Today's episode of Clearview Today and today's secret word is brought to you by Le Bleu Ultra Pure Water. Unlike other bottled waters, Le Bleu's Ultra Pure filtration system provides water that's free from contaminants and infused with only the essentials that your body needs. Make the smart choice today and experience the difference of Le Bleu Ultra Pure Water.
You can order online at Le Bleu, that's L-E-B-L-E-U dot com, and when you check out, use promo code today, that's T-O-D-A-Y, to get 10% off your next order. It'll save you money and it supports us here at the Clearview Today Show. You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill, John Galantis. You can find us online at Clearview Today Show dot com. 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. We want you guys to help us keep the conversation moving forward by supporting the show. You can share it online with your friends and your family. Leave us a good five star view on iTunes or Spotify anywhere you get your podcasting content from.
Link is in the description below. And we are here at NRB Live in Dallas, Texas. Day three, final day of NRB. NRB for you and me. It's NRB and this is day three.
We've had a lot of podcasts, a lot of radio shows we've been doing. Dr. Shah's over here on the floor somewhere. He's right there. Oh, there he is.
Dr. Shah, listen, it's so good to see you, my friend. He's looking a little thin. Yeah, you're looking a little thin. You look like you've been working out a little bit.
How's your NRB been going so far? That's not Dr. Shah. You know that. That's just a poster. It's just a standout banner. It's a very, it's a very, now that I'm standing close to it, I can see some of the, some kind of pixelated. You didn't, you didn't do a good job on that.
No, I'm just joking. You did a great job. Hey, listen, we've got a lot of great shows on the docket for today, but first let me hear that verse of the day. That's right. Verse of the day today is coming to us from first John chapter two, verse 28. And now little children abide in him that when he appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming.
I see man. A lot of, a lot of, uh, not being ashamed of Jesus, a lot of themes going on this week. You know, I love that verse to abide in him. I don't want to say it's easy to come to Jesus cause it's not. We've talked to a lot of people this week who have shown that it's very, very difficult to come to that knowledge in Christ. But once you come to that knowledge in Christ, it's not like the mountain is overcome.
You know, the job isn't done. You have to abide in Christ means you have to live every single day by his grace. And some days that's easy. Some days that's not easy at all, but that's the act of abiding in him. And abide sounds like a passive thing.
Like just, you know, it just exists just to be. But the Bible doesn't say be abiding in Christ. It says abide. That's an active thing.
It's a command. So it's a choice daily that we have to make. And moment by moment that we have to make. And we've heard that from several people here, uh, talking about how moment by moment that we have to choose obedience to God. We have to choose to step out and faithfulness to God. That's certainly been a theme for us this week. You'll hear that on the different shows, the different interviews that we've had. And we want to encourage you with that as well. Moment by moment, look for opportunities, look for ways that you can abide in Christ.
That's right. God has been dropping opportunities on us, on Dr. Shah, on the Clearview Today team right here at NRB 2025. We got a great interview lined up with you today, an author that I had personally never heard of until just a couple of years ago. Dr. Shah turned me on to him.
One of the greatest authors I think of our time has a great, has an absolutely great handle on American politics, on human nature, on power, um, history, culture, how trends are shifting, systemic power, not only in the, in our nation, but just all throughout our history. Lots of great conversation to be had with Bill Federer, by the way, that's who it is. Very excited to show today. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
That's right. 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 Clearview Today show.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 ClearviewTodayShow.com or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028.
That's right. Welcome back to the show. Still going strong at NRB, Dr. Shah, Dallas, Texas. Still day one, but we've done a lot of shows today. For the people listening, they're going to think that we've been in NRB for like two or three weeks. It seems like our morning session was like three days ago.
I know. So, we were talking about that. We were sitting in the booth and we were wrapping up and we were getting ready to come and do this show. And Ellie was like, it seems like we met Chuck Swindoll like three days ago, but it was this morning.
