Thursday, April 18th | The History of Iran

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That's AbaddonShah.com. And again, we're taking a step away from our regularly scheduled programming, but in a lot of yesterday's conversation, Dr. Shah, so many people wrote into the show saying how informative it was, how they learned things that they hadn't known before. And that's our goal, is to educate people, to get you in touch with what's happening in the world and what's happened throughout history, to educate you beyond what the average person might know. So we're going to spend today's episode digging a little bit more into the nature behind Iran and this conflict going on in the Middle East.

Yeah, and I just wanted to add to that as well. The people who are writing in, Christian podcasting is such a—we are first and foremost a radio show, but we are also really prevalent in the podcasting realm, especially Christian podcasting. It's such a niche medium. You would think that everybody would be talking about this. Very few are. And I guess we talked about that yesterday, but it still is kind of mind-boggling to wrap your mind around the fact that people aren't talking more about this.

Yes. Either it's out of fear or it's out of ignorance, okay? Fear that, oh, well, let's not say anything. It's a controversial subject. We don't want to make anybody mad and have some retaliation. Or it's out of ignorance. I just don't know. I just don't know what is really happening.

But I will also add a third possible reason, which is something that has been growing for some time, but ever since October the 7th, 2023, we have seen it really come out of the shadows, which is anti-Semitism, where supporting Israel is looked upon as being, really, you are so ignorant. You don't know. And you will be booed down or you'll be shouted down or you'll be threatened. And all of these things are not just wrong. So we're hoping in this brief time that we have on the radio or on podcast or even on YouTube, that we can speak about these things and broach a subject that people are not talking about, because it needs to be.

And there are people who are talking. We know there are some of you who are doing it. Thank God for that. Great job. Keep doing it. And don't let anybody talk you down. We've had people who do that. All of a sudden they become experts and they're kind of being very condescending in their tone, like, who are you to talk?

Are you getting it off some prophecy website or some old dusty old book from some dispenser? Come on. And you have to ignore such people. They're self-proclaimed experts and this is an issue they have that this is what they like to do. And so we don't descend to their level.

We can talk about it the best we know, the best we understand, biblically, historically, politically, and explain what we think needs to be happening. That's one of the most important clarifications, I think. You were talking about self-proclaimed experts, people who walk in the room and tell you they're an expert versus people who are an expert, like you, Dr. Shah. I don't think in my time that I have known you in almost 10 years now, you have ever once walked in a room and said, now I'm an expert on this. I don't even say that about my own field. No, you don't.

You don't. You just let your knowledge and your research speak for itself. And that's indicative of a true expert, someone who genuinely wants to educate other people versus someone who wants to appear smart. Well, also someone who just is willing to hold on to some sort of dogma. I think we talked about this either on last week's episode or an episode that's scheduled to come out next week. But in the realm of scholarship, there's no room for, I have to hold on to this because it has to be right.

As developments come in, you have to adapt and you have to mold. But the confidence you have is not that we have to hold to it so the Bible isn't wrong. It's like the Bible has never proven itself to me.

The more you dive into it, and even the same with this Iranian-Israeli conflict, the more you dive in, the more you see that the Bible is proving itself true. Right. And if you really want to be objective about this whole thing, then really go and study history, not just some biased history or some leftist scholar spouting off some garbage and then say, no, that right there is the objective stuff. Have you read that? Well, I also realize that's a communist garbage. That's leftist. That's radical. Why would I read that?

You know, it's crazy how many... I'm aware of it, but I'm not going to read it because I just don't read anything and everything. I want to make sure what I'm reading is credible. I want to make sure what I'm reading has some integrity behind it. I don't want to just read some bias. Right.

So, yeah. Well, I was just going to say, it's exactly what you're saying, and it's insane how in the wake of the October 7th attacks, how many university students suddenly became world-renowned political experts as far as Palestinian politics go. I was floored that all these experts in hiding all these years suddenly emerged from the woodworks to show us the way. Ask them questions beyond the first couple of questions, the typical ones, and they cannot answer. They don't even know the geography of the area. They don't even know who is in power, what are the parties.

