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In this week's show, I had the pleasure of speaking with Gina Wilkinson about her debut novel WHEN THE APRICOTS BLOOM.  I also highlighted some of the week's new book releases.  Don't forget to download The 2021 Winter Reading List — a reader's free guide to the season's best reads!  Get your free copy at:  bibliolifestyle.com/2021wrl   Books to keep on your radar:  THE REMOVED by Brandon Hobson is a novel steeped in Cherokee myths and history, as it shares the story of a fractured family.  We see their grief and resilience, as they reckon with the tragic death of their son 15 years ago.  There’s hope, though, as the family finds comfort and attempt to heal their grief.   BLACK WIDOWS by Cate Quinn is a domestic thriller set in Utah and the novel focuses on the wives from a polygamistic family.  Each of the wives are extremely different from one another. The only thing that they had in common was Blake. Until all three are accused of his murder.   *** BiblioLifestyle newsletter subscribers are the first to know all the podcast happenings, get free goodies in the mail and they can enter for the chance to win free books. Every Friday you’ll get a special treat in your inbox filled with inspirational content, book recommendations, self-care tips, original interviews, and things we think you’ll enjoy. The best part? You will only receive ONE email per week and it will be an amazing 5-minute read or less! Get our free weekly delivery - bibliolifestyle.com. A list of all the books mentioned in the show can be found at bibliohappyhour.com. To find an independent bookstore near you or when you're traveling, visit bibliofinder.com. For as little as $1/month, you can tune in to our “off the cuff” discussion (aka the aftershow),  get our tailored “top shelf” book recommendations, behind the scenes content, perks, and more when you become a supporter on Patreon. Join us at patreon.com/bibliolifestyle.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island. Even the most democratic of passengers who boarded a Mississippi steamboat during the golden age of river travel just before the Civil War stepped into a class society. The more affluent tourists—perhaps on a pleasure trip to the Falls of St. Anthony at the head of navigation—were directed to the staterooms of the upper decks. If the beds were too narrow and the rooms a bit too hot or cold, the elite traveler was assured privacy and three sumptuous meals a day on fine china, served by impeccable stewards. At their leisure, they could read or play cards, practice their manners, or even, as Mark Twain reported, occasionally look out at the passing scenery. Removed from the hissing boiler and great engines, they floated up the river.

~+~ TONIGHT'S SHOW TOPICS ~+~ Dangerous Freedom with Lori Jean: I've been C E N S O R E D and REMOVED from FB  "I prefer Dangerous Freedom over Peaceful Slavery." - Thomas Jefferson  Freedom has NEVER been free, it's always been DANGEROUS. Land of the FREE, because of the BRAVE, right? Well welcome to the NEW military. We're called to protect this Great Nation against all enemies, foreign or DOMESTIC. If WE THE PEOPLE don't fight for our freedom now, we will be the last generation to know America as a free country. We need to TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK and defend our Constitutional Liberties in order to leave a LEGACY OF FREEDOM to FUTURE generations.  Join us as we discuss the HOTTEST topics related to FREEDOM and how to fight back against a tyrannical government, because WHEN TYRANNY BECOMES LAW... REBELLION BECOMES DUTY.  WE ARE THE RESISTANCE. KEEP FIGHTING. ~ Lori Jean

Many people believe that when the devil puts an obstacle in your path, that they need to come up with a Plan B, or that God will give them another way to go around it. But as a child of God, why should you have to find another way because the devil decided to do something? In this episode, I want to show you why obstacles are being REMOVED for you. Download our 90 Day Bible Reading Plan: miracleword.com/studyShop Ted's new book: shop.miracleword.comSow a seed and help us change this generation before it's too late: http://bit.ly/2B81pjY Give by PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/miracleword Give by CashApp or Venmo: $MWgive Get exclusive emails and our free magazine here: http://bit.ly/2WlgS6N Get text messages from me: http://bit.ly/2XoOapG I want to highly recommend our online training courses found at https://www.miraclewordu.com/ Each course is designed to equip you with biblical knowledge that will give you the fuel to overcome in every area of life. Our brand new course "Divine Prosperity" is now available in Miracle Word University! For more great content, follow me on Instagram: @tedshuttlesworth and Facebook: @MiracleWordMinistries

https://rumble.com/vcw3s7-471-removed-from-caucus-icu-triage-memo-lockdown-studies-and-modeling.html Supporting Links Join The Conversation! home Me on NewTube.app https://newtube.app/user/CanadaPoli My Show Backcatalog on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCd_S-VxU0vz7tu29FiT_wg Me on Rumble https://rumble.com/user/CanadaPoli Me on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/canadapoli Me on Periscope https://www.pscp.tv/MarkParalovos/1vOGwkzNPdLGB Headlines and More! https://canadareport.co/ Discussion Based https://speakingmoistly.co/ Me on Twitter Tweets by MarkParalovos Podcast https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Ihhe33job6uxmjrrws4znzl4eq4 Who Am I? Home Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance ... Read More The post 471 – Removed from Caucus, ICU Triage Memo, Lockdown Studies and Modeling appeared first on CanadaPoli.

Today Chelsey and Sara are ready to topple your TBRs with highly anticipated winter releases and backlist books. Our goal is to hype up the buzzy new books and under-the-radar releases while offering pairings that are easier to get at the library (or more affordable in paperback). There are a TON of titles  mentioned in today’s episode, so be sure to visit our show notes at novelpairings.com to find full lists of every book we talked about.  Find show notes HERE. Follow Novel Pairings on Instagram or Twitter.  Use our Libro.fm affiliate code NOVELPAIRINGS to get an audiobook subscription and support independent bookstores. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get updates and behind-the-scenes info. Books mentioned (affiliate links): January 5 The Push by Ashley Audrain (Amazon) Long Bright River by Liz Moore (Amazon) Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour (Amazon) Members Only by Sameer Pandya (Amazon) Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant (Amazon) Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert (Amazon) Outlawed by Anna North (Amazon) True Grit by Charles Portis (Amazon) Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (Amazon)   January 12   The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O’Donnell (Amazon) Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (Amazon) The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (Amazon) The Captive by Fiona King Foster (Amazon) Scribe by Alyson Hagy (Amazon)   January 19   The Divines by Ellie Eaton (Amazon) The Illness Lesson by Clare Beams (Amazon) The Girls by Emma Cline (Amazon)   January 26   A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes (Amazon) The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (Amazon) Troy by Adele Geras (Amazon)   February 2   The Removed by Brandon Hobson (Amazon) Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson (Amazon) Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich (Amazon) My Year Abroad by Chang Rae-Lee (Amazon) The Idiot by Elif Batuman (Amazon)   February 9   A Lady’s Formula for Love by Elizabeth Everett (Amazon) A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn (Amazon) The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite (Amazon) My Fake Rake by Eva Leigh (Amazon)   February 16   The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey (Amazon) Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (Amazon) Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (Amazon)   March 2   Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (Amazon) Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan (Amazon)   March 9   Women and Other Monsters: Building a New Mythology by Jess Zimmerman (Amazon) The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (Amazon)   There is Confusion by Jessie Redmon Fauset (Amazon) Anna K by Jenny Lee (Amazon)

Police reform is slated for discussion during Utah’s 2021 legislative session, which begins next week. Dozens of reform bills have already been filed, and a panel hosted by the League of Women Voters of Salt Lake, ACLU Utah and others outlined several last night. Policy makers say more bills are slated to go public soon, including legislation revising use of force policies and qualified immunity in Utah. Plus, a 'Remove Trump Now' car rally and parade took place in Denver this weekend. Show Notes: Photo: A Moab protestor holds a sign reading ‘Stop Killing Black People’ at a June 5, 2020 demonstration for Black lives. 1/11 Panel - ‘Coming Together On Police Reform: How Will the Legislature Make a Difference?’ https://www.facebook.com/lwvsl/videos/2869959486613093 Utah State Legislature https://le.utah.gov KGNU: Denver Rally Calling for Trump to be Removed from Office https://news.kgnu.org/2021/01/denver-rally-calling-for-trump-to-be-removed-from-office/

Strong in the Lord - Day 22 - "Removed and Covered"

Calls are Growing for President Trump to be Removed from Office, Capitol Police Officer Dies, More Coronavirus Deaths Reported, MTS Considers Rate Hike

Note: updated 12/14/2020. Removed intermittent audio errors and popping.

