Thursday, December 5th | South Korean Martial Law

What's going on guys? It's David here, the world's best radio engineer and the most humble, and I'm just here to let you know that today's episode of Clearie Today Show and today's secret word is brought to you by Lebleu Ultra Pure Water. Unlike other bottled waters, Lebleu's Ultra Pure filtration system provides water that's free from contaminants and infused with only the essentials your body needs. Make the smart choice today and experience the difference of Lebleu Ultra Pure Water. You can order online at Lebleu, that's L-E-B-L-E-U.com, and when you check out, use the promo code today, that's T-O-D-A-Y, to get 10% off your next order. It'll save you money and supports us here at the Clearie Today Show.

Today's secret word is subterfuge, and that means something intended to misrepresent the nature of an activity. And today's contestant is Dr. Shah. 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.

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. That's right, and you guys can help us keep the conversation moving forward by supporting the show. You can share it online with your friends and family. Leave us a good five-star review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasting content from. Well, I'll tell you what we're going to do. Just because I like you so good, we'll leave you a little link in the description.

That way you can help us do just that. You heard it here first? You heard it here first.

Everywhere else you might have heard it, that's fake news. You heard it right here first. We're here in the Clear View Today studio with Dr. Abbadan Shah, who's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. That way I did it during the intro, so we didn't have to sit there and wait for that long applause. Dr. Shah, welcome to the show. It's good to be here.

Good to be here. And our audience, thank you so much, all of you for clapping. And yes, our live studio audience.

We have a live studio audience in the studio. They stay in the back and they only, if I signal them, they just... You can't see them. You can't see them, but they're there. That's right. That's right. We have a little sign that says, please applaud.

And when they don't do it, I just hold up a sign that's my fist and they know. The verse of the day today is coming to us from Romans chapter 12, verses four and five. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function.

So we, being many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. Dr. Shah, yesterday we talked about, would you take a million dollars to lose three fingers? And you said, goodness to the no. Absolutely not.

Absolutely not. If I lost, if I cut off three of my fingers, I'm not going to do it because that would hurt a lot. And I'd be marred for life. But if I cut off three of my fingers or if I cut off my arm, or even if I cut off my leg, it doesn't matter how big the body part is and how important it is. If I cut it off from my body, it's dead. It's useless.

But there's Christians who feel like they can sever themselves from the body of Christ and still do good for the kingdom of God. Yeah. And funny how that works.

Yeah. You tell me how that works. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work.

It doesn't. The Bible tells us again, again, we're all part of the body of Christ. Every member has his, has his role or her role and that we need each other. That's right. Right.

With Christ as the head. That's right. That's right. You know what it makes me think of?

What's that? It makes me think of, you know, Thing from the Adams family, the little hand that would like kind of crawl around. Nobody liked Thing.

No, nobody liked that. You know why? Cause that's creepy.

Yeah. That's creepy. Don't, don't cut your hand off.

Don't cut your hand off. Hey, a big announcement, Dr. Shah. I, we've talked about it on the show. It hasn't been officially confirmed, but now it's officially confirmed, set in stone, NRB 2025. We going. It is happening.

NRB 2025. Two air horns in one episode. I'll do another one. There you go.

Keep talking. I'll make it four. Wild for a Thursday. No, but yeah, I know Thursday air horns. Dr. Shah, NRB 2025 Clearview. Today's show will be there. Yes.

We'll be there. You know, my first NRB was 1994. Wow. First and only so far?

First and only. Where was it? Where'd you go in 1994? Washington DC. Wow. For real? It was in Washington? Yes.

Yes. So what happened was I was a, you know, student in the communication department, broadcast journalism. I didn't have any money.

I was international student, broke most of the time. And so they advertise this NRB, you know, guys, we need to go to NRB. It's the best thing that will happen. And you know, some of those things, you just kind of tune out because, you know, you know, it's not for you. Right. So I was like, okay, well, I'm doing my own thing and kind of going through a rough time in my life.

This is 1993, December and first week of January, just kind of a difficult time. And so my professor calls me up and says, hey, you want to go to NRB, Washington DC? I said, yeah, I heard about that.