They have no clue. I saw some protesters on TikTok when all that was happening, chanting, like, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, and one of the guys was like, what river? And they're like, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. What river, though? What river is that? And they were like, if you don't understand that. Yeah, they were like, we're not going to be bought in by, you're not going to trick us.

He was like, I'm not tricking you, I'm asking. What river are we talking about? You're talking about the Euphrates? Are you talking about the Tigris? Are you talking about the Jordan River? Which river are you talking about? Yeah, so they were like, we're not going to take the bait.

He was like, well, I know that might be too specific. What sea? There's way less seas, right?

Just tell me what sea. Yeah, there's only one. They can't even say that. The Med, or the Dead Dead, or the Red? Which one is it?

Their eyes just glaze over. It does not compute. You're talking about the Dead Sea, or the Mediterranean Sea, or the Red Sea? Which one are we talking about? No, it's Galilee, obviously. The Sea of Galilee. Wait a minute. Palestinians will be free from Galilee.

It rhymes, it makes sense, I guess. Yeah, but I also want to emphasize, we are not against any people. We're not against Palestinians. We're not against Iranians. We're not against anybody, for that matter. God is pro-people. That's right. God is pro-people. And so what we're dealing with here is not hate speech or any of that.

We're simply laying out the issues where they are and calling for peace, but at the same time saying a nation, when it's attacked, has a right to defend themselves. That's true. That's 100% true.

And I think it's very critical that people hear, you hear Dr. Shah say that this is a response to what we feel is unwarranted violence. And not one people is superior to another people. Right, right.

No, definitely not. God loves them all. God loves us all. That's right. Talking about Iran, a lot of questions have been asked. Tell us a little bit about that. Of course, I covered a little bit of the history of Iran prior to 1935. It was known as Persia. And if you want to know what Persia is all about and this nation, it almost seems very mysterious, kind of like India. People know India, but they don't know what is this nation. I've seen things, and I know some people from India.

What is it like? Same thing with Iran, with Persia. People are often just intrigued by the mystery of this place.

True. And a great book that I recommend and still do is Edwin Yamauchi's Persia and the Bible. He is a great scholar and has been for some time.

And he has really put some work together. And as I mentioned, there are so many historical sites in Persia or in Iran that, unfortunately, the Western world doesn't get to see. And I'm hoping one day we will. That's a great point.

That's a great point. And I think it's important we talk about Iran on today's episode because I think, as someone who was born here and raised here, one of the disadvantages to living in the West is that you really, truly believe that this is all there is. You don't realize how influential countries like Iran or India or things that are on the other side of the world, you don't understand how influential they are. But Jewish people in the Babylonian exile, they went to Babylon, which became the Medo-Persian Empire, sort of like overnight. And that's kind of simplistic history, but Cyrus found a way to get into Babylon, and it went from Babylon to the Medo-Persian Empire.

And it was not overnight. He was working out the details when he rerouted the Euphrates River. And, of course, God's people flourished in exile.

We know about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. Of course, that was Babylon at first, but then it became Persia. This is also the place where Esther became the queen. She was a Persian queen. This is also the place where Nehemiah was a cupbearer in Susa.

Where is Susa? It's in Iran. And he got the call, well, he felt the burden to go help his brothers in Jerusalem, and he came and helped rebuild the walls around the city of Jerusalem. I mean, this is all coming from Persia, from Iran. And Cyrus was the one who set them free. When he came to power, he said, go home, go back, go build your homes, go build your lives. And many came, many stayed. Why did they stay?

Because they felt like Persia was great. We don't want to go back to Israel. We don't want to go back to Judah or Jerusalem. It's too much turmoil.

We're going to stay right here. And did you know that there were Jewish people living in Persia since that time period until recently? Wow.

That's insane. Yeah. I mean, the whole time of the Greeks coming through there, the whole time the Romans sort of, they didn't quite get into Persia as far, but that time period, the time of Jesus, they were Persian Jews. And then come down through the centuries, they were Persian Jewish people. That's home to them.