It was just this morning. That was a great, that was a great session, by the way, but we are here with someone who I know is very special to you. It was funny because I came back from meeting someone else and I came back and Ellie was like, I think you know that gentleman right there. And I was like, no, he doesn't look familiar. She was like, no, I think he said he recognized you. And I was like, recognize me?
I don't know. And then I looked at his name. I was Michael Federer. I was like, Michael Federer.
I heard that name. And then I remembered the stacks of books in your bookshelves at all with the name Federer. I was like, oh my goodness.
I think that's the author that Dr. Shah likes. So, I came in and started talking. I was like, I think you are the author. He was like, no, no, no, that's my dad.
And that's how the conversation got started. Well, I saw Michael's tags and I saw the Federer. I was like, there's only a few people I know who would be here connected to the Bill Federer.
Mr. Bill Federer, welcome to the show. Yes, in your here today. Well, it's an honor to be with you and I appreciate your great stand for truth and for preaching the gospel and changing lives all around the world. Thank you.
Thank you. A lot of things that we talk about, you've been talking about for years. You've been talking about the biblical foundation, the Judeo-Christian values in America. You've been talking about how the history of the world is almost cyclical.
It comes back and if you don't learn from history, as someone said, you're bound to repeat it. So, a lot of the principles that you've been teaching for years have impacted my life and our church. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Absolutely. There was a great sermon series that you did that went through the cyclical and your books, some of your books, especially that one, was one of the main sources that Dr. Shah cited. I think it's kind of funny because NRB is one of those places where you start to meet your heroes and so then you have to act cool, but also fangirl at the same time.
I was doing that earlier today and then I saw Dr. Shah with you and I was like, that's really crazy. My wife says that a big shot is just a little shot away from home. Wow. That's a good point. I like that. That's a great point. One of the books that you wrote was Rise of the Tyrants and as I would say, that's probably my favorite next to From Chains to Chains. And then I would say, Who is King in America?
That was eye-opening to our people. So, before we do all that, would you tell us a little bit about yourself? I know I can, but great to hear from you. Where's life?
What's happening? I'm humbled and honored. So, I was raised with one of 11 kids and it wasn't until my dad was a real estate attorney and he wrote some history books and he was ahead of several historical societies in the St. Louis area, but it really wasn't until I became a Christian as an adult. And it's almost like turning the corner on a cornfield and you see the rows line up. History's there, but from a secular point of view, it's got no order. You turn the corner and say, God, this didn't happen by accident. God has a plan.
He wants freedom to spread so that people can be all that God made him to be so that their response to God can be a love voluntary response versus a fear forced response. And this pattern began to be exciting to me. And then I decided, well, I'm going to research every single century of recorded human history to try to find out what the most common form of government is. And at first it was sort of daunting, but then you realize that writing, according to most archeologists, anthropologists is around 5,300 BC. So, 3,300 BC. So, it'd be 5,300 years ago.
And so, from that time till now, Sumerian cuneiform on clay tablets and then the Egyptian hieroglyphics. And the most common form of government is Kings, Nimrod, Pharaoh, Caesar, Kaiser, Sultan, Tsar. And then it becomes clear that the default setting for human government is gangs. If we were to get rid of all police, it'd be fine for a couple of days and people would rob the stores, stores would be empty, they'd start robbing houses. And then you'd have to say, we need to get somebody to organize our neighborhood.
And you'd find somebody that knows how to fight. So, you be our captain. And then the bad guys that are robbing has the worst guy that knows how, he's the bad captain.
And guess what? In a gang leader with enough weapons, we call a King or a Pharaoh or a Caesar, Kaiser, Maharaj. And they keep getting bigger because with the latest military advancements, the Kings can kill more people. And with the latest technological advancements, they can track more people, right? 2 BC, Augustus Caesar wanted a worldwide tracking system called the census.
If he could have had access to 5G and cell phones and facial recognition software, he'd have been tempted to do that. And so, they keep getting bigger until finally the King of England was the biggest. He was a globalist.
Son never sat on the British empire. America's founders just decided to break away and flip it. And they made the people the King. And they go, they got their idea from ancient Israel, the first 400 years out of Egypt.