I can't, you know, I just cannot do it. He said, no, no, it's all paid for. Wow. I said, paid for?

What do you mean? He said, when someone else was going, they paid for everything. You just have to go. I said, really? Absolutely.

I'm going. Yeah. In fact, going to NRB was me coming out of this funk, this difficult, dark place in my life. Wow.

Yeah. That's really awesome. NRB was the one that brought me out like, like crazy in a good way. I wish, I sort of wish I could travel back in time. They need to film me and put that on the NRB. You need to be the spokesperson for NRB 2025. NRB media team, if you're listening to this. I would really love, and I might send this to some of the guys because they've got some connections in NRB, but I would really love to go back to 1994 and see what NRB was like pre-internet.

I think that would be really, really interesting. They did, we were there last year. They, it was the, what was it? The something anniversary. It was the 80th anniversary. 80th anniversary of NRB.

So they did like a, a montage, a reel of NRB through the years. And so it was cool to see like where broadcast has come from and then where we are today. How many big camcorders did you see up on people's shoulders? Oh, tons, tons, tons, tons, everywhere. That's where I met. I met Charles Stanley. I met Oliver North.

I don't know if you remember the Iran Contra, you know, that went on. I met Oliver North. I met, I met Benny Hinn. I interviewed Benny Hinn.

That's pretty crazy. So some of the guys on our team said like, Hey, you want to go interview him? I'm like, who is he? Oh, he, he's like really coming on TV.

He's like a televangelist. And he is like big on, you know, send me money kind of stuff. I'm like, Oh, he's like, yeah, go talk to him.

Go see if we can get an interview. So I walked over to him and I'm like, Hey, so I just want to talk to you for a few minutes about how things are going. It was nice. He was nice.

His hair was dark at the time. There's definitely, there's definitely from going to NRB last year, there's, I can say, there's definitely that energy of I'm about to go talk to this person. I have no clue who he is, but I'm about to pretend like I do. And you're like, you're learning about him on the walkover too.

Yeah, definitely. And it was, it was great. And they I got a lot of free books, this and that and the other, and I also got to see Carmen, Carmen, the singer. He, I think he was promoting his album. I think it was, it was called the stand. I think it was the stand.

I think it was something like that. Carmen, the stand. Do you see that?

Is there anything there on that? I don't, I don't see anything on the stand for Carmen. Oh, the standard. I think it's a standard. That's it. That's it.

That's the one. Raising the standard? Oh, the standard. Yes.

Not the stand, but the standard. Like the flag. What is that flag?

It's a Christian flag. Oh, yeah. Black. Okay. No, I think it's blue.

Oh, it's blue. Right there. Oh yeah. Okay. I see it.

I see it. So if you, if you type in a 1993 NRB, maybe something may come up and you may see me there. Was it 93 or 94? 1994. Okay. 1994 NRB.

Did you, so did you, okay. That's it. That's right there. That's it. NRB?

No, it's 1995. Oh man. But anyways. Yeah. So. Very cool.

So that's, that's what happened. We're going to be doing some live shows at NRB. We're going to be on the floor doing some live shows. So if you're a fan of Clearview today, we may try to stream them. The internet and the Convenience Center can be kind of spotty, but we're going to do our best because everybody's trying to stream.

Right. If you see us at NRB, come say, hey, maybe, maybe you can come and talk to us about your ministry, but we're going to be doing, we're going to shoot for, I think at least four or five live shows from the floor. Maybe we can interview you, talk about your ministry, talk about your broadcasting. It'll be fun. That'd be fun. Can't wait. We had a great show planned for you guys today.

Don't go anywhere. We're going to take a quick break and be right back with more Clearview today. Hey Clearview today, listeners, we want to take a quick moment to thank you for tuning in. As you can imagine, producing a show like this takes a lot of time, effort, and resources. And we're grateful for the Truth Network for giving us a platform to syndicate our show. But the vast majority of our support comes from listeners just like you. If you enjoy these talks with Dr. Shaw and you want to see Clearview today continue to grow, consider making a donation today because your contributions help us deliver fun, relevant, and biblical content right to your phone every single day.