Well, we are in our advent series entitled “love what has changed” where each week we are looking at some aspect of change that we experience as a result of Christ’s coming. Things were this way and then Christ came and now they are this way.Well today we talk about the change from sorrow to joy. Now we are going to illustrate this from just a single paragraph in the Christmas narrative.Some of the most centeral characters in the Christmas story are the shepherds who tend their sheep just outside of Bethlehem. And they are central because the they are the first to hear about the birth of Messiah. This Messianic announcement doesn’t come through a phone call, a friend of a friend or a post on social media. It comes from a rather startling angelic announcement.For our purposes today, we want to focus on the reaction to that announcement. That’s what we are after. Now let’s reconstruct the moment.It’s night…obviously. You can imagine the coolness of the night featuring in their minds. The rocky ground is getting intorable. The sheep of course are quite docile in the dark. They are laying down in clusters. Every once in a while one snorts and beats away a fly by shaking its head and flapping his ears. And then SUDDENLY the sky tears open.The Bible has developed in my reading a reputation for understating things. If the Bible adds the adverb VERY pay attention. If the Bible says, GREAT it means EXTREMEL, extraordinary, incredible, phenomenal …Now here’s my point, when the angels tear open the night sky and the glory of the God of the cosmos illuminates the night sky the text says “they were filled wtih great fear.” Straight up trauma. Read PTSD worthy dread, raw fright, heart-arresting trepidation.The shepherds are shaking in TERROR. Give that phrase FILLED WITH GREAT FEAR everything it deserves. Picture these shepherds screaming in fear. Picture them smashing their face in the dust in submission. Picture them cowering in clusters for safety. But the angels, terrifying as they were, did not come to terrify. They came to deliver a message.Now in the same way we just tried to fill up the phrase, FILLED WITH GREAT FEAR with meaning, we are going to try to fill up the phrase GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY with meaning. The Christmas story is primarily a story of NEWS - NEWS that changes everything. Something has come that is going to change how you feel. The NEWS changes your perspective. It’s going to change your feelings from feelings of SORROW to feelings of GREAT JOY.Now in order for us to do our job of understanding the ESSENCE of this GREAT JOY here’s a reality that you must understand. GREAT JOY is only possible when it follows great mourning. Deep sorrow is the seed bed out of which great joy grows.And so this morning I want to tell a story of SORROW.We will trace the story of brokenness, pain, and tears from Eden to Bethlehem. Today we want to listen to the groanings of Adam, Abraham, Moses, David suffering under the sorrow of sin. And in so doing, it allows us to fully hear the GOOD NEWS of GREAT JOY - the bright white paint against the jet black canvas.That is the story of the OT; it’s a story of SORROW AND HOPENow let’s illustrate this SORROW against HOPE through 5 exhibits. Imagine going through a museum and you’ve got various exibits. Here’s Exhibit A.The BeginningSo rewind in your mind to the beginning. The space-time continum unfolds from the mind of God. Creation itself blooms and man is placed in the center of the garden, naked and without shame, without fear. Perfect security, perfect fellowship, perfect commuinon with God.Now the worst way to think about this is just roaming around an orchard looking at plants. That just sound boring. What’s the purpose in that?But if you study the narrative closely, you will realize that there is tremendous purpose built into the fabric of creation and it can be distilled down to a two-part concept. Man is:made in the image of God andgiven dominion over the entire created order.What does it mean to be made in the image of God. We get hung up on this, but it’s such a simple idea. If you lived in Biblical times, you probably lived under a king and that king often times claimed to be god.And because he was god he got to define good and evil by making and enforcing laws. Now in order to rule a large kingdom it was important to be present. But a mortal king is not omnipresent so to solve that problem, he would often make statues of himself. He would make representations of himself to remind the people in his kingdom that he was in charge. So this image would function as the reprsentative for the king. So when you bowed before the image, you were functionally bowing before the king. Now the Hebrew word used to describe those images is Tselem which means idol or image.Now you remember that Israel’s kings were not allowed to create idols or images of their God. Why? Because God had already made images of Himself. Where? In the human race. We are the images of God who are representatives of God to rule.It’s a centeral feature of the creation narrative. God gives mankind authority to rule over creation by making them in His image. So to rule over creation means to cultivate it, to harness its raw potential, to move creation and culture forward. This means families, this means art, this means social organization, mechanical inventions, work, career, creativity.This was the design. God looked and said, behold all this is good. This is VERY GOOD. We are talking here understatement of the millenia. When God adds VERY to anything, perk up. The creation was perfect. It was complete. It lacked nothing.GOD IS FAITHFUL! NO? IS MAN FAITHFUL?The FallBut then Eve sinned and Adam next. The serpent deceived by planting the fundamental question in her mind, “Is God really Good?” He says he loves you but he’s withholding this thing from you. Is he really good?And the great sin, the sin of all sins, is to say, “No God does not have the right to determine good and evil. I do. I am not the reprentative of the king. I am not the image of the king. I am KING. God ought to submit to my determination of good and evil. It is good for me to have this fruit even though God says it is not good.”And in OVER-ruling God, Eve first, then Adam, plunged the created order into ruin. The poison of sin was injected in the fabric of creation.We tell a story today of SORROW which is nothing more than watching sin spread and leach into the world like a bottle of ink spilled onto a sheet of paper.Now here’s the primary way in which the world changed in terms of their experience. It went from JOY to SORROW.What was that sorrow? We tend to think in terms of the pain of childbearing and thorns and thistles. Those are consequeneces but that is definitely not the primary consequence that comes out of the text.Think about it. Think about the closeness they had with God. Adam walked with God and just talked with omnipotent power, with an all-knowing God peering into the deepest parts of his heart and he did so with absolute joy and peace.But all that is shattered. That intimacy which they had formerly cherished and treasured was displaced by terror and fear of god. Adam hides from God. Eve hide from God. Their nakedness is known. For years I could not understand why nakendness was featured as part of the story.But think about it. When you are naked, you have nothing to cover you, nothing to prevent someone from looking at you completely. That is a position of extreme vulnerability. It is only when you are totally and completely accpeted, that you are completely unashamed of being naked. Security and purity makes nakedness unproblematic. The pre-fallen Adam and Eve could’t even understand why it would be a problem. Of course. Why would I care if the eyes of my maker looked at me; look at every corner of my heart? Why would it matter in the slightest? I know you are pleased with everything you see.But when sin entered, suddenly they knew that God would no longer be pleased with everything he saw. They knew that there would be anger, wrath, displeasure, they knew that they would no longer be accpeted if that thing was seen, so their dispostion changes. They were INSECURE. They shrink back in fear. They melt in terror. What do they need? They need a COVERING. They need something to COVER them up. They need a covering to save them from the shame so they can at least exist.So God made a provision. He gave them skins of animals. Now that covering came at the cost of the life of that animal. The animals didn’t zip off their skins if you know what I mean. Blood was shed. Sacrifice was introduced. Atonement was introduced. This was a gracious provision to COVER the sin but it did not fix the problem. In the same way that clothing allows us to relate with people who would otherwise condemn us, the covering of sacrifice allows us to relate with God even though there is much sin beneath. It’s a covering not a solution.TTerror has entered the world and to horror of Adam and Eve’s consciousness, it’s absolutely hopeless. It’s not a reversible action.But something unexpected is introduced. There’s a prophesy of hope. There’s a prophesy of a future resolution. The prophesy is not given to mankind.God is not speaking to Adam or Eve. He’s speaking to Lucifer. He’s speaking to Satan directly. Adam and Eve are just happy bystanders. He says, Lucifer, because you deceived the woman, you will be cursed. And yes, your deception introduced incredible suffering in the world, but you do not get the last world.You tempted Eve and the created order crumbled. But here’s what I decree: your intent to destroy has limits. You will continue to try to hurt the offspring that comes from this woman. But the best you will be able to do is bruise the heel. But there is coming an offspring of Adam, the greater Adam will plant his heel on your throat.And the picture is of an ANE warrior vanquishing the enemy king. The enemy king is acustomed to basking on his throne with purple fineries wielding absolute power; when he is conquered, he stripped of all those royal trimmings and the cuffed king lies in the dirt with the heel of the boot of the victor on his throat. It’s a graphic image of total surrender and submission.In other words, I will raise up a seed of woman who will undo this curse. He’s talking to Lucifer. This becomes the seed promise out of which all gospel truth emerges.The Promise.So emerging from Genesis 3 we have two lines of gospel truth.There is coming from the seed of the woman an ultimate deliverer. That’s Genesis 3:15.And the second line of gospel truth is that God will provide for the seed of the woman an ultimate covering. That’s Genesis 3:24.And the rest of the OT is simultaneously the cancerous spread of the stain of sin as it smears it’s bloody paw across the fabric of the human race and the progressive unfolding of that twofold promise of God to give us a savior and a covering. God provides a covering for Adam.GOD IS FAITHFUL! NO? IS MAN FAITHFUL?The world post-Adam world goes into self destruct mode.You have the promise of Genesis 3:15 here and then immediately we read of the failures of Adam’s offspring. Immediately there is tremendous pain. Tremendous sorrow. Cain in a fit of anger, jealousy and unchecked rage, beats in his brothers head with a rock and spills blood and kills him. It’s horrific. Immediately Adam and Eve feel the fangs of death. They see the irreversible nature of death.You have all sorts of wickedness multiply on the face of the earth until God says in Genesis 6 that he looks down.And you know what this does? It creates sorrow.The entire created order is wrecked. So much saddness. So much sorrow. God, holds his nose for centuries and finally says enough. I am going to destroy all civilization and start over so he sends a world-wide flood sparing Noah through that ark of deliverance. The seed promise is carried on through Noah and his descendants and particularly through the line of Shem.The world continues to multiply with sorrow because the problem of sorrow is not outside of mankind; it’s in mankind. And we can demonstrate this through.The promise that God would deliver the world through the seed of a woman increases in specificity. God calls Abraham out of the city of Ur. And he says to him, yes this coming deliverer will be from the seed of a woman but he will also be a descendant of Abraham. And so God makes a promise to Abraham. You will be a blessing to the entire world. The promised seed will come through you.GOD IS FAITHFUL! NO? IS MAN FAITHFUL?The Patriarchs have flashes of faith but for the most part they are men who make choices that produce incredible sorrow.Abraham’s faith is accompanied by massive failure ranging from cowardice, to deceitfulness, to presumption and prejudice.Isaac is portrayed more as a vacillating, gullible, even ineffective husband and father than as a deserving heir and role model.Jacob is an unscrupulous schemer who has a serious favoritism problem. He’s a terrible father. He’s insecure.All Jacob’s sons are trainwreckes.The Sorrow of sin is evident. It’s everywhere. It wrecking marriage. It’s destroying trust.But as we learned from our study of Joseph, that doesn’t stop the plan of redemption. The central character of Genesis 12-50 is not Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Joseph. No, the prime actor is none other than the One who refuses to be thwarted in propelling forward His redemptive project and prospering fulfillment of His redemptive promises.You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.And it’s a good thing that God isn’t thwarted by the SORROW resulting from faithless men, because Exhibit D is filled with them.Jacob goes down into Egypt, 70 in number. And the nation of Egypt functioned like a womb in which that seed grew into a nation of 2 million people that needed to be delivered. This pregnant nation needs to expel this foreign body.Keep in mind that God had foretold to Abraham of this period of bondage in Egypt.And God raised up a man Moses to be the deliver. He grew up in the palace of queen Hatshepsut and I believe was being bred to be the next Pharaoh. But god had other plans for Moses. Moses could do arithmatic. 