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Earlier this week, I was talking to my bestie and fellow Disney enthusiast, getting pumped about my upcoming trip to Disneyland in Anaheim and I was saying that I wanted to get creative with some fun and unique ideas for content to create and share with you that went beyond posing with food.She was like, “oh why don't you talk about how so many people every year try to scatter ashes of their deceased loved ones inside the Disneyland theme parks?!”“Wait, what?!?! Is that a thing??” I had never even thought of this in all the times I'd been there but I HAD to know and, as it turns out, this is absolutely true….and not at all legal. Still thought by some people to be just an “urban legend”, the scattering of cremated remains of loved ones continues to be a big problem at “The Happiest Place on Earth” So in this week's solo chat, I'm sharing everything I learned and you'll walk away with answers to....How are they getting the ashes into the park? How are they getting caught and what happens when they do??  What's the secret code used by cast members when this happens?What's the excuse they use for closing the ride?How do they know if it's actually ashes?Do they ashes just stay in the ride??What are the MOST popular places cremated ashes are being spread?What could Disney be doing instead that's a win-win?And my question to YOU, what ride or area of the Magic Kingdom would you want your ashes to be spread in ( if it was legal, which it IS NOT)?!Additional sources:https://disneyland.disney.go.com/faq/parks/permitted-items/https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-worlds-big-secret-its-a-favorite-spot-to-scatter-family-ashes-1540390229https://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-disney14nov14-story.htmlDisneydining.com https://www.disneydining.com/disney-world-guests-need-a-place-to-spread-ashes-bb1/#:~:text=Guests%20usually%20know%20that%20scattering,but%20they%20do%20it%20anyway.I want o hear from YOU! Share your story of a sign or communication you received from a loved one on the other side and YOU might even be featured in an upcoming episode of Spirit Speakeasy. Call now: 305-928-LOVE that's 305-928-5683Get Joy's Free "Sign Magnet" 3 Day Mini Course HERE https://www.joyfulmedium.com/sign-magnetJoy's Website: www.joyfulmedium.comInstagram: @JoyfulMediumTikTok: @JoyfulMediumFacebook: @JoyfulMediumFacebook Group: Joy's Soul SpaYouTube: Psychic Medium Joy Giovanni

Welcome to the Wise Not Withered podcast! This is Season 4, Episode 4. This month's guest is Dr. Rosie Kuhn. She is the founder of The Paradigm Shifts Coaching Group, a boutique coaching company which focuses on personal and spiritual development in oneself, in relationships, and in the workplace. She is considered a preeminent thought leader in the field of transformation. She is the author of many books, including Aging Like a Guru - Who Me, and I've Arrived! Well, Sort Of… Her books can be found on Amazon. She has been training individuals to become Transformational Coaches since 2001. If you are interested in speaking to Dr. Rosie about coaching or training with her, you can email her at rosie@theparadigmshifts.com. She has a few of her own Podcasts, including Spiritual Immersion - Taking the Plunge, and Aging Like a Guru - Who Me? She can also be found on YouTube - Dr. Rosie Kuhn, and her website is theparadigmshifts.com.   All right! So let's just get right into it. So how old are you? I am 71, just turned 71 years old. Amazing, great! Yeah, how would you describe the work that you do? Well, I would start off by saying I'm a transformational coach, and then I would add that my coaching includes what I would call the transpersonal, the spiritual, the whole person. And I would include that I was a marriage and family therapist, worked in recovery for a while, so I have forty years of experience in supporting and empowering… Myself, and other people, to really get to know who they are as a whole person. Not just physical, 3-D, “this is what I'm supposed to think”, consensus view of reality-person. So that's where I would start! Yeah! And I have noticed that you mention on both of your Podcasts—or I don't know if you have more than two—the consensus reality. Can you talk a little bit more about that? So it's what we see around us, what we think is true, when we're not questioning reality in a sense. We're going, “Oh yeah, that's what I'm supposed to be doing.” “Oh that's what I should be doing.” You know… “As a female gender, here's how I'm supposed to dress. Here's I'm supposed to think. Here's how I'm supposed to be around men, or other women.” So, all of that is just automatic… It's based on the data that has been filtered to us, through us, throughout history, and then we're left with what this is. And so we're here in this reality. And then we can go, “Wait a second, this doesn't fit me. This doesn't feel right to me.” I don't know about you, but I know a lot of people, including myself, who was like “I don't belong here. I don't know why… I should try harder. I should fix myself. Something is wrong.” As opposed to going… There's what we think we should be, and do. And then there's who we are, as an essential, divine, natural expression of who we are, just as a being. And I love more and more, I see this on Netflix, I love watching Queer Eye. Jonathan Van Ness is somebody that I have learned so much, in terms of, “Who are you in there?” He is just the expression of him. He doesn't have… All the learning and growing and challenges he's been through. If you don't know, Jonathan Van Ness, he's with Queer Eye. As a non-binary person and as a spokesperson for that, it's really helped me grow my capacity to accept people for who they are. And there is no normal, basically. There's no normal. There's what we think is normal, and then there's who we are in our natural, essential expression of self. Mhm. Yeah. So what started you on that questioning path? The path of questioning the consensus reality. I feel like we each have very specific things that trigger that, like, “Oh! Wait, whoa! I've been living on autopilot and not really questioning anything.” So what was that for you? What flipped that mindset? I would say it started when I was… I'll say eleven or twelve. I was raised in Catholic Church. And I started going, “Wait a second, that doesn't fit…”  Whatever it is, a particular dogma or whatever, it was a sin… It was a sin to eat meat on Fridays. So I'm 70, I grew up in the 50's and 60's. In the 50's, it was a sin to eat meat on Fridays, okay. And then, it becomes, well, it's not a sin. It's like, wait a minute. How can something be a sin, and now it's not? Because somebody says? Or questioning heaven and hell, questioning that I have to talk to a priest about my sins? Why can't I just talk to God directly? That started me on that perspective of, wait a second, I don't understand this. And younger than that, I just had to suppress my questioning. You're not allowed to question. And I wasn't allowed to question my parents. That's part of that consensus reality. The culture I was in. There's no questioning authority. And then it was like, wait a second, I have these thinkings, I have these thoughts… And most people grow up, to whatever degree, losing the ability to know what they think, feel, need, and want. Because we're not supposed to. You know… Juliana, tell me what you want me to tell you, tell me what you want to talk about today, tell me how I'm supposed to show up… Those kinds of things. As opposed to going hey, just be you. Just be you… So that was the beginning, I would say, was that questioning of that reality. And it was very scary, because it's like, well I might go to hell! Certainly, when I came out to my parents that I was not gonna be following Catholic Church anymore, they were furious, right. They were just furious with me. When was that? How old were you? I was seventeen at that point. Okay, so it was about like five or six years of you just kinda like, “Whoa, what's going on?” Right. Just trying to fit in, trying to be a good Catholic. Trying to go well, how can I change my orientation so I fit into this picture? And the point is, it's not the Catholic Church. The point is that programming, and the patterning and the training that is so automatic. It's not like there's anything wrong. It's just programming and patterning, and part of the data. It's like our computers, all this data is coming into our system constantly. And fortunately we have some virus protectors that can take out those bugs. But in terms of our human experience… I'm gonna use the word infiltrate. That's the energy. The energy of all-ness. The energy of all-ness is the universal energy that is, which includes all the past, and all the future, and all those kinds of things. So it really is a training, in a sense, to say wait a second, I have to put a pin in this moment, and go stop. Stop! So I can be me in this moment, as opposed to be trying to be, trying to fix, trying to heal, trying to get over… All the trying. And to stop, and go wait a second, who am I? Who am I? What's really true here? And I'm grateful to be on the planet for seventy years. And it still, Juliana, I go, oh my god. I don't feel seventy on the inside. I feel like I'm thirty-nine, really. So when I say I'm seventy, people go “Oh, she's old.” But it's like, when you look at “old people”, they're not old inside. They're not old inside. It's part of another thing to get over, that training. So I hope that answers your question. That was the beginning of questioning reality, questioning everything. Mhm! Yeah, and so you do transformational coaching now. You said you were an MFT. What other careers have you held throughout your life? Well, I got my Masters in marriage and family when I was twenty-nine. I was married, had two children. And at twenty-nine, thirty, I was getting my degree. I lived in Nova Scotia, I lived in Ontario, I grew up in Michigan. Lots of stuff. Lots of adventures. I moved out to Nova Scotia, and got a job, found a job with what used to be called the Nova Scotia Commission on Drug Dependency. And so I got a job in a very small, little community in Liverpool, in Nova Scotia, being the clinical therapist, working with people who were in recovery. I was working with people who had at least gone through some detoxing and were in a process of getting their life together. They were on the path. And in that I realized that therapy does not prepare you to talk to people about their spiritual issues. It does not. In a sense, most therapeutic… Especially with MFTs, we were not under the psychology boards, so we weren't having to know and work under the DSM, which is Diagnostic Statistical Manual and mental health perspective. We saw people as people and part of the system and wholeness and, “How did you learn to be you?” But even in that, I wasn't prepared, and I don't think most psychologists are prepared to talk about we are beyond that 3D consensus reality, “Here's who you are. Here's who you're supposed to be.” And I would say generally speaking, there's a norm that most therapeutic processes are trying to get people to come into, that they could be “normal”. We want to be normal! And I would say that's true for me too. And it may not be the same but I still see that focus on trying to get people “normal”. And there isn't a normal. So that's one of the things I find wonderful about transpersonal psychology, or the transpersonal, more integrative approach of the whole person. We're looking at, “Who are you?” In fact, I don't know how old you are, Juliana, but you have this podcast called… Wisdom… Tell me what your podcast is called? It's called Wise Not Withered! Wise Not Withered! So I'm expecting to talk to somebody who's sixty years old, right! You're not sixty! So my expectation is, “You can't be doing this! You're too young!” Right. So those interpretations are inaccurate. It's inaccurate. So when we're trying to be or do, based on somebody else's perspective, that's where we start to get dis-ease. We'll call it that. Dis-ease. I got to a point where it was like wait a second. I want to grow my capacity to work with people in their spiritual issues. Because, this is the point, twelve-step programs bring in the relationship with something greater than. Higher power. Something where you can let go of your own sense of will, and let go and let God, basically. And because I wasn't trained to do that, I got it as I was working in recovery issues with people. It was like, I want more training in that. I want to know more! So lots of things… I went sailing for two years, on a ninety-three foot skinner, across the Atlantic Ocean. I have a book called The Unholy Path of a Reluctant Adventurer. I talk about all this stuff, like how did I come to make the choices I made? How did I end up here? How did I end up in California in this program? How did I end up on this island I live on? Orcas Island, in Washington. The point is that I found a school in California, which was the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, now called Sofia University. And there I studied, and specialized in Spiritual Guidance. And this was before I knew about coaching. And Spiritual Guidance was a great opportunity to see a different perspective than therapy. And even though the school was transpersonal, and “woo-woo” from so many perspectives… Within the therapeutic dynamics, they were diagnostic, and… Basically “you're doing it wrong” or “you need help.” Yeah, very… Categories… Exactly. As opposed to spiritual guidance, which is, “Hey, you're good. You're whole.” And… What's going on for you? Where are your challenges? Where are you struggling? So that was really wonderful for me. And then I met a person, his name is Hans Phillips, and he is in Santa Cruz. And he trains people to be coaches. And his perspective and orientation was so in alignment. It just lights me up! Here, I studied as a therapist, systems family therapy. Then studied spirituality, and spiritual guidance. And then finding this vehicle—coaching as a vehicle, for supporting and empowering people to go from “Here's where I'm at, and here's where I want to go.” That's my progress. Twenty years ago, I was a coach, and with all of the practice and the training and the work that I've done… I started a training program and transformational coaching in 2001, and I still do that. But my focus is on… When I talk to people, I bring out my little magic wand. And I say to people, “Here you are now, talking to me. And I'm your fairy godmother. Imagine me as your fairy godmother.” And in this moment—people can't see us, right—you had a response as soon as I brought out my fairy godmother wand. You went “Oh!!” And you lit up, and you got very excited. It's like “Okay, my fairy godmother is here! Something great is gonna happen!” Right? (Laughs) Yeah! And you had a paradigm shift. And my company's name is The Paradigm Shifts Coaching Group. Because what's required in this work, in transformational coaching, is that people know about this other paradigm, like, “Oh goody! My wish is going to come true!” Yeah! I love that! So when I talk to people—they call me, they've been referred to me, so-and-so said you're really good, or I saw you at your website and thought I'd call—and I go “Great, what do you want?” And they go, “Well, I'd kinda like to have more money, and I'd kinda like to have a better relationship…” This “kinda like to have”, okay. And then I pull out my magic wand, and they go “oh!” And I go, “What is it you really want??” And they light up, and they say, “What I want is I want to live on a beach in Hawaii. I want to work with kids with disabilities. I want to write. I love…” They just get so animated with their own knowing. Their own knowing. This is not something I'm making up. Just like you, you did it! You lit up! That's my coaching. That's the transformation. That's where we're going. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. That's so interesting, just that visual. When did you start using that little wand? (Laughs) A very long time ago! (Laughs) Fifteen years… Whatever. That's great. I love that so much. But you know, a lot of times, talking to people, I don't have this. This is just… You can go on Amazon and search for “magic wands” and this acrylic thing with sparkles will come up. But sometimes I'll just pull out my pen, and I go, “I've got my magic wand in my hand!” And they go, “Okay! I'm ready!” And the point of it is not that… In transformational coaching, a lot of people are calling themselves transformational coaches. And what we think that we means is, “Okay, she's gonna make my wish come true. And I'm not gonna have to work at it.” But the point of this is, when I say, “I'm your fairy godmother. And my job is to empower you to empower yourself to make your dream come true. It's not about me, it's about you.” Now we see the exuberance, we see the passion. And people go, “Yeah but that's impossible.” And it's like, “Stop! Don't go there yet! Just tell me what you want!” And this is one of the biggest challenges humans beings have, or most people. They're not allowed to know what they want. Like what I said earlier. People say, “I don't know what I want. I don't know what I need. I don't know what I think. I don't know what I feel.” So as a transformational coach, my job is to bring the space, be a presence. Bring about this space where you could go, “What is you want?” And the client says, “I saw a doll in the window fourteen years ago. I love that doll.” “Do you want that doll?” “Yeah!” “Okay, great. How do you want to get it?” We describe and explore the possibilities, versus, “No, I can't have it.” “I'm not allowed.” Or “That's really stupid because I'm 38 years old.” Or I'm 70! Whatever that is, right. “No, I can't.” But you can. You can! So that's the fun part of my job. Even though on the one hand, I call myself a fairy godmother, on the other hand, I call myself a “thinking partner”. Mhm! Yeah! I'm listening for how you think. “Yes, I really want that doll in the window.” I'm just making up things that are really absurd. People want things, and they judge it. But if we're just playing here on this phone call, and you go, “Yeah I really want that doll.” And I go, “Great!” And you go, “No…” It's like, what just happened? I'm pointing my finger. What just happened? Something just happened. You had this exuberance and excitement, and then you just deflated yourself—just like that. What happened!? So as a thinking partner, I catch those moments. I was talking to somebody the other day. And she was like, “In this moment, this is what I really want.” And I go, “Great!” And without a breath, she went to “Yes, but”. Yes, but I can't. And it's like, wow, what just happened? And I go, “What do you mean? Let's go back to, ‘Here's what I want.' And put a period at the end of that.” And it's work to get people to do that. The “yes, but” and “if only” comes so quickly. They can't even see it. And that's why having a thinking partner is so important for people. To go, “Wait, stop. You loved what you were talking about, and now you're deflated. What happened!?” Yeah. And they go, “Oh man!” And they start to see their patterns of “I can't have what I want.” Or “I'm not worthy.” Or “I'm wrong.” Or “I'm bad.” Or those kinds of patterns of dismissing, disrespecting, disregarding our own knowing. Truly. So, I'm giving you very long answers. (Laughs) (Laughs) This is great! I love this! I'm on a roll! Yeah, I love that “thinking partner”. It seems more like a guide to help people through their own limitations. That's what I'm hearing. That's right. And I wrote an article, I think if you look it up on google or something. Five Reasons I Don't Tell People What To Do. I don't tell people what to do, because 99% of the time, they don't do what I tell them to do. And so you might say, why's that? Do I have bad advice? No, people don't want to do what they're told to do. That's just a matter of fact. They go, “Please tell me!” And I tell them, or other people… But if everybody did what they were told to do, we'd have, supposedly, a very peaceful, loving, great world. But we don't. Because we have resistance. And it's really interesting and it's really important to say, “Okay, so what's the resistance?” Without judgement. We go, “Oh, I'm not doing my homework. You told me to do this and I'm not doing it. And that makes me a bad person, and I shouldn't be coaching…” And it's like, no that's not it. That's not it. It's that we have this perspective, this data. We have this consensus reality, that we started this conversation with. We have this influence that we've been swimming in, and breathing, and doing, and watching… FaceTime, Facebook, Instagram—that's all consensus view of reality. If you want to stop—I mean, I'm saying that, but you're on podcasts, and I'm on podcasts, YouTube and stuff. But I'm very clear about, hey, if you want to shift your orientation, and have a better life, if you will, or the life that you want, you gotta stop doing stuff that's part of that normal, consensus reality. Watching news, stop doing that. The things that feel negative, or the people you feel negative around. Like gosh, I just feel yucky when I'm around that person. Stop being around that person! That kind of thing. But they go, “No, that's my mother. I can't.” Or whatever stuff shows up. “That's my best friend.” Like, okay. So this point is, why I don't tell people what to do. So as a coach, I ask questions. If I do, I say, “Juliana, here's what I would do. I would go to the store and I would buy that doll. Tell me what shows up for you when I say that.” And that gives you the opportunity to express your truth. And if you go, “That's a good idea, Rosie, I think I'll do that.” I'll go, “Stop. Tell me what's going on inside of you.” Cause you might go yeah, that's a good idea, but it doesn't tell me what's going on for you. Does that make sense? Yeah. So this thinking partner thing is really important. So many coaches, we all want to be smart, we all want to be great so that you'll come back. And so many of us are like, all about the money. So I want to make sure you come back, so I keep you dependent on me. But if I say hey, this is about you. I'm in service to you. If I do my job, you'll tell other people about me. I'm not gonna worry. And my job is empower you to know the difference of who you are inside, versus what isn't, the fear-based stuff. And go, “Yeah, I want this! I love this!” So that you know that. That's my job. I want people to fire me, in a sense. I want people to outgrow me, that's the whole point. Right, yeah. And you're gonna say, “Hey, John. You gotta talk to Rosie. Cause she's great!” Not because you're dependent on me, but because you became independent. And individuated. You came to know your own truth. And you love it, and you're excited, and want to explore and experiment. And is it scary? Yes. Is it hard work? Yes. And, it's really about you, and individuating yourself. People say, I want to be sovereign. Okay, great, and be the fullest version of yourself. Yeah. I love that. Amazing. So obviously you have so much experience. How has your coaching changed over time? Since it's been so many years at this point. I… It almost brings me to tears to think about that. I had no idea that we as human beings could grow and expand ourselves to such a degree. So for me personally, that's true. I thought about this before, when I got my B.A. in Psychology, got my Masters. It's like, how much can you know? Here's the books, here's the theory. Okay great, that's the practice. Go do your math, go do your multiplication tables. And that's it. And then you go, wait a second. Now there's fractions, and now there's C minus this plus that multiplied by… But we don't even know that exists when we're doing just multiplication tables. And it's the same with becoming a therapist or coach. And it's really a matter of, what's your spectrum? What is it you're wanting? And because I continue to be curious about who is in here, inside me, I'm curious about what the fullest potential is of this being—me—then I keep growing that capacity of knowing. As I do that with myself, I have greater capacity to bring that to you, with less judgement. Less judgement of “You're doing it wrong, Juliana! You gotta do it my way!” It's like, all that stuff just goes away. Yeah, no. If you're not ready, you're not ready. And I say that a lot to people. Cause you're supposed to be “ready” and if you're not ready, I'd better help you get ready. Or I gotta do something different so you'll be ready, cause if you're not ready, then you're gonna quit and I won't get paid. That kind of thing. All that stuff… As opposed to, “Where are you?” And you go, “Hey, I'm not ready.” It's like, “Okay, great.” One of the things I talk about a lot is that we have these conflicting commitments. So you as a potential client come in and go, “Hey, I want… This.” Shiny, wonderful life. And I go, “Excellent. I'm so excited for you!” All of that. And then six weeks down the road, you're not that much closer. You go, “What's going on here??” Well, there's a dilemma, because there's part of you that—none of know how to be in our fullest potential. You don't know how to do that, I don't know how to do that. I've never been there. We don't know how to do that. People want transformation, they don't know how to be that. You take a caterpillar and plink! You make it into a butterfly. It has no idea what it's doing, right. So we have this dilemma, like “I want what I want. But I'm afraid to let go of what I know.” So every single human being—and I say this to every single person I'm coaching, and every person I'm training to be a coach. There's a conflicting commitment. I say I want this, and I'm also committed to not getting vulnerable. And so the work of a coach is to support people to be in that dilemma, and that choice point, and explore, what's that like for you? I want this so much, and yet I'm so afraid, right? Yeah. That's every human being's dilemma. That's what I'm doing with people, supporting them in being able to slowly, slowly, slowly, make incremental… This is not about leaps of faith, quantum leaps. This is about incremental shifts and changes. People go “I don't know who I am without—” I had a client the other day say “I don't know to be with the unknown.” That was her thing. This is what 90% of human beings are up to. Cause they're afraid of the unknown. I want this but I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to be me in this greatness. It's like, “Well, when you got up this morning and you looked in the mirror and you smiled, how was that?” It's like, “Oh! Yeah! I had that moment.” And it's like, “When you looked out the window, did you know what you were gonna look at?” “No.” “What was that like?” “It was good!” “Did you know which tree your dog was gonna pee on outside?” “Nope, didn't know that.” “How was that for you?” “Well, I was fine with it.” Being able to go, “Wow. Every moment is a moment that I'm in the unknown.” It's a revelation. It's a revelation! “Oh my god, I'm doing it all the time! …But—” Then we squeeze up again. We go yes, but. It's those little incremental places that a thinking partner, or a coach, a fairy godmother, whatever you want to call a person who says, “Look, you're doing it now!” Like, “Yeah but I can't do it over here.” It's like, “Okay, good to know. But you're doing it.” And you allow yourself to be available to, “Wow, I'm already doing this. If I can do this here, then I can learn to do it over there.” If I can learn to be okay with the unfolding… We have a lot of wind today, I could be all in a panic. Oh my god, 40-mile an hour wind…! It's like no, I'm okay with that. I've learned to be okay with that. We can learn to grow our capacity to be okay with the unknown anywhere and everywhere if our desire is great enough. I want it enough. I have fourteen… Fifteen or sixteen books, somewhere in that vicinity, what I've written. First book was Self-Empowerment 101. And I talk about that commitment, or being committed enough. Just enough, so that you can consider the possibility of, IT. As opposed to the resistance, the “yes but” that comes in so quickly. But if we want something enough, then we're willing to allow one incremental step closer… And a good example of this is, one of the most important practices for change, for transformation, is noticing. So this client is, I want her to become aware of her judgements, righteousness. I go, “Okay, I want you to notice every time you're judgmental about something.” And it took her six days. So the sixth day, the day before our session, boom! She started seeing her judgements. So there was something she wanted enough, that all of a sudden, it allowed her to notice. And then she'd notice something else. And then she'd notice something else. And she was like, “Wow, it's all over the place!” We can't change what we don't notice. We can't change what we can't see. And so a lot of effective coaching is getting you to see. Not just, “Do you see it, Juliana?” You go, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see it.” It's not that. It's like, “Oh my gosh, I can't believe how prevalent this is, and how it's making me exhausted. I don't want to be exhausted anymore, judging and being righteous, telling other people how they should be better. I'm tired of it.” “Okay, great. What can you practice?” “I could practice saying ‘stop' to that. I have to notice it first. If I don't notice it, I can't change it. So I gotta notice it. And then make choices based on that.” So that's based on that conflicting commitment, that I want what I want, but I don't want to lose my security and safety. I don't want it to be hard. I don't want it to hurt. I don't want to be sad. I don't want to feel my feelings. Like okay, great. Okay. Great! (Laughs) Juliana, what's showing up for you as you're listening to me? I love the look on your face. (Laughs) I'm just taking it all in. I feel like I've heard a lot of these concepts over the years… I started my own, I guess spiritual path, about five or six years ago. And yeah, it really is noticing that is the starting point. Noticing the patterns, and all the resistance that shows up, too. It's all resonating a lot with me. I love all of the things you're saying! (Laughs) Sounds great. I'm curious for you, did you or do you still, receive coaching yourself? Yep! So if you're willing to share, what are some of your own limitations that you have confronted and changed over time? It's an ongoing… There's a book that I love, and I've been using as one of my bibles, it's called Oneness. A person named Rasha transcribed… She downloaded this book, so it's a channeled text… And… So I read that all the time. And why am I telling you this? (Laughs) I was curious about your own limitations that you've confronted. Right. So the reason I mention this book is because one of the things it says, among many thousands of things that just keep reiterating, is that this is a life. This is a process of life-themed resolution. So our time on Earth… So our time on Earth. It's like going to college. Here's the curriculum I'm taking. I'm taking bio-chemical engineering. That's a very specific path. Now, if you're taking an art class, that's not in the same genre as a bio-medical engineer. So we're here to have a very specific life theme resolution process, that we're here to grow ourselves through. So we cycle back over and over and over again to these themes, that people go, “Oh, I've already done that. I've already dealt with that. I've done that work with a therapist over here. I don't need to do that now.” Right. But it's showing up. So I say that because what shows up for me continually is… And you've heard this a thousand times, I'm holding my face like oh my god, we're so tired of this conversation. But this place of self-acknowledgement, self-appreciation, self-trust, self-safety—that I'm safe with myself. And then that comes into a place of self-reverence, and inevitably self-love. And I think that's true for me, and I really see that most of what I'm going through is universal. This is what shows up for everyone. What's the degree that you feel safe with yourself? What's the degree that you go, “I'm wrong/bad/unworthy. I'm a mistake.” What's the degree that you do that? And it's like, the more that we can go “Oh, I'm still doing that unworthy/mistake thing. I gotta work at that.” That's all I'm doing, at greater and greater degrees of awareness. It's the same things, just different… Money issues are always big for people. But money isn't about money—it's about worth and value, and trust and believing. So a lot of people will say “Hey, I really believe that the universe is abundant and it's here for everybody.” And I go, “Okay, great. So how are you living into that?” “Oh, I don't. I'm afraid.” Right? “I'm staying in a job I don't like because I'm afraid.” “But you told me you believe the universe is abundant and is there for you.” “Yeah, I know I say that but—” And 99% of us have these very wonderful, true knowing in the abundance of the universe, but we're afraid to actually take the leap and have faith in that practice, living in the truth of that. We take our faith and we put it in the consensus reality of work, and bosses, and having to work at a job you're not happy at. That's where we put our faith. If I do this long enough, I'm gonna be okay. So for me, I just keep reiterating what are my issues are basically everybody's issues, and whatever circumstance comes up in the moment, that is my moment—I call it a pop quiz—of “Oh! That's challenging! Eek!” Or, you know, a friend of mine who's UGH, she drives me crazy. It's not about her! It's my stuff, and how am I righteous or judging her? And so even though I work with a coach, so much of it I could do myself, cause I can. And I trust that I know the difference between a feeling of my essential nature, where I'm fulfilling, and happy and joyful, or at least contented, versus when I'm in angst, and fearful. And I go, “Wait, you're not in the serenity place. What's going on?” It's like, “Yeah no, I don't want to talk about that. Let's go watch some Netflix.” There's something here going on for you… And sometimes I have to be in the discomfort of it until it comes up. So all of these things that I do for myself, I work with my clients to do for themselves, so they're not dependent on me inevitably. They're dependent on themselves because they've integrated my questioning. They've integrated that voice of, “What would Rosie say?” Right. It's always challenging to move myself into the more expanded self. Well, if I believe in abundance, where is it? Where the hell is it!? I live in a little travel trailer. It's 350 square feet. I have ten acres of land on this beautiful island, and my fortune doesn't allow me to build a house. It allows me to live here peacefully, and enjoy what I have. And it would be nice to have a greater abundance of… Financial… Whatever. And, “Why don't you have it, Rosie??” It's like… My curriculum, my life theme resolution issue is still working itself out. And maybe financial abundance—in my estimation of what that should be—isn't here. It's not here yet, the way I want it. But that doesn't mean I'm doing something wrong, or that I'm bad… This is part of that thing, “Stop doing that!” Stop doing that. “There must be something wrong with me if I don't have what I want.” It's one of the things I love in Oneness, it says, “Your highest vibrational results are always