Anyway, I don't mean to get on a whole roll. But you know, one of the things it's interesting, Noah's Ark lands down the Valley, Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Fertile Crescent, Nimrod's Tower of Babel. The Jewish commentator Josephus said Nimrod wanted to build a tower so high that if God destroyed the world again with a flood, he could survive on top. And he made everybody in town bake bricks and bring them or he would kill them. So, defiant against God, oppressive over man. And since the population of the world is centered in this area and he sort of wanted to be the big shot controlling him, in a sense, he was the first globalist. He was the first guy that wanted a one world government. God comes down and confuses the languages and the people scatter into language groups that turn into nations. Lo and behold, nations were God's invention to postpone a one world government.
That's a great point. Wow. But every generation you have some dictator Pharaoh that wants to conquer other nations and if left unchecked, they'd have been happy to conquer them all. Wow. So in that sense, death is a blessing and they die and the devil has to start from scratch to find another greedy guy, but he has the latest military advancements to pick up on.
So as the centuries go on, these kingdoms keep getting bigger and bigger and they can kill with, you know, not Cain killed Abel with a rock, but then they can kill with a bronze weapon, iron weapon, phalanx spears, scimitar sword, gunpowder, you know, and anybody that can plot on a graph sees that at some point it's going to max out on a global level. Yeah. I like what you said earlier.
How did you say that the default government for human beings is gangs? Yeah. So it's interesting. Or tribes or clans, but it's like, you know.
Right. That's interesting to me because I think it says something about the human heart. You know, it says something about the corruption of the individual, but at the same time it takes a collective to make that happen. You know, I know Dr. Shah being a pastor, you can speak to that, you know, the, the, the individual sin of a person, but then what happens when a bunch of these sinners unchecked get together? It's really interesting how groups can congregate like that. It can become something catastrophic.
So true. And I would add to that, and I think you talk about it in your books, crisis is a great way to consolidate power. And I think we saw that over the past four years, crisis, consolidate power, and people so readily give that power over and say, go ahead and rule over us. And the irony is you get a good king and he wants to concentrate power so he can do good more efficiently, but he doesn't live forever. And at some point that power gets passed on to some son or grandson that's lousy and gets oppressive Bible example, Joseph in Egypt, good guy concentrates power into the hands of the Pharaoh. And what did that Pharaoh do with the power? He fed the children of Israel, gave him the best land of Goshen, gave him jobs, taking care of his cattle. But then there was a new Pharaoh that did not know Joseph.
He used all that concentrated power to oppress him, make him slaves, throw him in the Nile river. So this idea is we get our guy in and we're like, yeah, let him concentrate power, but he doesn't live forever. And at some point, you know, maybe it's the next election or a couple of elections, the other party gets in power and they said, Hey, you set the precedent.
We're going to up at one and we're going to be, and you, so this is significant for us to realize we need to seize this opportunity and get Christians involved, fulfill the great commission and stand up for righteousness while we can. I think that's a great point you just made, because I think the popular narrative that people want you to believe is that there really are no good people. There are no good rulers. Even if a good person comes into power with good intentions, he himself will be corrupted. But I think what you're saying, and what, or at least what I'm hearing is it's usually that he does the best he can, but someone else will always be there to usurp or to come in after him. Do you find that that's more common than the, the good King turned evil?
You know, that, that common narrative that we always get. Yeah, the best King ever is David. His oldest son Amnon, rapes a daughter Tamar, is murdered by the brother Absalom, who tries to overthrow David. Another son Adonijah tries to overthrow David. Solomon's good for a while until he marries a thousand wives in Bill's pagan temples.
