Thursday, January 11th | Walking with God

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A healthier, happier you is just a click away. That said, let's start the show. Hello, everyone. Today is Thursday, January the 11th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. And you're listening to Clear View 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.

That's right. You guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show. You can share it online with your friends and your family.

Leave us a good five-star review on iTunes or Spotify, where you can get podcasting content from. If you don't, it will hurt our feelings. It's going to really hurt my feelings.

It's going to destroy me. Just know that. Walk in that truth. I'm in a vulnerable, emotional state right now, so really, you can't have that on your conscience. We're going to leave some links in the description so you can do just that.

We're going to make it easy for you to leave those good reviews. The first verse of the day is coming to you from James 3, verse 16. It says, For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. So, the entirety of the Word of God is beautiful, and it is useful for us, and it gives us what we need. But I feel like every time there is a chapter 3, verse 16 in Scripture, it just always hits.

That's never going to land in a, and he took his flock out into the fields. It's always going to be like a punch right in the theology. Something about those three-sixteens, man.

I don't know what it is. I haven't checked every single one, so maybe I'm just speaking out of ignorance here. But every time I've come across a three-sixteen, it's been like, whoo, that's a good one. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. If we are pursuing our own wants, our own desires, our own mind, our own goals above what God has set for us, we're going to end up in confusion. If you are out there and you are listening, you're in 2024 already, and you're like, Man, I feel like we're just two weeks in, and my life is already going off the rails. I was watching a video the other day, and someone said, We're two days into 2024. I'm already done. And you know why that is for most people? Because you're pursuing your goals above God's goals for you. Yeah, you're just bringing that from 2023, 2022.

You're bringing all those goals with you. Yeah, I'm guilty of that. I mean, we've all been there. But pursue God first and what he has for your life, and he will give you the desires of your heart, even if sometimes those desires of your heart change to match God's heart. Dr. Shah is preaching a series right now, and the very first one he preached, he talked about that, this unchecked desire. Anywhere there's envy and self-seeking, you know there's desire, like corrupt desire, unchecked desire at the center of it. And desire is not a bad thing, but when you don't check your desires and when you just let them run rampant, you let them drive your actions, then yeah, of course you're going to have every evil thing. Of course you're going to have strife and envy and all these things. You know, one of the things that I've been trying to do is get up earlier, but it's really difficult, right?

And so I'm trying to find new and creative ways to do that, because I think that's a good desire to have. Yeah. But I hate it. Yeah, it's not fun. I hate it. It's like a training process.

It's not good. And I feel like it's a godly desire. I want to rise up early in the morning, and yet I'm filled with misery and with woe.

Until, until now. I need you guys to prepare for this. My wife found these alarm clocks. And David, I know you've got this alarm clock at your house, too.

And Ryan, I'm going to encourage you to get it. It does not wake you up with sound. No, no, mon ami. It wakes you up with light. Really? The alarm clock gets brighter and brighter over a period of time. I'll give you an example of what I mean. Oh, okay.

I'm intrigued by this. Set my alarm for 5.30, right? Sure. I want to get up at 5.30. Right. But sitting at 5, that little alarm clock's going to, bloop, just a little thing of light.

And from the next 30 minutes, it's going to just gradually increase in brightness until the room is lit in a sunshiny glow. Now, my wife's furious. Oh, well. She's mad. Wait a minute, wait a minute.

Isn't she the one who found the alarm clock? Yeah, yeah. She wanted me to use it for, it also has sounds, she wanted me to use it for that. The light is a feature.

Sure. The light is just a feature. But she mislikes that. She does not like having blinding light in her face.

No. See, it's also over, it's at the front of the room, so I have to get up to go cut it off. Meanwhile, she's got like hours later, at like 7 or 8, when she has to get up, she's got... Oh, gosh.

I would throw that phone in a wheelchair. Yeah, I don't like that at all. Absolutely not.

At all. But that's my alarm clock journey right now. That's my early morning journey. I'm interested to know what Dr. Shah's alarm situation is, because he wakes up early often. Yeah, he's usually up pretty early, but I feel like he's a straightforward guy.

He might have one of those old Meemaw alarm clocks, like the actual clock that has the little two bells. Yeah. Oh, man, I couldn't stand those things. Who does that to themselves? Just wake up like that.

I mean, when that was your only option, that's what it was. Just scare yourself awake. Ugh, I hate that.

Well, you just talked about Ellie's alarm. Yeah, who does that? I hate that.

