Friday, March 15th | Indulgences, and Purgatory

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A healthier, happier you is just a click away. With that said, let's start the show. Welcome to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hilt.

I'm John Galantis. You can find more information about our show on our website, ClearviewTodayShow.com. If you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, write in and let us know at 252-582-5028. Or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

That's right. We want you to help us keep the conversation going, and you can do that by supporting the show. You can share it online with your friends and your family. You can leave us a good five-star review on iTunes or Spotify.

Absolutely nothing less than five stars for any reason. Ryan? Please don't. Please don't.

Please don't. It makes me sad of me. Today is March the 15th, which means that our date, the word, is coming from Jeremiah 3.15. And I will give you shepherds according to my heart who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. Please just appreciate your pastors. They're shepherds that God has given you.

I mean, that truly is what they're saying. I don't know what the pastor situation looked like in the days of Jeremiah, but there were religious leaders, and there were people that God had appointed over his people to lead them in the word and say that to feed you with knowledge and understanding. And so this is for the shepherds, the pastors, the ministry leaders who are out there. Make sure that you are a shepherd according to God's heart and not your own. Sometimes it's easy for us to have our own ideas about ministry, and it's easy for us to have our own goals in ministry. And it can be easy for us to make an idol out of ministry about how many people are looking to me, how many people are trusting in me, how many people are blessed by my words, when, friends, it's not our words. It should be God's words through us. So just a challenge to us who are in that position of ministry leadership. Make sure that you are giving your sheep good food to eat.

That's right. It's a ginormous privilege, and it's only by the grace of God that we have any sort of leadership in ministry. And it's something that, as the years have gone on, actually I've been strengthened and bolstered by that responsibility rather than grow complacent of it. And I don't think that happens just because that's naturally who I am. I think it's because I've made it a priority to sit under wise preaching.

And when you see that displayed every single week, it kind of puts you in a mindset where that's the only thing that you can respond with is gratefulness. And we're actually going to talk about that today, but before we do, I wanted to ask you a quick question to see kind of where you land on this. Because this is something that was posed to me by a listener of the show.

They didn't write in, but they were talking to me outside of the show, on the street, if you will. A million dollars. I do love money. For the rest of your life, your spouse snores obnoxiously loud. I'm talking like cartoon. Spongebob style. Mercy.

The windows are rattling. Yeah. I would probably take this. What? And then I would just maybe find some workarounds, like maybe sleep with headphones or probably just like go to sleep in a different room. Bro. I'd probably take this.

That was my first thought too. But then I'm like, I've got to now fully, which I guess I'm a millionaire. I can buy like a 17 bedroom house, but I don't get to sleep in the bed with my wife no more because she snores so bad. You can. You can.

It's just, I feel like after time you'd probably just get used to it. I remember as a kid, my mom used to snore so loud that I could hear it through the wall. I could hear it in other rooms.

Yeah. I don't know what in the world that was. So let me, let me tell you the story. We went to a men's conference when I was young. I was probably 12, 13.

I went with my dad. And there was a guy in our group who, I mean, jokingly, he was like, Oh, y'all better bring your headphones because I'm allowed to snore. And we're like, haha. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. They had a set up.

We're staying in a church and they had it set up with like partitions. You know, there's a little roll out partitions they used to have to divide rooms up. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

They're not walls, but they kind of give you a semblance of walls. Yeah. I'm not kidding you. He snored so loud that those things did rattle.

My man. I mean, they were, I watched them. They were shaking.

My man gave you fair warning, dude. It was like nothing I'd ever heard in my life. It was like inhuman. It was unbelievable. I think I would have slept better had I slept next to a train.

It was unreal. Do you snore? I don't often snore. It's usually when I'm like either not feeling well or congested or something, then I'll, then I'll snore. But it's rare that I snore. See, I don't snore either, but everyone in my life is a liar. And they say that I snore.

Jon. You snore. You snore. I heard you snore.

I have a video of you snoring. Why? Because we were in Israel and it was kind of creepy. That was creepy. We shared the same room. That was really uncomfortable.