This is the best King ever, right? His sons go off the rails. And so the, the, uh, the thing I focus on in the book is that period before King Saul called the Hebrew Republic, where you have millions of people and no King. And this idea is it's a revolving door, but if you get rid of the bad King and you maintain order in society with the law being taught to everybody, and then everybody personally accountable to God to follow the law, you may, you can get rid of the bad King and maintain order without the rubber band, snapping back with the new King. Now, which book is that that you're just referenced? Um, well, I talk about it in Rise of the Tyrant and then a new book called Silence Equals and Set the City of Omission. And so the, this system called the Hebrew Republic around 1400 BC is when the Israelites came out of Egypt, millions of them. And, and they were able to, to work without a King because every person was taught the law and every person was personally accountable to God to follow the law.
The reason I asked that is because it sounded extremely familiar. Dr. Shah and I have been working on something through the book of Samuel, a fictional, a fictional sort of retelling of Samuel. I'm still working on it, but that was questions that I was asking him, you know, the Bible, I don't see a whole lot of like what that structure looked like.
Right. How do 12 tribes conduct themselves without a King? I see why they would want a King, all this stuff. And he says, you need to read this. And he pulls out a book called Rise of the Tyrant by Bill Fatter. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but he gives it to me and I read it.
And it seriously, it, when I tell you that book helped me so much and I know Dr. Shah, you feel the exact same way. Well, another thing that you have, you know, covered many times in your speeches and in your books is the American form of government was built to counter or to protect that second, third generation that's going to come and revert back to being the dictator, the, the globalist. And that kind of government is not found anywhere else. I mean, throughout history, you cannot find something quite like the American form of government. Would you agree with that?
Yeah. So you, we fought in Iraq and got rid of Saddam Hussein. We go over there and give them a constitution very similar to ours. And in one election, it gets taken over by Sharia and it's the death penalty for somebody that criticizes Islam and women are made, you know, whatever. And it's like, we scratch our heads thinking, why didn't the constitution work like it did over here? The Soviet union fell, Berlin wall came down, we rush in and we help these Eastern European countries set up constitution very similar to ours.
And in just a generation, they get taken over by the mafia, the black market, the organized crime and, and it's like, we scratch our heads thinking, why didn't they have the same outcome as we did? You know, in farming, you have the seed and you have soil. If you think of it, our constitution is a genetically engineered seed. Took 6,000 years of brilliant minds to put it, but what do you do with seeds? You plant them in soil question. Does the type of soil you plant the seed in have any relation to the type of harvest you're going to get?
Yeah. If you plant this great seed in a sandy beach or in a parking lot gravel, it's not going to produce the same as different fertile soil. So you take this genetically engineered, democratically elected constitutional Republican, you plant it over in an Islamic country. They, their soil has no concept of equality. You know, Allah loves the person that submitted Allah doesn't love the infidel.
Women are not equal to men. And so then you plant this in an atheistic country and there's no God, there's no eternal life. There's no right and wrong. This life is all there is.
Do whatever you can to get ahead. And in an atheistic soil, it doesn't produce, but you plant it in a soil. And if I can summarize Western civilization, Judeo-Christian into just a couple of points. Number one is there's a creator who made you in his image and he is not a respecter of persons. So everybody's equal. And so this idea that the creator gives you rights and everyone's equal, that's different in Islamic countries.
Number one, you're not made in Allah's image because Allah has no image. And then infidels are not equal to faithful Muslims. In a Hindu country, if you're in a Brahmin in the highest caste, you're worth more than a Dalit and touchable in the lowest caste. And in an atheistic country like communism, you're worth more if you can contribute to the state. And if you are a threat to the state, guess what?
You're going to disappear. That's a great point. That's so interesting because you hear a lot today about people who are pushing this idea of equality or this idea of sameness. And, you know, just like you said, that seed, when it's planted in different soils, it's going to get a different harvest. But people have that mindset of, if we just take what we're doing here and just move it somewhere else, it'll work. And we'll just give them the tools that we have and it'll all be the same. But I mean, we see that that's not true. We see that that is proven false time and time again, that there are other countries in the world who don't believe the same that we do. And it points back to that Judeo-Christian foundation.
Yeah. And so then I did a book on socialism and it's like, how do you have, and socialism is just a fancy name for dictatorship. And there's two ways to institute socialism.
