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 Clearview 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.
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I'm John Galantis. You can find us online at Clearview Today Show dot 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 Clearview Today Show dot com. That's right, you guys can help us keep the conversation going 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.
Absolutely nothing less than five stars. Link is going to be in the description below and we are here in the Clearview Today studio with our host, Dr. Albadan Shah. Dr. Shah, welcome up for me. Welcome. Happy Friday. Wow. So many people here.
They love you. Clapping away. For those of you guys who are joining us for the very first time today, Dr. Shah 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, I'm really excited because tonight is the big night. It's our prayer live stream. Yes. Our prayer vigil. That's right. Our 24 hour prayer vigil, but also our live stream. And this is the first time ever.
Yes. We've never done live. Kind of scared to do it.
You never know what they're asking for. Yeah, I know, right. But tonight we're going to take the chance and step out in faith. Maybe we should say, maybe we should put something at the top of the show that says, please don't call it because it's a live show. Once you say it, we can't, we can't have you unsay it. So don't call him and be like, yeah, my, uh, my mom's crazy. She's always been crazy.
She, she, uh, I want to lift Anne Bertha's, uh, Anne Bertha's toe. Yeah. Yeah.
I want to let that, let that, uh, I don't want, I don't want Anne Bertha calling into the Clearview today show asking why we aired that for everyone. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Well, leave my toe alone. Maybe we should say that at the top of the live stream, but it's going to be fun.
I can't wait. And it's, and again, for those who are concerned, no, we, we have somebody else take the call and then they share and they make sure no names, nothing's mentioned. So we were able to do that safely. That's right. Yeah. There's a procedure. Yeah. It's going to be a great, great time.
No randomness here. No, no, no, no. We, we let lest our friends over at the truth network, raise some question marks and say, what?
Why in the world? We really were concerned about her knowing, uh, knowing Stu Epperson, he might actually pray for him for aunt Bertha's toe. Lord, we're going to come before you with aunt Bertha's toe right now, Lord.
Our verse of the day today is coming to us from Proverbs chapter 12, verse 27. The lazy man does not roast what he took in hunting, but diligence is man's precious possession. You ever met a lazy man? Yeah.
Unfortunately, quite a few, quite a few. It's kind of funny because it's, you know, it says he doesn't roast what he took in hunting, meaning he's like, he's not going out there. He's not forging because there's a line in the street. Right. That's right. So I'm not going, but, but I think it's, it's, and I like that word. It's not just hard ways of diligence, you know, staying at something. And one of the things I've learned from working here is that like, you don't really have to convince people not to be lazy. They just won't survive here, you know? And I think it's, it's kind of how it is like in ministry.
Unfortunately, a lot of churches make it easy to survive if you're lazy. Yeah. Yeah. And then that's, that's tragic. And it's, I wish I could say this is something new, but this has been there for a long time. I mean, sometimes I love reading old biographies during the time of Wesley, how some of the church, you know, pastors or priests and established churches, I mean, they were wasting time doing nothing.
People are dying without Christ and they're just, you know, just, just earning their income and living off the peak. I mean, just, it was sad. Yeah.
Very sad. So working hard is a must. And you know, as Jefferson said, the harder you work, the luckier you get. That's right. That's funny how that works. That's a good quote. I like that. Uh, speaking of hard work, I got a little game for you guys.
So we can kind of do some, we used to play some games on the pocket. This is this one. I got to, I got to shout out our good friend, D.W. Devin Wilkins. D.W. It's like Arnold? Like Arthur. Yeah. I remember that one time she broke his model there or his model rocket. He just let her have it.
He clenched up his fist. We're not going to do that with our D.W. I'm actually very, very grateful. Cause this is a really cool game.
She was talking to Dr. Shauna about it. I'm going to give you guys the name of a biblical character or a location. And you have 15 hints. The first hint, 15 hints, and they get gradually broader as it goes. So like by the last hint, you like, you should, you should get, you should a hundred percent get it. But by the first, the first one, like they, they start really, really obscure.
So I'm just going to go ahead and start reading it. Hit number one, people argued with me. You mean like Jesus? So it's not Jesus.
So hit number two, I was full of the Holy Spirit. Paul? It's not Paul.
Number three. Oh, I mean, this is a Steven. It's Steven! How did you know that? How did you know that? It was Steven.
