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Links in the description. Dr. Shah, welcome to the show. Did you drop the pearl necklace? I dropped the pearl necklace right in the ocean. I said, I said I've been married to the same guy for 40 years, but this one night, 40 to 50, 60 something years ago, we'll always drop that. I dropped around the ocean. Why did you drop the necklace?
She was a terrible wife. Yeah, I'm like, be honest. I was like, I'll be jumping in the water at that point. This little punk you met years ago, new for three days on a boat. It means way more to you than your husband of what, 40, 50 years? Get out of here, man. And you're a murderer too, because he could have got up on that door.
You're a killer. So do you want to give a context to our listeners? Because you said my heart will go on. I said, my heart will go on. Yes.
Ryan's not here near far wherever you are. My heart will go on. And that's coming from the movie. That's from the Titanic.
Yeah. Directed by my one of my favorite directors of all times, James Cameron. Actually, he he actually went down to the bottom of the ocean to to to do some research for that movie. He's interesting in that sense. He does kind of like if he's going to get into something like, you know, people get into the character.
What's it called? Method acting. Method acting. He gets into like method film.
Method directing. Yeah, he does. And he he's like, OK, so I want to make a movie about a ship that sank. I should get an advanced degree and actually go to the bottom of the ocean myself. It's like, you know, James, you ain't got to do that, man. He's like, no, I think I do.
I will do it. He did it, too. That's crazy. Yeah. He was one of the ones that spoke out when that, you know, when that Titan submersible did that whole thing. He was not for it?
No. I think everybody told him not to. But he came out. He did an interview.
I remember he did. I watched the interview and he was like, they were like, do you feel sorry for him? And he was like, yeah, yeah. But I told him I was like, oh, like you're on the morning news. You're on Good Morning America. Why is it, James, that other people don't get to go down and see things for themselves like you did? It was crazy.
It was absolutely crazy. But what are we talking about today? Today?
Well, we're talking about a lot of things today. Today is the last day of twenty twenty four. This is our third year doing the show. Second year. This is our second year.
Second year doing the show. It feels it feels like we do an episode every single day. So it feels like it's been going on for a while.
But two years of clearly today. That's crazy. It is crazy. That's crazy.
I can't believe we're doing the two. It's exciting. And our radio show has grown.
I mean, now we have more farm, almost like double that we started out with a year and a half ago. Yes. It's only been a year and a half. Right.
That's insane. I think it was somewhere in the September or October. Our first episode was recorded at the end of October. We we are twenty twenty three of twenty twenty three.
We pitched the show and got it approved. Well, we were twenty two. Yes. Twenty twenty two. At the end of twenty. In October of twenty twenty two was our first episode. We were talking about it, I think, in September. Yes. We met with Stu Epperson, who owns the Truth Network. That's where our show is syndicated on. We met him.
In August, I think, because that was when the apologetics conference was happening. Yes. Yes.
And he was just just phenomenal. Oh, yeah. And has been and has been ever since a great supporter. Yes. Encouragement. Very. I mean, a great source of encouragement to us and a man who loves Jesus Christ.
Yes. Loves the gospel. Loves the word of God. And we're just so blessed to call him our friend. One hundred percent.
One hundred percent. Today's verse of the day is coming to us from Luke chapter twelve and verse thirty one. But seek the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you. What a great verse to end the year on. You know, I think that's one of the that's one of the things that we really seek to do here on the show is we want to seek the kingdom of God, not just for us, but help you seek it.
That's right. I've always admired that about you, Dr. Shaw, where it's not just I'm trying to build this church and I'm trying to make this radio shows because I want to see the kingdom of God. It's like at the end of the day, I've seen God. I've seen God move. And it's not that I'm I've arrived. It's not that I'm completed, but I'm called to help others see God. And that's what radio shows all about.
It's about impact impacting the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Right. Starting right here in our community, going across our state. And now we are in four states.
Yes. For we're in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and I think Tennessee. Yeah, we're in little parts of Tennessee. So four states are being impacted by the ministry of our, you know, radio ministry.
Did I say Virginia? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yes. Four states.
So north, south Virginia, Tennessee. And it's touching lives. I mean, we hear so many people call us. They text us. They email us. And please continue to do that. Keep talking to us. And we have an amazing staff today sitting in for Ryan is David. David Williamson.
He's very quiet. Yeah. I was actually just looking up the, I was looking up the stats for the show with what you said about all the places that we're in radio wise.
That's true. But for the podcast itself, for all the episodes, we've touched every continent. So we've got 29,000 for all time. 29,000 downloads in North America.