Who does that? I hate it so much, I want to be gently woken up instead of like, startled awake. She doesn't think that, because she's like, I'm just not getting up. We're going to ask Dr. Shah about his alarm clock situation, but Ryan didn't let us know what you guys have going on. What's your wake up routine? How do you wake yourself up in the morning?

Uh, 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at clearveetodayshow.com. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. Elizabeth, my darling bride, what would you say is the most beneficial thing you could do for yourself in the morning? Probably drink an entire pot of coffee when sitting.

I'd say that's a close second. Now, the best thing you can do for yourself is to start every morning with a daily devotional. Only be one to talk about.

Well, as it turns out, we have two. Right now, you can unlock the power of daily inspiration, wisdom, and spiritual growth in our devotional series, 30 Days Through a Crisis and 30 Days to a New Beginning. Written by our pastor, Dr. Abaddon Shah, and his wife, Nicole, the 30 Days devotional series is designed to reveal new biblical truths every single day. That's right, and every day is a new revelation to guide you on your Christian journey toward a more meaningful and purposeful life. You can pick up your copy today from our website, that's clearviewbc.org, or you can grab both books on Amazon, Apple Books, and Audible.

That's 30 Days Through a Crisis and 30 Days to a New Beginning by Abaddon and Nicole Shah. And don't forget, these are only the first two in an expanding devotional series, so keep your eyes peeled for future installments. Thanks for listening. Now, let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clear View 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, or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. Oh, me! Goodness me! I'm so sorry we are here.

Clear View Today Studio, right here. I was trying to figure out what kind of Chewbacca wookie sound was coming from over there. Wake up!

Yeah, sorry about that. Talking about our alarms this morning, I didn't get a lot of sleep. We are here today in the Clear View Today Studio with Dr. Abaddon Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, host of today's show. Dr. Shah, we're talking about alarm clocks, how we get up of a morning, how we can discipline ourselves to get up in the morning. Yes. I gotta know. Are you a gentle alarm-er, or are you like the klaxon, like, The first one that I have, this is how it goes off. Okay.

Not bad. And then I have one five minutes later, and it goes off like this. That one?

Okay. That's the bane of my existence, because that's Ellie's. And what she does is she'll set 20. She's like, all right, I'm going to set one for 640, 643, 647.

I'm like, why do you do that? Then she won't cancel them. She'll snooze them. So now each one is incremented by nine minutes. So it gets to a point where they're compounding. And instead of 20 alarms, there's like 68. It's off.

That's wow. Why? Why is that the way? Because we dislike ourselves.

We dislike ourselves. I want to be angry in the morning. I want to make this a problem.

Nothing says good morning like fury. I actually tried. You want to tell Dr. Shah what you were telling us?

Because I actually did invest in that, and it's helping me a great deal. She does not like it. So I have an alarm, Dr. Shah, where what I do is I set the alarm at night. And obviously just whatever time I want to get up. And the way it starts is if I set the alarm for 530 in the morning, it'll start at 515 with a really dim light. And it'll just brighten the light until at 530 it's full brightness.

So the room is lit up. If you did that with Nicole, do you think she would like it? Or was she not? She would not like it. She is. Now here's the thing. She gets up before I do.

Really? Other than on our men's morning prayer time, which is at 6 o'clock, and I get up at 5. That's the only day that she gets up after me.

If you were to get up at 5 by way of just a bright light in the room. No, no, no. She's not going to do that. She's not having that.

She does not go to that. She already has the covers as close over her ear, over her nose. Is she a bundler? Like just lots and lots and lots of covers? Oh yeah, because usually in the middle of the night I'm left with a little handkerchief. Tiny little triangle of covers.

Yeah, like a little homeless kid on the streets of Bombay is what I feel like. I'm like, let me have some, please. Snow, winds, like roaring through the bedroom. One of those universal marriage things, man. Just always fighting for covers. I feel like always fighting the alarms too. No marriage has two people that are on the same page alarm-wise.

No. They always are different. Or cover-wise.

Or cover-wise. It may exist somewhere out there, and if you're in a marriage where you're on the exact same page alarm-wise, stop lying to yourself. Write in and let us know, I guess, but I would imagine that most people, it's like opposite attract there, or just differences attract. It's like God knows that y'all are on this insane journey called life, and he's going to give you exactly the right partner that you need, but definitely not the one that I would have liked. Because I would choose like, oh, here's all my qualities.

