My Boy Patty… Patty Henry

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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. Abbadad Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm Jimmy Neutron.

The guy's quoting Jimmy Neutron over in the back. I'm John Callantis. And you can find our show online by visiting ClearViewTodayShow.com. Or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. Or you can email us at contact at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

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We're going to leave a couple of links right there in the description box so you can do just that. And the verse of the day today coming not from Jimmy Neutron, but from the book of Acts, chapter 5, verse 29. Got a blast.

Got a blast. But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. That's true. That's true, man.

And a lot of our problems in life would be so much easier, so much better if we just obeyed God rather than men. And Dr. Shah told a story one time about R.G. Letourneau, who kind of had that same, I think we've told it on the podcast.

R.G. Letourneau was a brilliant, brilliant man of God. He was a, what do you call it, not an inventor, but he manufactured big heavy industrial equipment. And he was in some financial woes, right? He was in some financial trouble, some debt.

He couldn't even pay his workers. And so he went to church and they were doing like a missions thing where they were like, we want you to pledge for missions. And he felt called to do it, but he was like, I can't even pay my workers.

Some of these people sitting in the pews work for me. And if I'm giving money to this mission and I can't even pay their bills, and God said, listen, obey God rather than men. And he did. And what ended up happening was he ended up making such a huge deal on the back half of that experience that he was able to pay all his workers an extra. And that's how God works when you obey him rather than obey men and worry about what men think.

That's right. It's always better to obey God than to obey men. We're so prone to listen to and do what we're told.

I mean, that's kind of how we're pre-programmed as a society. But God's rule trumps man's rule, and we should always look to him as opposed to the laws in the world around us. Now, I'm not saying, you know, we would never say disobey for the sake of being disobedient. But if it comes down to it and you are called to stand up and, you know, respectful disobedience because of what God's word says, we're called to do that as believers. I got a personal story about how obeying and just doing what you're told can go very wrong.

Very, very, very wrong. Before we dive into that, I want to remind you that all of these verses come to you from the Date the Word app. It's a great way to stay up to date with God's word and to get God's word as a daily part of your life. You can download it for free on iPhone or Android.

Every single day connects today's date with God's word with the hope of making it more memorable for you. That's right. Thank you to the Date the Word app. So, last year. Maybe it was the last year or the year before last.

I can't remember. I think it was last year, wasn't it? It might have been last year. It's pretty recent.

I still feel the raw burn of shame and humiliation and regret. It was mid-June or July. It was late summer. Well beyond Mother's Day.

Mother's Day is in May. I'm up on stage, and we're leading worship. Between the last song, Thank You Guys You May Be Seated, and the pastor coming up, we do just a short welcome. Hey, welcome to Clearview. Thank you for worshiping with us.

Make sure you fill out that Connect card. If there's anything we can pray for you, yada, yada, yada. All that good stuff. OK, so we have what's called a confidence monitor, or it's just a projector on the back wall that the congregation can't see. They're looking at the main screens that have welcome, nice graphics. But then there's text on the back wall that's invisible to them, but we can see it from the stage that kind of gives the bullet points, here's what you're supposed to say. There was a Mother's Day script.

It was like, hey, thank you for all the moms to be moms at hearts, blah, blah, blah. I'm on autopilot, right? We've just got to the third song, the spirit is moving, everybody be seated, emotions are high, the moment is there, so you want to say something that's emotional and ties in. That's really the trick, is to not interrupt the flow. The flow of worship is still going.

You don't want to halt it and be like, hey guys, here's all the housekeeping stuff. So I saw the Mother's Day script on the wall, and I was not even thinking, it's not even close to Mother's Day. Mother's Day was like two or three months ago. It wasn't like last weekend or a couple of weeks ago, it was several months past. I just started reading it.

Late July, maybe early August. It was like going into, Father's Day was done. Father's Day was already passed. I was like, man, we just want to... Happy Mother's Day to all the moms. I was like, from all of us here at Clearview, we just want to wish you guys a very, very Happy Mother's Day. You know, we're grateful.