I didn't like that. So we went to Israel together and we shared the same room. And I was like, okay, do you snore? Cause I'd never stayed in a room with you. And you were like, no. I was like, well, I might snore a little bit. But you fell asleep before me and snored so loud. So I called Ellie and I was like, does Jon snore? And she was like, he does, but he says he doesn't.

I sent her the video and she was like, yeah, that sounds about right. So I, so, uh, the thing with my snoring, I know that I snore, but people lie because they say that I snore when I'm not asleep. Like I'll be laying there thinking and she'll elbow me on the side and be like, you're snoring. And I'm like, Ellie, I'm not asleep.

I'm, I'm just thinking hard ass. She's like, you're snoring. And I'm like, I promise you I've not fallen asleep yet.

I'm fully conscious. So when you, you guys have heard on the show that we went to NRB a few weeks ago and on the way back, it's me, Jon and Ellie in the car. Ellie's driving, Jon is in the passenger seat and I'm in the back seat. Okay. Long drive, long nine something hours.

So we're, we're driving back from Tennessee. Um, so Jon has his, his AirPods and he's listened to, I think it was an audio book. Yeah. I was listening to a book. Um, so he put me right to sleep. I didn't know if he was asleep, but he, uh, all of a sudden I hear.

And Ellie was like, Jon, Jon, you're snoring. He was like, I'm not even asleep. I'm not sleep. And we were both like, you're a hundred percent.

It would be one thing if I'm like, Oh, what, what? Oh, I'm not asleep. But I'm like, Ellie, I'm not asleep.

I'm fully conscious. I'm telling you. Let's ask Dr. Shaw. I bet he would take the money.

He's already probably going through it right now. I'm already there. It's just free money. I get to be a millionaire now.

Two, five, two, five, eight, two, five, zero, two eight. Write in and let us know if you would take that deal or if you were the snorer in that situation. Or visit us online at clearyoudodayshow.com. We'll be back after this. What's going on, listeners? My name is Jon and I'm David, and we hope you are enjoying the podcast thus far.

You know, we really appreciate how many of you download the podcast every day, right? But we also want to remind you that we are first and foremost, a radio show. Clear View today is actually syndicated through the Truth Network. And we just want to let you know right now that in addition to hosting the all time best Christian talk show of all time, hashtag Clear View today, hashtag Clear View today, the Truth Network also, as it turns out, has an extensive library of Christian programming. We really love everything they're doing at the Truth Network because the whole goal is to encourage, challenge, confront and uplift listeners with the life changing truth of Jesus Christ through Christian talk radio. And listen, we know we are not the only show wanting to expand its audience. So if you have a vision for your show or for your ministry, why don't you consider syndicating your show through the Truth Network because they rely on decades of experience of self syndication with a full array of features for your long form or short form content. Make sure you visit the Truth Network online today at truthnetwork.com or you can give them a call at 336-759-0363. Again, that's 336-759-0363. Well, Jon, are you ready?

I was born ready, my friend. Let's hop right back in. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abidjan 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. That's right, and we're here in the Clear View Today studio with Dr. Abidjan Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Dr. Shah, happy Friday. Happy Friday to you guys. Happy Friday.

We need like Friday confetti or something, like a party blower. Happy Friday. Dr. Shah, I'm going to give you a million dollars. Okay. I wish I had it in real life to give it to you.

But in the theoretical world, I'm going to give you a million dollars. Happy Friday indeed. Yes. The only bugaboo is your significant other, your spouse, Nicole, your bride. Yes. She's going to snore obnoxiously loud.

I mean cartoonishly loud for the rest of her natural born life. Can I go home and get the money now? I'll give it to you this afternoon.

I'll wire it to you electronically. I mean, nothing changes. You just get to be a millionaire. Does she snore? At times.

Bro. Yes. At times. Is it manageable or is it like hilariously?

At times. And it's on days that it's been a long day. She's been cleaning the house or she's worked out really hard. So on those days, it's like, oh my goodness.