forthcoming.” So this is the nature of us as vibrational beings. If we're in density—most fear-based perspectives are very dense. Consensus reality is very dense—fear, fear, fear. Our highest vibrational results are always forthcoming. And I go, “Okay, if they're not coming, then I've got some work to do.” It makes sense for me. Rather than going, “Oh no, there's something wrong.” No, I've got some growing to do. And people go, “Oh my god, it just takes so much… You're 70 years old and you're still doing this!?” We're doing this for eternity. We are eternal beings, growing ourselves every moment of this eternal, brilliant life. We never stop. It's always, Juliana, always a matter of reminding myself of that. Reminding myself that my life is really beautiful. And I get to talk to you, and I get to be part of something really great. And that's pretty awesome. Yeah, I love that. I'm hearing this really delicate balance of accepting where you are, and also… Loving yourself into improvement. Yeah, and this book I mentioned earlier… She, like most of us, think we need to keep working on ourselves. And the message to her is, stop working on yourself. Stop believing that you need to do something about who you are. And the challenge with that—the addiction is to the movement and to the activity, but also to the cortisol and adrenaline. The hormones… Busy, busy, busy. But when we stop, we start to feel uncomfortable, because we're now gonna go through a withdrawal process. Hm! Oh, wow, yeah… This is where the addiction and recovery process comes in, in this work. That alcoholic, or work-a-holic, or drug addict. That's obvious. But we're talking about these elements, these systems within ourselves, these patterns of being that have been with us for so long we don't even know they exist. That going-going-going, trying-trying-trying, bettering myself all the time, is one of those life theme resolutions. Where does that come from? “I'm not okay if I'm just sitting here, doing nothing.” Hm… Wow. But I am okay. We're all divine beings, here. As opposed to, what is it. Jesus is coming, look busy. It's like yeah, no. No! And so she's struggling with even the consideration… We're not talking about, she's doing nothing, as in recovery or withdrawal. She's considering… Again, this is that dilemma. I want fulfillment in my human spirit. But it's too scary. Like… Okay! So my work as a transformational coach, as a thinking partner, a fairy godmother, is to support people, go “Yeah, I totally get it. Been there, done that. Many, many, many times.” Good sponsor in any 12-step program is gonna say, “I know what that's like.” To be in resistance. I know what it's like to be terrified and choose something different. I know what that's like. And it's because I've done my own personal work and gotten to the point where I have, that I can say that, and truly mean it. And not from a place of arrogance, and “Let me tell you how to do it.” It's like, I totally get it. It's what we call a big, fat, BE WITH. Right. (Laughs) It sucks!! Yup. It sucks. I don't know what to do. Yup. Totally get it. Well, tell me what to do! Yeah no, what's that gonna do? Yeah well— You know, those kinds of yeah, yeah… Those things that we're all IN. I think I'll turn on Netflix, and have some ice cream. Yeah. (Laughs) Lemme just take a break here. Which is a good thing too! But we're always in that place of… Incremental, slow… There's no hurry. You'll get it this time. You'll get it next time. There's no mistakes. Like if I didn't fix it this time, I'll fix it next time. It just doesn't matter. It gets to a point where it doesn't matter. Not to be flippant, but just in terms of, be who you are now, and what's that like for you, and really see this as a precious… Come to experience yourself as precious. That really, truly, slowly evolving into… Exploring, experiencing the preciousness of your being. That's the point. Yeah. And our curriculum, life theme resolution process. Right. Yeah. Wow. Where to go from here… Let's see, I do have a list of questions. We've already hit a lot of them just from what you've already been talking about. I am curious, when did you start to become a coach for other coaches? At what point did you feel qualified to train other people to do the work that you do? It came really naturally, and because I've been twenty years in the therapeutic, spiritual guidance kind of area, then it wasn't hard or difficult to slide that into teaching and training. And Hans, who was my trainer, he actually asked me to do a training program. So that was our gateway into doing that. We were able to train at this really great school. I did that for ten years. I did it with him for a year, then took it on. But I had such a capacity. This is one of those things… “How did you do that??” I had this capacity to teach, and integrate all of this information from the therapeutic process, spiritual stuff, coaching… Put it all together from my own orientation, my own way of seeing the world. And I loved it. It made me really happy! And obviously it made other people happy, cause it was a really successful program. That was a transition that was very easy, cause I already love teaching. And I was able to integrate all of what I'd learned—I almost want to say magically. It was just cause I'd worked so hard. This was that magic tipping point, coalition of everything in one place. Bada-bing-bada-boom, it happened! Yeah, okay. I'm curious, in one of your Podcasts, you said that you're pretty reclusive and don't let a lot of people into your life. I resonate with that—I feel like I also am the same way, yet simultaneously I feel like we both share a lot in the Podcasts that we do. How do you explain that? (Laughs) So I'm pretty much an introvert. So I get a lot of my refueling by being alone. And I love conversations like this. These fuel me. But then, I don't have anything else specific to do today. So I'll go take a nap, or have lunch, or do other things that need to get done. But if I'm in a social environment, or where there's a lot of people, my energy gets depleted really quickly. Okay, that makes sense. So that's one thing. But also, I think it's important, the idea of highly sensitive people. As a highly sensitive person, we could get fatigued very quickly by being around people, or being around environments like shopping malls for instance, or particular restaurants. And when we realize that, we become more conscious of how we take care of ourselves. And go, “No, not gonna go.” I live on an island, so there's no malls. But even in particular shops or whatever, it's like, “No, not going in there.” It diffuses and diminishes my energy, in a way that's not fun. So partly it's that too. So when I'm with people, I'm with people more consciously, and of choice. As opposed to going, “Yeah, I'm supposed to.” Or “I should.” A friend asked me to a concert last weekend, and I went… Oh god… Do I really want to go? And I felt into it. And it's like, I'm gonna go! But a lot of times, I can feel… It's always the balancing. My point is that I am a highly sensitive person. I'm not saying that as a diagnosis. Before I even took the online quiz, it's like, yeah I'm pretty sensitive to things. And so my work is really important to me, so my friends, I keep quiet friends, because I want my energy to be full for my clients. And for my life. And I have to be aware of that. I have be conscious of that. And make conscious choices based on that. Yeah. So I hope that answers your question. Yeah, it definitely does. I resonate a lot with that too. I also… I didn't know there was a quiz, but when I first read about HSP, I was like, “Wow, that's totally me!” That all resonates with me too, like being very sensitive to how other people are feeling without them really needing to express it, and taking on other people's energy before I learned about energetic boundaries… All of that stuff! Yeah, you can google highly sensitive people, and the quizzes pop up. The questionnaire, whatever it is. Most people already know, that's why they go, “Oh, I'm gonna take this just for fun. What's the degree of highly sensitive person that I am?” Yeah, cool! I think I'll go do that after this. It's another identity thing. “Oh, I am one of those!” I say that kind of facetiously. Cause what we're talking about is disintegrating that identity that I'm anything other than who I am, in this moment. Yeah, just for fun! So you mentioned you've written many books. When did you decide to write a book? And what was that process like? I'm just so curious, it's very fascinating that you have… Had an idea, and wrote about it, and seen it to publication so many times. That's really amazing. Well I grew up with a C- average in high school. I was told that I was… I think my IQ was 95 or something like that. My history teacher told my mom not to have me go to university, cause I'm just not cut out for that. I was so in angst about dysfunctional stuff in my reality. And I had no capacity to even know who I am or what I wanted, other than, “You're supposed to go to college. You're supposed to get married. You're supposed to have kids. You're supposed to, you're supposed to, you're supposed to…” So, bottom line is, I didn't start writing until I was 55. I finished my PhD when I was 50. And I had to write for my PhD. Part of that, I came to awareness, people said, “Wow, that's really good writing in there!” It was like wow… Okay… It's just what I'm doing. I'm not a writer. I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do to finish my PhD. But I got some notice. And people go, “Hey can you join this group?” Cause they were talking about embodied writing, what it feels like in your body when you're having these experiences. I was writing about being on the sailboat and having a transformational experience, and what it was like in the moment of that experience. And they went, “Wow, that's really great! How did you do that? Do more of that!” So that was the first that I started getting some recognition for my writing. When I was 55 and doing this training program, and hadn't written a manual or anything… A friend of mine had written a book in three months. And I said, “Okay you did it in three months. I'm committing to doing it in four months.” This manual for this training program. So that was my commitment. I wrote it in four months. Now that was, in a sense, the first draft—that got written in four months. I loved it! It went through many facets of editing. And I'm self-published. All my books are self-published. And Amazon has this great ability to connect people through Babelcube. Connects people to translators. A lot of my books are translated into French, Italian, Spanish, and some other languages, which is really fun. But it took me four months to write it. It took me another I'll say, almost a year to have the cover done, and all the edits, and everything put together. Probably over a year, okay. But… I did it! I did it. It was great. I'd been writing little blog kind of things, which seemed weird at the time because that was all new. And this fellow contacted me and said, “Hey I've got this website about business. And I'm wondering if you would write blogs for that?” And I go, “What do you want me to write about?” And he said, “Yeah, if you write 25 or 26, you could put them together and make a book!” Like well, geez. That's a really great idea! So the first book I wrote, after Self-Empowerment 101—that was my first book for the training program, it's a really great book for everybody. After he approached me, I wrote a book called The ABC's of Spirituality and Business. I mean, there's 26 letters, so that was easy. And so writing A's about acknowledgement and allowing. B is about… Whatever. K is for kindness. Put it together, and that became a book. So it was six months of writing. Twenty-six weeks. And that became a book, over a year, with editing and cover designs. Then I wrote another set of blogs for him called Dilemmas of Being in Business. Another twenty-five, twenty-six blogs, put it together… Bada-bing-bada-boom. So those were the starts of how I wrote. And then I wrote The Unholy Path of a Reluctant Adventurer. And then I wrote a series of books called… One was called “You Know You're Transforming When…” And that book wrote itself in about three hours. That's just little, one-page quotes. That whole set… Sorry, it's just interesting how they unfolded. The next one was, “If Only My Mother Had Told Me… Or Maybe I Wasn't Listening”. That's the title. It was 101 pearls of wisdom I had to get on my own. But that pretty well wrote itself very quickly. Then the third in that series was called “M.E.” Standing for “miraculous existence”. And these were all, like one-page kind of little thing… That one was based on the fact that I had been a therapist, trained to be a therapist. M.E. is 101 insights I didn't get in therapy. So here's all these things that I didn't get in therapy. And I was a therapist for twenty years, all of that stuff. What didn't I learn, that was really valuable? And the fourth in that series is “I've Arrived… Well Sort Of”. 101 things… Ways that you think you're there. You've got the enlightenment. You've got the aha! You've made it to the top… And it's like, yeah, no, not really. That's about those spiritual awakenings, spiritual insights. Places where we think, oh I've got it now! And it's like oh no, I guess I don't… I've arrived, but not really. So those are just some of the books that I've written. They pretty well write themselves. It's really important as a creative, and this is part of the expression element of who I am. These books are like, tapping me on the shoulder, “Whatever you're doing, stop. You gotta write.” And they just come! They just come. And there's a book I want to write on spiritual immersion, which is the podcast you've perhaps been listening. I want to write a book on that, because people need to read about la la la! It's not coming! It's not coming! I'm trying fourteen different ways, and it's not coming… So, that's… You know, if they don't want to, they don't want to! I will tell you, I'm working on a new course. In essence it's called Mastering The Art of Transformational Coaching. A year-long program that includes the fundamentals of transformational coaching, more advanced, and then spiritual coaching. It's probably about six months out, I think, until that starts. That is really a heart's desire, passion as well. So I think that will include the spiritual immersion elements. But it's something that's actually happening. I'm actually sitting down, and it's happening. I'm saying it that way, as opposed to “I'm doing it.” It's doing me! Interesting! Yeah! And people say, “How do you write a book?” It's like, “Well, how do you make a baby?” The baby will make itself. You just do the first part. Get your computer, get your pencil, or whatever, and it will make itself, if it wants. And if you get out of the way. But if you say, “Well I gotta make a boy baby, and it's gonna have, you know, purple eyes.” That's not gonna happen! Not now, anyway. If you want to write, and there's a creative thing that wants to come through, the way to make room for that is to make room for it. If I had said, “Yeah no, I'm not gonna write, cause I got a C- in high school, you know, AND I had to take remedial English in college. Who am I to write a book?” It's like, the book wanted to get written, and I had to get out of the way, truly. Yeah, I love that. I love to write also, and it's very inspiring hearing you talk about how you wrote your books. Cause I have been thinking like, “Wow, how do I write a book?” It's like, you just do it! (Laughs) People are like, oh here's the BOOK. But when this fellow… I almost remember his name. When he said, “You don't have to write a book. You just write a blog. Twenty-six blogs.” And that's what happened. Aside from the 101 series, that's pretty much what it is. One blog at a time. Aging Like A Guru. That's one blog at a time. Diet Like A Guru. That's one blog at a time. And I wrote Parent Like A Guru. That's one blog at a time. But you put it together, it's a little book! They're not big. They're concise, and available. You do it because, just like anything else, you love it. I love to paint. I'm not selling my paintings. The books are there if people want to buy them. It's awesome. And like I said, they're in different languages. That's awesome. It's fun, right, because you created it. Does it mean I'm gonna be a millionaire, and be on the Best Seller list? No, that's not the point. The point is that it wanted to get written. I wrote it. I honored my agreement. And you send it on its way. Yeah, I love that! You show up! You say, “Hey, I saw you on Daily Om!” I went, “Wow!” Cause that book, that course was written from Self-Empowerment 101. Right, How To Stop Giving Your Power Away. That's right. That's the title that they came up with. I started out with Self-Empowerment 101. They go, “Yeah, that's not gonna sell.” So Daily Om took it, did what they did. And you go, “Oh, who's this person? That sounds interesting!” You call me, and now we're having a conversation, cause I wrote a book I wrote sixteen years ago. You never know! Amazing, I love that. How do you define success? Well. The vision statement that I have, which is what I'll start with, is the fulfillment of the human spirit. So when I have a sense and quality of fulfillment, that for me is success. I would like to have more money coming in—that would be great, that would be fun. And so how do I describe myself without making money an element of success? It can't be, it never was. Or… Let me put it this way. We have a hierarchy of values. And my fear-based value says, “Money! Cause money is gonna give me stability and security!” But when I really look at how I