John Wesley

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That's MightyMuscadine.com and use that promo code T-O-D-A-Y. You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill.

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Anywhere you get your podcasting content from, we're going to leave a couple of links right there in the description box. So you can do just that. The verse of the day today is coming to you from John chapter 5, verse 24. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death into life. It's a big, big theme in the gospel of John is belief, a belief especially in the Son of God and Jesus Christ. And that's a big thing because that's really truly the mode of salvation is belief in him. You know, we know we admit that we're a sinner, but then we believe that Jesus is who he says he is and confess that he's Lord. And John, I think, explicitly states, I'm writing this so that you will believe. He outright says in his gospel, that's his goal. And so I think as Christians, that's our goal as well. And not just to believe, but to grow in our belief because there's a lot of time where belief can wane.

Yeah. This is an important passage because a lot of times people will have that mistaken approach saying that Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God. He never claimed. This is pretty explicitly claiming to be the Son of God. He hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life. That's pretty clear.

And then in the same gospel, I think it's in the passage before the chapter before this or after this, the woman at the well says straight up, are you the Messiah? And guess what he says? He says, I am. I am.

Yeah, 100 percent yes. So he does claim to be the son of God. Which reminds us that, you know, the religious leaders, they weren't surprised to find out that Jesus was God's son after the fact. They knew. They knew what was happening. And they, you know, they tricked themselves into believing a lie. You know, what's important to know and I think it's a good sobering reminder is they were well versed in the scripture. A lot of times better than we're well versed in the scripture.

But it didn't have to be that way. You can get these verses to your phone every single day through the Date the Word app. They're a partial sponsor of today's episode. Make sure you download it right now.

It's 100 percent free on iPhone and Android. Every single day connects today's date to God's word with the hope of making it more memorable for you. I got a user-submitted question in today. I love these million dollars questions, by the way. We try to do one every Friday.

Sometimes we do them on other days. But people send them in like crazy. They love these million dollars questions.

You know what I really wish is that they would actually send us the check. I'll do it. Like I'll do it. Especially this one. This one is a no-brainer.

But I feel like it could get out of hand. A million dollars every single time that you are somewhere where a hymn is being sung. You don't do one, two, and four. You do every verse.

Sure. Yeah. I felt that, too. But at the same time, it's like some of those hymns get ridiculous. That's true. Now, there are some hymns that have like seven, eight, ten verses. So that could drastically lengthen the service. I think it might be Come Thou Fount, or it might be another one.

But it's like some of the hymns are ridiculously long. Yeah. I would take that. Hold on.

I think I would do it, too. I want to look up which hymns have the most verses. Did you grow up with hymns, or did you grow up with Christian contemporary worship? I grew up with hymns.

Really? Yep. See, I grew up in 2007. I grew up in 2007. I was saved in 2007.

CCM was on the rise. Yeah. So we sang contemporary Christian music in youth events, but in church, it was hymns. At the church that I grew up in, it still is hymns. Yeah. I think there's one I just saw, I think it's called Oh Dearest Jesus Has Fifteen Verses.

Huh? Oh Dearest Jesus Has Fifteen Verses. Fifteen verses? Let me see.

How many verses are there to a traditional hymn? Good. Yeah, a lot of them. I think there's one.

Be That My Vision has... It's got quite a few. Yeah. And I think... What's the one that we did that one time? It wasn't Come Thou Fount, but I think Come Thou Fount only has the three. I know there's a bunch that have a lot of verses. Okay. So... Oh my good gracious.

According to Guinness World Records, Sing God's Song by Carolyn Anne Eish of Englewood, New Zealand is the longest published hymn with 754 verses or 3,016 lines, and each verse has an additional four line refrain. You still gonna take that for a million dollars? You get there and you see on the bulletin, Sing God's Song, you're like, come on! That's it. Buckle in. Your worship is going to be 45 minutes.

Buckle in. This is the one. Oh, oh, for a thousand tongues to sing my great redeemer's praise. 18 stanzas. 18 verses. Yeah. Wow.

Some of them, that's what I'm saying. You know like one, two, and four, but you don't know all... Let me see. I want to pick a stanza at random.