That's like the greater half of human history that they're there. Yeah, they were there in Iran. Iranian Jewish people, they were very proud of being Iranians. They didn't want to come back to Israel. Even after Israel got their independence in the 40s, 1946, they didn't want to come back.

Because they so strongly identified with what they considered to be their motherland. Yes. I said, 46, 48, right? 1948.

I think it was 48. Yeah. They didn't want to come back. It was up until very recently, and they say there are a few handful are still there, that they finally felt like, we have to go, we have to get out of here. It was getting increasingly difficult for the Jewish community in Iran. In terms of persecution? Persecution, yeah.

Wow. So that's nothing new to them, like being persecuted, even what they would consider their homeland. Nothing new to the Jewish people. But through the centuries, it was okay.

They made it. But recently, and recently when I talk about that, we're talking about 1979 on with the Islamic Revolution. Right. That came under Ayatollah Khomeini. When the Shah of Iran fled the country and his government was overthrown, the name changed to the Islamic Republic of Iran. So 1935 was Iran, but Islamic Republic, that title came, that designation came in 1979.

So prior to 1979, were they allied with the West? Yes. Oh, yes. Yes. I think, and that's something that even I, like until just recently us talking off mic, I didn't know.

Yeah, I didn't either. Yeah. I mean, if you see pictures, all you got to do, go on Google and type in pre-1970s Iran, and it will shock you.

You'll be like, this is crazy. This is what Iran was like? Such an open society? Yeah. It is kind of shocking. You've actually shown me pictures of like pre-1979, like women in Iran that look just like women here today, just like long hair. Very free.

Yeah, very. No hijab, nothing like that. And it's crazy because I feel like in school, we learn like the revolution, the civil war, World War II, and that's about it. American history. American history, but nothing of like world politics. Even America's involvement in Iran and like in Middle Eastern politics of like the 70s, that is nothing. I don't remember any of it.

Maybe if you're lucky, you'll get a little bit of Cold War, but that's about it. Yeah. And then, of course, some of you may remember the older audience, but those horrific pictures of the hostage crisis in Iran, which was in 1979 at the U.S. Embassy, where they seized and took about 52 hostages, and the crisis lasted about 444 days. Wow. And it was horrible. And then in 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, and it was like an eight-year war, the Iran-Iraq War. Wow. Went on for eight years, and a million some people died in that war.

I had no clue it was even a thing. Yeah. Iran-Iraq War. Growing up, we used to hear about that, Iran-Iraq War.

And so that happened. And then 1995, kind of jumping over for time's sake, Russia, of course, always steps in, signed an $800 million nuclear plant deal with Iran to complete the nuclear plant at Bushehr, and that's where things began to change. Right. This is in 1995. In 2004, Iran agreed to suspend all uranium enrichment. Agreed. Okay, we're going to stop this.

If you give us some benefits, we're going to stop this. And then in 2005, Ahmadinejad, you may or may not remember him. He was kind of crazy. He comes to the power. He was the president of Iran, and Russia in the same year signed the deal for $1 billion worth of missiles and other defense systems.

Wow. So Russia has been an instigator in all of this for a while. Stirring things up. Yeah, I have been. It's kind of one of those things where anytime there's a big major conflict, they're there. They may not be at the forefront like they were with the small Ukraine thing, but they're somewhere there in the picture. If you look in the background... There they are.

Smoking a fire, poking a bear. It's like, how did this deviate? How did this devolve so... Oh, there you go. Russia.

Yeah, I got you. And in 2006, Iran sort of was like, okay, I got Russia on my side. And they sort of just kind of rebuffed, in a sense, the European efforts to stop this nuclear enrichment, uranium enrichment program. They said, you know, we're going to do what we need to do, and we're going to continue our work. And then in 2006, it was a 35-member international atomic energy agency voted to report Iran to the UN Security Council over this, which means absolutely nothing.

It sounds pretty impressive, but it doesn't... I could gather all our little kids here and go write a letter to the president, right? That's about all it does. Let's all write a letter. Just let him know how we feel. It still means pretty much nothing.