400 years. I’ve been given this privileged position. I am very possibly the tool that God will use. And God delivers the children of Israel in a most dramatic and powerful way. If anything is going to demonstrate the FAITHFULNESS of God and give the Israelites HOPE it’s the exodus from Egypt.God deliberately orchestrates things so that the Israelites and the Egptians are awestruck by this covenant keeping God. God could have just started with the 10th plague. But he started with staff to snake, flies and frogs and blood, things that the Egyptian sorcerers could imitate. Slowly, more deliberately the pressure is increased and Pharaoh’s heart gets harder and harder. Until finally in a moment of weakenss he lets the Israelites go along with the entire nations supply of gold.Pharaoh hears that they had stumbled into a blind canyon and he thinks this is my chance to go after them. And just as they come upon the scene, the last Israelite is just making his way through the Red Sea passage. Now let me ask you honestly, if you saw a wall of water being held up by the God who decimated your nation, would chase after?And yet Pharaoh’s heart was so hardened that he cried out full speed ahead. And I always think that coming from Pharaoh’s charioteers, that was probably the most weak kneed giddy up you’ve ever heard. The entire Egyptian army is destroyed.Is God faithful? Can he be trusted?Think of all the ways in which God provides for them.He delivers them through 10 dramatic plagues and parts the Red SeaHe gives them manna from heaven.He gives them drink from a rock.- Their shoes and clothes don’t wear out. - They watch Moses go up on the mountain without food or drink and subsist on nothing more than the glory of God for 40 days.GOD IS FAITHFUL! NO? IS MAN FAITHFUL?While he is up on the mountain what do they say? They are like, forget this guy. I think he died. We don’t like this god of Moses. And they make a golden calf.Now think with me for a moment. Why in the world would they choose to worship a golden calf over the God who had just so obviously and powerfully delivered them from Egypt. Did they really think their was something more powerful about this blob of gold then the God who delivered them from Egypt? Get real!No. This is about allegiance and surrender and lordship. Don’t reduce this incident to a flanelgraph. When Moses comes down from the mountain, I hate to put it so crassly, but it was an orgy. There was sexual licentiousness of the highest order.Let me explain what’s going on there. What is the attraction of a golden calf. Nobody thought this was real. Right? What was the attraction of these powerless gods of the ANE who obviously can do nothing in comparison to YHWH GOD! In the ANE almost across the board what you have are fertility gods. You’ve got a male god and the one we know best is Baal. And you have a female god and the one we know best is Ashtor or in the plural ashtoroth. The fiction was that the male God would come together sexually with the female God once a year and that is what would cause the earth to green the crops to sprout, the animals to bear young. The way you honor those gods is duplicate their activity. That’s the attraction. That old generation loved the things of Egypt.It was great that the god of Moses could deliver us from slavery. It was great that he was going to give us new land. **But you know what was not so great, the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.** Thou shalt not covet they neighbors wife.” Not sure I like a God that demands that kind of submission.YHWH God demanded absolute allegiance. And the people rebelled against it.Which is why when Aaron is declared to be the exlusive high priest of God you have this showdown.If you remember the story, the people revolt. Why does only Aaron get to be a priest? Now hear that correctly. That is another way of saying, “Why does there need to be just ONE god?” And so you literally have a mount carmel showdown. If Aaron is the priest of God let his sacrifice be accepted. And there’s this dramatic scene with Aaron standing before his alter with his sacrifice laid out upon it and the dark glory cloud is behind him and fire comes out from behind him and consumes the sacrifice as if to say, "I have accepted it."But then you remember, Nadab and Abihu offer strange fire. What is the strange fire? Almost certainly that fire, coals, brought off the alter of another god. YHWH is great. He saved us from Egypt but we don’t have to worship him exclusively. Why do you have to be so narrow?And fire does come out of the glory cloud but this time consumes Nadam and Abihu. God shortens his aim if you know what I mean.The point is there is one god who demanded absolute allegiance.So they get to the edge of the border of the promise land. 12 go in 10 come back and say forget it. These guys will consume us. They are mounting a sedition. Moses, we want to remove you as our leader.And they, in their sinister rebellion say, would to God that our carcasses just die in this wilderness. That can be arranged. 80 funerals a day for 38 years. Its not that they couldn’t trust yhwh. Its that they loved the wickedness of egypt. Hell is full of one kind of people, the kind that loved sin more than he loved what he knew to be the truth.God used the desert to refine that generation.A new generation was raised in the desert who was untrained in battle, untrained in building houses, untrained in virtually every apsect of life, but were totally and completely trusting in the Lord. It’s a generation of faith.Now to illustrate this, consider that Israel in her journeys crosses two bodies of water. The Red Sea and the Jordan but those crossings could not be more different. And it can be illustrated by asking the simple question, "Where was the enemy." In the first case the enemy was behind them. How much faith did it take to the cross the water?In the second case where was the enemey? You cross the river to face an enemy and then the door closes behind you so to speak. That takes tremendous faith. It demonstrates that this generation had swore allegiance to YHWH.And so you have the 7 year conquest of the land. And time and time again, God does the fighting for them. The Israelites are gifted houses they did not build, vineyards they did not plant.But once again the sorrow of sin destroys. Instead of remaining loyal to God and following His laws, these generations of Israelites wander in their faith, worshiping idols, indulging in violence, and descending into chaos. Because they forgot the Lord. THEY WERE FAITHLESS.This cycle continues for a couple hundred years and Israel demands a king. And God concedes to this request but says, “Listen I don’t want the power to go to this king’s head.”God said, the first thing I want this king to do is handwrite his own personal copy of the law. I want my law sitting right there next to him. And also don’t want this king to multiply money, horses, wives. In that day horses were the sophisticated military machinery of war and your herem was symbolic of your grandure as a king. I don’t want you to depend on those things God says. Yes, you have a king, but this is still a theocracy.And King Saul starts out well but is eaten up by bitterness and jealousy and resentment and destroys himself and his kingdom.David succeeds Saul and a promise is given to him. This promise given in the garden, the promise made to Abraham, the promise made to Moses, I’m making with you. This deliverer will be a king that rules his people and he will be a descendant from your throne.But David disobeyes. The sin of Bathsheba, the murder of Uriah, his failure as a father. And he spends the rest of his life living out the consequences of this sin.Remember how the kings were not supposed to multiply money, horses or women. It’s almost like he’s got a checklist. Solomon seems to have a penchant for women and round numbers. He’s got 700 wives and 300 concubines. I mean you don’t get there by accident. We studied Ecclesiastes this last year and which is Solomon’s embarrassing hedonism experiment.Solomon’s kingdom holds on by a thread and after he dies nation plunges into civil war and then it splits. It’s embarrassing. Here’s the nation from which the future king will come, divided, following after other gods.God during this 400 year period of the kings sends prophet after prophet after prophet after prophet to turn the hearts of Israel back to her God but to no avail. The prophets are stoned, rejected and eventually says, okay, your getting hauled off.Finally God washes his hands of Israel. The glory cloud departs.And what you have as the OT closes down is God keeping his covenant clear back in Deut 28. If you disobey, I will raise up a nation to carry you off? Is God a covenant keeping God? You bet. In order for God to be a FAITHFUL covenant keeping God he’s has to allow them to be carried off.So God sends the Assyrians to destroy first the northern kingdom in 722 and then the southern kingdom in 586. Solomon’s temple is reduced to a pile of rubble.But God is working despite it. God is working through it. Do you remember the prophet Daniel. What Joseph was to Egypt, Daniel was to Babylon. He got there first, he rose to power, he interpreted the dream. He showed God greater than the gods of the pagans.The OT closes with a pathetic scrawny group of Jews living under the thumb of the Perisan King Cyrus. The OT ends not with a bang but a wimper.It is the story of the sorrow of sin. It is the story of the cancerous spread of the stain of sin as it smears it’s bloody paw across the fabric of the human race.But it is also a story of HOPE as the result of the faithfulness of God. It’s the progressive unfolding of that twofold promise of God to give us a savior and a covering.The OT closes. You have Israel no longer sovereign in her land. Power exchanges take place as foretold by the prophet Daniel, Babylon, Medo-Persian, Greece and then Rome.And then we get to LUKE 2!Do you remember the two lines of prophetic truth emerging from Genesis 3?There is coming from the seed of the woman an ultimate deliverer. That’s Genesis 3:15.And the second line of gospel truth is that God will provide for the seed of the woman an ultimate covering. That’s Genesis 3:24.Here’s where things go supernova.CommunionWhen we open the pages of the NT we have Israel under the thumb of ROMAN rule. They are oppressed. They are broken down. They want to be delivered. They are in SORROW. When have they NOT been in sorrow. Sin has wrecked EVERYTHING.And here are the shepherds, chilling in Bethlehem. Now keep in mind even though we find these shepherds in the pages of our NT, these are OT shepherds. JESUS has not yet come for them. That is until that night.And here’s what so amazing.Now those two lines of gospel truth run parallel all through the OT. The OT saint thinks they are two distinct things. But in the birth of Messiah they are beginning to merge. The life of Jesus tells us (REVEALS TO US) that the covering for sin and the deliver from sin are one and the same. In other words, those two lines of gospel truth merge at the cross.And that is what we have come to celebrate this morning. We celebrate that God is both just and the justifier of those who believe. The sin problem, the SORROW of the OT, the pain is finally dealt with. Behold, I bring you “good news of great joy” that will be for all people.The Christmas story is primarily a story of NEWS - NEWS that changes everything. Something has come that is going to change how you feel. It’s going to change your feelings from feelings of SORROW to feelings of GREAT JOY.That sin is no longer COVERED it is REMOVED. And that pre-fallen state of ADAM where he is perfectly fine with God looking at him with his perfect eyes, that can be restored. You can be totally fine with God looking at any part of your life because you know that your sins have all been forgiven.After the CupNow we are going to end by marvelling at the plan of GOD being pushed forward through history. God is still working. Do you believe that? The redemptive narrative is still being pushed forward despite the faithlessness of men.We too are waiting for the real, physical coming of Jesus Christ. We too are awaiting the redemption of our souls. And he’s coming this time not to redeem but to remake.amazing dramacrafted to build in suspense. move forward. takes your breaththree septads. seals trumpet bowls. history is only moving forward if a seal is being broken or a trumpet is being blown or a bowl is being poured outeverything else is setting scene. at the end of the seventh bowl everything is ready. Your at the end of rev 16.And its the 70th week.an the angel has planted one foot on land and once foot in the sea and annouce to the world, “The kingdoms of world have become the kingdoms of god and his messiah”before the messiah descends.And upon that black canvas is painted the bright white hope of the angels good news.