One is through the front door with tanks. The second is through the back door through dependency. And so you want to destabilize a country, get them to go bankrupt, spend, spend, spend until everybody goes to the government and says, help. And the government says, government says, we'll help. We'll give you welfare, but we're going to control you. If you want those checks to keep coming, you're gonna have to surrender your freedom and inject this into your body and wear this on your face and let us track you everywhere you want to go.
Right. And so they, it's like a drug dealer takes over a neighborhood, two ways. He comes in with guns or he's so nice. He's giving away free drugs until he gets everybody hooked.
So there's the back door, front door. And so when you look at, if somebody wants to be a dictator and it is a moral Judeo-Christian Republic, what they want to do is they want to get rid of the morals, let the criminals out of jail. Let the lawyers all be, you know, the attorney general paid by George Soros so that they'll let the crime, why? Cause they want crime to go up.
Why? So that people will go to the government and say, help. And the government says, will it help? We'll come in, we'll set up martial law. We'll make, we'll make it really ordered, but we're going to take away your freedom in the process. This is the condition of our help.
I want to ask you this and Dr. Shah, I want you to kind of chime in too. Cause I think on the, on the individual level and on the collective level, what is it about power? What is it about power that cause we all we've heard that, you know, that was a seventh grade reading list. You have to read Georgia, Georgia was animal farm power corrupts, but why does power corrupt? If God gave Adam dominion, if he gave him authority, why is it that something that it was, that was meant to be good and a blessing ends up corrupting us so much?
I mean, the human heart is evil because of sin, the human heart is evil. And, and that's why, you know, the constitutional republic democratically elected constitutional republic is the constitution that says, you know, this is who we are. So you cannot take that power. We trust you as long as you stick with this constitution.
Right. And republic is because we're sending you there to do the job. If you don't do the job right, coming right from your book, we bring you right back and say, go back, we'll get somebody else in there. And so, and what I really loved about the whole concept of king in America is the people are the king and the pastors are the counselors. And that was revolutionary because there were people sitting in our pews who were like, like, yeah, I mean this, how do you trust anybody? I hate politics.
You know, that was the, that was the refrain. I hate politics. And I had a gentleman come to me after I preached on that.
And I used your work and he said, wow. And, and he's actually running for our county commissioner. The same gentleman who was, who was at one time saying, I hate politics.
I couldn't stand it. If somebody brought politics in church, it was like a turnoff and we never like endorsed a party, but we always said, vote biblical values. Right.
So if you know somebody who's going contrary to the word of God, shouldn't be voting for them. Yeah. So my, my latest book is called Silence Equals Consent, the Synovial Mission. And I go through one of the first controversies in America. It's called the old lights versus the new lights.
What's that? 1600s, you have Puritans, Baptists, Congregationalists, Quakers, Presbyterians doing what? They're founding cities.
So you, and they're looking back to ancient Israel at first 400 years before they got a king. And so that's why they taught Hebrew at Yale and Harvard. But you literally had the first Baptist church in America founded the city of Providence, Rhode Island. So everybody's involved in church and everybody's involved in city government cause it's the church founding the city.
Hartford, Connecticut was founded by the first Congregationalist church in America. Everybody's involved in church and everybody's involved in politics. Politics, the word polis is Greek for city. Politics is the business of the city. Policy is the, the, the thing's going to be instituted. Polis, right?
Polite is the way the citizens treat each other. All right, I knew the first two, but now I'm learning. Yeah. Right.
I love learning on those last ones. And so everybody's involved in church and everybody's involved in the polis, in the politics, in the running of the city. And, and they had one building in every town called the meeting house. That's where the pastor would teach the Bible. And that's where they would do their city business. The word synagogue means meeting house. That's where the rabbi would teach the law. And that's where they would do their city business.
I mean, why build a separate building just to talk about a different topic, right? So this is the 1600s. It's a great covenant plan.
Goes back to that first 400 years out of Egypt, totally different than all the Kings throughout world history. So we have to give them credit for that. But after a century, it got a little dry and the Puritans taught it as just a plan. God has a plan for your life, for marriage, family, church, government, find what the plan is, put it into place, go home.