That is wild. Hear him ye deaf, his praise ye dumb, your loosed tongues employ. Ye... Ye blind, behold, your savior come, and ye be lame for joy. I want to pick another one. Awake from guilty nature's sleep, and Christ shall give you light. Cast all your sins into the deep, and watch the Ethiopian light.

We maybe shouldn't say that one. Get us into the next segment, man. Just get us into the ad. Get us into the ad. Million dollars, but you got to sing all 18 verses.

As long as they're not problematic verses, I would take that. I would take that. My goodness.

Write in and let us know if you would take that deal. Wow! Oh my goodness. Two, five, two, five, eight, two, five, zero, two, eight, or you can visit us online at clearfetodayshow.com.

Send us your favorite hymn. Yeah. Yeah. Stay tuned. We'll be back after this. It really says...

Yes! Cast all your sins into the deep, and watch the Ethiopian white. That's what it says.

No, I think it's talking about like the Ethiopian eunuch getting baptized, and so wash his sins wise. I mean, he's Methodist, so I mean... What's going on, listeners? My name is John. 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.

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Again, that's 336-759-0363. Well, John, are you ready? I was born ready, my friend. Let's hop right back in. All right. 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 clearviewtodayshow.com.

If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. That's right. Happy Friday, listeners. We are here once again in the Clear View Today studio with Dr. Abbadon Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. Dr. Shah, we're going to give you a million buckaroons. That's a million dollars. Wow. That's a lot. Okay. But here's the only bugaboo is this. Every single time that you do a hymn, whether it's here at church, whether it's at a funeral, at a wedding, anytime a hymn is sang or sung, you will do every single verse.

No skipping verses. How much do I get? A million dollars. I'll take it.

A million dollars. Really? That's what I said. Yeah.

It just lengthens everything. Yeah, but I mean, it gets old. A lot of hymns in America, like in old church, we don't do a ton of hymns, but when we do, we do like, we'll put it in a contemporary song. We'll do maybe a verse. A lot of them have four verses. Some of them have like 10. Yeah.

That's what the rest of the world has been doing until I came to America, first, second, and last. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, what happened to the third one? Wait.

We don't like the third one? No. So a million dollars.

But anytime you do a hymn, you may end up doing like 27 verses among three hymns. Sure. I'll do it. A million dollars. Same my way. That might get old, but you know what doesn't get old? A million dollars.

True. On today's episode, we are in the light of tradition, in light of time-honored establishments in our faith. Today is the anniversary of John Wesley's conversion.

Most people believe it was on May the 24th, 1738. That's right. That he came to Christ for the first time.

That's right. He came from an amazing family, okay? Mom and dad were in the ministry. Of course, dad was a minister. But his dad always stayed in some kind of controversy.

Really? Always fighting with somebody somewhere. Just want some drama. Was stirring up the tea. Stirring up the tea. Always spilling tea.

Arguing, fussing, fighting. Come on, dad. And if it wasn't for Susanna, the mom, I don't know if we would have ever heard of John and Charles Wesley. Oh, Susanna. Susanna was just an amazing woman.

She was just very godly. And of course, dad was, too. He just was always in some mess. As my mom was there, he was always stirring up a stink.

That's exactly what he would be doing. Stirring up a stink. Yep. Yep. That's exactly. Always people in the church stirring up a stink. Stirring up a stink. Yeah, but that's just part of what makes them who they are.

He'd always be coming up to you, be like, can I just ask for some prayer? It's like a red flag. I wouldn't say it like that. I don't think John and Charles Wesley's dad or Susanna's husband was quite like that. He was more like, I have a point to make about that.

That right there is a travesty of the traditions. He was not as much on the traditional side of things. He was more just contentious, kind of like this Puritan separatist type person.

The guy that would demand a Sunday school class for him to put his views all over. Or he would make a point out of something that you would say, well, let it not be the hill on which we die. No, that's the hill he's going to die on. That's the hill he's going to die on. That's the one. Yeah.

That hill's going to have my body on it today. Like the TikTok video you showed me of the guy who was fussing about the hymns. Like hymns should not have any music to it.

Yeah, they should. I thought, I genuinely thought it was a joke. He had someone, there's a guy on TikTok who argues with a ton of people and he was arguing that hymns should not have music. When you worship God, there's no instruments and it's just your voice. And I thought it was like, okay, this is a preference thing. This is a joke. No, he's like the New Testament, God does not authorize it.