Modern Day Idolatry Exodus 32:1-4 South Gate November 29, 2020   Introduction   Quote - “The human heart is a perpetual idol factory.” — John Calvin   Quote — “Hanging out in Ibiza with a bunch of friends and partying with a bunch of famous people, able to do whatever I want and I’ve never felt more isolated.” — Markus Persson, twitter   a fickle heart will lead you to idolatry and a heart fixed on God to favor   Romans 7:18-19 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.   the definition of idolatry   James 4:2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.   Are you willing to sin in order to get it? (murder/sin) Do you sin in response when you don’t get what you want? (fight/quarrel)   the drift towards idolatry - v1           ignored - v. 1   Quote - “When our hearts are not filled with wonder for God, we wander from him…” — Eric Geiger, How to Ruin Your Life           impatience - v. 1   the danger of idolatry   Quote - “Idols are spiritual addictions that lead to terrible evil.” — Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods  (forget punishment they don’t deliver satisfaction)   Quote - “When our hearts turn from the Lord, they always turn to foolishness, to things that won’t satisfy and to seasons that will be filled with regret.”   Psalm 115:4-8 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.   the deliverance from idolatry   idols cannot just be REMOVED, they must be REPLACED   Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.  

The federal government has removed the Gray Wolf from the Endangered Species List, which is seen as a good move by many in Washington agriculture.

The federal government has removed the Gray Wolf from the Endangered Species List, which is seen as a good move by many in Washington agriculture.

This week, Mike and Doug talk about the "Among Us" T-shirt design that was removed from the RT Store, Alfredo's health scare, Extra Life 2020 and much more!Watch this podcast on YouTube and subscribe to our channel here!: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC36UGcwyCC-dxqzTHP9k-SQRT Talk is a weekly podcast about the company RoosterTeeth. Sit down with Mike and Doug (and sometimes Renee) as they talk about some of the most recent happenings at the company, their own lives, and share their opinions on various productions. RT Talk is completely a fan made podcast and is in no way affiliated with RoosterTeeth. It would be a lot better if they made it.

The federal government has removed the Gray Wolf from the Endangered Species List, which is seen as a good move by many in Washington agriculture.