I mean, they did argue with him and then they grit their teeth and they came throwing stones and had him. Yeah. So yeah, it was, it was Steven.
So the, it goes on. I was accused. I was, I'm sorry. I was full of God's grace and power. I was accused of blasphemy. I was judged by the Sanhedrin. I called people stiff necked, false witnesses testified against me.
My face was like an angel. So it goes on. And then the very last one is I was the first Christian martyr. So it's like, yeah, by the first one, you should get it.
You should, you should have it. That's fun. Yeah. You want to do one more? Yeah.
This is a really fun game. It's called, you want me to do one? Yeah.
You do one. All right. Yeah. Here we go.
This is a fun, this is a really, really fun game. And this is my, the action Bible. I think so. Yeah.
This is, it's called guess it game by the action Bible. But I like the, I like the, where did you buy it? Amazon. Really? Devin Wilkins was talking to us about it in your office that one night. And that night I just, she sent me the link and you just get on Amazon.
It's like $10. Okay. All right. So this one is not a person, but it is a place. Okay. All right. Here's your first clue.
Asia's first convert lived here. Oh, oh, oh, oh. The first convert, uh, thigh Tyra. No, no, no. Phillip. Yeah.
Then the games line. Well, Asia's first con Asia's first convert Asia, not Europe, right? Asia. Who was in Asia?
Three taverns is 33 miles away. Asia. Who is Asia's first con convert? All right, go ahead.
Okay. Claudius lived here. Claudius. Claudia Sanchez.
Probably not a shout out to call you in Cambria. Oh, actually Claudia. Go ahead. Okay. Next one. Yeah.
Priscilla and Aquila lived here. I mean, Rome, Rome, Asia's first convert. Who is Asia's first? It comes from Romans 16, verse five.
Dude. Let's let's look it up. Look it up. Romans 16. I was thinking Europe's first convert, but also gives you the Bible reference of where the clue comes from.
In case someone wants to cry foul. Yeah. All right. Uh, Romans 16, five is, uh, greet.
Also the church that meets at their house. Greet. My dear friend, a pet, a Pentecost, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia. It, that's a, that's a, that's a new one for me before. I just didn't remember. Let me do one more. Let me do one more.
Cause it's kind of fun. I want to do one more. All right. This is, this is fun. Hold on.
I like these. All right. This is a person.
Okay. I was up very early one morning. Jesus.
That's gonna be a number of people. I sat on the stone pavement. I asked a lot of questions in court. People shouted at me.
I was very afraid. I mean, Paul. No, not Paul.
I had a yearly tradition at Passover. My first recorded words. Are you the King? I said, no idea.
I mean, I guess Pontius pilot pilot. Why did he sit on a stone? I don't know. Let's look at it. That's John. That's John. 1913.
You want to look it up? It was pilot. The very last one, the most obvious one is I washed my hands.
When pilot heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge's seat at a place known as the stone pavement. Ryan was not going to be beat on that one. Were you? I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. I did not hear you. I'm so sorry. I did a bunch of whippersnappers. What do you know?
What do you know about all these games? Wait a minute. Yeah.
Was that the secret word? Okay. That would be a whippersnapper. That's a funny thing. Yeah. Whippersnappers is not that.
No, it's not that outlandish. I've used it before. Well, it's all good. I just took a stab. That's a fun game. We might bust that one out later on on future shows. Yeah, that'll be fun.
Guys, 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. 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.
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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 find us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. Dr. Shah, we were talking, we did an episode last week on this victim of subway violence. And I remember a lot of what we were talking about was these open border policies and how they're sort of coming together now in a way that is really, really detrimental. And there was a lot of discourse after that event happened where it's like, no, no, no, it has nothing to do with the border at all.
It's not even part of the equation. And so now we're sort of on the heels of another terrorist attack in New Orleans, right? Was it after New Year's or was it during the countdown?
This was during the countdown. This is on New Year's Eve, and this man drove his vehicle, this rented truck, I believe, right into the crowd on Bourbon Street. I've been down Bourbon Street, by the way. Several years, well, let me back that up, several years, meaning back in 1995, yes, or spring of 1996. Spring of 1996, went to New Orleans to check out the seminary there.
And Nicole's dad went to seminary at Baptist Theological Seminary. And so went there, checked it out. And then one night he's like, let's go, let me take you down Bourbon Street, French Quarter, and we're going to have some coffee and some beignets. So we went down there. I mean, it was 1030 at night. And man, that area was just lit up, people everywhere.