We're so grateful for the women in our lives who sacrificed so much, and I'm going in. All the moms are like, huh? People are confused. Question marks over every head in the sexual way.

They're like, what? Halfway through, I realized, oh my goodness. It's not Mother's Day. It's not Mother's Day.

They just left it on the back wall from, I think it was from the last time we did that song. And it was like, I was like, I don't know what to do. I'm mid-speech right now. I just finished. I just committed. Just rolled it.

Yeah, I just finished strong. How did you turn it around on people to be like, I'm sorry. I just wanted to recognize and honor the moms in our lives.

Do you not think that every day should be Mother's Day? Because that's really a you problem. I don't get embarrassed easy. I really don't get embarrassed easy.

I was pretty red-faced. Make sure you, it's a larger point, make sure you check your confidence monitors in your lyrics. That's right. Double check. Get another set of eyes on there.

If you've ever had a technical blender like that in front of people, write in and let us know. 2-5-2-5-8-2-5-0-2-8. Or you can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. Hey, what's going on, listeners? My name is John.

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

Love that. Ellie, let's hop back in. Let's do it. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadan 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. We are coming at you live from the Clear View Today studio with Dr. Abbadan 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. Happy Mother's Day, dude. Happy Mother's Day. It's all the moms, moms to be, moms and hearts. It's not Mother's Day. Why are we clapping?

Oh, because Dr. Shah. We were talking earlier. I thought you were going to do it.

You want to try again? Sure. We're going to get that.

We're going to get that in our little sound effects board soon. We were talking about last year. It was sometime around late July, borderline August. The point there being not near Mother's Day.

No, not even close. I don't know if you remember, but on the back wall, the projector, the confidence screen had the Mother's Day script, and I just started reading it to the congregation. I don't know if you remember that.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms. It was late July. Oh, yeah. I don't remember that. I was reading it, and when you get up there, I don't know what happened. I was like... Are you in the whole church?

Everybody just thinks it's very puzzling. It was already passed, right? Oh, yeah. I think Father's Day had passed.

Yeah. I was like, why did he just do that? We were coming to the end of summer. I believe it was like we were gearing up for the school. Father's Day was already over, but it was on the back wall, and I was just in auto mode. Anyway, we just want to thank you guys for being here. Happy Mother's Day to all our moms, Moms to Be, Moms at Heart. We just want to let you know we appreciate you guys. You just rolled with it.

So many question marks. Was it like somebody forgot to take it out? We did a song on Mother's Day, and then didn't do that song again. I was trying to figure out why it was left, but it was a song.

It was attached to the end of the last song on the screen. On the main screens, everybody just saw Welcome to Clearview, but on the back screen, I saw the Mother's Day script, so I started reading it. Halfway through, I realized, I was like, I have messed up. Has anything like that ever happened to you where you're in front of four or five hundred people, you start talking, and you realize halfway through this isn't right?

It happened in the early years, so guess what I do now? What? I have my entire message written out, word for word, word for word. Now, I don't read word for word, but I have it in front of me just in case.

Not many people can think on their feet like that. Yeah, it's not Mother's Day. We can agree on that. It's not Mother's Day. But it is a very special birthday today.

It is. And it's not your birthday. It is not my birthday.

It's not Dr. Shaw's birthday. Nope. It's not Nicholas. Nope. It's not David. Nope. It's not even me.

No, it's not. It's not the Clearview Today show. It's not the Clearview Today show. We're celebrating a very special birthday today.

Someone who could think on his feet and was good in front of a crowd. My boy, Patty. Don't call him that. Patty Henry.

Don't call him that. Patrick Henry was born today on this day, May the 29th, back in old 1736. Now, Dr. Shaw, there's someone listening today who probably has got like a D-plus in history and they're saying, who on earth is Patrick Henry? Patrick Henry. Oh my goodness.

Give me liberty or give me death. That's right. That's too weak.

Here, I got you. Patty! If they had the air horns back, then they would have sounded different.

