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David, how many bottles of water do you think you drink a day? Well, actually, I only drink Flamin' Hot Mountain Dew, Strawberry Yoo-Hoo, and the occasional Pepto Bismol. Flamin' Hot Mountain Dew? Do they even make that anymore?
Fun fact, no. I have to make my own with McDonald's Sprite, and you guessed it, Texas Pete. I am genuinely horrified to hear that.
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Where's my Mountain Dew? You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. You can find us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearViewTodayShow.com.
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We're going to leave a couple of links right there in the description, so you can do just that. The verse of the day today is coming to you from Psalm chapter seven, verse 10. My defense is of God who saves the upright in heart. My defense is often my own wisdom. My defense is often my experience or my pride or my knowledge or my experience or whatever it is. I can't think of a single time it's ever served me any good. I'll tell you, my defense is often my own ingenuity, and that's no defense at all. My defense is typically a paper plane in front of a category five hurricane, like a little paper mache wall.
It's not going to go up. It's not, and it never does. But when God is my defense, truly, I truly feel defended. When they say God is my fortress, he's my stronghold, the older I get, the more I understand that, the more I see how fragile I actually am. Yeah, the Lord is my strong tower, the Lord is my refuge and my strength. The more you go through in life, the more grateful you are that God is that source of refuge. When you're young and you haven't experienced much in life, that doesn't really connect with you as much. But when you get older, we're kind of entering into those mid 30s, older 30s years. You've seen some stuff, you've gone through some stuff, and you recognize, as people who are older than us would, I'm sure, attest to, that God is your refuge.
I mean, that takes on a whole new meaning. I wonder if, this is kind of crazy, but I wonder if you like young people ever believe, like I didn't believe it. Like people would tell me, hey, listen, this world is rough. You're not as smart as you think you are. One day you're going to understand what I'm saying to you. And I wonder if any young people are ever truly like, okay, yeah, I believe you.
I don't think you can. I think you got to, like, there's an element to where like, okay, I understand what you're saying. I understand that I don't understand. But I don't think you can really grasp it without that experiential knowledge. That's true.
That's true. You know, the Word of God is there to help you even when you don't understand or you're too, maybe too young to fully understand. And we want to help you access the Word of God. The best way for you to do that is download the Date the Word app because every single day connects today's date to God's Word with the hope of making it more memorable for you.
You can download it for free right now on iPhone or Android. Thank you to Date the Word for sponsoring this show. Ryan, something crazy happened to me. Oh, no. And I just got to tell you. Oh, man, this one was bad, brother. This one was bad. Oh, I got to tell you. Hold on, I'm dancing. It's a rare condition this day and age to read any good news on the newspaper page.
What happened to Yerkel? It was certainly, this was not good news that happened to me. To be fair, this happened a while back.
This is not something that just happened today. But I ate lunch at Moe's and it reminded me of this, I got to say, I would say traumatic experience. The eating lunch at Moe's sounds like a great experience. Oh, that was great. But the one, but this happened about a year or so ago. And today I had, I don't want to say a full on anxiety attack in Moe's, but it was close.
They had to pick me up off the floor. About a year ago, I was at the mall with my wife, Ellie. Ellie's a beautiful young lady, beautiful wife, probably the most perfect wife that has ever existed. But she has one, I don't want to say critical flaw, but it's a pretty glaring flaw. She doesn't love Moe's. Not like I do anyway. She'll eat it, but she doesn't, she doesn't. That is unfortunately a mark in the negative column. That's going to be a role on the negative pole for Ellie.
I hate that for you. But she's kind of chill. So when we went to, when we went, this was like a year ago, like I said, we went, I was like, Hey, I really want Moe's instead of being like, no, we're not going to Moe's. She was like, we'll go get Moe's. I'll go get something else.
I was like, okay, yeah, cool. See ya. Left her, walked into Moe's by myself. Get in line. There's a young blonde woman ahead of me.
Who is not Ellie. No, no, I've never seen this woman. She, she, gosh, she's getting her burrito. I go, I get my burrito. I stand behind her. Apparently I'm standing too close because the guy behind the counter takes my burrito and puts it on her tray and rings us up together.
Okay. So I'm like, Oh, I saw him do it. And I was like, Hmm, but I was like, well, I don't know what it says. I was like, uh, uh, instead of being like, Oh, Hey, sir, we're not together.
I was just like, uh, um, um, so he's like, uh, that'll be a 34, whatever. And she looks at my burrito on her tray and it looks at me and like kind of looks weirded out. Like I'm like, I'm the weirdo or whatever. Then she looks at him and goes, I don't know him.