Just retired. You'd be like, you'd be like, like pushing her stuff. Like, hey, get up. Or I just kind of make a lot of noise and then kind of go quiet. Be like, what, what, what? Have a, have a coughing fit. Like clearly feel like. It's the thing.

It's a thing too, because it's like, hey, what, what can we even talk about? Like it's like, hey, you, you snore pretty bad. It's like, I'm asleep. What do you want me to do?

You can't really have an action step there, I guess. I don't know. We can cut this if we don't want this in the episode, but on our last, uh, on our last staff retreat, we roomed parallel to you guys. And there was one night where Ellie and I went to bed and we could hear through the walls, really bad snoring. And she was like, Ellie was like, man, Pastor Shaw is tired. I was like, that's not me. That's not me. She was like, are you sure? I was like, I'm positive.

That's not Dr. Shaw. I can guarantee it. Nicole, when she's listening to this episode, she's probably laughing. She's gonna laugh. She's laughing right now. I can hear her. She's, cause she's beyond the point of caring whether she snores.

She's not embarrassed to snore. Not at all. Dr. Shaw, for today, what is our daily encouragement that you want to leave our listeners and our viewers with? Christian life is a relationship. So it's more than just, Oh, I believe.

What do you mean? Believe in Jesus? Yeah.

I always believed. Yeah. It's a relationship.

That's right. Okay. Now I know some people have a deeper relationship.

Some don't. But without a relationship, I don't know where you are. Yeah. Maybe a relationship is just on the surface. That's okay. But it's a relationship. Right.

But when people have no relationship and they still claim to be Christians, I don't know. I don't know where you are. I don't know if you guys have ever seen the movie Ratatouille. It's one of my all time favorite movies that Pixar has done. But there's a line in that movie that I know is meant for laughs, where the main character, someone asks him, like, I'm sorry about to hear the passing of your mom. He was like, Oh, no, no, it's all good. She believed in heaven, so she's covered. And it's like, I get the joke.

Wow. But it also is like, you know what, more Christians think that way than you would think. Or that is comfortable to think about. It's like, I believed, even if it's not just in heaven, it's like, I believed that Jesus existed. And this is where we need to clarify. You know, we just talked about the restorationist movements who tried to go back to this ideal stage back then and then they pick some fringe doctrine or fringe behavior and they make it the main thing. Right.

Okay, so here's what I want to say. This idea of having a relationship with Jesus Christ was not some fringe doctrine. It was not some tangential behavior. Right. It was the heart of Christianity.

Right. Just read the Bible. I'm talking about the New Testament. Read the Gospels. Read Paul's letters. Read John's letters. It's all about love. It's all about, I know whom I have believed.

I know him. Right. And I think we see that finding those fringe doctrines and making them the main thing goes back even further back than the Seventh-day Adventist movement.

I mean, it goes back all the way to, what, like the Catholic Church? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's significant on today's episode especially because on March the 15th in 1517, a little while ago. Right.

So what is this? It's 2024? So you're like, yeah, that's at least a hundred years ago.

That's a little while. So Pope Leo X, he announced on this day a special sale of indulgences in order to help fund building projects that were going on. But that wasn't stated. It was just like, hey, here's the indulgences that you can buy to sort of, you know, purchase your way, fast track your way into heaven. So my question is, do they really believe that or did they just need some money, like the Catholic Church? How it began with Pope Leo?

Yeah. Oh, they wanted money. They wanted some green. Yes, they wanted some money.

Some dead presidents. The idea of purgatory is part of their catechism, is part of their Catholic beliefs. But Pope Leo doing what he did with the indulgences that you can buy them to get a Christian soul out of this holding place and get them up and on and purify them. That is something that he proposed.

It was a scheme, I guess, to get some money. Yeah. But this is part of it. Indulgences are part of Catholic doctrine or dogma. So he didn't invent that indulgence part of it. Right. Right.

That was there. And especially the purgatory part is what I'm referring to was there. But selling and buying indulgences so he could fund St. Peter's, that was a Pope Leo thing. So I want to, if I can, I want to try to lay out my limited understanding of purgatory and what the indulgences were and maybe correct me if I'm wrong.