Cretched and Mike / Alex Jones Clips of the Week / Red Alert / Ring Room Drone / Joe Rogan and Spotify / OBDM maybe be on Spotify much longer / Open Lines / Agenda 21 and 2030 follow up / The Coming Cyborg Army / How to fight Robot Humans / Jeff in his Car / The Political Divide / Biden calls Military Bastards / FBI Documents on Alien Giants / Guy steals Cat Blood / Trump and Unlawful orders to the Military / Joe Calls in / Louisville Protests and the Riot Uhaul / End FBI ‘admits existence of giant human-like aliens’ in declassified 1947 report https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/fbi-admits-existence-giant-human-22639238 Spotify Employees Threaten to Strike If Joe Rogan Podcasts Aren’t Edited or Removed https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/09/22/joe-rogan-spotify-strike/ Ring’s latest security camera is a drone that flies around inside your house https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/24/21453709/ring-always-home-cam-indoor-drone-security-camera-price-specs-features-amazon   Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀ ► Phone: 614-388-9109 ► Website: http://obdmpod.com ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/obdmpod ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/obdmnews ► Instagram: obdmpod ► Email: ourbigdumbmouth at gmail ▀▄▀▄▀ DONATE LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀ ► Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/obdm ► Subscribe Star: https://www.subscribestar.com/obdm ► Crypto: https://streamlabs.com/ourbigdumbmouth/tip ▀▄▀▄▀ LISTEN LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀ ► YouTube | OBDM VIDEOS : https://www.youtube.com/user/ourbigdumbmouth ► YouTube | OBDM POD | 2nd Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrj4SPfo5ySkEnyaQAW5zvA ► Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/obdmpod ► DLive: https://dlive.tv/obdm ► RSS: http://ourbigdumbmouth.libsyn.com/rss ► iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/our-big-dumb-mouth/id261189509?mt=2 ▀▄▀▄▀ DISCLAIMER ▀▄▀▄▀ ► Everything we do could be considered performance art ► Satire and Parody are often used ► OBDM T-Shirt: https://teespring.com/obdm-dino-wizard?73d3a50c4b#pid=46&cid=2753&sid=front ▀▄▀▄▀ LIVE STREAMS ▀▄▀▄▀ ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ourbigdumbmouth ► Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/obdmpod ► DLive: https://dlive.tv/obdm  

A new MP3 sermon from Bethel Baptist is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: When the Hedge is Removed Speaker: Dr. Tim Sims Broadcaster: Bethel Baptist Event: Sunday - PM Date: 8/30/2020 Bible: Job 1:1-22 Length: 37 min.

Sheena is tracking the Extreme Heat, La Mesa Police Chief Calls it a Career, The County is getting closer to being Removed from the State's Watchlist

This week I talk about games I've been playing, some financial information and a couple State of Play titles I thought were interesting. Dragon Marked for Death 3.1 Update Trailer Dragon Marked for Death 3.1 Patch Notes Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time - State of Play Video Pathless - State of Play Video Pikmin 3 Deluxe for Switch Pikmin 3 Removed from Wii U eShop No More Heroes Nintendo Switch Rating in Taiwan Tokyo RPG Factory Losses Club House Games and Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition Sales Pokemon Online Amusement Park ComiVket 1 Like = 1 Video Game Answer Twitter Thread Update: What Happened to Chibi Robo Developer SKIP?

Our country is in the midst of a social revolution. People everywhere are standing up and fighting for racial equity and part of the protesting has included taking down statues of people who have had a hand in the oppression of marginalized communities. In this episode we discuss the founding of our country, the violence that accompanied that founding, and why we have to take that violence seriously. Listen to hear a perspective you may not have considered about what these statues represent and how we can change them to better reflect our community as a whole.    How Slavery Affected African-American Families    Genetic Consequences of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Americas    Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies and Sparked the Ameican Revolution   How the Constitution was Indeed Pro-Slavery   GOP Senator Under Fire For Comment that Slavery was ‘Necessary Evil’   1619 Project   Whose Heritage? 153 Years of Confederate Iconography    Princeton & Slavery: James Madison   The Founding Fathers and Slavery   Why Thomas Jefferson’s Anti-Slavery Passage was Removed from the Declaration of Independence    George Washington, Slavery, ‘The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret’    Advertisement for the Capture of Ona Judge   Song Credit: “Away” by Geographer and “Beach Disco” by Dougie Wood   