I'm not with him. And it made me angry. It made me embarrassed, but also made me kind of angry because I was like, what am I disgusting or something?
I didn't put the burrito on your tray lady. It would have been like, yeah, it would have been the one thing if she'd just been like, Oh, Oh, we're not together. But she was like, I don't know. I don't know him. I'm not with him.
It's just a weird thing. Like he just grouped us together. We were the only two, I guess we were of a similar age. We just, but I mean, he must have seen me walk in while she was already ordering. I don't know. Maybe he didn't. I don't know. Maybe he didn't, but he just, have you ever been, have you ever like, has anybody ever mistaken you for someone else's spouse or like being with another group when you gotta be like, Oh no, I'm here alone for some reason.
I'm sure that they have, but I can't, I can't recall a time that that was the case. I mean, there have been times where we're in line somewhere and the person who's ordering from me, they'll look at me like anything for you. I'm like, Oh no, we're, we're not together yet. That's the thing. And then, and then you kind of, but there's that feeling where it's like, that's a big group and they're having fun and they're like out on vacation together. I'm here at like a Jamba Juice by myself.
Yeah. And that's sad, but my thing is, is I rarely go anywhere by myself. Like usually even when we're traveling as a, as a family, there's always a crowd. So we are, we are our own crowds. I'm rarely anywhere by myself.
That's my story. I think about that every time I go into a most seized with, we're not close. We're not close in life.
I don't know. That's the greatest response ever. We're not close in life. I was so offput. The look of just disgust on her face.
I'm sure I'm exaggerating it, but it just cut me to the core. Oh, that's funny. She was like, I'm, I don't know him. I'm not with him. Which to me, I mean, it's an overreaction on her part.
Like calm down lady. Yeah, I guess I don't know. I don't know, but I was fine. Thank you. I think you did fine. I appreciate it.
Let us know if you've ever been grouped incorrectly out in public and what that experience was like for you. Two five two five eight two five zero two eight. Or you can visit us online at clear view. Today show.com. We'll be back after this. Hey Ryan. Hey John. Hey man. I'm having an awesome time doing the clear view today show with you.
Thanks man. And I hope people are having an awesome time listening to it. Well, listen, I think our listeners would actually be interested to know that clear view today is not the only podcast we produce do go on.
Oh, well go ahead and stop what you're doing right now. Mosey on over to your podcast app and subscribe to sermons by Abaddon shop PhD. As many of you know, Dr. Shaw is our lead pastor here at Clearview church. And every single week he preaches expository messages that challenge and inspire us to live godly lives. One of our core values at Clearview church is that we're a Bible believing church, which means that every single sermon is coming directly from the text. And it's great because whether you're driving, cleaning the house, working out, whatever you're doing, you're listening and receiving timeless biblical truth. And God works through every sermon differently, which means you're always going to get something new. Sometimes it'll be conviction.
Sometimes it'll be encouragement. That's right. And you guys can check out sermons by Abaddon shop PhD on the Apple podcast app. You can find it on our website as well. That's clearviewbc.org. You can even read the transcripts of every message on Dr. Shaw's website. That's Abaddon Shaw.com.
Love it. John, you ready to hop back in? Let's do it. Welcome back to Clearview today with Dr. Abaddon Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at Clearview todayshow.com. Or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028.
That's right. We're here once again, live in the Clearview today's studio with Dr. Abaddon Shaw, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Dr. Shaw wanted to ask you, have you ever been accidentally grouped with the wrong people? I see you go into a mose and there's a lady in front of you and the cashier thinks you're together. He rings you up. You don't say anything. You're hoping to get a free meal.
Has anything like that? No, that's not true. I told the truth. Have you ever been put with a group that you like didn't belong to and you're like, Oh no, I got to get out of this somehow.
And it's not a bad group. So here's what happened. This is before I had even met Nicole. Okay. So we were dating. What am I saying?
We were not even dating. I was looking for a job. And so, you know, when you're in college as an immigrant, you have to, on student visa, you can only work maybe 20 hours a week off campus only 20 hours a week.
And there was a lot of restrictions. And so I went to a chicken farm. I'm like, nobody's hiring.
You know, I got to get a job on campuses, but so much, I got to get something. So I went to this chicken farm, Fieldale Farms in Georgia. And I sat in the, in the, in the area, kind of the waiting room to get an interview. And I had a tie on.
I had nice clothes, dress pants, for an interview. And so there were a lot of Hispanic workers there with me. And they were all looking at me like, what is this guy doing here?
You know, they were really nice. It's like, you know, hola. I'm like, hola.