I will die on this. And I'm like, oh my goodness. And then he tried to clarify, it made it even worse. He was like, now don't get me wrong.

Hymns are not sinful, but it's not worship and God will not accept that worship. And I was like, this dude is, this dude is really crazy. I sent it to Dr. Shy and he was like, that's real. People believe that. And that's another thing that I think we've talked about a lot on this show. The more we've been doing the show, the more exposed I've become to different levels of what people believe. And I am floored. I'm floored. I didn't grow up hearing any of this stuff.

I didn't think this was actually what people believe, but it's a hundred percent what people believe and what they do. That's right. That's right. And that was their dad, Samuel Wesley, just always had something to fight against. He was overzealous in some areas, kind of grew up in a dissenting tradition. We're not going to go along with this Romish church, or we're not going to go along with where the Anglican church is headed. Of course, he was an Anglican minister, but still that's the mindset with which John and Charles Wesley grew up. So how we grow up or the family that we have is very important because that sets the tone of where we will be headed.

So it's not like, oh my goodness, they had such a horrible dad. No, it's what made them such trailblazers when it came to writing hymns. Charles really is the hymn writer. That's what made John Wesley the man he became, who said when he was denied the pulpits in England, he said, the whole world is my parish.

If it wasn't for a dad like Samuel Wesley, I don't think John and Charles would have turned out the way they did. That's a great point. That's a great point. We forget that.

Yeah. And we forget that the troubles that we go through, or even just the things, the environment that we grow up in, it's not just things that we overcome, it's things that work together for our good. I think that's a great way to say it.

It's like, well, would it have been more pleasant if he hadn't been that way, if he'd just been an easygoing guy? It may be, but it would not have shaped them into the people they become. We forget that, but that's how we are raised, has a lot to do with who we become. True.

And it's not necessarily always bad, right? If their dad was not the type to fight against the establishment or fight against the clergy who had held the church hostage kind of thing, John and Charles would not have done what they did. That's true. They would have just gone along with the tradition and just been the church kids or the preacher's kids who grow up and become lawyers or explorers or whatever else, or doctors. But they grew up different. And of course, because of that, they both went to Oxford, right? John and Charles went to Oxford. In Oxford, they met up with another one by the name of George Whitefield, and they formed what they called the Little Holy Club in Oxford. This is in 1729.

And then in 1735, which is three years before his conversion, both John and Charles came to America, especially to Georgia. So I'm wondering if they grew up in a minister's home, and what was his father's name? Samuel.

Samuel. If Samuel Wesley was so into this, why was he a grown adult when he was converted? Was he just not into, did he just not buy into Christianity? I'm talking about John Wesley. No, he bought into Christianity. In fact, he came to America to share the gospel with the Indians.

So he came, but it hadn't touched his heart. I got you. He grew up in it. Right.

He grew up in it. He was sort of a Christian, quote, unquote, but he did not grow up saved. Got you.

I got you. And so he comes here, and then he makes that strange statement, you know, I went to the Americas to convert the Indians, but who will convert me? And he comes back, and when he comes back through a Moravian friend, of course, he had seen the Moravians on the ships, you know, Moravians are more than just those cookie makers.

Right, right. I don't know what they are today, who knows, everybody's gone off the deep end, but hopefully the Moravians are doing right. But they were in a storm, and he saw how the Moravians had the joy of the Lord and them, and they were singing and making melody to the Lord, and he was like, man, I want that. And so when this happened, a Moravian friend by the name of Peter Bowler, he came to understand that the doctrine of faith in Christ alone is what brings us salvation, okay? And then on the evening of May the 24th, he went to a prayer meeting in Aldersgate Street, which is in London, and as he is in that prayer meeting, he's hearing the gospel, I think they were reading from Luther's preface to Galatians, I believe it was, or Romans, Galatians, and as he's hearing that, he makes that famous statement, I felt my heart strangely warmed, and that was his conversion experience. He finally got it, and he finally received it, and he felt it. I think that's a great testimony, even for those of us who, or for those, I should say, who did grow up in church, because I heard the gospel for the first time when I was 15 years old, and I knew Jesus was a thing, you know what I mean? And I knew, it's like, hey, Jesus loves you, this I know, cool, heard all that. But never did I hear the gospel actually preached to me until I was about 15.