They would have been like woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. Well, he was born in a kind of a rural Virginia family. Started his career at 16 as a struggling storekeeper and then as a farmer and then he went on to become a successful self-taught lawyer, really. This is by 1760. His father kind of trained him and he became one of the greatest orators of our history of the American Republic.

And we know about the give me liberty or give me death speech, but there's another speech I want to read for y'all sometime in this conversation that I think, in my opinion, the words are even more powerful than the give me liberty or give me death speech that he gave at St. John's Church in Richmond. I've been to that church. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When did you go? You went recently? No, we went there. Oh my goodness. We went there in 2010. Okay.

Yeah, 2010. Our whole family went, Nicole, myself, our four kids, and I don't know if Nicholas wants me to tell the story. Can I tell the story?

Do you even know what he's talking about, Nick? He remembered this. So we got to St. John's Church in Richmond, which is where the second Virginia Convention had gathered in 1775, okay? And so outside, when you walk into the church yard, I guess you can say that, you walk into a graveyard. All around the church are graves. And so we walk in, so if you ever have been to St. John's Church in Richmond, you kind of park your car on the side of the road, it's not like a parking lot. You park your cars on the side of the road, and then you make your way towards the front, where you climb up the steps, and then you are in the graveyard, and then the church is just directly in front of you. So we walked in there, and St. John's Church has some, the graveyard has some very prominent people buried there. I think Wythe, who was Thomas Jefferson's mentor, is buried there, if I'm not wrong. So anyways, we walked in standing and looking at the graves, and there's massive graves here, graves there.

There was a guide, he was talking to some people, so we're sort of like listening in on that conversation. And one of our children, I would mention any names, said it as loud as he could, who died? Well? How old was this unnamed child at the time?

This individual, this young lad. Let's see, in 2010. 2010.

Yeah, 2010, let's see, 2024. That person is 20 now. Yeah. Oh, so they would have been like seven or eight. Seven years old.

Seven years old. Yeah, he said it as loud as he could. And everybody stopped in the turn and looked at him, and of course the girls are like laughing, and I'm like, shhh, and the whole time we're just having a great time thinking, who died?

I mean, that's an obvious question, it's like, we're here. And that's right, George Wythe, or, Wythe, I guess, Wythe, I don't know. Yeah, he's buried in St. John's Episcopal Churchyard in Richmond, Virginia.

Thank you, David, for finding it. That's him. And he was known, Patrick Henry was known for being this person who spoke out. You know, he was known for his, just, the way, his rhetorical excellence, I guess I can say, just the way he would talk about, and like in 1763, he won fame, first time. As a young lawyer, he was attacking the established Anglican clergy because they were demanding more money from the parishes, and I mean, he went after them.

How dare you, right? This is 1763, and in 1765, he was elected to the Virginia legislature, and then in ten days right after he was elected, he spoke out against the king in parliament and called them tyrants for taxing the people without their consent. Wow. Going in. This is Patrick Henry. I mean, he came in fighting, but he came fighting with words.

He's standing on some business. Yes. You know, it's kind of interesting, and I really love that, and I think I respect that a lot about people back then, is when they talked and when they spoke, there was substance, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Because not everybody had that platform back then, whereas you think about now, everybody on earth has a microphone and a podcast, and yeah, they're not saying nothing. Even people I admire, there's even people like celebrities, not celebrities, but figures that I admire, who, if you really listen to them, they're not saying much of anything, but they speak well, you know what I mean?

That's right. And for Patrick Henry, I mean, this is now, let's jump ahead, 1775. Now, it seems like just yesterday he was talking about the clergy, and today he was talking against somebody else, the tyrants, the king, and the day after he's talking about give me liberty or give me death, but that's not true. I mean, years are passing by. A lot of time has elapsed. So he's learning, he's growing, he's becoming more and more influential in these colonies, especially in Virginia, as a man you look to, to rally the people, to move them to action.

And if I can read this speech, I mean, this is a powerful speech, the one that he addressed to the president of the convention. He said it this way, he said, let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned. We have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves before the throne.