They're thinking is like, this guy doesn't want to talk to us. But anyways, of course I didn't know Spanish. I still don't.
The door flings open and the manager finally showed up and he's like, yes. All right. But what's up?
About 20, 30 some people. Okay. Anybody know English? Raise my hand. All right. Come on in. So I walked in there, sat down.
He's like, all right. Okay. What's your name?
And I gave him the name. I said, all right, so I'm going to need a translator today. So you know English, right? I'm like, yes I do. So I'm going to bring the one by one.
And if you want to just sit down, we'll pay you for that and all that. So are you good with that? He was thinking you knew Spanish. I was like, I know English. I don't know Spanish. That was an awkward, like, yeah. Cause then he's like, got to be asked, like, why don't you know Spanish? Like you are, of course you don't want to just say you're like, are you not Hispanic? So I'm like, I don't speak Spanish.
He just kind of looks like a five second quiet. All right. Well, why don't you go back and take a sip. How have I never heard that story in 10 years?
That's the first time I've ever heard that. How do you, how do you, how do you clear that up? Like you can't just ask someone like, are you Hispanic? Why don't you know Spanish?
You can't just ask people why they're white. So I went back and sat down in the waiting room. I don't know what happened. I don't think they ever called me back. Cause I did have an interview then after a few minutes later and they asked me all kinds of questions and they were just like, so you want to work at a chicken farm? I said, yeah, I'll do whatever it takes.
Okay. And I don't think they ever called me cause they were like, this guy is not going to last. That was the end of that. Yeah, that was the end of that.
They really had their host pinned on like trans-editors. That was the last time you ever visited that chicken farm. Yeah.
I still see sometimes years ago, I saw it driving down, I think 85. I'm like, that's where I went looking for a job. Was that before you became a painter or after? No, I was already a painter. You were already doing painting.
You were looking for something else. By the way, those who are listening, not like a Rembrandt, Baroque style. This is just painting the wall. You sand it first, you dust it and then you paint it. And the frescoes come later. You can do like a mural if you really wanted to.
Okay. But you know, over the whole process, God was guiding you and directing you where you needed to go. Directing your steps, keeping doors closed that needed to be closed, like being a translator for a chicken farm. A Spanish translator for English to a language you didn't yet speak. I feel like you could have just made stuff up. They would be speaking Spanish and he would look to you and he'd be like, he thinks you should give me a raise.
In fact, he said he wants to work for free. I mean, those guys were really nice. They were super, super nice.
I'm talking about the guys in the waiting room. There were some cards passed around. It's like, you want this? I was like, I have my own card. I'm okay. But they were like trying to help me. It was like a spirit of like, we're all in this together.
Do you need a license? I'm going to help you. Super nice guy.
I hope they all are happy wherever they are. We're continuing our discussion today that we've had for the past several days talking about how does God guide you? How do you seek God's guidance in your life? We talked about things like prayer. We talked about, you know, checking your emotions. Sometimes that emotional surge. In fact, often that surge of emotion is not actually coming from God. So we need to be careful about how we're following our emotions.
So in light of that today, Dr. Shah, what's the encouragement for our listeners and our viewers? Don't just give in to the surge of emotion that comes over you, especially if it's the emotion of pride, a sense of self-confidence. That never works out. I've fallen for that.
I have seen other people fall for that. And 10 out of 10 times, the enemy's behind it. And he uses that sense of emotion, that sense of confidence or pride or arrogance or anger or whatever it is that even over convictions, I'm all for convictions, have convictions, have godly or righteous anger.
It's all fine to do that. But the righteous anger is not coming from the Word of God. If it's coming from the surge of emotions that are coming over you, more than likely it's the enemy who's about to make a fool out of you. And you will. You will regret that, that decision, that action, that behavior, whatever you're about to confront or bless. So that can also be that I have a good feeling. And you go out there and make a fool out of yourself. And later on you go, why did I get connected to this person or this situation or this relationship or this project or task or ministry or whatever?
Why did I get committed to this? Because at the moment I had a good feeling. Good emotions that come from God have a sense of humility behind it. They have a sense of godliness. They have a sense of acknowledgement that it's not you, it's God. It's not about you, it's about Jesus Christ.
It's not how you feel or what principle you learned or some truth you have. It's about the Word of God. It's not your spirit. I check in my spirit. It's not about your spirit.
It's about the Holy Spirit. So I hope our listeners, our viewers will learn to discern. And every time I went ahead with it, I regretted it. It's been incredibly helpful just sitting through these episodes on this side of the table and listening to this because I completely agree. I can't think of a single time in life where God gave me something just so suddenly and so seemingly randomly and out of the blue. Like I just got a great idea and this is, we're going to move forward on this. And like I did it and it actually worked.