Maybe he'll care. Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

And then, of course, they referred that to the UN Security Council, which means nothing, and they unanimously approved a statement demanding that Iran suspend their uranium enrichment. Stop it. It's like, bro, it's failed. Stop it now. Better stop it or else. Or else what?

Or else you'll find out. Yeah, we'll write you another letter. Keep going. You want to keep running your mouth, I'll write you all the letters. Yeah, so this was March 29th of 2006 that Iran said, okay, now you stop it, okay? That's enough.

So April 9th, 2006, Iran officially announced that we have already begun the enrichment program. Man, but what about the letter, though? What about the stern warning? Yeah, of course. They didn't care?

You can take that letter and... Yeah, you know what to do with it. So we're laughing about it, but this is how it works, and you often wonder the motives of the people who are even saying you need to stop this. Are they really serious about it?

Are they really... They really care? I remember thinking in... Because we've talked about European politics and World War II on the show, because this is not the first time that things like this have happened to the Jewish people, and it was like this whole thing, our engineer just texted us, it's like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy. I declare bankruptcy. There it is.

You see this kind of thing where they make deals with the European powers, like, okay, you can have Czechoslovakia, you can have whatever, you can have Austria. You can't take this one. They're like, okay, yeah, great. And then they just go take it, and then they're like, I don't understand how this happened. I told you you couldn't do that. We laugh about it, but then even as recently as 2006, the same things happen, and you start to really wonder, does world politics actually work this way?

Do people really do this kind of thing and then think that it will work and then be shocked when it doesn't? Well, in June of the same year, the PS5 plus one, which is China, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Russia, of course, and the United States, they sort of created this proposed framework to Iran offering them incentives to halt the program. If you just stop it, we're going to give you all these benefits. And of course, Iran is like, no. But we'll take the incentives.

Yeah, I'll take the benefits. I mean, it's a joke. I don't know what it is. And I know behind the scenes there are people playing very, very big chess games. They're playing games that will blow our minds. I'm so glad sometimes we don't know what they're up to. I'm so glad we don't know all the things that go on. And I'm not a conspiracy guy, so I'm not going to get into that. But all I'm saying is Satan is behind all these games.

He's the author of turmoil and war and rumors of war. And I'm glad that God is in control. Because if we read too much on these things, I used to.

And I was like, wow. I mean, we're giving such power in the hands of such an evil regime. And we're telling them, oh, just stop it.

Do we really mean that? It feels like at its core, like you said, this is a very spiritual issue. And it seems like we, I don't want to say we, I mean like the Western world at large, is doing its best to ignore that or deny that. And so trying to solve it with diplomacy or with incentives or with whatever, it seems like it is kind of doomed to fail when it's at its heart a spiritual issue.

That we're not addressing that spiritual issue. Well, you said this on, I believe it was yesterday's episode, that all of these things are kind of tremors before the actual earthquake of the end times. And we're not going to sit here and say, oh, this is that prophecy and this is that prophecy.

We're not here to do that. But this is indicative of kind of heading toward those last days. Yeah, yeah, it is, it is.

I mean, you know, this is 2006 and on, back and forth, back and forth. Hey, we're going to freeze for freeze. We're going to tell you to stop your program. So we're going to give you some incentives.

And in 2009, this is February the 3rd, Iran announced that, oh, just to let you know, we have successfully carried out our first satellite launch. Wow. What? And I often wonder, do people not know?

Come on. They know. They know. And it's like, well, no, we're trying to send a weather rocket up in the space.

And we're going to do that to better understand how to raise crops. But they're not sending weather rockets up. They're launching test missiles to see if it'll work. I remember back in the 80s when India was doing that, because India is also nuclear power. And it was a big joke in India. It's like, Indians cannot even fly a rocket up in space, because every rocket lands in the Arabian Sea or in the Indian Ocean.

Come on, come on. Look at America. This is putting a man on the moon. They were not trying to put a man on the moon. They were testing their missiles. And everybody laughed at it. But that's what they want you to do.

They want you to laugh and go, oh, look at them. They can't even do that. No, they're not sending anything up there. What if they're not sending anything up there? What if they are simply testing their capability, their weapons?