This woman just has to match that. God's like, not going to happen. God knows what company we need to keep. He knows who he needs to bring into our lives in the terms of spouses, but today we're talking about the company you keep in general. Who do you surround yourself with? What does your life look like?

You told me this one time, Dr. Shah, and this is impacting me tremendously, and I've shared this with our students on multiple occasions. You become like the people you associate with, specifically the five people who are closest to you. If you take inventory of those relationships, you've got a pretty good idea of the trajectory of your life. One of my favorite authors, David McCullough, wrote a book called Brave Companions, and it's about people who together went places and did things. For example, you have Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

I don't know if McCullough talks about Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, but these are people who bonded together, and they accomplished some great feats. Life is not about the quantity, and it's not even about the quality. It's not about how long you live or what kind of a life you live. It's not about the quantity.

It's about the quality. I believe it's about the company we keep. It's about the companion we have in the journey of life.

I hope you know where I'm going with this. When you're walking with God, it's not about the quantity or the quality. It's the company we keep. It's the relationship we have with God.

If God is your companion in his life's journey, you may have some tough challenges, but he promises to walk with us to lead us home. And it's encouraging because I feel like we take for granted that God is always there, so it's almost like he's not there. Like, he's there, but I don't count that because he's always there.

That's true. Yeah, you just kind of disregard it. It becomes almost like a white noise type situation.

If it's always there, you're just like, yeah, well. It was like when someone—I can't remember who it was. I think it was like 10th Avenue North or something. They did a devotional where this teenage couple got caught doing something they shouldn't have been doing, and the principal or whatever or the pastor was like, you know, someone saw you. And they got nervous. They were like, oh, who saw us? And they were like, God saw you. And there was just relief.

They were like, oh. Oh, thank goodness. But it's that kind of thing where we forget that God is our constant companion. He's always with us.

Yeah, the key is to look to him, to talk to him. That's the essence of the Christian life is your relationship with Jesus Christ. Now, in the Bible, there is one man who is expressly described as walking with God.

And I hope you know who I'm talking about. Enoch. In Genesis 5 23, it says, so all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Compared to some of the other people, he did not live a long life.

But what it said about him in verse 24 is that Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Definitely a deep verse there. And I think people gravitate towards that because it's so unusual.

And we don't really see that repeated. Right. The word there for walked in Hebrew is halak, which the idea is more than just movement. It has the idea of relationship and fellowship. So it's not just walking like together they're walking by the beach or going up a mountain.

It's about a life lived together. So kind of in the same way that we would refer to someone's walk with God. Yeah. That's right. Kind of like how Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden. That's right. Same thing. Yeah. And so when we think about Adam and Eve, it's more than just God came in the cool of the day and they walked together. I think many times they may have just sat together, but they were still walking together in their relationship.

Right. And then, of course, in time, sin came in and they stopped walking with God and they began to hide from God. And then, of course, as you know, more sin came in where brother killed brother and his curse was to be a wanderer and fugitive. In fact, Cain even says something to the effect of now everybody who knows me is going to try to kill me.

So I have to run. And God said, I'm going to put a mark on you. And all that was because he was no longer going to be in the presence of God. So that walking is that relationship, that presence. It's almost like when he isolated himself from God, it was like, well, he's like, everybody else is going to be against me too.

It's like he's isolating himself from the rest of the world. Right. Very, very, very, very sad. And so when we think about all this, we need to really ask ourselves that question, what does that mean to walk with God? I believe walking with God begins with a saving knowledge of Christ.

Amen. It says in Jude 14, I said Jude 14 because there are no chapters, there's only one. It says, now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also saying, behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints. The Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints.

What does that mean? It means that Enoch understood the gospel. In fact, he understood the gospel so well that he saw the second coming of Christ. Oh, this is the ten thousand are his angels. Right. So his saints. His saints. His saints.

So that's people? People, godly people who died in Christ, whether pre-Christ or post-Christ, they're coming with Christ at his second coming. And Enoch sees that. Prophetically, he sees that and maybe he had a conversation with Adam and Eve. I don't know how he got saved. Maybe it was to the death of righteous Abel. Maybe he had a conversation with Seth.

We don't know for sure where that happened, but somehow he came to know God. I'm glad you point that out because, you know, we think about these people in sort of like a generational succession. So like at the end of Adam's life, we have Seth's life. Right.

But that's not true. There was lots of years of overlap because they were living hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Yes. So it's very possible that Enoch interacted with Adam. Yeah.