He's never, he's never just dropped sudden clarity on me just like that out of nowhere. I'm just still stuck on that learn to discern. I mean, that is beautiful. That used to be like a sticker or like a t-shirt design or something. We talked about Ginevrae Min on the last one. Yeah. So learn to discern, I think like an ear and maybe learn to discern the Clearview Today store right now. That's good stuff.
Go ahead and let's get that designed. When it comes to confirmation, of course we can see those godly emotions coming from God. We can see circumstances where you can see the hand of God, not just this worked out and that worked out and so and so and hand of God, but also mature Christians can also help you decipher the will of God in your life. Again, we're not talking about right and wrong.
We are talking about good, better and best. We need godly people who truly know the heart of God and have our best interests in mind. Godly people who know the heart of God and truly have our best interests in mind. Those are the kind of relationships you need to pray for and cultivate when they come into your life. True.
Very true. I have a handful, I would say even maybe less, maybe three or four such relationships where I know when I call this person or talk to this person, they will or these persons, they will give me godly advice. They will give me a mature, Bible-based, Spirit-filled advice versus whatever they feel in the moment. I'm not saying these people are foolproof or they don't ever make mistakes or sometimes I don't take their advice.
Sometimes they've given me advice where it's like I know what they are saying, but I think this situation here, I don't think they truly understand. So maybe I won't take that and I have done that. Nobody other than Jesus Christ himself can be perfect. So even those people will sometimes give you the best advice they are sensing at the moment, but it may not be what God wants. So I have at times said, maybe not. And thank God I did and did not take that route. But most of the time those mature godly people have helped me tremendously.
Yes, there are times I haven't taken the advice of mature godly people, not because what they were telling me was wrong. I think it was better. It was not best.
True. Is there a difference? It was better. It was not better. Remember, good, better, best. The degrees of comparison, where we talk about comparative and superlative.
So what they were offering me was comparative, not superlative. So there's one more thing I want to emphasize in this whole discussion on guidance is that guidance is not just for the spiritual elite or the spiritually elite. Sometime back I was in a bookstore and I came across a book on the will of God. It was like 300, 400 some pages. And I thought to myself, there's no way I'm going to read this entire book to understand God's will for my life. If I'm going to read the entire book and all this and go through all the pages and fill out all the little fill in the blanks, it will take me a good six months.
I need to make some decisions now. So I'm going to wait for six months to understand the will of God. And then I looked at the requirements. It was so many things that I had to get right before I will know the will of God. And I'm thinking, wow, the book laid that out? I'm like, okay, I guess I'm out.
I got like 10, 15 things I need to get in order. If you want to know God's will, Disney. If you want to know God's will, Disney. If you want to know God's will, Disney.
I guess I don't know God's will. I must not be hitting on nothing. If these are the check boxes, I'm out.
We're not scoring tens in this category. I'm out of luck. I guess I'm just kind of hoping and praying and not getting anything in return because a lot of these are kind of untenable. You see, thank God he does not have this long checklist. It comes down to a heart that is surrendered to God. And no matter what stage in your life you are, spiritually speaking, I hope you're saved because we're really talking to save people. But even if as a lost person you want to know the will of God, he will guide you. But the most important thing he wants you to come to is a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. So yeah, he'll guide you. You say, well, does God guide lost people?
Well, do lost people have joys in their life? Where do you think that comes from? Mr. Loggers, who comes on the enemy? No. That's not what the Bible says.
If I didn't get so tickled. I don't know why that was just funny to me. The enemy gave them their child, their home, their career, their car.
That's not possible. Every good and perfect gift comes from the father of lights. Father above. But for us, he will guide. And a great example of this guidance is found in the life of King David.
Someone kind of walked through that. In 1 Samuel 13, 14, it says, the Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart. In other words, David knew the heart of God.
What does it mean to know the heart of God? He was guided by God. He knew what God was doing in this world.
That's what it means to have God's guidance. And when it says in Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, is that when he was guided by God? Was it when he became the king of Israel? Was that when he was guided by God?
Hey, true. That's a good question. When exactly did he become a man? Was he born a man after God's own heart? Yeah. Did he earn that title?
Good question. I believe very early on in his life, he submitted his life to God. But as a young boy, when he fought a lion and a bear that came against the sheep and rescued them, he was a man after God's own heart.
Yeah, that's true. Even as a young teenager. As a young man, he charged Goliath. What did he say to him? You come to me with a sword, with a spear, with a javelin. I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts. I mean, who gave him that courage to say that?