Our petitions have been slighted, our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult. Our supplications have been disregarded, and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. Sir, we are not weak. If we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature has placed in our power, three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty and in such a country as that which we possess are invincible by any force which the enemy can sin against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations. One may cry, peace, peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. Its life is so dear, or peace is so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God.

I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death. You've got to have a bigger applause. I think that probably was closer to how they may have responded. I don't even know if they clapped. We were walking around with a guide, and if I'm not wrong, they said at the time, I may be wrong, they said there were no clapping. I mean, the people would clap, but I don't think that speech got the claps that we envisioned today.

You think it was more like stunned silence? Oh, my, that's a little too much, because what you're saying is either that or I'm going to die fighting. If today somebody says, hey, I'm going to die for that, what do you immediately are?

You just perk up, and you're like, ugh, what are you going to do, kind of thing. He is not just a person who is moved by passion. Now, his rhetoric is pretty passionate, but he's not just a person moved by passion. This is intelligence. This is eloquence. This is, these are powerful words. They're coming from scripture. They're coming from Jeremiah.

You know, gentleman may cry, peace, peace. I mean, the prophets were saying, the false prophets were saying there's peace, and are we going to work this out? And he's saying there is no peace coming, there's war coming. And so that is so powerful to think about the time in which he said those words. Yeah, the country is, I mean, not yet a country, but it's on the path to independence and that road through the Revolutionary War. I'm just imagining, what would it have been like to live in those days and to have existed before America was America, and to watch that process happen in real time, and to be able to stand up and say things like, give me liberty or give me death, to believe in that cause so much. I even think, like, the forward thinking, having the foresight of knowing what's coming. And so what I mean by that is, these days, what you hear is, we need to go back. We need to go back to the 50s, back to the 60s, when everything was good and everybody was Christian.

Patrick Henry and I feel like these revolutionary guys, just like you said, Dr. Shaw, they knew there's no going back, there's no peace coming. We've got to march forward on our terms. And I wonder if America is getting to that place again, or if we feel like revival to what once worked is still possible.

Do you know what I mean? Not saying that we're hopeless, but saying, okay, we're never going back to this place. Or is it more like, hey, if we get our hearts and minds right, we can get back to this place and not have to carve something new?

If going back to the place involves our, it's more about my personal convenience and things I am familiar with, and my ease among people like me. If you want to go back to that, that day is gone. That's not coming back. And I don't think you want it to come back, because that day also had evil in it. But if going back means values, if going back means the gospel of Jesus Christ, if going back means going to the heart of what the founders of this nation really believed and what they stood for, then I think it's possible.

That is possible. But going back is like the good old days, man, when you sit on the front porch and, okay, I think you're nostalgic. But nostalgia doesn't always mean things that will last forever.

It just means I like those days where I did things my way, and I had my friends and people I was comfortable with, and this is how it worked. I'm not that interested in that, because you're not going to get many takers on that. That's right. We just did an episode on that very recently.

In fact, I'll link to it in the description. When you make that point before each one of our plays, especially the last several shows that we've done, have been that sort of nostalgic feeling. We did things like Tom Sawyer, Little Women, those timeless tales. But you bring it up in each one, nostalgia is fine, but nostalgia for nostalgia's sake is incomplete. It's not lasting.

It's not permanent. We need to be nostalgic for the values. We're looking to something that worked back then.

That's right. And those values, okay, now you got me on board. I like the old things. Of course I do. I like cowboys, and I like the westerns, the old westerns.

Yeah, there's something to that. But to think that we can somehow bring back that era. Like what era? Like Bonanza? I mean, that's a TV show. What era are we talking about, the 1880s? Like what, Tombstone?

I mean, what era are we talking about? What are you searching for? I like the freedom. I like the independence. I like people who are strong and are willing to stand for values. Good guys are good.

Bad guys, you better run. I mean, that's different. And to someone like Patrick Henry, that was the future. He wasn't looking to get back to the good old days when the colonists were doing their own thing or whatever.