That's right. Every single donation, big or small, goes directly to the production of this show. It helps us keep the lights on in the studio.

It helps keep the mics hot and running. So if these conversations are making a difference in your day, or if you just want to help us keep the gospel of Jesus Christ in the airwaves, we would appreciate your support. You can give by visiting our website. That's Clearview todayshow.com and just click on that button that says give today. And remember your support truly makes a difference in our show. Thank you for being part of this community.

Now let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clearview 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 Clearview todayshow.com. Or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. Dr. Shah, really significant events happening right now in South Korea. We try to be a show that brings people the news, the things that are going on. We were going to talk about this. And just to clarify, we're not going to give you breaking news. We're going to talk about what is happening, current events.

So this was breaking news yesterday. We were going to talk about it, but things are actually happening. The situation is expanding in South Korea faster than we could actually talk about it. But the country was facing this really tense situation when the president enacted martial law. And that was something that at the time we were like, we really want to talk about this. And then in the meantime, like before we could even record it, other developments started happening. Did you want to kind of just brief everybody on what's going on overseas?

Sure. So this was as of December the 3rd, which is what, two days ago, where President Yoon Suk-il declared martial law. And so there was a heavy police presence that came into the South Korea's National Assembly. And then at the same time, protesters began to gather outside and they were calling for immediately that the martial law should be lifted. And then lawmakers began to, you know, kind of like a bum rush, the National Assembly tearing down the barricades, going into the voting chamber. And so then the National Assembly voted to overturn the martial law and the cabinet lifted the martial law. And so now they're discussing what to do next. It was like, this is terrible.

This was treasonous, that what this president did. And there's a lot of discussion going on on that. Yeah. And here's kind of where I'm wanting to land, because I think there's a lot of people who will listen to this episode, and they'll say, like, why are we talking about South Korean politics? Like, that's bad.

I don't want martial law to be enacted. Number one, and maybe you can kind of comment on this, isn't there a very heavy Christian presence in South Korea? Isn't that a big, big part of their culture? Absolutely. Absolutely.

The largest church in the world, or at least used to be, and my dad has been there, is in Seoul, Korea. Wow. That's incredible. And they have morning prayer, I think almost every day. I think they have it every day.

Wow. At like four o'clock or five o'clock, something like that. And thousands of people gather for morning prayer. And the pastor of that church years ago wrote a book on prayer.

I've read that book. And he attributes the secret of the church and the growth of the church to that prayer time in the morning. I mean, it's a phenomenal time. And we have prayer time at our church too. Oh yeah, definitely.

At six o'clock every Tuesday morning. And we have a good, strong number of people that come. I mean, we have altogether eight to nine groups.

Yeah. I guess my question is, because there's been this alleged power struggle between him and his parliament. And he's a very wildly unpopular president.

And I'm not saying that he's a bad president. I'm just saying he's unpopular. It seems to be that the media, I don't know about the people of South Korea, but it's definitely the media is not a fan of him. And so my question is, how much reliance do we put on media? You know, is the media of South Korea, if it's anything like the media of America, it's not to be taken at face value immediately.

Right. So let's focus on South Korea for a few minutes. And let's talk about the government, the form of government there, the parties that are in play here. So they have constitutional democracy.

Okay. Now in America, as you know, we have a similar, but we're a republic and they also call themselves republic, but ours is a constitutional, democratically elected constitutional republic. That's the American government. Yeah. Democratically elected.

Right. That's what we had the elections for democratically elected, but a constitutional republic means we have a constitution that guides the decisions, the laws, the principles on which our nation operate, but it's a republic means we send representatives who stand for us. We don't go over there and make all the decisions. It's not based on popular demand. It's based on people we elect because they are people we trust. We trust them because of their character. We trust them because of their reputation. We trust them because of their experience, their understanding, their education. We trust them to make decisions where we may not be able to make the best decision.

That's a republic. Right. Right.