We have some in South America. All time. All time. Yeah. Wow. 29,000.
I mean, I know there are people with millions. We get it. But for us, for us doing a daily Christian talk show through, you know, for only having been around a year and a half. Yeah. And I would say two years. Two years. Yeah. It's about two years.
Cause the first episode was October 24th and 22nd. Yes. Yeah. 22.
And we're at about 574 episodes, not with the most recent batch we filmed. Wow. So we're in North America, South America, Africa, Oceana, Asia, and Europe. And our, our most listened places, obviously, United States. But then we have Singapore. Yeah.
I was going to say Singapore. That was, that was weird to me. Not weird. I'm glad, but that was, that surprised me. The Anaconda Montana thing really surprised me that we had such a huge audience.
There's a lot of listeners, right? They're still here. What number are they now? So we have Henderson, Charlotte, Oxford, Wake Forest, Singapore, Anaconda. So Anaconda got bumped. They got bumped by Singapore.
They got bumped out of the top five, Anaconda. Thank you, Singapore. Thank you. Singapore, I appreciate that. I want to go visit that place one day. Yeah.
I've heard about it all my life. Is there a big Christian population in Singapore? Yes. Is Singapore a country or is that a... Is Singapore the country and Singapore the city? It's a country in Asia.
Okay. The top listened place in Singapore is Singapore. I suppose there's a, I suppose that's a big Christian population there. Yeah. We talked about there being a big Christian population in Korea.
Yeah. Very Westernized. Singapore is very, very Western. In the middle of very Asian, you know, kind of countries and, and, and, and people, Singapore stands out.
You go there and you're like, whoa, where are we? Yeah. The proportion of Christians among Singaporeans has increased in the last few decades, 18% of the population. Here's, here's a rundown of, of our, of our listens per country. It's 42 total. So we have US, Singapore, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia. That's number three for countries. Wow.
Okay. Australia, India, Jamaica, Malaysia, Japan, Bangladesh, Turks and Caicos, Germany. That's, that's Jason. Jason. He goes to Turks and Caicos for like vacations and stuff. What is Turks and Caicos?
It's like islands. It's kind of like... Oh, he goes, okay, okay, okay. Yeah.
He and his family, they go out there. Got you. Okay. Okay.
They didn't mention any last names. Yeah. No, no, we didn't. After that we have Germany, Turkey, which probably y'all, when y'all went... No, but you, but you share, you share the radio show with people when you travel. Yeah. Yeah. Because we have people right in from these countries who say, I met Dr. Shah when he came to Egypt.
I met him when he came to, when he came to Turkey. So, I mean, the, the radio show is spreading. It might be spreading a little slowly, but that, you know, that's always how Clearview has been. We're, we've not been a flash in the pan church. That's right.
And keep in mind this as well. This, the radio show is a big part of what we do, but we're not full time radio hosts. Like you're a pastor, you're a scholar. So you're, you're also doing this... And a family man. And a family man. Yeah, that's right. You've got a family. You've got four kids.
You've got two of them still at the house. Yeah. So you got to think about, you know, you're preparing sermons every week. You're writing, you're contributing to the field of New Testament textual criticism. So if it's not the number one Christian talk radio show in the world, that's okay. And it might, it might be... We'll get there.
We'll get there one day. I believe content and consistency compounds. That's true.
Right? That's true. So if your content is good, and if you're consistent with it in time, it's going to compound.
Yes. A hundred percent. And so a lot of times people either don't have the content or they're not consistent. They have the content, but they're not consistent.
So it's, you've got to have both. That's why I'm really glad that's a hundred percent true. And if you're listening and you want to do something like this, he just gave you the best advice you will ever get. Because I have, I feel like I'm like, I can provide the content, no problem. I, I will go strong for a few weeks, maybe a month, and that's going to be it. So when we, the big thing is that this was not going to be a weekly podcast. This was going to be a daily radio show.
So it's like going to force you to learn how to be consistent. And I think that's, that's a big, big, big reason why this show is so successful. Because I was like a YouTube guy. It's like, I'm going to, I'm going to subscribe to these people and they may not put out a video for a few months, but that's okay. Whereas like, this is a TikTok generation. You have to be posting constantly.
You've got to be constantly putting something out. So I think that's, that's a good way the radio shows helped us a great deal. Um, we're going to take a quick break.
I want to go over 2024 because 2024 was a big year before we go into the break. I do want to shout out our one listener. I think we all know who it is.
There's one listener in Pakistan. So just, he's not a prosaic guy at all. That's really cool. Well, I just want to, uh, we're going to take a quick break.