And so anyways, so now a lot of things have happened. There have been a lot of human rights violations that have gone on, especially against women. I mean, all these liberals who talk such big game, they should be the first ones to stand up and say, you know, Iran is wrong. But you don't find them anywhere.

No, they're oddly silent on that. They're worried about all the oppressed women here, these mysterious oppressed women in the United States. And there are women over there who are mistreated.

And there are videos of them out there. Women who have been beat up just over the hijab or mistreated. I mean, a lot of ugliness that goes on in the world. It's evil.

Sometimes you don't even want to know. Yeah, I think another side of it that a lot of people don't talk about is this persecution of Christians in Iran. And I didn't know that there was such a large Christian population in Iran as well. Yeah, Iran arrested 166 Christians in 2023. Wow. This report came out in the Christianity Today.

Insane. 166 and targeted Bible distributors. Arrested them for being Christians? For being Christians, yeah, for being leaders. I mean, even several of them, they put them in prison for a while, tried to send them to Islamic clerics to retrain them. I mean, it's terrible. It's very sad.

This is maybe a preview of something that's coming up that we'll talk about in greater detail in the coming weeks. But we had an opportunity to speak with someone who does live in that part of the world. I spoke with him yesterday, and I'm working on getting him and Dr. Shah connected together. But he does live in that part of the world. And he said, you know, it's very real here where if you come out—and your father, even, Dr. Shah, your father experienced this— if you come out as Christian, your family will kill you.

People will kill you over that. And I said, wow. I was on the phone with him, and I said, you know, you hear that all the time here in the West, but it doesn't really connect. And he said, it's very real. And so I was talking to Dr. Shah after that phone call. He said, he's right, yeah.

It happened. That was my father's story. It's not safe to be a Christian in that part of the world. And I think growing up here in the West, we lose that.

I mean, that is such a strange idea to us. Yes, it is. You might have people that will, you know, the odd person that will make fun of you or talk down at you because you're a Christian, because you're carrying a Bible. But you're not in fear for your life. No, not at all.

Especially from your own family. Yeah. And, Ryan, you mentioned something about the end times. Of course, please do not go out there and take anything that's happening on the news right now and immediately try to plug in to some outline or some timeline. Yeah.

Don't do that. But if you do read Ezekiel chapter 38, and I want to read that in closing here, it says, Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, set your face against Gog of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him and say, Thus says the Lord God, behold, I'm coming against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh. And many scholars have said that's Russia, Meshech and Tubal. I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords.

Now pay attention to verse 5. Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with them, all of them with shield and helmet. Gomer and all his troops, the house of Togarmah from the far north and all his troops, many people are with you. And who are they going up against? They're going up against the house of Israel.

They're going up against Israel. And so these are ancient names, but Persia is Iran. Right. And so there will be a role for Iran in the end of times. Right. And the end of times is very soon or a thousand years from now, only God knows that. So for people who are listening to this wondering, why are you covering world politics? This is a Christian show.

I just want to hear from the Bible. Yeah. Like this is why. Yeah, this is what we are covering. Yeah.

Yeah. So important for us. Dr. Shah, what encouragement would you leave with our listeners and viewers today? As we've learned more about Iran and the things happening in the Middle East, what can the average person do?

I would definitely say pray for the peace of Jerusalem because in its peace, you will find peace. Amen. Right?

That's right. And walk by faith, not by sight. Be courageous. Be bold. But at the same time, be tactical.

Know when to speak up and when to say it's not the time. And do that. And know that God will be with you. That's right. Share the gospel with people. That's right. Share the gospel with people. Amen.

God is for people. Yes. If today was helpful for you, write in and let us know what you got from today's episode. 252-58-25028. Or you can visit us online at clearytodayshow.com.

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Tomorrow, we are back to our regularly scheduled programming. We're going to be talking about failure. How do we fail? Is there a biblical way to fail?

Is failure something that we should just avoid at all costs? We're going to talk about that on Friday's episode. So important for us. Make sure you guys are there. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Cleary Today. What's going on, Clearview Today family? Jon here, and I want to let you know about a movie being produced right here in North Carolina called Resurrecting Eden. This is a love story.

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