It was not just him psyching himself up. He acknowledges it's the Lord, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. He's the one sending me to fight you. When he fought bravely against the Philistine, it was the same God. So many times in his life when he did things just by the power of God, it was exactly God who was guiding him. There's also when he fled from Saul, had to hide in caves, knowing the whole time he was the rightful king. And when Saul found out that David was in Calah, which was sort of a fortified town, he shows up and God delivered him out of that situation. So God was guiding David throughout, right?
To escape with his life. Then there was a time when David was in the wilderness of Ziph. That's when he was in the cave.
He was in the cave, right? And Saul comes in to relieve himself. Y'all know what that means, right? I have a sound effect, but I'm not going to use it. It's probably this kind of voice.
It won't work anyways right now. And so here he comes and David's men around him, they tell him, it's like, God has given the man into your hands. Ain't that how the enemy works, where it's like, there's this, oh, look, look, it's all working.
It has to be it. All of a sudden, it's just here. Kill him. You're going to make life easier for everybody. We can all go back to our families. You can go and claim your throne.
This bad guy's over. I mean, he's coming from a tribe of Benjamin. We know that this tribe is not supposed to be the royal family. Judah is. You're part of the family of Judah.
It's all working out. Kill the man. They're telling him to murder the king. And what is David's response? He says, I will not touch the Lord's anointed. He was guided there for sure.
So the friends were giving him wrong guidance. But God's spirit, remember, he's a man after God's own heart. God's spirit told him, yeah, this man, all your troubles, but you're no longer a man after God's own heart.
A hundred percent. And again, David was not perfect. There are many times he did not follow the heart of God. For example, when he fled to Gath. Yeah, of course. You know, for the... His big hippo moment.
Yeah, the big hippo moment, as John Maxwell would say. He, instead of going to God, he went to the Philistines and they recognized him and he had to act like a madman to get out of there. Crazy, man.
Crazy. That's not God's plan. But he ordered his senses to see how powerful he was. And even, I think it was Joab. Joab was not a godly man, but he was his general. Even an ungodly man like Joab is saying, I don't think this is right.
He still went on to do it. Not good. Don't do this. I'm not the one who like does Bible studies and stuff. But I don't think you should do that. Yeah, I wouldn't. I'm not an expert, but David, you may want to reconsider this. I wouldn't do it.
I wouldn't do it. As you know, God gave him three options of punishment that was coming and he chose to fall into the hands of God. He said, God, I'd rather you hurt us than for an enemy or something else, something else. And 70,000 people died in a plague because David did something that was not God's will. 70,000 people died. That's insane.
That's costly. That's one of the ones you forget. You always think about Bathsheba and the Psalm 34, but you forget about that census. I forgot about it.
Yeah, 70,000. When he gave into his own lust and committed adultery with Bathsheba and even had her husband Uriah the Hittite murdered. I don't know what was going through his head. Like she's with the Hittite. Anyway, Hittites, they're not part of God's people. So I'm actually doing her a favor.
I'm actually, I mean, come on, kind of rescuing her from that situation. Not God's will. So insidious how we can justify sin. Right. And David also knew how to return to the heart of God because we know when he was confronted about the census, his response was, I'd rather fall into the hand of God. It was not just that, okay, bring on the enemy. We can fight against them.
And at least I have a fighting chance. No, fall into the hands of God. When he was confronted by Nathan the prophet, he repented. I think he already knew what was going on, but he repented. But I love what you said though.
He knew how to return. And you said something, I've said this so many times on the show, but it is stuck with me. I think it's going to stick with me for life that most of life is returning to God.
And that has, I mean, when I say that has really transformed the way I think, I mean, I really believe that, that returning to God is not only part of life, that's most of life. So also think about somebody not as significant as David. Let's talk about Ruth. Ruth was a Moabite or Moabitess and she was married to a Israelite and he dies and her other brother in law dies as well. And Naomi, her mother-in-law says, I'm going back to the home country.
Ruth could have said, okay, I guess this is it. I'll come visit you. I hope you can come visit me.
No, she said, I'm going with you. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God.
I mean, so it doesn't matter who you are. If you're willing to submit to God, he will guide you. Amen.
That's such a great reminder for us. So our prayer for you is that you would submit to God today. You would look to him for guidance because it's not just for the spiritual elite, like we said on the episode today, it's for everyone.
Those who will submit to God and trust his guidance. Today was helpful for you. Write in and let us know two five two five eight two five zero two eight. 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 Clear View Today Show family. Make sure you guys tune in the rest of the week. Lots of great content coming your way. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear View Today.