live my life, my choices do not come from money. It comes from my heart, and connecting, and empowering, and supporting, and learning, and expanding myself. Though this may sound crazy, cause it does, cause it sounds woo-woo, but the greater my capacity to be with in alignment with my essential nature, I start to have more ethereal qualities of experience. More enlightened experiences. I go, “Wow! WOW!” Like that kind of experiences are occurring in my life. And that is so much more valuable than money. And then two days later, it's like, “Where's the money?” (Laughs) It's like, “Stop! You had that experience, remember? And you said this is more important…” So we have those dilemmas, I do! Like, money! Eh!! But that's… The greater the degree I know myself, and what is the fullest potential of me? A lot of different people say we are 100% potentiality. If I am 100% potentiality, what does that look like? What's possible? And if I brought myself here, from this dysfunctional kid, Catholic school, radical dysfunction, alcoholic parents, six of nine kids, C-, below-average IQ, and I'm talking here talking to you, with this level of quality of delight in my own being… That's success for me. That's like, oh my god! And my relationship with my daughter continues to grow—that's success. I've become a kinder, more generous human being. That's success. And for me to say those things… I'd say I want that to be, but I was still in the angst of, where's the money? Where's the security, and stability? I don't have a 401K, I don't have a savings account. I don't have those things that you're supposed to have, right. I'm here right now, talking to you, and who knows? Who knows. I don't have those elements of what fame and fortune, or success, looks like. Right. In the consensus reality. Yeah, the consensus reality. Yes, nicely put. Five stars for that one. (Laughs) Thank you. (Laughs) Wow… I guess… What is something you've learned about yourself, just in the past year, if you can articulate one thing? That's a big question. I think that last year I was faced with a lot of… This is where we're doing the life theme resolution piece. I was facing a lot of circumstances that showed me that I was alone, and insignificant, incompetent, basically… That would be my interpretation of the circumstances that were showing up. The trauma… I believe we come in with trauma. That we're not just traumatized in this life, but past-life traumas, or the traumas of our ancestors. We come in with that. That's part of our life theme resolution, is overcoming the trauma, letting go of the fear, so that we can be here now. So I had to face these ongoing… What felt like traumas, what was really my own making up of how horrible, terrible I was… And how incompetent I was… And so little by little, I was able to diminish that energy, and heal that place, so that I could be with stuff that happens without going into a trauma response. Getting triggered into a trauma response… So that's like, that's huge! And I can do it, anybody can do it. Truly. I really believe that. Because I grew up in such a dysfunctional, constrained, constricted orientation in life, I had to do things the way that I was brought up to do them. And here I am, being as best I can, an individual that is individuated, and attempting to know myself to greater degrees… What's my choice? Versus somebody else's choice. I'll give you one more little example. I was sitting on the couch, this was months ago. And it's gray… And I'm 70… And I'm going, “This is as good as it's gonna get. You're living in a trailer, lady. And you probably aren't gonna get married again. So you'd better get used to this. This is it.” It's a decline. As you put it, withering, right… Decline into decrepitude. You'd better just get used to it. And it's like, okay… And I'm starting to go, “Wait, that's that consensus reality!” It just consumes us. You know, 90% of people 70 and older are on medications. It doesn't have to be that way. I'm not on any medication. But it was like, okay this is beginning to consume me. And I had to go, “Stop! We gotta stop! We gotta stop looking at life this way. Because this is not who you are. You know this is not who you are. We have to make that paradigm shift.” And it was a struggle! And uncomfortable. Deep grief that came up. Stuff! Just stuff comes up. That's what happens when you're on a path of life theme resolution, or exploring and wanting, the desires. It takes a lot of work. But if you don't do it, I could have sat on the couch and declined into decrepitude, and gotten sick, more depressed. And uncomfortable, and lonely, and isolated. That's not comfortable either. We're just always in choice. So that was really a wonderful moment, of going, “Wait a second, which reality am I going to choose?” Pull out the magic, fairy godmother wand for myself and say, “Which one are you going to choose here, lady? Cause you're the mouth of empowerment, and enlightenment, and delight, and wonder. You gonna walk your talk, or are you gonna go down the rabbit hole of depression and get sick and die? That's up to you.” And that's up to every one of us to make those kinds of choices.  Wow. Yeah. (Laughs) I'm laughing cause like… That's the kind of work I do! Yeah, that's great! Hell no! Not calling that woman, no way. (Laughs) I love that you did the magic wand thing for yourself. That's amazing. That really shows, the stuff you do for your clients, you do it for yourself, cause it works! That's right. Yeah, and it's tough. With therapy, you can only take your client as far as you're willing to go. If I have fears around… Whatever, doesn't matter, then I'm not gonna be good at supporting people through that fear. If I don't want to go there… If I do go there, and go there for myself, feel the fear, feel the stuff, and the junk. Help the client explore that, “What's that junk? I can see it right there? What is that?” And they go, “What are you talking about?” “That!” And they go, “Oh, that?” And I try to have fun with it. You and I are laughing! It's serious, and it's difficult. But it's also playful and humorous. I go, “What is that?” And I'm smiling and laughing, and they're going, “Oh my god… Why are you… You crazy lady.” And I go, “No really, what is that?” Yeah. Because I know that place. I know it. And I have great, deep compassion, for myself, being in this curriculum, and supporting other people in choosing this curriculum of choosing human spirit stuff. And the fulfillment of the human spirit—huge, HUGE commitment. So I have nothing but respect for a person who calls me and says, “I want to work with you.” I go, “Oh my god, I am honored.” Cause they want to step into their knowing, their full knowing of who they are as a human spirit, a contribution, contributor to the well-being of all of us. Truly. Yeah… Yeah. Wow. That's pretty much all of my questions. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about that we didn't get to, or that I didn't ask? No, I think you did a really great job. Thank you! I was so pleased back to hear back from you so quickly! I was like, “Oh wow! Yay!” I actually had a tab with your website, and I was looking through it and thinking, “Wow, she's done so much!” And there was a part of me that was thinking, “Hmm… I don't know. Maybe she's too important for me to reach out.” And I didn't, for many days! But I thought you know what, I'm just gonna send an email. Worst that could happen: never hear back. I've been rejected before, I can handle it again! (Laughs) And thank you for saying that, because I have a lot of people who call me, or email me for coaching, or training or something, and their thoughts are “Oh, she's too busy” Or “She's too important.” And I go, “Hell no! I want to play!!” I am not too important, I am not too busy to engage with people. Because I love it, and I want to. I do want to offer, there's an organization I'm connected with, it's called suivera.org. And their mission is heart leadership, growing the world and growing communities in the world from the heart. So I'm one of the people that are part of that organization. And on that website, there is something called the Inward Bound Bootcamp for Self-Transformation. And I wrote this, you can find parts of it on YouTube, if you go to my channel, Rosie Kuhn. You can see part of that course. It's $7, I think, for 21 or 22 videos, downloaded PDF book. And it's really about the basics of the self-transformation process. If you want to know about self-transformation from my perspective, this one might be a great beginner course for people. It's called, again, Inward Bound Bootcamp for Self-Transformation. It's $7, I believe. It includes the book, the manual, which if you bought it on Amazon it's $10. So even for $7 you're saving some money, if you're interested! So that's a place to go if you're interested, if your audience is interested! Great! And your website, is it TheParadigmShifts.com? Yep! TheParadigmShifts.com (emphasis on plural). You can google Rosie Kuhn, rosiekuhn@theparadigmshifts.com is my email. Or check out the website. There's lot of free blogs and information, and if you're interested in training with me, give me a call. Right now I'm doing primarily one-on-one coach training. Because it helps people who are already at a level of knowledge, and wisdom, and experience, and they just want to take it into the more pragmatic elements of what I do. So that's what I do. And then there's coaching! Great! You have a YouTube channel as well, you have a couple Podcasts, is there anywhere else? Do you have an Instagram? I'm on Instagram, I'm not that busy… Just we keep up with what's going on. I started a new Podcast with a friend of mine. She has a Podcast called Food Integrity Now. And we joined forces, and our Podcast is called Beyond Food Integrity: Thriving Like A Guru. Her name is Carol Grieve. So Beyond Food Integrity: Thriving Like A Guru that's our new conversation, the two of us together. It's kinda fun! Great! Well thank you so much! This has been wonderful. I'm so glad we got to connect! Me too! And any time you wanna reach out again, or talk again or whatever, just let me know! It would be fun. — The Inward Bound Bootcamp for Self-Transformation can be found at www.suivera.org/b7-inward-bound-bootcamp.

Our lovely climate – from tropical to polar, arid to damp, and all that “just-right” temperate in between. It comes in all flavors, and it's been constantly changing since the very birth of our planet Earth… So, guys, if you're brave enough, I wanna take you on a journey to the past to find out what was the Earth climate like before!  So far, all I know is that everything was completely different in the old days. For example, 4.5 billion years ago it was super hot and molten all over. You could see the entire oceans of magma everywhere. And it took almost a billion years for our planet to take its solid form...  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sign up for the Great Courses Plus today and enjoy the first month for free: https://bit.ly/podcast-great-courses-plus The world was rocked recently by the announcement that signs of life might have been discovered on Venus? Unbelievable. Is the hottest planet in the Solar System showing signs of microbial life in its atmosphere? Could this be the historic discovery that is the first real domino to fall in the ultimate search for life beyond Earth? So many questions, so few answers. But who better to help us understand the significance of this groundbreaking announcement than the co-author of the seminal paper in Nature astronomy, MIT's Professor Sara Seager. She is not only helping drive this research through her world renowned expertise in studying exoplanet atmospheres, but is also planning to spearhead a mission to Venus in the very near future to answer, once and for all, whether we have indeed discovered life on the planet Venus. Join Peter, Richard and Pr. Sara Seager for this game-changer episode of What If Discussed. Show notes: https://whatifshow.com/podcast Join hosts Peter Schmiedchen and Richard Garner with some of the world’s top thinkers in science, astronomy, technology, academia and futurism to ponder some of your most popular What If videos.   Subscribe to this podcast and please rate & review us. Thanks for being part of the What If community as we embark on an epic exploration of possibilities.   Join us online: Website https://whatifshow.com/podcast YouTube https://www.youtube.com/WhatIfScienceShow Facebook https://www.facebook.com/What.If.science Instagram https://www.instagram.com/whatif.show If you’d like to sponsor this podcast, please get in contact with our partners at Notorious - Sales@Notorious.llc Hosts: Peter Schmiedchen and Richard Garner Executive producer: Steve Hulford Supervising producer: Richard Garner Producers: Demid Tumanov and Stephen Henrik Channel supervisor: Raphael Faeh  Social media: Saida Mirzalimova Research: Jay Moon Trailer: Evan Yue Artwork: Alex Griffith Production: Underknown Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/whatifshow See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 14. How did we get here? How did those transmissions get to Earth? So many questions and some great, stinky cheese transmissions. Recorded live February 23, 2016 at Pratt Radio.

Ahaumna Ah Ma YAh is a highly sought after spiritual life coach, inspirational speaker, and mystic arts teacher. She is on a mission to mainstream mysticism through her AM-MA accreditation, and to evolutionize the way humanity learns and interacts with the future generations through online, virtual reality classrooms, building the new Earth schooling for the children, The Rainbow Path.   Visionary Souls Podcast LIVE with Visionary Coach, Mystic Arts Teacher + Inspirational Speaker Ahaumna AhMayah jamming on all the SOULstice upgrades and embodiment medicine including: - Awakening to remember your purpose at times through great suffering - Choosing to fully BE here, completely alive, now - Saying yes to a big vision through choosing again and again to be pure - Dismantling global education and governance to create the NEW paradigm of possibility - Birthing new education for children worldwide using high tech - establishing right relationship with the technologies that are here to help us thrive - Experiencing interdimensional communication and saying YES to being a translator of frequency here on Earth So much more magic, tune in and share with us your resonance! Plus listen to more episodes of Visionary Souls with new ones out each week!

The Tower of Babel Spread out over the Earth So let's look at what happened. In the beginning God created everything and the first people he created was Adam and Eve. After he created Adam and Eve he told them to multiply and spread out over the earth. 28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful,…

The Tower of Babel Spread out over the Earth So let’s look at what happened. In the beginning God created everything and the first people he created was Adam and Eve. After he created Adam and Eve he told them to multiply and spread out over the earth. 28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful,…

https://youtu.be/KBKlL8wiEb0 Sermon Title: Famous Last WordsDate: Feb 25, 20181. Wise words• Help us through life, help us grow• All of our heroes have wise words to say 2. Famous Last WordsEvery culture on earth celebrates last wordsThe end of every life provides wisdom & commentary 3. The last words of Jesus• Some of the most ignored words on Earth• So wise, so life changing, so amazing we wish they weren’t there• It is my prayer that these last words of Jesus will change you life 4. John 20:19-21 (ESV)• 19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where thedisciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said tothem, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and hisside. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to themagain, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”• Easter evening. Jesus had been killed. He was gone.• The disciples were hiding in fear for their lives.• They were known as followers of Jesus and were wanted men• Jesus shows himself to the disciples and says peace be with you• Jesus proves to them his death and resurrection through scars 5. A new purpose. A new commission from Jesus• I am sending you!• Not replacing the mission of Jesus. Not becomes Jesus. Continuing the work of Jesus• A transfer of the mission of God (to seek and save the lost) from Jesus to us• This means we are “on mission” in every corner of this earth….forever until he returns!• It is a continual job. Continually preach the gospel, disciple others and equip the saints 6. The example of Isaiah (Isaiah 6:8)• And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” ThenI (Isaiah) said, “Here I am! Send me.” 9 And he (God) said, “Go…”• The is the attitude of being sent. I’ll do it, Lord• I exist to serve you. I exist to be sent by you• Being sent is an active role to do something bigger and better than what you’re doing now 7. The example of Paul (Romans 10:14)• How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they tobelieve in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someonepreaching?• Paul was so driven by the words of Jesus that he spent the remainder of his life being sent 8. Application 1: Purpose in famous last words• Find purpose in obeying the last words of Jesus• Find purpose in joining in God’s grand plan to redeem humanity• Find purpose in being called and sent by Jesus to seek and save the lost 9. Application 2: Be willing to take risks to be sent• Jesus, Isaiah, Paul are heroes of the faith. They all took risks and they all suffered• Being sent means being changed by God• I am sending you! Not your neighbor, not the guy next to you. YOU!