And then one of his friends, well, one of his mentees came and met us, took us up and down Bourbon Street. But I mean, this was not Mardi Gras. This was just, or New Year's Eve. This was just a regular night. And I mean, it was packed out.
Imagine this man driving his truck at full speed through people who are just there to have a good time. And at the time of recording this, this only happened yesterday. So like details are still pouring in. I think the most interesting thing that I'm seeing is that the FBI is saying that he's a US citizen. He was born here. He's from Texas. And yet he was inspired by ISIS. He's posted videos to social media only like an hour or so before this attack saying that he was inspired by ISIS, expressing a desire to kill Americans.
Yeah. He killed about 15 people, injuring dozens others. And then, I mean, not just by driving, but he also took out his weapon. He was in the army, I believe. Am I right in that?
And he was, you know, trained in the use of arms and he fired until he was killed. Yes. Yeah. This does say that he rented the truck on December 30th in the Houston area before heading to New Orleans. So sad.
So sad. They did a conference yesterday, which is today for us recording, but they said that they don't think he was solely responsible for the attack, meaning this is a planned... Well, now they're saying he is. He was solely responsible. Oh, he got get a loan now? Yes. That's what they're saying now. Okay.
So maybe more will come out, but they said at first he was not, then they said he is. Okay. Okay.
By himself. So I guess they just don't want to rule anything out or they want to try to get us close to... Yeah. Hate to even glorify that by calling it a lone wolf, but that's the term people use to designate somebody who acted on their own without any outside help. Okay.
So, yeah, you're right. I'm looking at it now and it says that at this point right now, again, this is still so new, but either neither ISIS nor any other foreign terror organization is claiming responsibility for the attack. You know, it leads me to ask this question, like, what is it going through people's mind? I mean, it's evil. I understand this and it's evil and there's forces at work here, but what is it going through people's mind? Like what is the goal? What is the inspiration to kill? What is accomplished?
Because a lot of people now we're getting into semantics. I've saw this with the woman on the subway and I'm seeing this with this is that, hey, don't use the word terrorism because that's not what's happening here. So what is the goal? If it's not to spread terror, if it's not to take out as many people as possible on your way out the door, what is the goal here?
Yeah. It's just to create fear and chaos. And while we are getting ready for this new year and a lot of exciting things, especially with our American presidency, as you know, good days are ahead. And then, so this happens, of course, is just a way to demoralize people, to put fear in their hearts.
That's all I can think of. I guess the biggest confusing thing for me, and again, I mean, this is people who have a whole different worldview instead of values than we do, but the most confusing thing for me is you want to spread all of this confusion and chaos and fear, but you're not here anymore. You've been taken out. Who is reaping the benefit of this? Who is sitting back and watching your handiwork? That's my question. That's my question.
And I think that's a great, great point. If this was seriously just for you, it wasn't inspired by any organization, then who benefits? You don't benefit. Okay, you've done it, but you're not seeing the outcome of this. You're not seeing the chaos that you've wrought. Is this for some higher authority that you're like, look at what I've done in your name?
Look at what I've done because of this organization and how I identify with their ideals? Dr. Shaw, you grew up in, I mean, you grew up in a Christian environment. The neighborhood and the area where you grew up was Christian, but there were, was there a higher concentration of Muslims where you grew up than you think?
No, no, no. The town that I grew up in is maybe 300,000 people. Today, probably 400,000 people, maybe more, half a million, I would say. But anyways, at the time it was a lot of people there and it was, again, I would say maybe two, 3% Christians. Majority would be Hindus. I would say maybe 80% and then maybe 20% Muslims.
A good representation of where India is when it comes to the breakdown of religion. Here's really the heart of my question. And I appreciate you saying that because it kind of does, it gets my mind working in a different direction. We almost weren't going to talk about this because we just talked about the woman on the subway and these things, it's hard for me to tell.
And maybe you're a lot older and you come from a different part of the world where there was people of different beliefs and backgrounds and all of that. Is it happening more often today or are we just hearing about it faster and more often? Probably the latter.
I would say the latter. Yes, there was a time where these kind of terrorist attacks would happen and then whoever is in charge, especially as a president of the United States, puts a sense of fear in the world. Like you can do only so much before the sheriff has to stand up and then come looking for you. So when there are weak presidents, I think it happens a lot more in my opinion. And so we have seen quite a few, but now I think we're seeing a few right now that have happened just in the past couple of days.