Let me just go on ahead and get that birthday party out there. Prosaic, prosaic, commonplace, or unromantic. I thought for sure that was going to get caught.
Uh, prosaic is the word, is the secret word of the day. I was being distracted, John. By David? Well, we have two, uh, two guys in the back. Yeah.
We, you know, that's one of the things we didn't want to get a control booth. So we're like, we're going to keep these guys in here, but they're just like, like during the recording, all that stuff is going on. Yeah. They do some things like that.
They do stuff like that. Yeah. All right. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. 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. Shah 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 ClearviewTodayShow.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 Clear View Today with Dr. Abaddon 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've got a question for Dr. Shah, anything you want to suggest we talk about here on the show, send us a text at 252-582-5028. Dr. Shah, the last day of 2024. 2024 has been a wild ride. If somebody had told me it was going to be like this, I don't know what I would have done. It's had its good moments.
Yeah, it's true. A lot of good moments came out of 2024, but it also had some unexpected moments. Yeah, it was a big year.
If you're listening to this and you feel like 2024 has left you exhausted, you are not alone. This has been an enormous year on the world stage. A lot of good things, some bad things, but just overall a really, really, really big year.
I felt like it would be kind of cool if we did that sitcom thing, not where we'd show clips of us talking about things, but you know how sitcoms, they would want to go back and revisit the things they did? It was like, man, I can't believe how much we've all changed, even over this year, this year, this year, this year. Of course, the election was huge. Election was a big one. Election was really, really big. It's been rare that I've stayed up for elections and really gotten invested, but these past two elections, I felt that way. But the whole year was sort of stressful because even though I knew in my heart of hearts that President Trump was going to win, it still was very tough.
You would hear people being negative, or you would hear people feeling hopeless or feeling like, now I know I want him to, but I don't think it's going to happen. And then we went to several of his rallies. One of them, actually, I had a chance to go back and meet him, pray with him. That was quite amazing. And then the election night. Wow. Wow. You know what's funny? It felt like all of that really, all of that is contained to this year.
That's why it feels so huge. Because remember, we went to NRB in February of 2024, and he was there. And I remember FaceTiming you. And then within like, what, two weeks, you were shaking his hand. That was what was crazy. It went from, oh my goodness, I'm going to be in the same room as the president, to two weeks later, you are going to be shaking his hand and meeting him. I cannot believe that.
That was insane. And then the 30 Days of Praying for America, your book with Nicole, came out this year in July. That's right. And within, I would say, a month or so, President Trump had it in his hands.
Yes. It was given to him by one of my pastor friends, who is an elected official. And he's very prominent in doing a lot of work, a lot of good work. And he gave it to him. It was really crazy, I think, within the span of a couple months. That's why I would say it felt so lightning fast that we went from going to a rally that he, or going to NRB where he happened to be at, to not only you got to meet him, shake his hand, and now he has your book in a very short amount of time. That was really cool. God's going to do something with it. We truly believe that.
Yes. And you can get it on Amazon right now, but we'll talk about that a little bit more in the end. The other thing that I thought was really interesting was how much has happened over in the Middle East. Of course, October 7th happened in 2023, but since then, Israel has been continuing its war in Gaza. And then in April, it bombed that consulate in Damascus. And that was a huge step forward. And then in July, they assassinated the Hamas leader.
I cannot remember his name to save my life, but you know who I'm talking about. So it's been a pretty, I don't want to say a good year, because none of that's good, but you know what I'm saying. Yeah. There's been some progress.
There's been some movement. That's right. It's a good year in the sense of Israel's sovereignty to fight for themselves, to protect their people.
I think it's been a good year in the sense that other nations, Arab nations have come alongside Israel and said, yeah, this is enough is enough. This is wrong. That's right. Which is what's unheard of. Of course, in back rooms, people shake hands and go, yeah, hey, we support you. And out there, we can't say that because the militant people, radical, Islamists will be angry with us.
So, you know, hey, we're going to play this game. But at this time, many of the Arab nations came out and said, yeah, these radicals have to go. And they supported Israel, which was much more than the UN did.
Much more than some of these European nations did. So I'm very pleased. And as we stand right now, Israeli airstrike hit main Yemen airport. Wow. That just happened.
That's happening right now as we're recording. Yeah. Reason being, as you know, the Houthis are firing missiles against Israel.
One of them exploded. And so... They're stationed in Yemen? Yeah. Wow.