It's these representatives doing the work, knowing that the people are who put them in and remove them from office. Right. But the point I want us to understand is we send them to Washington or for the state Capitol, whatever, to make decisions on our behalf because we don't always know all the factors involved. So there are times that our representatives may make a decision that we may not immediately like. Right. But hopefully they will make decisions in our best interests.

It may not be immediately beneficial to us, but in the long term, their decisions will be beneficial to me and to all of us. True. Because they may know factors that we don't. Right. They may have understanding that we don't. Yeah. They may know the law. They may know some of those statistics that I am not privy to. They may have like classified intelligence that is not available to the general public. Yeah. Like, hey, we have to go to war here.

This is very important. But why do we go to war? No, I'm not for war. Stop, stop.

Well, wait, wait, wait. Because they see an imminent threat. So they have to do this. I may not know it, but I'm electing them to make that decision on my behalf. Good point.

That's a great point. That's a democratically elected constitutional republic. South Korea is very similar to that. I mean, they call themselves a constitutional republic, but of course they also democratically elect them. So it's quite simple. I'm not saying their constitution and our constitution is the same. I haven't read their constitution, to be honest. Right.

So that is something I'm not an expert on. I'm not going to claim to be, but their structure is quite similar in that sense. They don't have the same foundation we do, but hopefully people understand what I'm talking about. Sure. Sure.

Sure. And this is something that we're sort of seeing the parallels of what's America's cause he's the president of South Korea has claimed that the liberal party has been influenced and corrupted by North Korea. So everything that he's doing, the unpopular decisions that he's making is based on protecting his people from North Korea.

The party that he comes from is the people power party, which is right-wing, which is conservative. So we need to stop. And I know we don't know all the information, maybe somebody else has all the information and maybe that's how it's going to be for a while. And all that is fine, but we need to maybe suspend our judgment and say that man is a dictator, until we know all the facts. Right. His reasoning behind declaring martial law was that he was seeing a threat from North Korea.

He was seeing anti-state forces. And North Korea, to be honest, that's not a trivial threat. Right.

It's not Mexico or Canada. Right. Right.

Okay. Yeah. Imagine having Russia across the border.

Imagine having Iran across the border. Things are naturally going to be more tense. Right. It's they're an active enemy. Yeah. That's a significant, significant threat on your border. We don't have that right now.

Thank goodness. Or maybe Cuba. Cuba could come the closest, but Cuba is too small to try anything right now. Right.

But imagine Cuba across the Southern border or all across the Northern border. That's scary. So now it seems, so the, the liberal party has been calling for his resignation for years, but now it seems like the conservative party is distancing themselves from him as well. Well, so that's my question is, are the conservative members of South Korea, is there a chance they're being, they are being influenced by this media, by this propaganda, by this machine. Right. And so again, I don't have information.

I'm just going by certain factors. Historically, the party that this president comes from is a right-wing conservative party. Historically, this Democrat party, Democratic party that, that is calling for his resignation and saying, this is wrong.

And this is treasonous is, is a left-wing socialist party. That should cause us to kind of stop. Yeah.

At least stop and question. Yeah. And maybe step out of the, that mob that is rushing and making its way to their parliament or their assembly and saying, bring that man down.

He needs to be fired. Right. Maybe we need to step out of that mob and think for a moment, what, what is really happening? Right. They may be right. It may come down to it down the road. We may say, okay, yeah, the president had issues.

He's a terrible person or blah, blah, blah. Okay. They're right.

Maybe he did see some threat and, and could it be, and maybe I'm just, I'm just really gesticulating here, but may it, could it be, don't you even do it? That's not me. It's not me. You just shamed yourself. It's not me. I just, I just used the word wrong.

I don't have gesticulating. It's like, yeah, just I'm, what I'm saying is I'm grasping out of straws, but could it be that people in the socialist party saw all the things that happened in like 20th century Europe and knows, okay, they're going to be wary of any authoritarian rising up. We could capitalize on that. We can turn the people against themselves by capitalizing on that. Didn't it happen in America recently? Well, that's what I was going to ask. Is it fair to draw that comparison?