Like the Tesla attack was terrible outside the Trump. And that's also an army veteran. We're not quite sure what's going on there. Well, I did want to update you. I'm glad you brought that up. The FBI said that, yes, he was an army veteran. The person who was behind the New Orleans attack was an army veteran. He did human resources and IT before he was discharged. But also the Tesla owner was also army veteran who supposedly, we don't have all the news yet, they're still investigating, supposedly killed himself with a gunshot wound to the head before the explosion. So I guess we just have to wait and see what's going on. So two army veterans in different attacks, in different places.
For different reasons. We don't even know what the reason is for this guy's Tesla exploding. And again, we're just going about what we're finding online that apparently this guy's uncle told the independent that the Cybertruck in the news had exploded due to it being faulty and was then surprised when told that he, that was your nephew. And he said, you know, my nephew was very patriotic. He was in the special forces. He would not have done anything like this. He was a big fan of President Trump and all of that.
And that if he wanted to blow up something, he would have used something other than propane tanks and camping fuel. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Nobody knows now.
Why would he kill himself though? Yeah. And this person, he said he wasn't, because I was getting ready to ask, do you think this is a reaction to the election?
Do you think this is like- No, but he was a big Trump supporter. So we don't know. We don't know. The world is crazy right now. It is. It is. And I think people are going to use, and I've already seen it happen.
This is what disgusts me the most is there's lots of memes. Like people are, people will use, people used this Tesla thing. We weren't even going to talk about the Tesla thing, but people are using this Tesla thing to drive a wedge between Elon Musk and Donald Trump is like, oh, I guess they have beef after all.
But there's this guy, I mean, who owned the Tesla. We're not sure why he committed suicide or if that's what is happening here. We don't know all the reasons.
We don't know what is causing this or what caused this. True. What encouragement would you give? Because like for me, it's like, we want to go into 2025 on a high note. There's a great new leader coming. There's great days ahead for America. We're seeing this economy. We're going to be seeing the economy take an upturn. And now it seems like we couldn't even get out of the first couple of days without two chaotic events. What, what encouragement do you have?
It's a great reminder to all of us believers and to the world that we live in a sinful, fallen, broken world. And what's happening cannot be fixed just by putting a conservative president in the office, a patriotic American in the office. That is going to be a huge part of bringing about change, but what is needed to change, change the hearts of men and women, boys and girls is a relationship with Jesus Christ. That's right. So I hope this, this evil that is, that is whether it's a subway or New Orleans or the Tesla or, you know, explore whatever it is or whatever is happening in your life. I mean, that's not the only things that happen in the world, folks, right?
These are things that have gotten national attention and rightfully so. I would say the many other things happening is because we're living in a sinful world where the enemy is still active. That's true.
That's true. The enemy being active and sin being present and tragedy in the world does not negate what God is doing in the world. Does not negate the good that is happening in the world and the good that God has set out for the church to accomplish. So sometimes I think, you know, it can be tempting for believers to just sit back and be like, what's the point? Why try? Because there's, there's evil in the world.
There's always been evil in the world, but God uses that as an opportunity to bring good from bad. That's right. And, and we want to, you know, and Dr. Shaw, I'm sure you can speak more into this as well, but we want to keep you guys informed of what's going on and share these political slash current events, like these political views and these current events, not because we want people on our side and it's not because we just happen to be conservative.
It's we're conservative and we feel the way we do because these are where our values lie. They're grounded in scripture first. And to teach you and help you. Right. Maybe not teach you. I mean, you already know, maybe help you navigate and be able to help other people navigate through these difficult times.
Right. So we're hoping to give you the voice, the biblical perspective, like these things happen. We don't have all the answers. Why did the guy in New Orleans do what he do?
Why did this guy in paradise Nevada, Las Vegas hotel, outside the hotel do what he did? We don't know what is in that human heart. We don't know, but what we can know is that through Jesus Christ, we can, we can have peace. That's right.
Through him. We can have hope and forgiveness and healing. Yes. You know, he's the one who heals our hearts. That's right. He's the one who fixes broken lives. So if anything, I believe the necessity of Christ in this world is even more important than ever before.
