's episode. Maybe you learned something about Oswald Chambers' life, about the importance of your daily devotions. Write in and let us know, 2525825028. We want to be that source of encouragement for you as you grow in your spiritual walk.

Visit us online, ClearviewTodayShow.com, and don't forget you can click that link at the bottom to partner with us financially. What's coming up next, Jon? Marriage. Again with the references. You are hitting tens today, my friend. Talking about how to have a blessed marriage.

People in the world today think that marriage is some old-fashioned institution that's restrictive and harmful to people. Couldn't be further from the truth. We're going to talk about that tomorrow. That's right. And if your name is Princess Buttercup, make sure you tune in and listen. It might save you some heartache. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.