I mean, these inner terrorists, of course. And so now Israel is firing back. You know, it's kind of funny because I also didn't realize this, to just tell you what a monumental year 2024 has been. We had a very special guest on the show. Yes, we did. Who turns out to just happen to become the ambassador for Israel for United States. I was actually looking over, like through the episodes to see who all guests we have, like to kind of recap. And so obviously, yes, we've had him, Mike Huckabee. We've had Sandy Smith. We've had Michelle Morrow. We've had obviously the best perma-guest, Nicole Shaw. Oh, of course.
Yes. We've had Alvin Kalichurian. That was huge. I didn't...
The Sri Lankan cricketer, who is also world famous. Looking over that. So that was him. We've also had Alex McFarland here for the Apologisics. That was a good one.
Yeah, I liked that one a lot. We've had our very own Victoria Collins talking about Mormonism and things like that. Stu Epperson has been here.
We had John Check, Dr. John Check on. And then our most recent, and I think it's going to be a hit, I think, our most recent feature was Patti LaBelle. Oh, Patti LaBelle. Geez. From like what? From like a couple of weeks ago. 1993.
92, yeah. One of the goals that we had with the show was to get more guests on, and I think with Mike Huckabee, we definitely hit it out. And Alvin Kalichurian, those were two big ones that I think looking back on it, it's like, I can't believe that they were here in this room. And now he's literally, especially with Mike Huckabee, he's literally the ambassador for Israel. It goes to show what monumental things God can do in just a year's time. God's got his hand on us, on this show. We wouldn't be doing any of this without him.
Oh, 100%. We just want our listeners, our viewers to understand that this is not us bragging on ourselves. This is about God being so good and so gracious.
That's right. One of the things that he really showed me, and this is sort of a personal thing, but with our new building, our new sanctuary, this was a time and an economy where building a new sanctuary, like genuinely, people were, I don't think people here, but people on the outside could look at it and be like, this is not wise. This is not smart. We're, you know, President Trump's not going to be elected, man.
I don't know what's going to be. And by faith, and I give credit to our leadership here at Clearview, that we're willing to follow my lead, our staff's lead and say, look, we need to build. God's got his hand on us.
We need to build. We need to trust God. We need to walk by faith and not by sight. We're growing. It's time to step into that and trust God instead of waiting on God to do everything and then say, okay, now we're ready to trust him. That's not faith.
That's walking by sight. And this stepped out. This is in 2021, spring of 2021, right in the, I wouldn't say in the heart of the COVID pandemic, but I would say still... Like right on the heels of it, I would say.
Right, right. It was kind of sort of tapering at that point, but not too far because 2021 was still pretty thick. And so somewhere there, we began the conversation to go ahead and build. And then, you know, we had to go through a lot of, you know, getting the survey done and getting the plans made and inspection and all that. I mean, so much had to happen in the permits to get. And then finally, you know, when everything began to roll, it was like, it's really happening.
It's really happening. And keep in mind, this is in a time period where we were not sure if President Trump would be in office. We had no clue. But our people trusted God. And today, what a bright day we have coming in 2025. And the building is just amazing. That's right.
That's right. It's a real testament to what God can do. And it's not as though this building started from nothing and happened just in a year. I mean, it was a couple of years process, but I think even still compared to like what construction could be, it was still pretty lightning quick. And in 2024 was a big year because that's when you move in.
That's when you start to see the fruit of your labor and you really have to show that it was worth it. And it was because God was in it. Did you present two papers in 2024? I presented one. I did go to Oxford University to attend a conference. It was not at Oxford, Oxford proper.
It was at Yarnton, which is just kind of on the outskirts of Oxford. So the Acts 8 was in 2024. The Ephesians paper was in last year? Ephesians 530 was last year, 2023 in San Antonio.
Acts 837 was in San Diego. Yeah. Okay.
I got you. So it was a year apart. But you did also go to England in 2024?
Yes, 2024 July. Don't forget, back in April, some of us, two guys included right here, David and of course, Nick, along with eight or nine others, we went to Egypt. You went to Egypt?
Wait, you went to Egypt and England in the same year? Yeah. Yeah. Really? Yeah.
Spring was Egypt and summer was England. Okay. Yeah.
And then fall was like a whirlwind because we had so much happening with the new building and construction and getting the audio and visual and everything right. Yeah. It was a lot. I genuinely forgot y'all went to Egypt in 2024. Yeah. I'll forget it sometime.
Y'all went to Greece in 2023 and then Egypt and then England. Yeah. A lot of filming. A lot of filming has been done. A lot of filming.