That's right. And maybe it's even the case that, you know, we have to come together and pray for that. Maybe, maybe even tonight would be a great opportunity for you guys to be able to call into the show and let's pray for our nation together. One of the things I usually do this at the end of the show, but maybe we've got a little bit of time. I wanted to kind of just talk about it here is that there's a book that Dr. Sean, his wife wrote. It's called 30 days of praying for America. We talk about it. You know, we mentioned at the end of every show, but this book really is not just for 2024 pre-election. This is for the rest of your life.
There's always going to be an opportunity and a need for America to be prayed over. And so I was thinking like, like as we're doing the live stream tonight, if you feel led, I mean, even if, even if you're unsure, you should call in 2525825028 is that number. And you can, you can write that down. You can save it to your phone and call in, but we want you guys to call in because we believe this, all this stuff that Dr. Sean is saying, we truly believe it. And we believe we're going to see it come to fruition in the coming days in our nation.
That's right. 30 days of praying for America is a, is a devotional unlike any you will ever read and unlike any other that is available to you. And I say that because we've been able to see behind the scenes and we've been able to, you know, work on it together as a team, um, Dr. Sean and Nicole, you guys have done an amazing job of walking through really through American history and, and not sugarcoating things. I mean, things that were bad, you call bad.
Uh, but also in the, in this age of revisionist history, in this age of people trying to gloss over things or do away with things, you bring those things to light because those are, that's part of our country's past and it sets us up to know how to pray for our country moving forward. Yeah. People, you know, sometimes say to me, you know, do you think America is perfect? Like, no, nobody says that. Nobody believes that.
I know I don't believe that. I believe, yes, we have our checkered past. We've had problems in the past, but do I also believe that America has God's hand upon it? Yes.
Yes. There's no other nation other than Israel where you see God's providential hand guiding this nation again and again and again, through ups and downs, through good decisions, badness, God guided this nation and he has again guided us. And so our goal in writing this book was to help other people see how we see America past, present and future, and to help, especially the younger audience, but all people to have a love for our nation, to have a heart of pride, a good pride, not the kind of pride like the arrogant, I'm American, I can do whatever. No, that's not a pride.
The pride in the sense of, man, we live in such a blessed nation, a desire to share these biblical values with the rest of the world, a desire to pray for our nation. That's the goal behind writing this book. That's right.
And so far, people have been very gracious in telling us how much they appreciate this book. That's right. That's right.
Yeah. And well, you have the opportunity to join with us tonight, 7 to 9 p.m. Make sure you call in the numbers, 2-5-2-5-8-2-5-0-2-8. We're going to be here around this table for about two hours. We may go longer than that, but man, I'm so excited for it.
It'll be a lot of fun. Prayer is important in the life of believers because prayer changes things. God allows himself in his divine economy, he allows himself to respond to the prayers of his people. So, prayer isn't something that we just, you know, it's a thing to tackle in the Christian life. No, prayer is something that we get to approach our Heavenly Father and ask for the things that are on our heart. And the beautiful thing about prayer is that as we pray, God shifts our heart to match his heart. That's right.
The things that we ask for become the things that are on God's heart. Great point. That's beautiful. Great point.
That's a beautiful thing. Make sure you guys join us tomorrow and tonight. We've said that already. Same time, same station. Not tomorrow because we're on Friday. Monday, same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clear Read Today show. Thanks again to Le Bleu Ultra Pure Water for sponsoring today's episode.
If you're looking for great water to sip on in 2025, Le Bleu Ultra Pure Water. That's right. They'll deliver it right to your organization. They'll deliver it right to your office. That's who delivers our water. That's right.
Big canisters as well as water bottles. And don't forget, you can support our show by subscribing to it on iTunes if you want to re-listen to an episode. And you can always support us financially at ClearReadTodayShow.com.
Jon, anything you want to plug for our listeners today? Already mentioned Dr. Shah's book, 30 Days of Praying for America. There's also two other books in that series. All of those are available on Amazon.com.
You can also get our debut album, Heaven Here and Now on iTunes, Spotify, anywhere digital music is streamed or sold. That's right. Also get the Guess It Bible Game from the Action Bible. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah. Shout out to the Action Bible.
That's a fun game. You'll be hearing more of it on the show. Yeah, that's great. We love you guys. We'll see you tonight and then again on Monday on the Clear Read Today Show. Good. That was good. Thank you.