You know how sometimes people say "this isn't your father's...whatever" to imply that the version of that thing YOU have is way cooler than what YOUR DAD had? Well, this week on the show, we talk about your father's whatever. That sounds weird. I'll explain. The focus this week is Atari's 1980 port of the 1978 arcade classic SPACE INVADERS. When pong clones (soon to be a BBC series starring Tatiana Maslany) killed the video game market in 1977, an invasion of aliens marched in lock-step to bring the market back. SPACE INVADERS became so closely identified with gaming, that the little aliens are still iconic of that era. But what about the game itself? Any good? Why are they invading? What do they want? Why are you the only one that can defend the Earth? So. Many. Questions. Join us, won't you? Thanks to Kevin McLeod at Incompetech.com for creative commons access to his songs "Reformat", "Pinball Spring" and "Take a Chance". Atari Bytes It's a Podcast, Charlie Brown Atari Bytes Patreon Page Zazzle.com Atari Bytes store AB_Pod_Store Bill's novel IN THE ST. NICK OF TIME

Appearances Can Be Deceiving This probably is my favorite time of year. I love the low humidity and the piercingly blue skies I saw yesterday. I was standing out in the yard with my daughter and we were just looking around at the sky and how fiercely blue it is. Don't you love this time of year? Maybe I'm alone in that, I don't know, but I just love to see the changing seasons, the leaves turning. I'm not excited about the fact they're about to descend under my lawn for the 12th consecutive year, and I'll have to clean them up, but I do love this time of year. And as we were standing out there, , I was just thinking about the gift of vision and what a beautiful thing this world is that He's made. And how the light just streams into our eyes and gives us the picture of the world around us. And it occurs to me as I stand before you and preach today, I desire to be somewhat of an eye doctor, a spiritual eye physician, to help you to see what ordinarily we would not see. Because there is physical vision and then there is spiritual vision, and we need to see what we do not see. We need to see spiritually what we cannot see physically. And this text, Hebrews 2:5-9, talks about what we do not see and what we see, and the difference between what ought to be or what will be someday and what is now. And so "At present," the text says, "We do not see everything subjected to Him." The "Him" is first and foremost Jesus. What is subjected is humanity under Him. We'll talk about that, but we don't see everything the way it should be. We do not see everything subjected. Things are in disarray, things are in chaos it seems. There is pain and misery and suffering, we'll talk about that. But then the next verse says, "But we see Jesus." And so therefore, it just occurs to me that my job, my responsibility is to enable you to see Jesus today. That's what I'm here for, to be somewhat of an eye physician. Sometimes it just happens by prayer. Remember how Elisha with his servant, they're in Dothan and surrounded by the Aramean army, and he's like, "Don't worry about it. There's more on our side than on theirs. We're fine." "I don't get it," says the servant. "I don't see anything but trouble today." "Oh, Lord, open his eyes. Open his eyes." And his eyes were open and he saw chariots of fire. The hosts, the heavenly hosts surrounding them and everything was fine. And so today, it's about spiritual vision. It's about being for me a spiritual eye doctor. We have some skilled physicians in this church, one in particular, a good friend of mine, an excellent eye doctor, and he's able with incredible technology to just shape the way that some people see, what had been blurry is suddenly brought into sharp focus. What a gift that is. May that happen today by the word of God. May we see Jesus today by the word of God. And if that's my privilege today, if that's my responsibility, what a gift that is to me. That I actually get to be up here and to proclaim Jesus to you, so that as a result of this time together, you see Jesus more clearly than you did before. What a gift that is. The Context of Hebrews 2:5-9 Now what is the context of Hebrews 2:5-9? Well, remember I believe that the author is writing to some Jews who had made a profession of faith in Christ, but who are now under pressure. The world was squeezing on them, specifically I think the Jewish world. Squeezing on these Jewish people to renounce their confession of Christ. Give it up and come back to what they had grown up with, what they had always known, Judaism. Come back to Christless Judaism. Old covenant Judaism as they understood it, without Jesus of Nazareth, come back to that. The only way you can do that though is to renounce Jesus because he's come now, he's been clearly proclaimed. They've heard the gospel, they said they believed it, they probably had been baptized, we'll talk about all that, but they've made a profession of faith and now they are being tempted, they are under pressure, I think, from Jewish friends and family and neighbors, rabbis, authority figures to renounce Christ and go back to the old ways. And so they are suffering in the world, they are getting beaten on, and they do not see everything arranged under Jesus. And so the author wants to give them Jesus, the spiritual vision of Jesus. That which we cannot do physically. It says in 1 Peter, "Though you have not seen him, you love him. And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him." So it's all about faith today and things that do not appear as they should be or as they will be. Of a world to come, it mentions in verse 5, about this world to come, a world that isn't here yet and that we can only see by faith. That's what we're about today. And so this author is talking about what is but ought not to be, what will be but isn't yet, and how appearances can be deceiving, how what you see may not be really what's going on. And how through it all we need to see the promises of God of a future world that's going to be submitted to Christ, everything under Christ, and of Christ at the right hand of Almighty God in glory, reigning in glory. You need to see that today. And even though we are not first century Jews under persecution from rabbis and Jewish neighbors to go back to old covenant Judaism, we need to see Jesus today too, don't we? And so Hebrews 2:5-9 speaks to us. And what the author's going to do is he's going to be bringing in Psalm 8. Magnificent psalm, and he's going to be meditating a little bit on a portion of Psalm 8, and he just does this understanding the whole world view of Psalm 8. And so we have to do a little work on Psalm 8 because what he's doing is he's going back through the vision, the portal of Psalm 8 to look at how man was established in this world and how Jesus came in effect to reclaim our position of glory and status in this world through his redemptive work. I. Man’s Original Place: A Throne of Glory And so, man's original place through the vision of Psalm 8 is a throne of glory. It's a testimony really to man's surprising glory. As we look at Psalm 8, you don't have to turn there but you know the psalm and I'll just be quoting parts of it. The central issue of Psalm 8 is the central issue of the universe and the central issue of the Bible, God's glory. And so Psalm 8:1 begins, "O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth." The great glory of God spread out over all the worlds. How majestic is your name. And then the Psalm ends that way, Psalm 8 in verse nine, "O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth." But a secondary issue in Psalm 8 is man's apparent smallness in light of the immensity of God's glory. "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of us? The son of man that you care for him?" What are we that you should even notice us? How immense is the cosmos? How infinite it seems and how great the number of stars. How vast they are. And what are we? What is man that you are even mindful of him? And yet, despite all the appearance of man's immense smallness, the Psalm says, "You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor and put everything under his feet," it says. Well, that's a bit surprising. It's not what you would think. When we think about angels, angels are clearly more powerful than we are. Clearly. Angels dwell in heaven but we are dwelling here on earth. Angels see the face of God and we do not. Angels shine with the glory, a heavenly glory of God. We do not. Angels display supernatural power and we do not. So what is man in the light of angelic power and glory? And yet God, in creation, gave us a throne. So the author to Hebrews here in Hebrews 2 introduces Psalm 8 and quotes it in a rather curious way. Verse 6 says, "There is a place where someone has testified: 'What is man that you are mindful of him, the a son of man that you care for him?'" Now, before you want to get after the author to Hebrews as though he doesn't know the Bible very well. Look, let me tell you something, the author to Hebrews knows Old Testament scripture better than you will in 10 lifetimes. He knows exactly who wrote Psalm 8. He's not confused about that nor has he forgotten it. He's always doing something, this author, this brilliant, genius author of the Book of Hebrews. He's always at something and you know what he's doing right now? Minimizing man and maximizing God. Does it really matter to my argument who wrote Psalm 8? Now, it will matter in Hebrews 4 that David wrote Psalm 95 so he's going to quote David as the author of Psalm 95. He'll talk about David. So he knows all about David and his authorship of the Psalms but here he just says, "There's a place where someone has testified: 'What is man that you are mindful of him?'" So he's pushing David to the background and saying, "Just someone wrote this." And Psalm 8 makes the point the author to Hebrews wants to make here in Hebrews 2, and that is, that God entrusted to man a place of glory and honor and creation. You made him a little lower than the angels. You crowned them with glory and honor and put everything under his feet. By the word of God, man was made a little lower than the angels. He made him ruler, it says in Psalm 8:6-8, "You made them ruler over the works of your hands. You put everything under his feet, all flocks and herds, beasts of the field, birds of the air, and the fish of the sea. All that swim in the path of the seas." Man was put over all that. Made a little lower than the angels. Crowned with glory and honor. Specifically, I think being created in the image of God and then given this position of rulership over the planet earth. And he did not give this position of honor and glory to angels even though they are stronger and more powerful. Look at verse 5, "It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come about which we are speaking." The key issue then here is the world to come, and I'm going to talk more about the world to come, what it is, and Christ's rule over it, though man was originally given a place of glory and honor in this world. The Glory of Man: Rulership over the Earth So what is the glory of man? Of the human race? Rulership over the world. Genesis 1, this is our charter of rulership over the earth. Verses 26-28, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' And so God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'" That's our charter as a human race, male and female in the image of God, rulership over all of these species. And so, I think we could look at it that Adam and Eve were in some way, originally invested with royal authority like a king and a queen, they were walking through their domain. Definitely under God, but they were like a king and a queen on the earth. And they were to begin in Eden, and then they were to move out from Eden through the four rivers that flowed out of the head water that came from Eden: The Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris, the Euphrates, carrying them to rest of the world so that they could see the glory of the God on the earth. And they would discover various species of plants and animals, of birds, and fish, and insects, and reptiles, and geology, all of the gold and onyx, and all of the things that there was to see in the earth, they would discover them. And they would fill the world and they would subdue it, and they would rule over it for the glory of God. And that honor, that glory and honor was given to man and not to angels. II. Man’s Present Disgrace: Stripped of Glory But what is man's present situation? What is our present disgrace? Well, we've been stripped of that glory. We've been stripped of it. We lost our position of glory. Adam fell into sin, joining Satan in his rebellion against God. We joined Satan's rebellion against God. And I think we handed over the keys of the planet to him when we did it. God had commanded Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but Adam disobeyed God and was driven from the Garden of Eden. The ground under Adam's feet was cursed because of Adam's sin. And man and nature began a somewhat adversarial relationship. God said to Adam, "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you'll eat the plants of the field. And by the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." I get the image of Adam wrestling every day with the earth, and in the end, the earth wins, because Adam was going to die. And so, we have been in a great measure stripped of the glory and honor of our position in the world. Furthermore, God actually assigned to an angel the responsibility to keep man out of Eden lest they eat from the tree of life and live forever. And so, there was an angel with a sword, flaming sword flashing back and forth. The Apostle Paul speaks of the cursing of nature and the groaning of the earth. In Romans 8:20-22, it says, "For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope... " Oh, those are sweet words. That's the world to come that the author is talking about here, but, "in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. "We know," says Paul, "that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to this present time." That is what we're talking about. We do not see everything subjected to Christ. We see a world seemingly at war with itself and with us. The author focuses on the word "everything." Look at verses 7-8, "You made him a little lower than the angels; You crowned him with glory and honor and put everything under his feet. In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him." He's really emphasizing the everything aspect, everything under Jesus. "Yet at present, we do not see everything under him." We don't see it. Humanity has been stripped of its position of glory in the world. At Present, We See Suffering and Death And so, at present, we see tremendous suffering in the world. Let's just talk about natural disasters for a moment. Do you realize how many significant natural disasters there have been in the last 10 years? I didn't really realize until I did some research. One earthquake after another. And you can forget them, they just happen one after the other, and you can forget them. Do you remember that on January 26, 2001, there was an earthquake in Gujarat, India, killing 12,000 people. If you live in that vicinity then, and survived it, you'd remember that earthquake. Or the next month, another earthquake hit El Salvador. There was an earthquake in Algeria in 2003, killing 2200 people. A huge earthquake in Iran in 2003, also day after Christmas, killing over 40,000 people. I think many of us certainly remember exactly a year later, December 26, 2004, with the Indian Ocean tsunami, that 9.3 on the Richter scale earthquake in the middle of the Indian Ocean that caused a terrible tsunami, that took out, it seems as close to a quarter of a million people, in 2004. 2005 Kashmir earthquake killed 80,000 people. 2008, there was an earthquake in China, Southwest China, Wenchuan earthquake, killing 69,000 people. I think we in America, we certainly remember all the hurricanes that struck the gulf coast region one after another. Certainly, Hurricane Katrina, we all remember that one but then came Rita and after that, Hurricane Ike. All of it hitting, more or less, the same part of our country. And the beginning of this year on January 12, an earthquake in Haiti killed almost a quarter of a million people and the country's still reeling from it. Still reeling. 