Right. And, and they got, some took it the next step and said, God in his infinite wisdom already knows who's going to wind up in heaven. So don't even bother preaching the gospel.
Whoever's supposed to get saved will get saved. And they became unevangelistic and they got nicknamed old lights. And David Brainerd got expelled from Yale because he said his professor was as spiritual as a chair. You read in New Haven in the early 1700s, the students of Yale got reprimanded because they were disturbing the peace. What were they doing?
Smashing windows? No, they were caught preaching the gospel to strangers on the street and they had not been licensed to preach yet. And they weren't wearing a black robe and they weren't in the formal setting of a church. And it was like casting pearls before. How disrespectful. You're talking about the gospel in a pub? How disrespectful. And so the new lights came in the 1700s and they emphasized evangelism, that it's a personal experience with Jesus.
Amen. But to some, it was so personal. It was only personal. And they said that if you have this personal experience, your life will change.
And you're not going to do worldly things anymore, like bars and brothels and government. It's like, wait, what was that last thing? Yeah, government. It's worldly. If you're real Christian, you're not going to be involved.
It's like, huh. And it's one of these things where if all the spiritual people withdraw themselves from government because it's worldly, who's left to be involved, but the less spiritual. And because they're less spiritual, they're going to become ambitious and power-hungry and tires. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Don't get involved in government because it's worldly. Well, why is it worldly? Because all the Christians are not involved.
It's like, duh. And so I take a part in the book where this thought came from. Germany, Martin Luther, 1517, reformation.
He had a personal experience. The just shall live by faith. He stands up to the most powerful government leader in the world, King Charles the fifth of Spain, tells him to his face, unless you can prove me wrong from scripture. Here I stand.
So help me God. Very personal, but some German princes have been wanting to break from Rome. And they said, this is the chance we've been waiting for. Kingdom of mind. I guess what? I just decided you're all now Lutherans and the people are like, great. What do we believe? So for the people in the kingdom, it's not necessarily the same personal experience that Martin Luther had. It's just a new state doctrine. So the survival movement starts called Pietism that said, being a Christian is more than doctrine. Even if it's good doctrine, you have to have an experience with Jesus. And when you do your life will change.
You won't do worldly things like bars, brothels and government. And so it turned into the two kingdom concept, the kingdom of the government, the kingdom of the church, the two don't touch. And four centuries of that teaching in Germany allowed Hitler to put Jews on train cars and they're going to their deaths.
And the church's response was sing louder. Like, oh, well that's the government that's killing the Jews. We can't get involved in government stuff because we're holy.
Like can anybody see there's something wrong with that picture? And so I talk about why can't we have both? Why can't we have a personal relationship with Jesus and the covenant form of government? I mean, it is personal, thank God, but don't you want to leave a country to your kids where they have a chance to have a personal spirit with Jesus? Because if we don't get involved, what they are teaching the children is there is no God. I mean, would God want the kids to be taught there's no God? And they teach the kids that if he exists, he's a messed up God putting men and women's bodies. And if that behavior is not sin, what behavior? Well, sex outside of marriage. If sex outside of marriage is not a sin, arguably there are no sins. And if there's no sins, you certainly don't need a savior to save you from your sins. And that's where you get back to this brilliant trick the devil's pulled.
To get Christians to believe the gospel of Christ are willing to let their children be taught the gospel of antichrist. Wow. And we want to tell our audience, you know, go check out your works. We'll link all the American books in the description.
And you will get an email with tons of stuff in it. Okay. So follow those links.
I'm a big fan of Dr. Shaw. Amen. Thank you.
Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you for being on the show today. Thank you guys for listening. Lots of great content here at NRB. Thank you to all of our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And don't forget that you can support us financially at clearveetodayshow.com and you can subscribe to the show on iTunes if you want to re-listen or share it with a friend. Lots of great NRB content coming your way the rest of this week. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearveet Today.