He saw that they had taken the nation as far as they could take it under Britain's rule. Right. It was time to separate. It's time to move forward. As a leader, do you find yourself having to do that? Having to say, okay, I have to kind of determine the time to change or the time to transform the culture? Yes.

Yes. I truly believe that. I believe we are the Patrick Henrys of today in a different sort of way. If they were living today, I think they would be on the cutting edge of what we're doing. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, all these people would be on the cutting edge. What do you think it takes for Christian leaders to get to that place today?

Wow. For one, I mean, you need a real relationship with Jesus Christ. You got to get an understanding of the gospel for yourself. You need to believe that the gospel is the truth from ancient times. It's the truth that goes back to the beginning. The proto-Evangelium, that is the gospel and the gospel is about Jesus Christ.

This death burial resurrection, you got to get that in your core, in your DNA. And then understand that the history of the world is simply the history of people either accepting or rejecting that gospel. And civilizations were built or they fell apart based on whether or not they opened the doors to that gospel.

Even before the coming of Christ, the gospel was there. It was portrayed as Abraham and Sarah moved. It was portrayed when Joseph was in Egypt. It was portrayed when Solomon was the wisest man in the world. It was portrayed when God's people were taken into exile, whether it's the Assyrian or the Babylonian exile. It was portrayed when Jesus came. I mean, it was portrayed. And then through the ages, through the centuries, it has been portrayed.

And so what does it take to understand, man, this is not just a means to an end or just a way to make a living. This is the way the world was intended to be. That's true.

That's right. This is God's design. This is God's design. This is what brings life in people.

This is what gives people hope and eternity. One of the things that is very, that has helped me a lot working here at Clearview is that there's always a why behind everything we do, not just a how. I'm a how person. How, okay, I see what you want.

How are we going to do that? But understanding the why behind it and the heart behind it truly has, and I know that it seems like that's just something that leaders say because they don't know what the how is, but that's not the case. Knowing the why shapes the how for you, you know what I mean? And so that's why I love the way that we do this, because in this room, there's a lot of technology.

There's a lot of how, but I think sitting here at this table, there's a lot of why, and that's why it works so well. That's why I think we're seeing Clearview doubling, tripling, quadrupling its success. Also with this radio show, it's evident, and God is making it so. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, going back to Patrick Henry, so in the last few years of his life, the revolution is over, America now is a nation. For a while, he wanted government to be very involved with religion. In fact, he wanted to see the state support of all Christian denominations, which I'm glad it didn't work out. I think it's better to have everybody independent. But we've made it today, the separation of church and state is baloney. But what he was saying is, no, we need to make sure that government is involved in church and supporting all denominations. Well, his reasoning behind was, in the last years of his life, now we're coming into the 1790s, he became increasingly concerned about the growing deism in this new nation. So he was very concerned about that.

And so in 1799, believe it or not, he came out of retirement to run for a public office in Virginia. Man. That's incredible. And at this stage in his life, he is 63 years old, and he ended up having stomach cancer.

This is June the 6th, and his doctor tried to give him medicine just to ease his pain and all that stuff. And there's a little story about how it all came to an end. They found a small envelope sealed with wax near his last will and testament. And in this envelope, they found a single sheet of paper. And he had written these words, which to me is, those words are more powerful and more precious than his give me liberty or give me death speech.

This is what he said. He said, whether this will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use of our people, will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God had bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation. Whoever thou art, remember this, and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself and encourage it in others.

P. Henry. I mean, he wrote that down and kept it in his last will and testament. And he's buried not far from here, Red Hill, which is if you go up from Clarksville and head towards Lynchburg. And I see a filming project in our future. I've been there. That's amazing. Man, so incredible to listen to these stories about Patrick Henry and about these other men who have shaped our history. Hopefully today was helpful for you. Write in and let us know what you learned from today, 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. Every gift that you give goes not only to building up this radio show, but countless other ministries for the gospel of Jesus. Lots of great content coming your way. Stay tuned. We love you guys. We'll see you next time on Clearview Today.