2010 also in July, in Pakistan, there were terrible floods, heavy monsoon rains in various regions of Pakistan, displacing as many as 21 million people. Displacing 21 million people from their homes. They generally feel that the world has under-responded because it doesn't seem to be on the radar screen. This is the world that we live in. Droughts, famines, earthquakes, plagues, endemics, it's a world seemingly at war with itself. We do not at present see everything under him, it says. At present, instead, we see suffering and death. And Hebrew Christians who were going through persecution, well, they understood God's original purpose in creation as well as the author to Hebrews did. They knew the Genesis story as well as he did. In the gospel, the power of Christ is clearly proclaimed to bring everything together under one head, with Christ ruling over everything and everything at peace and orderly under his feet. We've already seen it in Hebrews 1:13, "To which of the angels did God ever say, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." I'm going to put everything under you. Christ as God overall, He's able to crush all of His enemies under His feet, but at present, we do not see this power openly and obviously. Not only is nature making life miserable for all humanity, unbelievers are specifically making life miserable for Christians. So it doesn't seem like Jesus' enemies are being handled very well. They seem to have the upper hand in one country after another. And so, the author later in this book, in Hebrews 10 says, "Remember those earlier days after you had receive the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution. At other times, you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and you joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions." That's a hard time, friends. That's a very, very hard time. And so the author to Hebrews is ministering to these hurting people who are suffering in a world that seems to want to chew them up and spit them out. How can you say everything's going to be under Jesus' feet? Doesn't seem that way. And He's trying to give them a vision by faith, of what will be. In speaking of the world to come, that's what he's talking about. Things are not as they should be and the only solution for us now, first and foremost, friends, this morning, right now, is to see Jesus. Amen? Look at verse 9, "But we see Jesus." And that you would have a spiritual vision of Jesus that is so compelling and so powerful, based on scripture that you can face the earthquakes and famines and dangers and persecutions and say, "It's true that at present we do not see everything's subject to Him, but someday we will." Amen? Some day, it's coming, and by faith, we're looking forward to that day. That's what the author is doing here, he's saying, "Let's look at Jesus." And if you look at Jesus, things in His life weren't always as they should have been, it seems. Things were not as they appeared to be either. Jesus was not who He appeared to be to His enemies. And we have to start that story by understanding Jesus' original glory. III. Jesus’ Humiliation: Incarnation, Suffering, and Death Just how glorious was Jesus before He came to earth? How magnificent, how great, was the glory of the second person of the trinity, before He took on human flesh? Well there are lots of testimonies to it, but none better than Isaiah 6. "In the year that King Uzziah died," Isaiah wrote, "I saw the Lord, seated on his throne, high and exalted. And the train of His robe filled the temple. And above Him were seraphs." Those are angels, bright, burning angels. "Each with six wings: with two wings, they covered their faces." I've often meditated on that. Because of the greater glory of Jesus. "With two wings they covered their feet, and with two, they were flying. And they were calling to one another, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory.' And at the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke." That's the greatness of Jesus. And if you wonder whether it's Jesus or not, as a Christian, you don't need to wonder, but Apostle John told us it was. In John 12:41 it says, "Isaiah saw Jesus' glory and spoke about Him." So we know that's Jesus. That's the greatness of his glory. But He laid all of that aside and took on a human body. He took on humiliation, really. We see Jesus' humility in incarnation. So the night that Jesus was born, all the angels gathered to celebrate it and worship Him. Apparently, Jesus had become a little lower than the angels. Seems like a lot lower than the angels. So if you're one of the shepherds that night, here are two experiences. You have an experience with angels and you have an experience with Jesus. The angels come with heavenly glory. Bright, shining glory in the middle of the night and you're terrified. Never seen anything like it. One angel lights up the whole place. And then an army of angels come and they give glory and praise to God. Glory to God in the highest. And peace to those on whom his favor rest. And this awesome glory, and then they go back up in Heaven and then the angel they're all gone. And then it's dark again. And then the shepherds say " Well, let's go see this child that's born that the angels spoke about." And they're going to go see a greater glory. Right? So they go into Bethlehem, the city of David. And they go into Bethlehem and they find a cave or a stable or something, we don't know. But a place where animals are kept and what do they see? They see a baby. A poor Jewish couple and a baby. And that's it. What a contrast, the angels are looking awesome and Jesus isn't really looking awesome. He's looking actually quite weak. He's actually laid in a manger box, I mean, basic mothering classes. You just don't put a baby where the animals feed. But there was no other place. It isn't a scene of great power and glory, it's a scene of humiliation. Angels glorious, seems far greater than Jesus. But appearances can be deceiving. All of those angels were worshipping God for sending his son into the world. That's what they were doing. They knew who was the greater. There was no doubt in their mind as to who was the greater. And God was doing a great thing by sending his son into the world, "In the likeness of sinful flesh" it says in Roman's eight. And so we see appearances can be deceiving and we can only see Jesus by faith. Even if you had been one of the shepherds that night it's only by faith you can really see Jesus to know who he is. And so there are examples of this from Jesus' life, for example, Jesus' humiliation in suffering. In the desert of temptation, Jesus fasted for 40 days out in the desert. And at the end of the 40 days in one of the great understatements in the New Testament, he was hungry. Well, he was definitely hungry, and of course, the devil came and pounded on him and tempted him severely, he responded with scripture though weakened by the fasting and at the end of the ordeal, Jesus depleted physically. You just see him, just on the ground. The Father dispatched angels to come minister to him. Says in Matthew 4:11, the devil left him and angels came and attended him. Now you remember when Elijah was running for his life? Jezebel wanted to kill him? And Elijah was exhausted, he'd done the whole Mount Carmel thing, fighting the prophets of Baal and Asher and all that. And then he runs miles ahead of the rainstorm that's coming and he does all this and then finds out Jezebel wants to kill him. Big surprise on that one. But it seemed a surprise to Elijah and he's just wiped out, he's done. He's like "I just want to die." And he's out in the desert laying under a broom tree and God dispatches an angel to make a little baked cake and a jar of water. He says "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you." Well, here's Jesus about like that and actually, He sends several angels to minister to Jesus. Alright, freeze frame. There you are in the desert, here are these angels and here is this human being. Who's greater? Appearances can be deceiving, friends. Jesus was made for a little while, a little lower than the angels, and the angels are helping him because of his suffering. Or another example, in the Garden of Gethsemane. You're in the Garden of Gethsemane with Jesus and the Lord, I believe, God the Father opens up in Jesus' minds eye, and in his soul and in a very mysterious way what it will be like to drink the Cup of God's Wrath. To be under the Wrath of Almighty God for our sins, what will it be like to be our sins substitute and he is, I think, literally knocked to the ground. Not surprised about the thing itself but just the magnitude of it in his humanity. Overwhelmed, and the intensity is so great that drops of blood are flowing out of his sweat pores. There's a medical condition in which that can happen and that was happening to Jesus. If you had been there at that moment and then God it says dispatched an angel from Heaven in Luke 22:43. An angel from Heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. Who's the greater and who's the less at that moment? Angel, this mighty powerful being, Jesus perhaps close to death, right there from heart seizure, heart attack or something. Right there in the Garden of Gethsemane and angels putting him back together physically so that he is able to get up and go do what he is determined to do. Who's greater? Appearances can be deceiving. Jesus was made for a little while lower than the angels. But they knew exactly who was the greater and what he had come to do. Angels are immortal, they cannot die. Jesus died, took on flesh and blood and died on the cross. Look at verse 9. "We see Jesus who is made a little lower than the angels now crowned with glory and honor. Why? "Because he suffered death so that by the Grace of God, he might taste death for everyone." So as Jesus' lifeless, bloody body was taken down off the cross, gently wrapped by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, he was the very picture of human weakness and frailty. Death itself. No holy angel has ever stooped so low. Jesus seemed to be far below the holy angels more at that moment than any other time in his life. He was below the angels but appearances can be deceiving. Jesus was still the Son of God. Almighty God. And on the third day, God raised him from the dead in glory and power. IV. Jesus’ Glorification: Crowned with Glory FOR US Okay, so how does this all connect to us? How does it connect to us as believers in Christ? How did it connect to the first century Jewish believers in Christ? Well, Jesus' glory will be our glory. He is the Son of Man who fulfills God's original purpose for man and that is ruling in glory over the earth. And so look again at verse 9. "We see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death so that by the grace of God, He might taste death for everyone." God's gracious purpose then is to restore fallen man to glory. We had traded in the keys of the kingdom to Satan, so he could rebel against God, Jesus came and won the kingdom back for us. Amen? He came and got it back for us, as a man, as the Son of Man, He came and did that. And now, He is crowned with glory and honor. We see Jesus, it says, now crowned with glory and honor. How do you do that? Well, more on that in a moment, but hopefully, it's already happening in your heart. Do you see him? Crowned with glory and honor at the right hand of God, do you see it by faith? We see Jesus crowned with glory and honor seated at the right hand of Almighty God, ruling over heaven and earth. The angels now veil their sight before Him as they did before his incarnation. And why? Why do we see that? Because He suffered death. There's a logical connection between the greatness of His glory now and the fact that He was willing to die in the cross then. It's the same connection you see in Philippians. Philippians chapter two, Jesus who being in very nature, God did consider equality with God something to be grasped but made Himself nothing. Taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. The next word is vital, theologically. Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place. Do you see that? There's a link, both in Hebrews two and in Philippians two, to Jesus' willingness to die and the greatness of His glory in heaven. Therefore because He did it, because He was willing to go to the cross for you and me, how great is His glory? How great is His Honor? And how great is the passion of God the Father when he said, "Sit at my right hand. I'm going to make all of your enemies a footstool for your feet." That is the greatness of Jesus. Because He suffered death for us. So that by the grace of God, He could taste death for everyone. And what does that mean for everyone? Well, for all of the children. For all of the elect sons and daughters of the living God. That's who He tasted death for. But look at verse 10, "in bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God through whom and for whom everything exists should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering." By the way, how foolish was I to think I could do one sermon on Hebrews 2:5-18. I thought I could get the whole chapter in one sermon, are you kidding me? How long do you folks want to be here today? We're not even really doing verse 10. This is not really doing verse 10. You know we're not doing verse 10 right now. But I still want to borrow a little bit from next week and talk about what Jesus was trying to do. He's trying to bring many sons to glory. That's what He's trying to do. And the only way to do that was to suffer, to suffer, to suffer death, to taste death for the sons He's bringing to glory. That's who He tasted death for. For us. And He does it to make us holy. Verse 11, "Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are the same family." And so Jesus is unashamed to call us brothers. How sweet is that? And so that's what He's doing. He's doing a kingdom of holiness, a kingdom of glory. And so now, everything is subject to Jesus as our head. Jesus is crowned with glory and honor, siting at a throne in the head of the universe. God, Ephesians 1:22, placed all things under His feet, appointed Him to be head of everything for the church. That's not in the future, that's now. He is now on His throne, everything is under Him. God appointed Him. Even though we don't see everything like that, it's going to be someday. And that's the beauty of it. And so this world to come, look at verse five again, the world to come is what we're talking about. It is not to angels that He has subjected the world to come. About which we are speaking. That world is the future world. The future world, that's where we're going friends. So when you hear about natural disasters and earthquakes, famines, heat waves, even other issues, global warming and typhoons, all of that kind of stuff... You need to be like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Hebrews 11 says, they were living in tents in the promised land, and all of these great heroes, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised. Listen to this.This is so incredible. "They didn't receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them at a distance. Those verses exploded in my mind this morning. I said I have to write a whole different sermon but I don't have time so I'm just going to zero in on this, they saw them from a distance, what? They saw the new heaven and new earth from a distance. They didn't get it while they lived but they saw it while they lived. Do you see it friends? Do you see the new heaven and new earth? Do you see the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband, Jesus on his throne, everything in order under Him. No more strife, no more conflicts, no more typhoons or earthquakes or mud slides or any of that again. All of it brought into order under Jesus. Can you see it now in your mind's eye? They saw it and welcomed it at a distance. Verse 16 of that same chapter, "They were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God because He has prepared a city for them." That's our future, the world to come. We're going to reign like kings and queens. We're being given as an inheritance a kingdom. Come, you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom, that kingdom prepared for you, kings and queens we'll be. And on Jesus' thigh and on His robe when He returns to bring it about, it's going to say, king of what? King of kings and Lord of lords. You will be the kings and the lords. Jesus will be the King of kings, ruling over you and me. But we haven't come into our inheritance yet, have we? Isn't it powerful how Paul rebukes the Corinthian church in first Corinthians four? It says, "Already you've become rich, already you've become kings, and that without us." We missed it. "How I wish you really had become kings, so we could be kings with you. For it seems to me that God's put us Apostles on display at the end of a procession like men condemned to die in an arena…" That's what we're experiencing now. But look at you, you're already into your heavenly inheritance. How did that happen, did we miss it?" He's really rebuking the Corinthians there for their triumphalistic way of living. We are meant to suffer now, and meant to trust now, and live in tents now, and look at a distance now toward a heavenly country that's coming, but we don't have it yet. And so what can we do? Well, see Jesus, look at him, see him by faith now. If you're lost, you've never trusted in Christ, see him now, dead on the cross, bloody, why did he die? For you. Think that, say, "He died for my sins. I have broken the law of God, Jesus died in my place, the death penalty I deserved." Trust in him. God raised him from the dead so that you could live forever. See him and then, if you're a believer, see him some more, see him more and more. Feed on the word of God, saturate your mind in the word of God. And think, not just about the past; Jesus dead on the cross, then risen, ascending, but think about the future world, the world to come about which we are speaking. By the way, verse 5, do you speak about the world to come? I'd like to talk about it more, what do you say? Let's talk more about the world to come. There's an application for you. Let's talk more about the world to come, where Jesus is going to reign on his throne and everything will be orderly under him. Close with me in prayer, please.