A lot of filming. Well, that just kind of goes to show how much God has blessed us. Imagine if like 10 years ago, like when I first came on, I couldn't imagine God doing all of this stuff in just the span of one year.
But I think it shows me like the abundance of his blessing. You know what I'm saying? We got about five minutes left on the show, Dr.
Shot. Any goals for 2025? Well, yeah, I was actually going to ask, and when you're answering this, you can answer the same question. So with 2025 coming, I know each year we normally set like a theme for ourselves or maybe a theme for the church. With the goals that you're setting, answering his questions, do you also have any themes or words for this year that you're using?
Absolutely. Well, one of the things I want to highlight before we move on and talk about 2025 for the next couple of minutes is the tremendous tragedies that did hit our nation, especially in the fall of 2024, starting with the horrible hurricane Helene that came through and devastated our western part of the state and not just here, but also South Carolina and Georgia, moving up towards Virginia. Of course, Florida got hit as well, not just once, but several times with different hurricanes. And so many people lost their lives. So many people became homeless.
Imagine that you have so many things sitting at your home, hanging on the wall. And imagine all of that getting washed away before your eyes. And that's not even the worst of it. The worst is when you see that your loved ones are gone.
So that was also a heartbreaking year. But it was tremendous to watch people coming together, churches, believers in Jesus Christ coming together and putting their faith into action. Nobody coordinated them. They just went.
Yeah, we saw it here at our church. And I gave people the freedom. I said, look, yes, I want to organize this. And I did.
We had connection with some pastors who were closer to the devastation. And I made a connection with them, send money to them, thousands of dollars and all that. But I also told our people, hey, look, if you find a team that's going, do not wait on us. Just sign off.
Just go. We'll support you. We'll do whatever we can to help you, but just go. And by the way, it's not over. We're still helping. The Christmas break is done. New Year, we're building these small homes to serve as temporary shelters so that some of the families can have somewhere to go.
So that was also big. So in 2025, as God continues to bless us, we want to be a blessing to others. Those who are in need, we want to help them. We want to share the gospel. We want to find creative ways to share the good news of Christ. So David, to answer your question, what is going on in 2025? I would say we will become more creative in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. Amen.
It's the year of creativity. We'll see that. Yeah. Amen. So, so great. Make sure you guys join us tomorrow right here on the Clearview Today Show. And I do want to say just from all of us here in the studio, thank you. Thank you, listeners. Thank you, our supporters. Thank you, our network. Thank you to everybody for a fantastic 2024. Dr. Shaw, I want to thank you especially for an amazing year.
The guys in the back, Ryan as well. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for making 2024 happen. And thank you, John, for all that you do. John is the mastermind behind the show. Don't forget that. I don't know that.
I don't know that. Look, I have a great, great, great team here, and it's very easy to build and have creativity and have fun when the foundation is solid, when the foundation is secure. And without you, Dr. Shaw, without this church, without the support of our leaders, our leaders and our listeners, none of that is going to happen. So again, just to everybody listening out there, thank you for a great, great 2024.
And here's to a fantastic 2025. Has anybody got some sparkling grape juice? You can just pop it open at midnight. But we can't. Yeah. We'll go get some. We'll just go. Yeah.
Let's just pretend. Here you go. Put a little cork sound effect in here. Thank you again to Mighty Muscadine for sponsoring today's episode of the show. And don't forget, you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes. If you ever want to re-listen to this episode and maybe in 2025 to see how far we've come since then, you can always support us financially at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Thank you to everyone who's been supporting us financially. I just want to remind you guys that in just a couple of days, we're going to be going live on January 3rd from 7 to 9 p.m. right here on the Clear View Today Show. You can call us 252-582-5028.
We will pray with you online, or I should say live on the air, but also be online as well. Jon, in the last episode, you forgot to do the book and you forgot to do the album. I sure did. You want to do it? Yeah, go for it. Throw it in the book. Okay, here you go. I'm not going to throw it. Okay.
Is this like we're pretending? Okay, cool. It is 30 Days of Praying for America. It is a wonderful devotional.
It will really just make your patriotic spirit just bustle and begin to love our country. Bustle? Yeah, bustle. I guess that's the word. Okay.
Also the album Heaven Here and Now is available on iTunes, Spotify. I mean, pretty much anywhere. That was a huge one.
That was a big one. Yeah. I mean, it's Heaven Here and Now. Here and Now.
You can get it at this moment. So please go out and get that wherever music is available. And yeah, I think that's all you normally plug, right? Yeah, that's all I do. Thank you guys so much for listening. Here's to a great 2025. We'll see you next year on Cleary Today.