Like, I don't want to compare the president Trump to the president of South Korea, but the situation seems eerily familiar. The chickenery of all this. Right. Can I press it again?

Do I get to press it? You don't need my permission. You don't need my permission. I use the word subterfuge. Okay.

Sutter subterfuge. Yeah. You said, you said it.

Yeah. And I'm, no, no, I'm saying I won't use the word chickenery. Chickenery is like, I don't know. The only reason I know that word is because of Better Call Saul. Well, I'd never heard of she canary before that. So was it she canary?

No. That's not the secret word. And neither was subterfuge. I was like, I can't be wrong three times in a row. I'm just not going to buzz. That was a good mind. So I'd give you a little bit. That was good.

That was good. I don't even know. What does subterfuge mean?

That's what we got to do. Like, you got to dangle it out there. What does subterfuge mean? It's like the she canary. Okay. She canary is where you put the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

The wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable. There it is. There it is. What were you talking about?

South Korea? Hold on. I had a, because he was making a good point and then you, you ruined it.

I'm sorry. With your, uh, I got your finger on the buzzer. Let me center myself and get back to the point that Dr. Sha was making.

We were drawn to comparison between what happened with South Korea, what happened to America. Yes. The propaganda machine.

I feel like there's a lot. Socialist, leftist love to do this. Hey, you're a thief. Oh, you're a thief. No, I'm not. Yeah. He's a thief. Everybody. He's a thief. I'm not.

Where'd you get that cane? But then even after it comes out, you know, maybe it comes out in your favor that you aren't a thief. That story has been out there and it's been circulating and it's planted itself in our minds. So that always colors the perception. I'm not for a moment saying that the South Korean president is, is, um, is a wonderful person and he is right for what he did. And he is being wrongfully treated or maligned and all. I'm not saying that. Again, I don't know all the facts.

I think it's too early to say. What I am saying is this is a leftist. This is a tactic. Yeah. Whether, whether a tactic for happening right now in South Korea or not, I don't know, but this is how leftist socialist progressives do.

And I think that really is kind of the heart of this episode. What we're saying is be on the lookout when you start to see people crying authoritarian, when you start to see people crying dictator, when they go, when they jump to that too quickly, it's usually a sign. He's a Hitler.

He's a Hitler. Right. Wait, wait, wait, wait. What? Why? No, no. I think, I think more and more Americans and Christians should immediately call people out when they, when they call the president or somebody Hitler, because it's like, I'm going to bring the worst human being that we have known in our times. We got relatively speaking, previous generation, but I'm going to bring that, that name up, assign it to you and then get everybody a rock to go. Because then if I defend that person, if I defend Donald Trump, if I defend the president of South Africa, defend anybody, I have to retroactively do retroactively defend Hitler, which nobody's going to do.

Nobody wants to do that. Yeah. It's bad. And it's a tactic and it, and unfortunately it works. And I think we're seeing in the media more and more and more. Dr. Shaw, what's at stake here if this continues, if this sort of rhetoric continues, what do we, what do we stand to lose? We, we in America need to wake up. I think in 2020, we went to sleep. Yeah. And even prior to that, we listened to the media way too much and we bought in this liberal rhetoric, this, this crying fire in a, in a, in a theater kind of thing, or, or, or, you know, a thief saying, hey, stop thief.

And then everybody runs to the wrong person while the thief is escaping. We need to wake up and go, wait, no, no. Who, who, who shouted that? Why did you say that? Why are you calling this person that?

Yeah. I think we, we as Americans now need to be wizened up and wake up and, and don't believe everything that we hear about everybody. That's all I'm saying right now. With South Korea, I'm not, all I'm saying is don't believe everything you hear about everybody. I'm not saying he's a good person. I'm not saying he is right for declaring martial law. I'm not saying any of that. All I'm saying is be a little slow to join the mob. To crucify somebody. That's a great framework. We may not know, we may not know all the facts, but don't assume that you do. That's right.

That's right. And don't assume that it's not going to happen here. It's happening in South Korea today.