This is just like for the listeners point of view. The Catholic Church believed that purgatory is, like you said, a holding place. You go, it's not heaven, it's not hell. It's a temporal punishment. So it is a punishment.

It's not neutral. Right. No, no, no.

It's a punishment. So even there, even there, I didn't know that. Yeah. I thought it was like a neutral place that you go to wait. That's what you call limbo. Okay. Yes. Limbus, patrium, or something like that. Like how the Old Testament saints were sort of kept in a holding place.

Okay. But here the purgatory is a place of temporal punishment to help free you from your venial, your sins that you haven't truly taken care of and have not fully paid for the satisfaction of your transgressions. There was a movie that I saw. And purgatory made me think of this. There was a movie that I saw years ago.

I don't remember the name of it now. But it had character, it was, it was about purgatory. Right. But it had characters like Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid.

And it was these, these cowboy Wild West characters, but they had to kind of work out their sins in this purgatory type place. So you could buy, while you're still alive on earth, you could buy indulgences from the Catholic church and that would exonerate you from heaven? This is usually for those who are already gone. Okay. So like if, if I have a loved one that has passed away and I want to make sure they get into heaven, I'm going to shell out the money. Right.

And then they're, so they go to purgatory until someone pays for them to be able to go to heaven. Right. Okay. Right.

So maybe this is just anecdotal. But I remember my wife's mother, Nicole, Nicole's mom, when they were in New Orleans. Nicole's dad went to seminary there, New Orleans Baptist. And they were talking to a Catholic friend and a neighbor. And she said, you know, yeah, I almost paid my husband's right leg off from purgatory. Now, whether this is actually how Roman Catholicism believes or whether this woman was just confused or, or somebody lied to her, but that's how she was thinking.

Like, I've done everything I can except for his right leg. So here, so here's my question. Is there actually like a, like a price chart breakdown, like based on the numbers?

Must be in this situation. This is the payment model? You can get the premium plan.

I mean, I feel kind of bad laughing. Like a five month lease? Like what, how does that, how does that work? That's probably how it is. I feel kind of bad because people are like actually hinging, like for some people, this is like the stake of their eternity, but it's like the premium package. Like you can pay this month per month. Like this is a subscription and then all your loved ones just get a fast track. Yeah. It's kind of like the TSA.

Like you just pay for not having to do the hassle. It's sad. I mean, maybe that was anecdotal. Maybe it was somebody lied to this poor woman. Maybe she misunderstood the priest. But she did pay. Oh yeah, she was paying. She said, oh, I have paid everything except for his right leg. Gosh. I don't get it.

And that was shocking to Nicole's parents because New Orleans has a lot of Catholic community. Right, right. And so she was like, really, can you do that? Oh yeah. Yeah.

You can, you can pay them out of there. So here's what the catechism of the Catholic church says. So let's just go, you know, let's leave the anecdotes aside and let's just go to this. All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified are indeed assured of their eternal salvation. But after death, they undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

The church gives the name purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. So you're going to heaven. You're going to heaven. You're going to heaven, but you got to clean you up in purgatory first. And we can help the process by buying the indulgences. So it's like a fast track. We can get you clean a little quicker.

So if a person goes to purgatory, according to Catholic doctrine, and nobody purchases indulgences, are they still going to get purifications or are they just in an endless loop? You know, sometimes it's taking advantage of people's emotions. So, daddy was a great guy, but man, he had a bad filthy mouth. He had a bad habit. He did some wrong things.

Of course, he robbed a bank. So, I mean, it was a bad thing. Oh, wow.

That's pretty bad. But he was such a good man and he, oh yeah, he loved Jesus, but you know, we're doing whatever we can to help him. Wow. So it is in a sense, giving people a hope that they can get their loved ones, not just fast track, but sort of spring them out of that place of punishment.

Wow. And the whole idea is actually not coming from scripture. We know that much.