Yeah. And Enoch had a relationship with Christ, the pre-incarnate Christ. That's how he knew that this Christ is going to come one day and give his life for me.

But he is coming back in a different sort of way with ten thousand of his saints. And there's a passage in Amos 3.7 that says, Surely the Lord God does nothing unless he reveals his secret to his servants, the prophets. Wow. For Enoch to know this means he was God's servant. Yeah. He was God's man. It's one of those things that we just don't think about because he's kind of wedged in there between like the main characters.

Yeah. We get such a brief glimpse at his life. Just sort of like a quick mention. That's something that you and I have been kind of talking about, Dr. Shaw, especially in like the book of Judges. Like these are characters who really have very, very deep, especially you can see it in Enoch, very, very deep theological and doctrinal implications. And yet not much is there. So you really have to care enough about it to dive in and look at who this man actually was.

That's right. He lived in good times and bad. Now, how do we know that?

Well, just like that novel said this was the best of time and the worst of times, best because, just think about who all was still around. We just talked about how these people lived hundreds of years. And in Genesis 4 25, it says, And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son named Seth. Why did she name him Seth?

For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed. And as for Seth, to him also a son was born and he named him Enosh. The name Eve gave to Seth is significant because it means appointed. In turn, Seth also had a son. He called him Enosh, which means weak or frail.

Who would name a child weak? Because then it says in verse 26, Then men began to call on the name of the Lord. Then men began to call on the name of the Lord. There's a significance to that. Do you think they're recognizing their own weakness in a way?

That's it. They're starting to see the effects of sin compounded over generations? As intelligent, strong and emotionally aware these pre-flood people were, they knew this much, not all of them maybe, they knew this much that they needed God. They needed God. And so they began to call upon the name of the Lord. It was a cry for, in our terms, revival. But it was also the worst of times.

Why do we say that? Because it was a wicked generation. Again, Jude, verse 14 says, Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

So it was the best of times in the sense people were calling upon God, but it was also the worst of times because they were doing ungodly, ungodly, ungodly, ungodly things and living ungodly lives. This is all leading up to Noah's flood? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So sometimes we think, Oh, the best of times, times are great, people are not going to walk with God. Enoch did. Sometimes we hear, well, it's the worst of times, you know, nowadays people don't go to church and they don't want to read the Bible and they don't want to hear the word and they don't want to worship God, they don't want to share the gospel.

Worst of times, Enoch walked with God. Yeah. Yeah.

We can't just put the blame on our surroundings or our culture, you know, and it's easy to do that because you can look at, especially our culture in America and say, well, we're too far gone. Right. No need to. There's no hope.

Why even bother at this point? But Enoch reminds us, you know, in the best of times and in the worst of times, your relationship with God is critical, it's paramount. So we have to dig, just like John just said, you know, we have to dig to find more about him. So one thing we know that he knew Christ because he's talking about the Lord coming with 10,000 of his saints, talking about the second coming. We also dig and we can see that he was living in the best and the worst of times, spiritually speaking. But then also we see that he was not just some hermit or some monk living out in some cave somewhere or out in the wilderness. Yeah, it is.

I think people would kind of make that assumption that, well, it's difficult to connect to someone like Enoch because he's like one of the first humans to ever live. Right. Yeah. Not some sage living in a cave, separated from society, renounce everything. And you know, he had a family.

He was a husband and a father. Yeah. And in Genesis 522, after he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years. That's a long time, by the way.

Have you thought about that? 300 years? He stayed faithful to God for 300 years. 2024, right? Yeah. 300 years back is what? 1800s?

No. No, that's 200. So 1924 would be 100, 1824 would be 200, 1724 would be 300. That's pre-America as a nation.

Pre-America as a nation. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, they're just young men at this point. Most of us won't even walk with God completely for the rest of this month, but he walked with God faithfully for 300 years.

That's a funny, sobering thought. But the key is that he had sons and daughters. So he was living the life we all have to live. Sons and daughters, there may be disappointments, there may be hurt feelings, there may be misunderstandings.

The same things, guys and ladies, that we all go through family life and relationship struggles, I'm sure this man went through them. And yet he walked with God. Wow.

It's an encouraging thought because it's funny because we're saying, okay, well, yeah, I'm not even going to make it to the end of January. But Enoch was a person. He wasn't like some superhuman divine being. He was a person. Now, yet he lived a long time, but that's even more the encouragement for us.

He can do that. He's not a mythological character. He's not, you know, some idealized man. He was a guy. He was a family guy.