It could happen in America tomorrow. And you don't want to be on the wrong side of that mob mentality because it's, it's destructive at its nature. Well, look at what they did to Jesus. Right. Yeah. I mean, the same strategy was applied. Crucify him.

Hey, you have a thief here. Yeah. Should we maybe talk about this? Yeah. I don't find any fault in him. Crucify him. Well, I'm not doing that. I'm washing my hands. Well, let the blood be on us and our children. Whoa.

What just happened here? Yeah. You really think you're driven by that much hate? You're willing to take the blame for this? Yup.

Yeah. Because at the moment they're thinking, it doesn't matter. There's nothing.

But, you know, they crucified the son of God. So what I'm saying here is we just need to slow down on these kinds of things and say, what is really happening here? And if that person is guilty by all means, then double up your efforts and say, you are a dictator. You are guilty.

You're done. That's right. And we aim to be that source of information for you. You know, we, that's part of the Clearview Today show is we want to deal with issues of today. I appreciate that, Dr. Shah.

And I appreciate this show, this platform that, that we have and that God is using because I think it's really going to make a difference in people's lives and in our nation as well. Yeah. That, those sources don't exist where you can, you can go to and you know, you're going to get unbiased content. You're not going to get objective truth.

You're going to get truth as founded upon biblical principles, but we, we endeavor to be that. That's right. That's right. So great. Make sure you guys join us tomorrow. Same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic right here on the Clearview Today show. Thanks again to Mighty Muscadine for sponsoring today's episode. And don't forget, you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes if you want to re-listen.

And you can always support us financially at ClearviewTodayShow.com. That's right. John, anything you want to plug as we close? Yes.

Couple of things. So on January the 3rd, we are going to be going live right here from the studio for our 24 hour prayer vigil from the hours of 7 PM to 9 PM. Dr. Shah, Ryan, myself, we're going to be live.

We'll be taking your calls, 2525825028. We'll pray with you on the air. We're going to be talking about some things, maybe some current events, some biblical principles, but more than anything else, we want you guys to call in with your prayer requests because we're going to be taking them live.

This is the first time we've ever done something like this. So we want to be able to kind of feel out the engagement, see where you guys are, see how we can be praying and ministering to you. Also want to let you know about Dr. Shah's book, 30 Days of Praying for America, Daily Devotions to Heal Our Nation. Also our debut album, Heaven Here and Now, available on iTunes, Spotify, Rhapsody, Amazon, anywhere digital music is sold and streamed. Did you tell them where the lives are going to be for the prayer vigil? Where the lives are going to be.

Where they can go to watch it. Oh, YouTube, Facebook, our Facebook page, YouTube, maybe our church website. We're looking into integrating those at the same time. I would say primarily probably our Facebook page.

That's primary. If we can get YouTube in there at the same time, then we'll do that as well. I'm excited about that.

That's something we've been talking about for a while. Going live. Going live in the prayer vigil.

Absolutely. Because people do come and pray here, which is great, but we want people who may not be able to come out, physically they're not able to, can also join us in prayer. We're not going to mention names there. We're going to try to be very cognizant of that. So we'll make sure people know, hey, don't mention names. We don't need to know that God knows the names.

But you can tell us the names. We're not going to mention them on air. We're simply going to pray for that couple. We're going to pray for that person. Now, if it's something as simple as so and so is having surgery coming up and they're actually calling in and saying, hey, please pray for me. Okay, we'll pray for you.

Or your spouse is having that and they're saying, hey, pray for me. That's fine. You can do that.

But if it's a personal issue, we're not going to mention names. And God knows that and that's all that matters. That's right. We got a message today about some people who are going to be joining us from Florida.

Yes, that's true. And for the prayer vigil. They're going to call. The message said, hey, we signed up.

We're going to be praying for Florida. So that's exciting. Isn't it? To see it go far and wide like that. That's awesome.

2525825028. Call in. We'll pray with you on the air.

That's right. Lots of great content coming your way the rest of this week. Make sure you guys tune in. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on clearly today.