So sometimes I do wonder what it'll be like for my kids, or even for the vast majority of Christians who did grow up in church, to also have that conversion experience, to not, sometimes I wonder what it's like to be saved after you've heard for so long, you know what I mean? I don't know if that makes sense. It does make sense. Yeah. Yeah, and you know, we have people here at Clearview, because we have people getting baptized of all ages, but especially young kids who respond to God, and they, you know, they get saved, and they follow through with His command to be baptized, and so we have parents all the time come and ask us, like, is it okay that my kid is this young? Is it, do they really understand?

Yeah, yeah. And they do, they genuinely do, but you said this before, Dr. Shaw, if we, as parents, as believers, are doing our job right, our kids may not remember a time before Christ. They may not remember that pre-conversion life, because, you know, they've grown up hearing the gospel. Right, and so accepting Christ was just a natural thing to do. It's not like a radical change from this day on. Right.

I don't know what the change came into me at four years of age. Probably nothing. Yeah, yeah. Just that, okay, I know now that I have confessed that He is my Savior, He's my King, and that's that. So, you know, David asked a great question. He said, what is strangely warmed, and how is it different from Mormon burning in bosom?

What does that mean? What is Mormon burning in bosom? That's what Joseph Smith said, right? He said there's a burning in his bosom? Yeah.

I never heard that. Yeah. Okay. I think strangely warmed is what his way of saying, I felt God's Spirit in me. I felt that my faith was real.

Now it was real. Joseph Smith, okay, he also mentions that burning in the bosom, or that's the Mormon thing to say. But what is the aftermath, right? If I can even use the word aftermath, or what follows? What follows is heresy.

Yeah, yeah, true. What follows is a denial of Christ being the Son of God. And let me clarify in case some of you out there are thinking, oh, well, Mormons believe he's the Son of God, but they also believe that Satan is also God's son. Yeah, believing that Jesus is the Son of God is not the only thing to give you sound doctrine. Right, because in the Mormon theology, Jesus and Satan are brothers. And I've had people argue with me and say, no, that's not what they...well, draw the conclusion. Okay? So you're not going to find a line that says they are brothers, but draw the conclusion.

That's who they are. So what follows is not the same. What's your follow-up, David? Yeah, I was looking up the Mormon burning in the bosom, and that seems to be a big thing. So I know that that's also the warming of the heart, or the warming of the spirit thing is something that certain groups of Christians say and believe.

So I didn't know how that was differentiated. I would say don't wait for feelings. Don't wait for emotions.

Don't wait for this warming of the heart. None of that is necessary, okay? It's a confession. You believe it.

You accept it. What can we learn from this experience that John Wesley had is this. You can be in church all your life and never have that moment where you received Christ as your savior. You need to have that moment. You say, does that mean I need to have the strangely warmed feeling?

No. That's what happened for Wesley, but it doesn't mean we need to have that feeling. He said, what happens if I don't? Just by faith, you receive the truth that if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you're saved. And so when your kids come to you, parents or grandparents, and they tell you that they're saved or they received Jesus, don't add any extra to it and say, well, how do you feel? You got to have a feeling. I mean, do you feel it?

Do you feel something in you? Well, they may not. Don't misunderstand Wesley's conversion and think that they got to have this heart being warmed. Just by faith, they're receiving the truth.

They believe it with childlike faith. Accept that. As an adult, you don't need the warm feeling.

You can simply believe by faith and move on. If you have the warm feeling, great. I've seen that with adults, especially those who have lived a rough life or they have gone through a lot of trials and struggles in life. When they get saved, there are a lot of tears. Why do you expect that on a five-year-old?

What have they done? When I was 15, I got saved in like a little modular unit. It was like a little trailer that they had at the church. And I didn't have that feeling. I went home and I was like, I don't feel different.

I wonder if I'm different. And then that summer, so that was in October, that next summer we went to, I'm sorry, it was winter. It was a few months later, we went to a big youth camp in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and suddenly I felt it. And I was like, oh wow. They did the altar call. They had like bands. I mean, it was like, wow, this feels amazing.