Yeah. But he maintained his relationship with God and set that example for his family. And then finally, one thing we find out when we dig about him is in the book of Hebrews chapter 11, verse five, it says, by faith, Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death. All we typically read is that he was not because God took him, but by faith is he was taken away. And he did not see death and was not found because God had taken him, for before he was taken, he had this testimony that he pleased God.

Wow. See, I think because there's such a unique thing that, like, he just didn't die, God took him. We fixate on that as this big, great mystery. And yet Paul puts the answer out right there. It's by faith that God took him.

And we tend to gloss right over that. We forget that Enoch is even in the Hall of—wasn't that the Hall of Faith that was called? And the key is verse six, because we quote this verse a lot, at least I do. And the verse is this, without faith, it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. That verse was personified in the life of Enoch.

God was pleased with him because of his faith. It's like this. If I were to say, John's a great guy, wonderful guy, man, one of the best people you'll ever meet. You just can't trust him. Well, what about all those good things? It's like, yeah, they're true.

They're true. I just can't trust him. Isn't that what people do with God?

Oh, yeah. He's a great God. He's a powerful God.

He's a wonderful, loving God. Do you trust him that he can take care of you in this life and the life to come? I mean— Maybe the life to come, yes.

Can you trust him in this life? Now, we won't say it, but that's how we live. Yeah. Well, I'm trying.

Yeah. Imagine if I were to say that to Ryan. If Ryan were to ask me, do you trust me? I'm trying. Ugh. Yeah, especially if you actually are trustworthy.

If you know that you haven't done anything to betray it, it's like, wow, what did I do? Yeah, absolutely. I'm trying. I'm trying. It's hard sometimes. Yeah.

You know, when I go through life, it's hard to trust you. Yeah. And then it's like we're in a weird position because it's like, well, now I feel like you're going through something.

Maybe I should sympathize with you. But don't we treat God that way? Yeah, yeah, definitely. And you hear it oftentimes of like, yeah, those spiritual things are good, but I live in the real world.

Yeah. And, you know, my concerns are with the practical world. Sometimes it's hard, brother, to trust God. It's hard. I understand it's hard. You know, the Lord helps— Try saying that to somebody around you.

Oh, yeah, the Lord helps those who help themselves. I mean, he's not going to do it for you. Yeah.

He wants you to do it. Like, okay. Yeah.

Oof. Yeah. Go for it. Go for it. Sometimes it's tough.

But Enoch, on the other hand, trusted God and it pleased God, pleased him so much that God said, I'm not going to make you go through the chilly waters of death. Here, come. Yeah.

I'm going to help you cross over. What a reward. Yeah. Yeah.

Just cross over. And you're done. And times were tough. Oh, yeah.

I think that helps me to kind of see that because, again, I've always viewed it as this great mystery. Why would he do that? Could it be as simple as that? Like, he just wanted to reward him for his faith? Yeah.

Yeah. I don't want you to have to die. And I'm going to put your name in the book of my book, the Bible, and you'll be remembered forever. And then you get to enjoy eternity as my child. May that be said of us.

That's right. Like, the summation of Enoch's life right there in verse five, he pleased God. He pleased God and God rewarded his faith. May that be said of us as men, as a radio show, for you individuals out there involved in ministry, or those of you out there who are just trying to live the Christian life. May it be said of us that we pleased God and that we remained faithful in our relationship with him. I pray that today was helpful for you guys. Maybe it clarified some things in your walk with God.

Maybe it helped you to take a critical look at where you are in your relationship with him. Write in and let us know what today's episode meant for you, 252-58-25028. You can, of course, visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Make sure you partner with us financially on that website as well. Scroll to the bottom. Be faithful in your giving, and God will reward you as a result. Make sure you go over and visit MightyMuskadine.com.

Check out their list of products there and use the promo code today. That's T-O-D-A-Y. A portion of those proceeds will come right back here to the Clear View Today Show. Jon, you know what I'm going to ask you. Let's see it.

Let's see it. I'm excited. I'm excited. What's coming up on tomorrow's episode? Dr. Shah's Book Club for January. I'm not going to tell you what it is.

You're going to have to wait. I almost revealed the title. I know y'all got some resolutions about reading more books in 2024. Here's one coming up. You definitely want to read this one. I'm going to give you just a little hint.

You definitely want to read this one. You're part of a team. That's all I'm going to say. Ooh. Love it. Got to. We love you guys. Have a great rest of your day.