Well, I was actually about to ask you, I know it goes without saying, but is there any evidence in scripture at all that purgatory is a real place? There are scriptures that have been misinterpreted, but the idea of it actually comes from an apocryphal work, which is 2 Maccabees. And I want to read that for us.

Is that okay? Absolutely. So 2 Maccabees, chapter 12, verses 42 through 45. By the way, Wayne Grudem does a great job.

Does a great job. Second edition, systematic theology. And it says here that Judas Maccabees, the leader of the Jewish forces, also took a collection man by man to the amount of 2,000 drachmas of silver and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this, he acted very well and honorably, taking into account the resurrection. For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore, he made atonement for the dead that they might be delivered from their sin.

So that became the foundation of the idea of purgatory. So if that were a canonical text, we would take it a little more seriously, I suppose? Well, as you know, in the Roman Catholic Bible, the canon is much more than what we have. They do accept the apocryphal works of the Old Testament. As the word of God.

Right. So, as you know, the Septuagint had extra books, has extra books, and so they're going not by the Hebrew Masoretic text, they're going by the Septuagint text, and they include some of those books. Now, the Eastern Orthodox even go beyond that, and they add even more books in there. And sometimes it's done under the guise of, I know you're troubled about the salvation of your loved ones, but here's the way. It costs a little bit of money. It costs a little bit of money, but I think, I don't know if it was initially done with that in mind, or it became that.

I got you. Maybe it was done to give, it's like, I know this is a finality here. I know what the Bible says about, there's one judgment, but hey, we found a way. So that's interesting that it, you know, when it began the sale, the purchase and sale of indulgences, that it wasn't necessarily about the money. Well, the sale of indulgences that Pope Leo did was definitely about the money. He wanted to rebuild the building.

Yes, these are the Medicis. I mean, they were not very nice people. They wanted some cash quick. They wanted cash. They were quite twisted, if I may say that. Yeah, and wherever there's someone wanting some cash, there's some gullible people who are more than willing to give it over.

Well, that's what I was going to say. I mean, not even gullible, just emotionally. It's leveraging people's grief for finances. Yeah, I don't even want to say gullible.

They're just vulnerable, is really the best word for it. What person, if you're not grounded in theology and what the Bible says, what person, if you say, hey, I know you're brokenhearted about so-and-so that you love that has died, and you want to make sure they get into heaven, here's how you do that. I mean, if you're in the throes of grief, what person's not going to jump at that? There are passages that are often brought up by those who support this view of purgatory and even indulgences. For example, 2 Timothy 1.8, where Paul says to Onesiphorus, when he arrived in Rome, he searched for me earnestly and found me. May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day, and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus. So, what is claimed is that when Paul says that, Onesiphorus was dead. So, Paul is talking to his family and saying God's going to possibly show him mercy on that day, and it's going to be through purgatory. Despite, was Onesiphorus lost? No, he was saved, but maybe Paul said this because he may have done something that had some venial sins.

Because if he was saved, why would God need... Their argument is, if he was saved, why would he need extra mercy? Yeah. I see. I mean, it's just a very like... It's a stretch, though, isn't it? It is a stretch. It's hermeneutical garbage.

It is terrible. Another passage is Matthew 12 32, where Jesus says, whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. Now, think about that. Either in this age or in the age to come. So what they're saying is there is a possibility to be forgiven in the age to come. After death.

And I'm like, what if that was a manner of speaking? Right. Because that's not where my mind jumped when I heard that. He won't be forgiven in this age or the age to come. To me, that speaks of... Wait, wait, wait. Did you mean like there can be forgiveness in the age to come? So you're saying there's a chance. All right.

All right. Like to me... Wait, that's not even what I'm talking about. To me, that speaks of certainty. It almost speaks to the opposite. He's saying there's not going to be forgiveness now and not later. He's like, oh, so there might be. So there could be later. It's like your little son, Gavin, saying you're not going to get ice cream today or tomorrow. So you're saying I can get it on the day after tomorrow.

Yeah. What I'm hearing is... Not for the rest of this week. So after this week, I'm good.

After this week. I hear you. It's like when you try to manipulate someone and they're telling you bad news, but you keep trying to make it positive.