This morning, we are looking at Isaiah chapter 11. And it's a good time for it too, because this is the season of grandiose promises, and of visions of a glorious future, because it is a season of a presidential campaign. And it is amazing to listen to all of the promises that are made by the candidates, whether of major parties or minor parties. You really ought to make a list of all the things that are in our immediate future. It's looking quite bright, isn't it? And the fact of a long history of broken campaign promises, not necessarily by these candidates, but just by presidential candidates in, for example, the 20th century, doesn't dim those hopes at all. For example, in 1916 Woodrow Wilson promised to keep the United States out of World War I. And by 1917, we were fighting in World War I. Or in 1928, Herbert Hoover, or at least his campaign around him (I think he later said he never promised any such thing) promised a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. He did promise to eradicate poverty. That was in 1928. You know that what happened in 1929 and the depression that followed put an end to that promise - hence the denial by Herbert Hoover. Or then Franklin Roosevelt's pledge in 1932 to maintain balanced budgets and to decrease government spending by 25%. You can find out whether that happened or not. Or then his pledge in 1940 to keep the United States out of World War II. Or how about Lyndon Johnson's famous promise to win the war on poverty through his Great Society? Someone once said of his presidency that, “He fought a war on poverty and poverty won.” But at any rate, there was a grand and glorious vision of a future society free from poverty. Or Richard Nixon's pledge to get the United States out of the Vietnam War. When pressed on details, he implied that there was some kind of a secret plan. No one was ever sure what the secret plan was. I don't think it included Watergate, his near impeachment, and then the fact that in 1975, finally, we ended, and got out of Vietnam. Or George H W Bush's pledge, "No new taxes, read my lips." Very famous. Of course, at the same time, he was promising to maintain government programs, social programs, and to keep a balanced budget. You can find out how well all of that happened. And so we are in the middle of a presidential campaign, and you are going to hear things like, oh, an end to global warming, or a victory in the war on terror, or the ability to get Republicans and Democrats to work completely together with no discrepancies, or contradictions, or problems whatsoever. Who knows what they are going to promise? It sounds good to me. But as I look at history, I am a bit skeptical. And as I read Isaiah 11, I am yearning for that kingdom to come, and for Christ to reign. But I still think it's fascinating how much we yearn for this kind of thing, and how much we want a glorious future promised to us, and actually fulfilled. I think no myth or legend has been so strong as the legend of Camelot. You remember King Arthur, the English king of lore and legend, who was a wise and righteous man, powerful and mighty in battle with his sword Excalibur, who gathered around him a bunch of gallant Knights of the Round Table, who carried themselves with great dignity, and wisdom, and defended truth, justice, and I guess the British way, at that particular moment. This was a vision of Camelot, of a perfect society, and it extended even in nature, at least in the 1960 musical called "Camelot." There was a song whose lyrics are very well known, and this is what was decreed for Camelot, according to the musical anyway: It's true! It's true! The crown has made it clearThe climate must be perfect all the year A law was made a distant moon ago here July and August cannot be too hot And there's a legal limit to the snow here In Camelot The winter is forbidden till December And exits March the second on the dot By order, summer lingers through September In Camelot Camelot! Camelot! I know it sounds a bit bizarre But in Camelot, Camelot That's how conditions are The rain may never fall till after sundown By eight, the morning fog must disappear In short, there's simply not A more congenial spot For happily-ever-aftering than here In Camelot It is a vision of peace, even extending to nature, of a righteous king who reigns righteously on a throne, of all the people around him doing what is good and right and just - a vision of perfection. And you know what is so amazing? According to scripture, it is too good not to be true. It's too good not to be true, because this is exactly what God has promised us through Jesus Christ. Now, what I think he is doing here in history is letting it be seen plainly that, apart from Christ, and apart from the direct intervention of almighty God, it cannot happen. And so we get to see one form of government, one presidential campaign and rule after another fail, ultimately, so that the ground may be cleared for Jesus Christ, and for the reign of the Messiah on the Davidic throne. And that is the vision that we have in front of us. I. The Humble Beginning of Christ’s Rule Humble Beginning: A Branch from A Stump… Israel like a Felled Tree And it begins humbly. Look at verse one. It says, "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit." This testifies very plainly to the humble beginnings of Christ's rule, or the rule of the Messiah. Now the image of a stump is one really of hopelessness. There is just nothing left, it seems, of the Davidic line - nothing left of Judah. It is very humble. It says in Isaiah 6:13, "As the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land." There is an indication of a termination, but then there is still a vitality to the roots. Branch: Living Image… Israel's promise, then, is of a future restoration and glory to come. The branches are of a living image. The shoot that comes up from the stump of Jesse and a branch bearing fruit, are of a living image. Yes, these are small beginnings, but there is hope for a glorious, a bright future. It reminds me of Isaiah 53, that incredible picture of Christ crucified and resurrected, the fruit of which goes and extends to the salvation of the nations. And this is what that prophecy says at the beginning. Isaiah 53:2, "He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground." Again, we see the idea of sterility, of nothing left of Israel, everything laid low, seems to be nothing going on, and out of it comes life. A branch comes forth and this is the Messiah. And the Messiah is truly Jewish. "Salvation is from the Jews," as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman (John 4:22). The lineage is focused on David, although David isn't mentioned here. Rather, there is a step before that to David's father, Jesse, showing the humble origin even of David. And as you look at the kings in this Davidic line, the kings of Judah have fallen, and it seems, on very hard times. We already have Ahaz, a terribly wicked king who sacrificed his own son to Molech. And after the exile, once the exile comes, there are 14 generations of obscure men who are listed in the genealogies of Matthew and Luke, but we don't know anything about these men. There is nothing significant about them at all, except that God knows that they are in the lineage, from which ultimately will come the Savior of the world, this fruitful branch that is going to come. So it seems for 14 generations as though nothing is coming. Nothing can come from Israel. Nothing can come from the stump of Jesse. But don't you believe it, because the promise has been given concerning David, that one of his descendants will reign on the throne forever. And so we have already seen this fruitful branch. Isaiah 4:2 says, “In that day the branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel.” I can't hear that prophecy or this one here in Isaiah 11 without thinking about Jesus' analogy in John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. And so here is this fruitful branch, Jesus Christ, coming up from the stump of Jesse. The branch is the Messiah. Jeremiah 23:5-6 says, “‘The days are coming,' declares the Lord, 'when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.’” Oh, any of you who sit there righteous in God's sight today, you can say, "Amen!" to that. The Lord is our righteousness. Jesus is my righteousness. I have no other hope. I am a sinner. All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. What righteousness do we have, apart from this gift from the righteous branch? He is our righteousness. He is the perfect King. And this is the perfect title for the coming King, because we want to be in his Kingdom. We want to be included, and it is going to be a new heaven and a new earth. 2 Peter 3:13 calls it “the home of righteousness.” How can I be there, except that the Lord give me a gift of righteousness? “The Lord Our Righteousness” - that is the branch. II. The Divine Power of Christ’s rule (vs. 2-3) “Messiah” = Anointed One, Oil Symbolized Holy Spirit Then in verses 2-3, we see the divine power of Christ's coming rule, the power of the Lord on him to bring it about, to make something out of nothing, to make this branch come forth, and then that Jesus would reign in this kind of righteousness and power. Look at verses 2-3. It says, “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him - the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord - and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.” Despite these humble origins from Jesse, despite this humble origin, yet there is supernatural power in this branch. He is the Messiah. Now, the word “Messiah” means “anointed one.” And you know that the Davidic kings, in order to be identified as the king, would be anointed by a prophet, or perhaps by a priest. A horn of oil would be poured down on their hair, and it would come down, and trickle down on their beard, or on their hair, and drip down like this. And it was a symbol, a picture, I believe, of the endowing of that Davidic king with the Holy Spirit of God, that the Spirit would come on this individual, and cover him, and enable him to reign wisely and justly. You remember that Saul received that anointing from the prophet Samuel. And the Spirit of God came on him in power, and so it was said, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” (1 Samuel 10:11). It was a surprise. Nobody really expected it. But you know also that things turned in Saul's ministry and the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul. We know also that the Spirit of God came on David in power, Saul's successor. But then when David sinned with Bathsheba, he was terrified in Psalm 51:11 where he said, “Do not… take not your Holy Spirit from me,” concerned that the Spirit would leave. And it was a good concern. But this Messiah, this Davidic king, he would be saturated with the Spirit of God. He would be completely covered with the Holy Spirit of God. It says in Isaiah 42:1, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.” “Seven - fold Spirit” – Revelation 1:4-5; 3:1; 4:5 Now, as we look at Isaiah 11:2, there is this picture of a sevenfold aspect of the Spirit of God, sevenfold. There are three couplets, three times two, and then the statement, “Spirit of the Lord.” So that adds up to seven. There is a sevenfold aspect or ministry of the Spirit of God here. It reminds me of the dedication of the book of Revelation. And in that dedication, dedicated to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and given from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, there is mentioned there the sevenfold or “the seven spirits before his throne” (Revelation 1:4). So we have a mention of him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and the sevenfold Spirit before his throne, and Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness. This is the trinitarian picture there in Revelation 1. I think this is an insight, perhaps, into what that means - the sevenfold Spirit or the complete Spirit of God. And so the complete Spirit of God is going to rest on the Messiah, the Spirit of the Lord, “the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord” (verse 2). All of this is endowment for reigning, for ruling well. You remember the story, of course, about young king Solomon, when the time came for him to take up the mantle of leadership of the people of God, from the greatest king they ever had, David, his father, how daunting that was. And how the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, and said, “Ask whatever you wish and I'll give it to you.” And how Solomon, humbly, I think, asked for wisdom to be a wise king, that he would reign over God's people with wisdom. And God was clearly pleased with that request and gave him not only greater wisdom than any man had ever seen up to that point (so great, by the way, that people traveled long distances to just listen to his proverbs, and to talk about science and agriculture. Anything they wanted to talk to the king about, he seemed to have all the answers.), but not only that, God also blessed him with glory and honor and power and prestige, unlike any king there had ever been up to that point. But do you remember what Jesus said about him? He said the Queen of the South “came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here” (Matthew 12:42). Jesus's wisdom is infinitely greater than that of King Solomon. He was the perfect God, and therefore perfectly endowed with wisdom, through the Spirit of God, to be a righteous king. Now, look what it says, speaking first and foremost about the Spirit of the Lord, that he is endowed with the Spirit of God. This is the third person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit, and Christ was saturated with the Spirit of God. Especially Luke, I think, brings this out. Luke 4:1 says, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where… he was tempted by the devil.” And then at the end of that time of tempting, in Luke 4:14, it says that “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.” By the way, I've often thought about that. The Alpha and the Omega of Jesus's time of testing is a full endowment with the Spirit of God. Oh, that I might always both enter and leave a time of testing filled with the Spirit of God! Both enter and leave that time of testing filled with the Spirit of God. Jesus did that always. He was completely covered with the Spirit of God. And after that it says he went to Nazareth, and as his custom was, he went to the synagogue. And the opportunity came for him to read the scripture. And he opened up to the place in Isaiah where it is written, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me” (Luke 4:18). “I am anointed with the Spirit of God.” He is claiming to be Messiah, because after that reading he says, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). He is claiming to be Messiah, the Anointed One, anointed by the Spirit of God. And so he was. But it goes on beyond that, not just the Spirit of the Lord, but also the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. Wisdom means that he knows God's character. He knows God's purposes. He knows the right end and the right means to the end. He also shows good understanding. The implication there is more at a human level. He understands man's character and purposes. Jesus had a special perception, an ability to see into people's hearts, and know who they were, and what they wanted. It says in John 2:24,25 that “Jesus knew all men. He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.” And in the chapter before that, in John 1:47, he sees Nathaniel coming toward him and says, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.” In whom there is “no guile” (NASB). There is no trickery in his heart. And Nathaniel is amazed. he said, "How do you know me?" he said, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you” (John 1:48). I just looked at you and I knew you. Now, that's Jesus. He is endowed with the Spirit of God, to just know people, to know their hearts. It also says he is filled with “the Spirit of counsel and of power” (Isaiah 11:2). His decisions show practical wisdom. He knows all the proverbs of Solomon and could add 1,000 besides. He knows how to live in this world. And there is also power in Christ. All of that wisdom would mean nothing, if he didn't have the power and the authority to make it happen, to make it stand, to deal with the wicked of the earth. So Jesus has this perfect combination as a king, wise counsel and total power. And so Matthew 28:18 says, “All authority in heaven and in earth has been given to me.” Or it says in Ephesians 1:22 that “God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church.” And the final couplet is he is filled with “the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:2). “The fear of the Lord,” it says in Proverbs 1:7, “is the beginning of knowledge.” Delighting in the Fear of the Lord It's an amazing thing to meditate on Jesus, delighting in the fear of the Lord. And so he does. What an odd combination – “To delight in… fear” (Isaiah 11:3). He himself feared the Lord, and he always did what was right. It was the origin of his perfect wisdom as well, but he also delighted in it. He loved the fear of the Lord. It brought him great joy to walk in the counsel of the fear of the Lord. And he loved bringing that about in other people. Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34). He delighted in that. He loved that path. And the path was to take sinners like you and me, rebels whose hearts are hard, who are not in any way characterized by these couplets, and to take out our foolish and wayward hearts that do not fear the Lord in any way, and give us instead,a fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom, and the heart of flesh to submit to God's wise rule, to love it, and embrace it for ourselves. He delights in that. It brings him joy to do that to you and me. He delights in bringing fear of the Lord into my heart. He delights in it completely. That was his life's pleasure. III. The Absolute Justice of Christ’s Rule (vs. 3-5) So there, Jesus is described for us. He's characterized. He is fit to rule. Amen? He is going to be a good king for us. Look forward to him. Put your hopes on him, not on some candidate. I'm not saying, “Don't be involved in the political process.” I'm just saying, “Put your hope in Jesus,” because he is the only one endowed like this, to reign and to rule so wisely. And look at the justice of his rule. Isaiah 11:3-5: “He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.” Human Judgment: Fleshly and Sense-driven Here, we see a very clear contrast between the rule and the judgment and justice of Jesus, and that of human judges and kings. Human judgment is fleshly and sense driven. There are fleshly motives, such as earthly gain, and power, and prestige, and personal prejudices. There are fleshly methods also. In contrast to Jesus, they do judge by what they see with their eyes, and they do decide by what they hear with their ears. What else can they do? What else can they do? For man looks at the outward appearance, but it's God alone who can look at the heart. And then there is the fleshly manner in the way they carry themselves in authority. Jesus put it this way in Matthew 20:25, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you.” It's just the way they carry themselves. Just like in Matthew 23 with the scribes and Pharisee. They love the flowing robes, and they love to be greeted in the marketplace, in the seat of honors, and all of that kind of thing. That's not Jesus' nature, the pomp and circumstance of it all. And perhaps, worst of all, throughout history are those fleshly miscarriages of justice. The innocent condemned, the guilty set free. It's happened again and again. I was reading some time ago of a case concerning this man, Tyrone Gamble, October 25th, 1997. He was arrested for a crime he didn't commit. He willingly gave a blood sample for a DNA test. The sample wasn't sent until 46 days later, waiting for a sample from the victim. Three months later, mid-March, the lab conclusively showed that Mr. Gamble was innocent of this crime. But the county police couldn't reach the state attorney general until a month after that. Finally, in mid-April, six months after the start, Gamble's case was thrown out. Gamble, who had been a poor man, sat in prison that whole time, unable to pay the bond to get out. Well, that's a small case. What about executions? What about other things that have happened again and again? The innocents condemned and the guilty set free. It's happened again and again. That will not happen with Jesus as the judge. It cannot happen. Christ’s Judgment Of course, the real danger for us is we are all guilty. We'll get to that in a moment, but the cross of Jesus Christ is the only answer to that one. But Jesus doesn't decide in a fleshly manner. There is justice to his reign, straight through. “He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness, he will judge the needy, with justice, he will give decisions for the poor of the earth” (Isaiah 11:3,4). He is able to search the heart, just like he did with Nathaniel, to know whether there's guile and trickery or not. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13). And so he knows exactly what he is doing. Even Jesus' own enemies acknowledged this. You remember, when his enemies came up trying to trick him, and they said to him, the question about taxation, “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” (Mathew 22:17). They wanted to kill him with that one, if they could. But they come with this fawning kind of introduction. “‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are.’” (Matthew 22:16). That's it. Even his enemies could see that. He wasn't swayed by men, not intimidated. He is not fooled. He is not tricked. He judges by what he sees inside his heart. He judges by righteousness and perfect judgment, not by what he sees with his eyes. And so righteousness is the foundation of Christ's throne. Righteousness: The foundation of Christ’s Throne Verse 5, “Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness, the sash around his waist.” The righteous motive of the glory of God. Jesus said in John 5:30, “My judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” So Jesus' motive, as we talked last week about the Assyrians' motive, Jesus' motive is the glory of God in judgment. The second righteous motive here is the benefit of the poor and needy. “He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice, he will give decisions for the poor of the earth” (Isaiah 11:4). Now, Judah’s judges, at this point, wickedly oppressed the poor, and they used their positions of power to do it. In Isaiah 3, we've already seen this. Verses 13-15: “The Lord takes his place in court; he rises to judge the people. The Lord enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people: ‘It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?’ declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.” Very concerned about this. But Jesus uses his position to benefit the true poor. Now here, I believe we must look to the New Testament to interpret who the poor are. I don't believe this is speaking ultimately of a socioeconomic situation. Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount with these words: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). Those are the ones that benefit from his reign and from his rule, the poor in spirit. The Greek word “poor” is “ptochos,” a beggar, a spiritual beggar. Now, that could be a rich man or it could be a poor man. Now, we know from 1 Corinthians chapter one that not many are wise or influential, or of noble birth. Not many are the rich and wealthy of the world. James 2:5 says God has “chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith.” But the same thing obtains: rich in faith, spiritual beggars. These are the ones that Jesus defends, the ones who know that they have no hope before such a judge, no possibility of surviving judgment day, unless God Almighty moves on their behalf. Those that beg him for salvation, that plead with him by faith, that he would give it to them as a free gift, those are the ones whose judgment he will benefit. And look at the righteous power behind this judgment, the rod of his wrath, with which he will strike the earth. Jesus is the Word of God. He is the great I Am. And when he strikes the earth, it shakes. He has great power. Revelation 19:11-16 gives us a picture of the second coming of Christ in glory and power. “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. "He will rule them with an iron scepter." He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: King of kings and Lord of lords.” That is the coming savior. That is the coming king, the one predicted here in Isaiah 11. With justice, he judges and makes war. And every single human being, every single person, man, woman, and child who is sitting in this sanctuary today, listening to me, every single one of us will appear before Jesus concerning our lives. Every last one of us. Christ, Our Final Judge Let that sink in for a moment. Someday you will give an account to Jesus for your life. In John 5:22,23 Jesus said this: “Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.” Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-33, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.” And to the sheep, he will give them something none of them have deserved, and they know it: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world” (Matthew 25:34). And to the goats, he will give them what they truly deserve: “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). It is Jesus who will do that. It is his judgment that decides. And so we see in Revelation 20:11-12, “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small.” That's all of us, friends. “I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.” What will you do on that day? How will you survive that perfect judgment? His eyes are like blazing fire. How will you survive when the books are open, and you have to give an account for every careless word that you have spoken? Your only hope is that your name is written in the book of life, that through simple faith in Christ, all of that guilt, which we readily acknowledge through the convicting work of the Spirit of God, all of that guilt could be lifted from us, and put on our substitute, on Jesus Christ, and he'd be crushed under the righteous weight of God's wrath and his judgment for our sins. This holy and righteous one, who never committed the least sin, that he would stand in our place, and take all of that wrath on himself. Someday you will stand before him and give an account for your life. Will he say to you, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, blessed freely with a gift of forgiveness, because while you had time, when there was still an opportunity, when it was the day of salvation, you looked by faith to me, and you asked that I would save you, that I would give you my righteousness as a free gift, and I did. And you were confirmed in that with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in that righteousness, you sought to walk the rest of your life. And therefore, I will cover all of your sins, all of them with my blood, and I will accept you into my kingdom.” Will that be you? Or will you hear those dreadful words, “Depart from me, you who are cursed” (Matthew 25:41). Will you receive what you truly deserve, justice meted out by God, based on his law in eternal punishment? I beg you, I plead with you, come to Christ. This is the day of salvation. We are still in it now. The sun came up this morning. We don't know that it will come up tomorrow. We don't know. God will teach us eschatology, friends. We don't know what he plans. We have ideas. We have indications from scripture, but he will come when he comes. Are you ready? Are you ready today, to face the judgment? IV. The Perfect Peace of Christ’s Rule (vs 6-9) Human Government – Constant Strife Now, in verses 6-9, we come to the perfect peace of Christ's rule. Now, in human governments, we see constant strife, one government striving after another for world domination. Within each government, jealous officials striving, petty turf battles one after another, human sin and corruption rife, straight through. But there is also strife between the human race and nature itself. I went back to the cursing of the ground back in Genesis 3:17. God spoke to Adam and said, “Cursed is the ground because of you.” Can you imagine hearing that? “Cursed is the ground because of you.” What you did. “Through painful toil, you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you” (Genesis 3:17,18). It says in Romans 8:22, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time.” It's groaning, waiting to “be liberated from its bondage to decay” (Romans 8:21). Death, cycle of death, and food chain. I saw a DVD set my mother gave me as a gift, the Discovery Channel on the planet earth. There are lots of jarring scenes in it. Lots of violence, and there was no warning talking about the violence. It was natural violence though. It was a pride of lions getting after a baby elephant. Thankfully, they cut it off before it got really gory. But it's really dangerous out there in the world. It's dangerous because of us, because we have sinned, because nature is not at peace with itself. There is corruption and there is a cycle of violence. Things are being destroyed. Now, Messiah's rule is going to bring perfect peace, vertical peace with God Almighty, and then horizontal peace with other created beings, and with nature itself. And that, I believe, is predicted here in this passage, a very famous passage. It says, “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6-9). Interpretation Difficulties… Is This the Millennial Kingdom of the Eternal State? Now, this is a difficult passage to interpret, if what you're asking me is, “Is this the millennial reign?” Now, what do we mean by the millennial reign? The millennial reign is a 1,000-year period spoken of in Revelation chapter 20, after the second coming of Christ, when the devil is bound up and cast into a pit for 1,000 years. And some are, it seems, resurrected, and will reign with Christ for 1,000 years. It speaks of the 1,000 years six times in those verses. And in the flow of that book of Revelation, it's after the second coming of Christ, in that passage I just read, Revelation 19, before the new heaven and new earth of Revelation 21, before the great white throne judgment that we've already talked about this morning. There it is, this 1,000-year period. All different theories on it, my friends, all different theories. I'm not going to get into them this morning. But let me say this, in this passage itself, there is one indicator, I think, that this is referring to something short of the new heaven and the new earth, the final eternal state. But whether you accept that difference or not, it doesn't make a difference, because I believe that these things will literally be fulfilled at some point in the future, either in the millennial reign, or in the new heaven, and the new earth. Therefore, I do not spiritualize the details here. I don't think we ought to do that. I think we ought to look at them and say this is precisely what Jesus is going to come do. And what a glorious picture of his power, isn't it? Now, what is that one verse? Well, the mention of infants, the mention of children. I don't really know how that fits with Jesus' statement, “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30). I have a hard time finding procreation in the eternal state. And so, therefore, there is an indication, in terms of the infant playing near the hole of the cobra, and the young child putting his hand into the viper's nest, this speaking of something short of the final eternal state. Even more difficult, friends, is Isaiah 65:17, which says, “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth.” And a few verses later, it's talking about people who don't live out their years, and if they die at 100, they'll be thought of as young men. I'm saying, “Wait a minute. I thought there would be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain in the new heavens and the new earth.” There it gets very complicated and difficult. My View: This is Speaking of the Full Effects of Christ’s Reign… Including the Millennial Reign on Earth So, what do I make out of it? I think that there will be a millennial reign, a 1,000-year reign of Christ on earth. I respect those that don't see that. I respect them deeply, as long as they're faithful to the text and have biblical reasons for doing it. But I think there's a physical aspect to Christ's future reign. And I think that he is actually going to have the power to change the nature of animals so that they don't rip and tear anymore, and so the wolf can lie down or live with the lamb. Their essential nature can change. Does not Jesus have that kind of power? Aren't you counting on that? Do you want to go to heaven and spend eternity in your present state? I sure don't. I want my essential nature finished. I don't just want work-in-progress - “Please be patient with me. God isn't finished.” I want him to finish me. I want to be perfect as he is perfect. I want that transforming power. I want to yearn for righteousness and have it actually fulfilled. I want to eat a feast of righteousness for all eternity. Don't you? And so, yes, he has this kind of power. He can change wolves. He can change lambs. He can get lions to eat straw like an ox if he wants to. He has that kind of power. And yes, a little child can lead them, and an infant can play near the hole of the cobra. Even the physical snake, hijacked, I think, by that ancient serpent Satan (Revelation 12), can be taken back by God. The snake hijacked for Satan’s wicked purposes, cursed as a result. Even he, the snake, the viper, can be reclaimed and no longer harmful on God's holy mountain. Jesus has that kind of power. And I'm counting on that, aren't you? I'm counting on him to change me and to change this world. And I'm looking forward to that. That's the kind of reign that he has. V. The Universal Reach of Christ’s Rule (vs. 10-12) Now, look at the universal reach of Christ's rule in Isaiah:10-16. I'm going to read verses 10-12: “In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious. In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.” Look at Verse 12: “He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth.” This is the assembly of the people of God, to spend eternity in the presence of this Messianic king, and they include both Jews and Gentiles from the ends of the earth. Banner for the Nations, a Regathering of the Exiles of Israel It's a powerful thing. First the Gentiles, that Root of Jesse. He is going to stand as a banner for the peoples and the nations will rally to him. These are Gentiles and they're coming to Jesus. That era is going on right now, the gathering of the Gentiles. And why? Because God said to him, God the Father said to God the Son in Isaiah 49:6, “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” And so the Gentiles are coming to faith in Christ. They're going to stand under the Messianic banner of Jesus, and you are going to say, “He's my king. He's my savior,” this Jewish king, this descendant of Jesse. “He is my king” Christ, the rallying point, lifted high and exalted, he will draw all nations to himself. This is all about missions, friends. It's about the advance of the gospel to the ends of the earth, from Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth. When the Spirit of God comes, he will gather the elect, the chosen people from all nations of the earth, and they will be people from every tribe and language and people and nation. They will stand around that throne. Glorious Rest! And it says, “His place of rest will be glorious” (Isaiah 11:10). Oh, it's a place of rest. You are going to enter into God's rest, and there you will rest from all of your labors, just as God rested from his (Hebrews chapter 4). And yes, it's going to be glorious. Revelation 21:10,11: “He carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.” Oh, his place of rest is going to be glorious. It's going to be beautiful. Jewish Restoration But there is also a word here of Jewish restoration. It says, “The Lord will reach out his hand a second time” (Isaiah 11:11). Don't miss that detail. The first time was the physical regathering, I think, under the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, and the rebuilding of the temple at that point. That was the first time that the scattered people of the Jews were regathered. But there is going to be a second regathering. You could spiritualize it and say that this second regathering is just the success of the gospel among the Jews. But frankly, Romans 9-11 says that most of the Jews aren't believing in Christ. There is just a small remnant that have come to faith in Christ, and that's somewhat of a regathering around Jesus. But I believe that there is a far more glorious regathering yet to come. He is going to reach out his hand a second time, at the end of time, while it's still time, and he is going to gather the Jews through faith in Christ. “They will look on… the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child,” Zechariah 12:10 tells us. And he is going to reclaim them, and bring them, it says, “From the four quarters of the earth” (Isaiah 11:12). “And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins’” (Romans 11:26,27). That is what Jesus is going to do to his own people. And he will take away that veil that covers their face. And they will see, at last, Christ in their own scriptures, and they will recognize who the Messiah is, and they will look to Jesus, and they will mourn, but it will be tears mingled with joy because, finally, at last, they have assurance that their sins are forgiven through the shed blood of Christ. And Jesus will gather all of the Jews to himself, he who said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together” (Matthew 23:37). That's his yearning. He wants to gather them, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, “But you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Matthew 23: 37-39). But at the end, they will finally say to Jesus, this descendant of Jesse, “Blessed are you, the one who came in the name of the Lord, who died for me and for the Gentiles, and we all now stand under one banner, the banner of Christ.” Verses 13-16 talk about the final effect of that transformation: “Ephraim's jealousy will vanish, and Judah's enemies will be cut off; Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, nor Judah hostile toward Ephraim. They will swoop down on the slopes of Philistia to the west; together they will plunder the people to the east. They will lay hands on Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be subject to them. The Lord will dry up the gulf of the Egyptian sea; with a scorching wind he will sweep his hand over the Euphrates River. He will break it up into seven streams so that men can cross over in sandals. There will be a highway for the remnant of his people that is left from Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came up from Egypt.” The great power of God, even greater than happened during the time of the Exodus, that's the language here. Even greater than that, he is going to deliver his people from bondage to sin, and they are going to come to Christ, and they are going to believe in Christ. And the enemies of the people of God will be crushed and destroyed - I believe that's referring to the second coming - as he swoops down on the enemies of Israel and crushes them, finally, and they are gone forever. Summary: All God’s Chosen People from both Gentiles and Jews to be Gathered into Messiah’s Kingdom And so all of God's chosen people, from both the Gentiles and the Jews, will be gathered together into one kingdom, and there they will live forever and ever. That's our future. Why settle for politics? Why settle for a candidate? Look to Jesus for your true hope. That's where we are heading. We are heading toward a glorious kingdom with a king worth worshipping, who will not disappoint us in any way. Verse 12: “He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth.” VI. Review and Application What we have seen Well, what have we seen? We've seen the humble beginnings of Messiah's rule like a shoot from a stump. We've seen the divine power of Messiah's rule, the sevenfold Spirit of God saturating Jesus. We've seen the absolute justice of Messiah's rule, not a fleshly justice, but righteous. We've seen the perfect peace of Messiah's rule, heart transformation resulting in eternal peace, even extending to nature itself, a transformation of nature that only God could do. And we've seen the universal reach of Messiah's rule, both Gentiles and Jews rallying, being regathered around this one banner. How should we then live? How then should we live? Well, first of all, don't judge God's work by external appearance. The shoot comes up from a sterile stump. It seems like nothing is going on. Learn not to judge a ministry, or a person, or a family by external appearance. Trust in the Lord. Do what is good and right, and let him produce the fruit. Plant good seeds, water them with your tears, and with prayer, and let him do the work. Don't judge it by external appearance. God is at work and he is bringing this kingdom about. Look forward to the perfect reign of Christ. And if God in his wisdom chooses first a millennial reign, short of the eternal state, and then second, eternity, in which these conditions will obtain, praise God. And if he decides to just skip the millennial reign, and go right into the eternal state, none of you who are there enjoying it will complain, I assure you. You'll be delighted and happy to be there. But look forward to it. Feed your minds with it. Put your hope on it. The future is gloriously bright. And allow the sevenfold Spirit of God to saturate your lives, as he saturated Christ's life. John the Baptist said, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matthew 3:11). Allow Jesus to saturate your day with the sevenfold Spirit of God. And if you lack wisdom, go to Jesus and say, “Send forth now your Spirit of wisdom. I don't know what to do in this situation. I don't know what to do. My husband. My wife. I don't know what to do with my boss, with my employee. I don't know what to do with my financial situation. I don't know what to do with my child. I don't know what to do here, Lord.” Like Jehoshaphat said, “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you, [O Lord]” (2 Chronicles 20:12). Look to him, and ask him to give you this kind of wisdom that we talked about today, and delight in the fear of the Lord. Fear him and obey his commands. Walk in his ways. Don't play loose with grace and think that because you're covered in grace you can live however you want. He still upholds his commands. Live in the fear of the Lord. Delight in the fear of the Lord and be blessed in that. And finally, take part in that regathering. It's going on, praise God. Pray for the missionaries that your church supports, for both their internal journey of sanctification and the external journey of the advance of the gospel. And pray for others that you know, that aren't connected with your church, but you know they're doing good ministry of regathering both Jews and Gentiles brought into the Kingdom. Get involved in that.