I must be saved. And then from that point on, I never felt it in Sunday worship. Never felt it. And then the same year when I went back to that camp, I did feel it again. And so the years started going by and I was like, I think I just feel it at this camp. Could it be that there's something here that they want me to feel this way? And I'm not saying that's like a manipulation or anything, but I am saying I only feel it when I go to this specific concert over the week. So I don't know. It was just a thing where I was like, I didn't have that when I got saved.

Well, that's a good reminder, just like we talked about, that the feeling itself is not bad. No, it's not. No. But don't let that lead. Right. Don't wait on that feeling in order to be like, okay, I haven't had that feeling yet, so I'm not saved until I have that feeling.

Yeah. Years ago, I was a principal of a Christian school and we would have this one evangelist, youth evangelist who would come and speak. And he was coming way before I came there, or at least a few years before I came there. So the students look forward to his coming. And he himself was a great guy and still probably is. I've lost touch with him.

In fact, I never was in touch with him, but I lost contact after I left the school. But what I noticed every time that he came was that it was a big cry fest. He just had a way of speaking where the students would start crying. He would talk about the pit. He would talk about the rough times.

He would talk about the feeling unloved and all that. And he was doing what is right, except there were some teachers there who would take that to the next level of, I'm here, come cry on my bosom. And so the students would get up and then they would go cry with this youth evangelist.

He was actually a good guy. So he would just stand there and say, hey, your teachers are there, and a couple of those teachers were like, come to me. And then they would have this thing, and I'm like an academic, you know, we've been here two hours.

We need to head to class. Oh, no, Mr. Shaw, this is what this is. This is what it's all about. This is what it's about.

I'm in Christian school. This is what we're about. I'm like, yeah, what I'm seeing here is a lot of crying and weeping and hugging each other and then hugging these teachers and hugging this and hugging that, I'm like, okay, all right.

And so I let it go. The next year? Same thing? Same thing. Yeah. But nothing in the in-between. Right. That's my problem because I saw a lot of the same people who were doing the same things.

There was no transformation of character, which means there was no growth in grace, doing the same thing. And I was like, oh, you like this. You prepare yourself for this moment. Because I even remember one of the girls saying, oh, I got to take my tissues. I got to have my tissue.

Where's my tissue box? Yeah. I'm like, oh, this is your purging time. And I'm okay with that because there are times where you need that purge every time you have to cry and say, God, it's just this burden or this heaviness or this lethargy in my life needs to go. And this is the time as I'm hearing the message and the music and all that, this is helping me. I get it. But for this group here, it was just something they enjoyed. Yeah. And that emotional catharsis that you feel is not confirmation that the Holy Spirit is now working and moving.

So the strangely warm, I'm addressing it. This is a tough subject because it calls people out. But I hope people will learn from this. Very much. And I appreciate, Ryan, because you do such a phenomenal job in teaching and leading youth and speaking here at church and also in meetings in the Christian schools and in the public school as a chaplain to the athletics department, football team.

You do such a powerful job. You let God use you and it's full of emotions and feelings as well as truth. But it's never that. Well that's what I was actually going to commend both of you two guys because Dr. Shaw, I think you do that as well in your preaching. We are not robots at Clearview Church.

We don't say, hey guys, emotions are bad and you're weak. There's people coming and crying on the altar at all times. What's unique, I think, about Clearview Church is that we are in the middle where we don't encourage you to come and cry and pour yourself all over this altar emotionally.

The altar is open. And the sermon is not revolving around this goal that we need you to come up here and make a big display of. That's not the point of our services.

Yeah. I appreciate what you say, Dr. Shaw. And I've learned that from watching you and how you lead. Emotions are not leading people. Neither are they condemned at Clearview in the way that we conduct services here.

We put them in their proper place, which is where God intended for them to be. 100 percent. I hope that it was helpful for you if you learned something about faith, about John Wesley, and about how you should respond to the gospel. Write in and let us know, 252-582-5028, 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 let us know what's coming from our Clearview Today Show family. John, any encouragement you want to leave our listeners with this weekend?

Absolutely. Make sure that you find yourself a good God-honoring church to go and worship in this weekend. Come and see us again on Monday, because we've got a whole week of content prepared just for you right here on the Clearview Today Show.

That's right. You guys have a wonderful weekend. We love you guys. We'll see you on Clearview Today. We'll see you next time.