It's like, hey, this is not happening at all. But I hear what you're saying. Let me try to spin this in a positive way.

I'm going to leverage this for what I want. And it's not even like after this, I may get it. No, it's like, OK, so you mean not today or tomorrow or not this week or next week, but the week after that, I am getting it. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. I'm good with that. I'm with you. I'm with you.

I'm tracking. I may not get it, but someone else might. Like, it exists. Yeah. 1 Corinthians 3.15, when Paul says that on the day of judgment, the work that everyone has done will be judged and tested by fire. And then he says, if anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. So that's the fire of purgatory.

And we understand that, proper hermeneutics, that it's like you are barely making into the kingdom of God. Right. Like you're in. When you're sliding in, your clothes are still singed. You can smell smoke all over you.

Right. But you made it in. You made it. You made it. You almost didn't. Those crowns of glory that are laid up for Paul, you are kind of just lucky to be here, sort of thing. Yeah, by the grace of God. And you did believe, but you didn't do anything for him. Right.

All that stuff was wood, hay, and stubble. But you made it in. Right. Be grateful. It's poetic imagery and figurative language that they're taking to form into false doctrine. Right. Right. Well, I mean, the bottom line is this. Anytime you have things like this, you're adding to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, and that is so wrong on so many levels.

Yeah, that's true. And again, we mentioned this yesterday, but it's like something that's like, well, if they believe in purgatory, I'm not, I don't believe in it, but I think it's fine. But then it does undermine the finality of Christ's sacrifice, right? Because there's still punishment that needs to be, like, he paid for my sins, and he was punished for that, but I still need to be somehow.

Or somebody needs to be cleansed up. Yeah, so the cross, I guess, wasn't enough. Because you've seen them not live the Christian life here.

Because you've seen them not have a real relationship with God. So now you're trying to find a way to get them out. Yeah. You see, so what we're coming back to the beginning of this episode, which is, or this radio show, which is, you need to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

That's right. And I know this may not be your language. Maybe this is not how you grew up. Maybe this is not how you heard preachers preach about a relationship. But that's what the Bible talks about. That's true. That's very true. So have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

When you accept him as your Lord and Savior, start walking with him. That's a relationship. That's right. And I know you're gonna have your ups and downs. I know you're gonna fall, fail.

You're gonna mess up. But when you have a relationship, you know that person. And you get to know him more and more. And you know that even if you are faithless, he remains faithful. And the stronger your relationship, the stronger your assurance, right?

Yeah. And maybe your spiritual life will be better. Maybe some sins will be confessed and renounced if you have a relationship.

If you don't have a relationship, no wonder you continue in your old life. Isn't it crazy that there are Christians who live in fear, unsure of what's gonna happen or where they're gonna go? Right. Even after salvation. Just living in dread when you don't have to do that. You don't have to live in that fear.

No. You don't. That's so great. Dr. Josh, thank you so much for that explanation and walking us through that. If today's episode was helpful for you, or maybe it raised some questions for you about what it means to have a personal relationship with God, write in and let us know.

We'd love to help you take those next steps in your journey and your walk with God. Call us at 1-844-252582-5028 or you can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. Don't forget, you can partner with us financially on that same website. Scroll to the bottom, click that donate button and become part of our Clear View Today Show family. I also want to remind you to visit MightyMuskadyne.com, the sponsors of today's episode. They've got a great line of products for you.

Check those out. Use the promo code TODAY when you check out. That's T-O-D-A-Y. It's gonna get you a discount and a portion of your purchase comes right back here to the Clear View Today Show. John, any encouragement you want to leave our listeners with this weekend? Kind of like what Ryan says at the end of every single Friday, make sure that you find somewhere to worship.

Plug in, get under a pastor who's teaching the Bible and write in. Let us know. Let us know what your church is talking about this week. Let us know any topics that you want to hear us cover on the show. We'd be glad to take a look at it and we'll see you next week. Love it. You guys have a great weekend. We'll see you guys on Monday on Clear View Today.