Transcription (was completed by automated process.  Please ignore any speech-to-text errors)     [00:00:04] Well, hello, everyone, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm super excited and welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael.  Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Beatty, I am super excited about our call today. What do you have for our listeners?   [00:00:28] Well, I am very excited about it as well, Penny, because I get to do today what I love doing. And sometimes I pinch myself saying, Lord, do I really get paid to do this stuff? And the answer is yes, ultimately. So we're going to do not a real estate marketing call. We're going to do a radical face call for those who may be new to us. As a reminder, we do two types of calls. So if you're here for real estate marketing, that's not going to be the topic of today's call. The topic is going to be living as a Christian, and what all of that type of stuff means. So if you want to enjoy that, please continue listening. Otherwise, you can turn off this episode and come back to our next one. So what I want to do when we talked last time, Penny, on the topic, Do all who accept Christ go to heaven? Do you remember that topic?   [00:01:26] Yes, I do. I do.   [00:01:28] Ok, well today we're going into part two, OK? And next time when we do, another radical faith call will be it part three. And I'm not sure if it's going to be three or four parts, but is this really incredibly exciting for me and very interesting. And I think there are a lot of deep application in terms of what we do with our lives that come out of it. So I want to go into that. So this is a quick review. We started last time with some statements that Jesus made and now we're going to test your memory. Do you remember what those statements Jesus made that we started?   [00:02:11] It was something that has to do with we were talking about do all people go to heaven if they get saved or the all believers go to heaven? And it was something it was something along the lines of, all right, that's OK.   [00:02:27] That's OK. Yeah, no, that's OK.   [00:02:30] Hey, I got it written in front of me. You don't. So that's the key. Oh so the gospels have four times God found is so important. They put four times in the gospel, the basic statement by Jesus that the one who endures to the end will be saved. Yes. Yes. The one who endures to the end by your endurance, you will gain your lives. Okay, so the question was. What in the world has Jesus talking about? So let me ask you a question. When Jesus teaches that you must endure to the end to be saved, does that mean that some people don't endure to the end?   [00:03:11] Yes.   [00:03:13] And therefore they don't endure to the end. They're not saved.   [00:03:18] That's correct. They're not going to go to heaven.   [00:03:20] Yeah, and that interesting and yet we think. Huh? OK, so we talked last time on the parable of the Sower, one of the most important parables, because it's the only one that is in all three synoptic gospels. Matthew, Mark Luke is the only one that is in its entirety in all three gospels is the only one that is fully interpreted by Jesus in all three gospels and is the only one that Jesus says, if you don't understand this one, how can you understand any of the parables? So it's kind of like the key, the master key that unlocks every single parable if you dig into it. And what we learned in the parable of the Sower is several things just in a quick review. OK, so you have a sower, we assume the soldiers us, OK, it's not very clear, but go out and you sow the seed everywhere. The seed is the word of the kingdom. And do you remember who the word of the kingdom is? If you were to put a name Jesus. Right. So where it is. So Jesus everywhere and some falls on the path and birch take it away. It's rejected. Some fall in on Iraqi soil. They accept it with enthusiasm. And as soon as the sun comes up because there's no root, it withers. Then some falls on the thorny soil.   [00:04:44] Ok, we call that soil number three. If we do soil one, two, three, four. So the stony soil falls among the thorns. It grows up into a plant. It grows up with the thorns, but there's no fruit. And then there's the for soil good soil that it produces some 60, some 30, some 100 salt, OK? And Jesus and Jesus says only the see that falls in the good soil is good. And you have to produce fruit and so what we kind of came through with all of that is that three soils accepted Jesus to some degree. You know, the rocky soil accepted the seed enough that it produced something. But there were no roots. The thorny soil accepted the seed. It actually went in the ground. It produced roots because we know now plant grew, but it was bad. And then the fourth soil, the soil accepted the seed, accepted Jesus and produced fruit. And so what we start to understand is put this parable is telling us, I believe, is that not everyone who accepts Jesus goes to heaven. Not everyone who accepts Jesus actually produces fruit. We also describe that fruit is the womb of a seed is for the seed is formed. And so what Jesus is telling us and we're going to get into this today a little bit more, that unless you're unless Christ is formed in you and you're producing more of Christ, then you're not good. Okay, so that's kind of where we ended up. Any questions or any thoughts on that before we move forward?   [00:06:33] No, just such a good reminder. Such a good refresher from last week. So I'm looking forward to this week.   [00:06:41] Good. I am too. So we covered one quick topic last time and wrapping up. And I want to I want to focus on this more today. And that's the difference between converts and disciples. So let me just cut in that. What we talked a convert is one who accepts Christ. A disciple is a convert who pursues Christ. Does that make sense?   [00:07:10] Yeah, yeah, OK.   [00:07:12] And and so it's kind of like a two step process. First, you accept Christ, but accepting Christ. Doesn't mean you go to heaven, it's what happens after there, so you accept Christ and then you pursue Christ. Now, this is not saying we're going to kind of touch on this maybe in a later session, OK? The question is, if you're currently a bad soul, can you become a good soil? That's not the topic of this call, OK? This isn't the topic of once I accept Christ, do I have to do something special? That's not the topic. All I'm saying is very clearly there is evidential difference between good soil, bad soil. And so let's look at it and then let's also analyze it within our lives. So what we find is not all converts go to heaven. But all disciples do all right. And then, John, 15 eight, this is Jesus, and he says by by this, my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit. And so can you finish this sentence on that?   [00:08:21] And so go and bear fruit and so prove to be my disciples, right, when you bear much fruit, you prove to be my disciples.   [00:08:31] And this is what Jesus is talking about. This is, by the way, the great commission go and make converts of all the nations. Now go and make disciples of all the nations. And so there's something there about this mandate. So with that, I now want to move in to where we're going to be talking about today and it's really quite fascinating. I like to look at what John the Baptist had to say about frit. By the way, this is now trivia. Do you recall anything John the Baptist said about fruit?   [00:09:08] So. Wow. Mm hmm.   [00:09:12] I don't know, off the top of my head, so let's turn to Matthew three verses eight, nine and 10 and let's see what he says about fruit.   [00:09:25] Bear fruit in keeping with repentance and did not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham is our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now, the axes laid to the root of the tree. Every tree, therefore, does not bear good fruit that does not bear good for it. Cut down and thrown into the fire.   [00:09:52] Ok, just a little back. Back up. Scripture uses the metaphor trees a lot as representing men. OK, so that's why you see this. The access to the trees, every tree that does not bear fruit when he's talking to people and he says bear fruit with keeping with repentance. So when you see the word tree, typically that's going to be speaking about men when there are different types of trees, is talking about different types of men or the human race. Not always, but that's one of the things. So what does this say that what type of fruit are we to bear? Fruit that keeps with resentence fruit that keeps with repentance, so let's go back and cover one thing that's really important. When we read the Bible, the Bible is a book written by a single author, God himself. And when we when we see common terms throughout, there are always going to have something. They're always going to mean about the same thing or typically. OK, so you have just as we talked about last time, you have characters in a book. And if a character named John is introduced at the beginning, the book, then when the author calls out John toward the end of the book is the same. John is the same person. In this case. We have the character of fruit. The last time we talked about with a state in the sower that the good soil produces fruit, we had to understand what fruit is. But here John the Baptist is talking about fruit bear fruit in keeping with repentance. So we kind of understand that what John the Baptist is talking about is the same thing Jesus has been talking about. Does that make sense? Mm hmm. Yeah. OK, so this fruit is fruit in keeping with repentance. Here's something also interesting. What was the message that Jesus came preaching to you? Remember what that message was?   [00:11:58] The kingdom of God is here or now, but there's one one part right before that.   [00:12:03] Do you remember what it was? It was an action and love, love one another now repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. OK. Oh, so close your so close. So there's something about repentance that's really important when we talk about healing later, whenever the Lord guides me in that direction, repentance is really a key part of of that. So so we are to bear fruit of repentance, OK, if we don't bear fruit.   [00:12:38] What does John's passage say is going to happen.   [00:12:43] Hmm.   [00:12:46] Well, if we don't, it says that every tree or person that is not very good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.   [00:12:54] Ouch. You think what do you think that's actually going spiritually? What is he communicating?   [00:13:03] Going to heaven, crash and crash and burn.   [00:13:05] Yeah, OK, right, OK, so we see this thing about trees. We see this thing about fruit. We see this thing about an axe cutting down a tree and we see this thing about being burned. OK, do you recall any other parables that Jesus uses about a tree being cut down?   [00:13:30] I do not.   [00:13:32] All right, turn with me to Luke, 13 versus six through nine. This is the parable of the barren fig tree, OK?   [00:13:45] Oh, now you remember, right? OK, yes. So let's read the parable of the barren fig tree and what we're looking for. OK, this is let me kind of give you the Cliff Notes version of all this. God works in patterns. You see the same pattern throughout scripture in all kinds of areas. Last time we saw this pattern of something about fruit is important to being, you know, going to heaven. If we want to use that term, that's really to being part of the kingdom of God is the better term.   [00:14:15] And we saw that a lot of people produce something, but they didn't produce fruit. The soils produced a plant to some degree. And so we see this pattern. And I want you to be looking for the patterns as we go through. So let's read about the parable of the barren fig tree, OK?   [00:14:33] And he told this parable a man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vine dresser, Look, for three years now, I have come seeking fruit on the fig tree and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground? And he answered him, sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good. But if not, you can cut it down.   [00:15:08] Hmm. Wow. OK, so it's not bearing fruit. John talks about bear fruit with keeping with repentance or you get cut down. This is talking about it's not bearing fruit. Let's cut it down. All right. So we have some patterns and similarities there. Here's the question. Does a good tree produce good fruit?   [00:15:28] Yes, and how do we know that?   [00:15:34] Well, that's a good tree. Then that's its nature, its nature is to produce. OK, all right, so nature is wrong with it. It's going to it's going to reproduce itself, right?   [00:15:48] Ok, so seed reproduces after kind. Good. All right. Let's go real quickly. You don't have to turn there, but let's look at what Jesus says. It's in Luke 643 and he says for no good tree bears, bad fruit. Nor again, does a battery bear good fruit for each tree is known by its own fruit. So does a good tree produce good fruit according to Jesus? The answer is yes. OK, so now we're using trees. OK, keep in mind, the metaphor is mankind. Jesus is saying no good man produces bad fruit. Every man will be known after the fruit he produces. OK, there's a way to look at it. So if a tree produces no fruit, is it a good tree?   [00:16:37] No, and why is that how do we know that because Jesus just said it, a good tree is going to produce good fruit, right?   [00:16:47] Yeah, yeah. Parable of the sower. Only the good soil. The good soil is known because it produced fruit. Jesus said that. By this, my father's glorified that you bear much fruit and so proved to be my disciples, so we know that a good tree will always produce good fruit. A tree without fruit is not good. That's soil number three. If you recall, the plant grew up but produce no fruit. OK, so that's kind of where we are here. Let me give you a little background also. This is interesting, the background on the fig tree. So throughout scripture, the fig tree, in fact, do you know what the fig tree represents throughout scripture? Did you know that? Did you know that it represented something?   [00:17:39] I know I did not.   [00:17:41] All right, so there are two trees that are used all throughout scripture, sometimes are used in the same passages, sometimes are used differently. One is the fig tree. Do you remember what the other one is?   [00:17:52] My guess would be an olive tree.   [00:17:54] Yeah, so you have fig trees and olive trees. The question is, what are they? OK, so here we go back to patterns again. Same thing as Paul talks about. The pattern of not all who are descended of Abraham are Abraham's descendants. You remember him saying that? I think it's in Romans. OK, what is he talking about? Abraham had a physical bloodline and Abraham had a spiritual bloodline. The physical bloodline is a shadow of the spiritual, but it's not the spiritual. And we see this thing with fig trees. So throughout scripture, the fig tree represents the chosen people of Israel, of the natural. OK, you can call it the physical descendants of Abraham. And within that physical descendants, it's in a sense, it's death. OK, that's that's why you see all the time the fig tree without any fruit. That's why this parable is the fig tree that's going to be cut down. But then you have the olive tree and the olive tree represents the chosen people, a betrayal of the promise. These are the spiritual descendants of Abraham. And in a sense, the olive tree is always represented with life.   [00:19:11] All the fig trees always represented with death and saying, yeah, and an interesting.   [00:19:18] So just as the natural the natural world is a shadow of the spirit world, then the people of Israel, the fig tree is a shadow of the people or the promise represented by the olive tree. So that's kind of what we're seeing here. We've got this parable, the bear and fig tree. The fig tree, by the way, is there do you recall any other place in the Gospels where there's a barren fig tree?   [00:19:51] Hmm, I do feel like this story is brought up again, but I don't remember where Jesus is going into Jerusalem.   [00:20:01] Oh, yes, yes. You see the fig tree and leave. He walks over to get some fruit and there's none there and there's none.   [00:20:09] And it's not the season of fruit. It's not the season of fruit. And he curses it. Why do you think he curses the fig tree?   [00:20:18] When it's not the season for fruit, I don't know, I've always wondered that because I've always just thought that that was one of those moments in Scripture where it's just showing the sense of humor of God.   [00:20:32] Ok, so if we if we say I digress, but this is important, is fun. So the fig tree represents the natural Israel and sin and death, even though it's not the season for figs, as a believer, it's always the season for fruit. This is why you read through revelations and and other passages like in Psalms and other places where you have visions of the heavenly realm and the trees and the plants are always producing fruit all the time. There is no season without fruit. It's always the season for fruit because there's always a season for life. OK, and so Jesus curse, is it the same as the natural descendants of Abraham had been cast with death because they're in bondage to sin, ruled by death, made a covenant with death when Adam fell. OK, and and so you see all these all these patterns, imageries and all these concepts kind of coming together in this one image of Jesus cursing the fig tree. And so we kind of have something similar here. OK, so we have this fig tree. So Israel had been chosen and set apart by God from among all the nations. OK, so this is where you have kind of the chosen people. And Israel had been given gods promise of salvation. Right in that tree, an issue with God's own people, but yet here's what's interesting. Turn with me real quickly, John, 111, so so I want I want to give you this picture, it all ties back into this barren fig tree parable we're talking about here. So the picture is. God had chosen Israel, God had given Israel the promise. Israel was God's people, OK, and now let's read what happens, John, 111, can you read that?   [00:22:50] He came to his own disguise, right?   [00:22:54] So Jesus came into his own OK, now, now finish it and his own people did not receive him.   [00:23:00] Hmm. OK, so his own people did not receive him. So we have kind of this this thing. This is the victory. OK, so now let's move back to the parable of the barren fig tree, 13, six and nine. What do you think this parable is telling us?   [00:23:22] Oh.   [00:23:27] Well, if we're relating it to what you just kind of give that description, the fig tree and the physical nature of the descendants of Abraham and bondage to them, then the fig tree. Who was in bondage, bondage to sin is not going to produce fruit.   [00:23:48] There's no loss almost that that may be a little too much, so so the parable is going to be giving basically one simple point that Jesus trying to make. Let's look at the let's look at the key aspects of the parable first. OK, man has a fig tree. The man comes seeking fruit. There is none. He says, cut it down. OK, those are the basic elements of the parable. So what this tells us is that if you don't produce fruit, you get cut down.   [00:24:18] Right? OK, yeah.   [00:24:21] And cut down. What do you think that means?   [00:24:28] Removed from your purpose, yeah, is it you think this is similar to what John the Baptist was saying just a moment ago? The axe is laid at the root of the trees, and if you don't produce fruit, you'll get cut down and thrown into the fire, right?   [00:24:42] Yeah. Yeah.   [00:24:43] Ok, so that's I think it's what's talking here is you can get cut down and discarded that purpose that you're talking about for which you've been there, you're going to lose. All right. So but what about the vine dresser? This is real interesting. It says that a man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. Where do we where do we hear about a vineyard and a vine dresser? Does anything come to mind?   [00:25:12] Yes. Jesus. He says, I am the vine dresser and we are the vine almost. No, sorry. I'm sorry. We are his the vine. The father is a vine dresser.   [00:25:24] That's right. There are the branches. We are the branches, not the fruit that. Yeah. So John, that's John Tuffin one. So let's go there real quick. I want to show you something. OK, we're just going to read what you just said, basically, John, verse one.   [00:25:41] Yeah, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser.   [00:25:46] Ok, so now we have again characters. The olive tree is planted in the vineyard and the owner comes and talks to the vine dresser. Do you see all these pictures coming together now? OK, so in the vineyard, Jesus is the true vine. He's the olive tree is in the presence of Jesus. The Vineyard, who is the father is there. And the owner says to the to the father, God, the father cut it down. Now read what the vine dresser says. I want you to see this. This is really cool.   [00:26:25] This is verse eight, right? Yeah, OK. And he answered him. The vines are the the dangerous, right? Yeah. He answered him, sir.   [00:26:36] Let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on the newer.   [00:26:44] Yeah, then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.   [00:26:52] Oh, so this is the vine dresser. This is God, the father saying, hey, before we cut this down. Let me work on it special, let me give it special attention, let me let me dig around it, put in manure, let me really do everything I can to give it every opportunity to produce fruit and then if it does well and good, but if it doesn't, then let's cut it down. And that interesting. The heart of the father.   [00:27:23] Yes, he's the God of second chances.   [00:27:26] He's got a second chance for us. That's right.   [00:27:30] And we actually see this same picture. And John, 15. So Rejon 15 first to.   [00:27:41] Ok.   [00:27:43] When they get back, they're looking to all right. Every branch and me that does not bear fruit. He takes away in every branch that does bear fruit. He pretends that it may bear more fruit.   [00:27:59] Okay, perfect. So every branch that does not bear fruit he takes away. There's actually different ways to translate that takes away. And when we look at scripture, it's always multidimensional. Sometimes there's a lot more meaning than just one simple meaning. And so one way to translate in which most Bibles translate as he takes away. But another way you can translate that same word that's been used takeaway is to lift up. So you get kind of the image of if I'm a vine dresser and I'm in the vine is very valuable. This is business. This is what produces livelihood. So I'm not going to just willy nilly, you know, get rid of a branch just because it doesn't produce. I'm going to work with it. Tender care, because if I can get it producing fruit, it's worth a lot. So one way to interpret this is the vine dresser. Every branch that does not bear fruit, he lifts up the idea. You pull it up out of the ground, out of the dirt, you take the dirt off and wipe the dirt off the leaves so they can have sunshine and then you tie it up on the trestle so they can be in the sun and give an opportunity to produce fruit. But then if it doesn't produce fruit, he takes it away.   [00:29:17] Does that make sense? Mm hmm. Is that cool? Yeah, it's a great picture.   [00:29:22] So that's the same thing we see with this parable of the barren fig tree. Hey, let me give it more time and let me work with it to see if it can produce fruit. It shows the heart of the father really wants to give us every opportunity to produce that fruit. So so now with that, let's start looking a little bit deeper into some questions about this barren fig tree. Did the barren fig tree look like a mature, a mature tree? In other words, had it matured?   [00:29:59] No.   [00:30:01] Ok, so let me ask you, do you think it was standing tall like a normal tree?   [00:30:10] Possibly.   [00:30:12] Ok, yeah, OK, if for the owner to come look for the owner to come looking for fruit, should there have been fruit there? Yes, OK, it should have been, which means it's mature enough to have been producing fruit, does that make sense? Yes. OK, so it's mature enough by age and by visual appearance to be producing crude. So. So it's probably at the normal height of other trees that produce fruit, other fig trees, right? Mm hmm. Do you think it has limbs and leaves?   [00:30:51] Yeah, probably.   [00:30:52] Ok, so appearance wise, it looks like a mature plant. But the problem is there's no fruit. OK, so here's what I think Jesus is also teaching on this.   [00:31:08] The same thing we get from Parable of the Sower and some others will say if it's possible for someone to look like a Christian, think he's a Christian because he accepted Christ at some point and may even do Christian like deeds, OK, but still be dead and not born again. That's what you have with this this fig tree. It looks like a healthy fig tree. The only difference is there's no fruit, but everything else about it visually is it looks like it's like a normal fig tree. Does that make sense?   [00:31:44] Yeah. Yeah, OK.   [00:31:46] And the problem is there's no fruit.   [00:31:48] If we use to take this metaphor out and kind of convert it to what seems to be saying how we would phrase it based on the parable of the sower is. There's no Christ being formed in that person. And and if there's no Chrispin been formed in that person, then spiritually that person is dead.   [00:32:11] Makes sense.   [00:32:12] Yeah, it does OK, because we're only alive in Christ. So based on the four soils of the parable of the sower, which soil would you say that this tree is planted in or represent?   [00:32:28] I would say three because yeah, yeah, it's growing and it has leaves and branches and like you said, looked fully mature and like it should have fruit on it.   [00:32:40] Yeah, exactly. So this is that soil. Number three, this is why the fig tree is used throughout scriptures that barren, that barrenness. How many people would you think there are who call themselves Christians and look like this fig tree? They look like a Christian, but they bear no fruit while.   [00:33:04] I hate to say there's probably way more than.   [00:33:08] Then I would want to admit that there are yeah, do you think they think that they're Christians?   [00:33:15] Yes, absolutely, yeah, we see this even with Israel.   [00:33:19] They thought they were the chosen race, we're all going to heaven because we're part of Abraham. Paul says no. You know, you're you're you're not. OK, so I want to share just a little personal comment on this, because this is actually how all of this study got started for me. So I have a personal friend, a dear family friend named Rich. His parents and my parents have been best friends. His parents were in my parents' wedding. I believe it goes back that far. We've done things with Rich and his family. We've been really close. They've been down to our family farm a lot. And and what happened is in ultra high school, Rich was way a column kind of a hoodlum hurdle may be the wrong word, but he was just way off track. He was chasing the girls, chasing the drugs, chasing, you know, chasing everything. And he was absolutely not a Christian. He gets into college. He goes even more over the deep end there, and then something happens. He's presented with the gospel, he hears it, he receives it with joy, and there's life change in his life, he starts to pull back and stop some of these abhorrent behavioral type of activities he's been doing. And then he gets married and he's later on after college, he starts a Bible study at his home. Lots of people come. They share the gospel. Lots of people claim he claims to accept Christ. And then we start to work together.   [00:35:06] He actually worked here with our business for about a year, just over a year, and during that entire time, I saw no evidence at all of Christ being in him. He lives a life of extreme bitterness. He pursues women even now.   [00:35:28] He doesn't touch them, to my knowledge, but he sure does pursue them. He pursues riches and wealth that he cannot get, that he cannot get. And everything is very kind of superficial. And so he's even suing me. OK, believe it or not, I'm on something. And through all of this, there's no bitterness in my heart for him. There's only this love and compassion. And as I pray for him and as I analyze what's going on and constant the thing that keeps coming to mine, Lord, is my friend saved. I know he accepted Christ. I know there was a change in lifestyle, but I see no evidence of Christ. And so my it was my concern for my friend that started me digging, taking a deep dive. And what does the scripture say? Does everyone who accept Christ go to heaven? Okay. And and so that's kind of where we are today. And that's what prompted all this. So let me yeah, it's really interesting. So the Lord takes even difficult circumstances in your life and produces good from it. That doesn't mean he's the orchestrator of just like we talked about a while back with the story of Joseph. Okay. You know, if God is sovereign and control, does that mean everything that happens is his will? OK. And even though God did not orchestrate the evil that happened in Joseph's life, he leveraged it to produce the good that he had for Joseph. So that's kind of how this came out. Let me talk as we're talking on this topic of. People who believe they are Christians, people who have accepted Christ at some point, and, you know, my friend Rich, you know, he received a gospel with joy, just like soil number two on the stony ground.   [00:37:29] And it actually produced a plant that looked mature. But but my perception of what's going on is it's being choked out by all of the other thorns in life, by the way, sawn OK, in small number three, if you look at thorns as a metaphor, as a character throughout the Bible, it's usually used to on what chokes out life. All right. Everywhere you see Soren's, you can kind of translate somewhat loosely, but translate something is choking life out of this. And if you go back and read, you'll see that you see that common theme. So so the thorns choke out the life of of what's there. But I want to talk on this. There's another parable called I Never Knew You, or at least that's what I call it. Let's turn to Matthew seven versus 21 through 23. So there's word on this topic of the fig tree. The fig tree thinks it's a good tree, but it's not because it produces no fruit. My friend Rich calls himself a Christian, and he may be I'm not I'm not rendering judgment, but I'm rendering observation observationally. I see no fruit. The question is, is it possible to accept Christ and not go to heaven? And so let's read another parable. OK, keep in mind, the parable of the sower unlocks all the parables. So you will see this pattern. Are you ready to read it?   [00:38:57] Yes. All right. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father, who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name. And then will I declare to them, I never knew you depart from me. Workers of lawlessness.   [00:39:27] Ouch.   [00:39:28] That's pretty painful in it, that's stinging words, that's what we call the stinging words.   [00:39:34] Yeah, so so let's ask a real simple question on this one. OK, were these people focused on works or fruit?   [00:39:45] Works. How do we know that?   [00:39:49] Because everything it talks about them doing is they work, oh, did we not prophesying your name, cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name. All right. So what's the difference between works and.   [00:40:06] What do you think, um.   [00:40:10] Work is to me, this is just my personal opinion, which to me is what you can benefit or gain for yourself, whether it's notoriety or a favor. And then fruit to me comes from the overflow. It's just what's in you and it comes out by itself.   [00:40:32] Ok, I think that's very accurate. Very fair. I was summarize it slightly different. Not that that it's a different understanding. It has a different route of of source works is what you do. But fruit is Christ formed in you. Does that make sense? Yeah. And if crisis formed in you, then he lives through you. And therefore, what you do in action, what you do is from him and not you, and that's the difference between works and free. It's what you do versus Christ doing it through you. And the other thing about works in fruit, as I start to think about this deeper think about this works is created in this in this topic of what we're talking about with this terrible works is created by pursuing the activities of Christ. While fruit is created by pursuing the person of Christ. Yeah, yeah. And so when we look at what we do in a lot and I'm going through this series because, you know, the Lord has called me in ministry, I'm a full time minister, secretly describes disguised as a business owner.   [00:41:55] And he has called me to do these radical faith podcasts and teachings to teach his people that they may step more boldly out by faith, solidly on God's word and produce fruit. OK. And and that's kind of why all this comes up and why this is, quote unquote, intermingled with business, because the whole purpose for the businesses to do this stuff.   [00:42:22] And but what's interesting is. I was going somewhere with that, let me back up, let me figure out where I was going to work. This created by pursuing the activities of Christ. And fruit is created by pursuing the person of Christ and. When you pursue Christ. Then fruit is automatically produced, so we need to take an introspective look at ourselves and our loved ones and ask, what are we really doing? Are we pursuing the Christian activities?   [00:42:58] Oh, I want to go kill. I want, you know, give me this gift of healing. I want to tung's gift of tongues or I want to, you know, go help the poor and serve the widows. Are you doing those because you want to be found in favor with the Lord or are you doing those because they emanate from the Lord pulling you through it, wanting to do it through you, because you're pursuing the Lord as opposed to pursuing the work? I think that's kind of really where I want to go and hit on with this is we have to say, you know, what's what's driving us? Are we the tree with no fruit? Are we these people that Jesus says, I never knew you. So let me now let's have some questions about this parable. Back to the parable. So, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name. Too many mind works in your name. And Jesus said, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So do you think these people looked and acted like Christians?   [00:44:06] Absolutely.   [00:44:08] Yeah. They even did the activities that Christians do. Dendi Yeah.   [00:44:12] I was going to say they did activities that a lot of Christians can't do.   [00:44:17] That's right. Yeah. So they saw a lot of times you see someone who prays for healing and the person's heal and you think that guy is really spiritual or someone who gets a, you know, prophecy or does somebody we think they're spiritual, but according to this, they could be dead. Right? So they looked and acted like Christians. Were they born again?   [00:44:42] Oh, well, according to Jesus, no.   [00:44:46] Well, according to Jesus is a good place to be according to you, right? OK. Yeah, OK. So no, how do we know that they're not born again?   [00:45:03] I don't know. OK, so back to this so parable, the sower in the seeds, OK, the seed is shown by the sea, produces fruit in good soil, and when it produces fruit, what's inside the seed? I mean, what's inside the fruit? Yeah, the seed is inside the fruit, right? OK, and so the seed is born again.   [00:45:31] Does that make sense, yes.   [00:45:33] Yeah, OK, and so born again, born again within the fruit, we know these people are not born again because there's no fruit for all who produce fruit are Jesus's disciples and a disciple knows their teacher. In fact, the definition of disciple is one who studies and follows their teacher to become exactly like that teacher. OK, that's kind of technically the definition of disciple. We know these aren't disciples because Jesus says, I never knew you.   [00:46:09] There's no fruit. So if I were to ask, were these converts or disciples, what would you tell me? Converts. Hmm, yeah, converts, they receive the Seiver joy, they receive the good news, they look like Christians. But there's no fruit, there's no fruit because they're not disciples, so did they obtain eternal life?   [00:46:36] No, no.   [00:46:38] So do you see this pattern again, it's possible to call yourself a Christian, even to those Christian type works? But not truly be born again. Do you think maybe at some point these people that Jesus is talking about had actually, quote unquote, accepted Christ?   [00:46:57] Yes, I do. So then what happened?   [00:47:05] Too focused on works and doing instead of getting to know the Lord and being transformed by Jesus in them.   [00:47:15] Yeah, to focus on works, to focus on themselves and Jesus. So if we go back to our last session on this topic, again, the parable is sweet and sour. We use a word called stewarding the soil that stewarded the seed well is the good soul that produced fruit. But when it's stewarded it poorly, it didn't produce fruit at all. And I think we can use that word here. These people accepted the seed, but they did not steward the seed because they weren't pursuing Christ, they were pursuing Christlike activities. Do you see the difference? Yeah, yeah. So now let's look at two more parables. That tie in, we're going to see a similar pattern and what I'm looking for here. I want to make sure you and everyone else sees this. There's this pattern and it's not a single time pattern over and over and over and over again. We start to see what the Lord is telling us by looking at the patterns of the parables. And as we move into our next session later, we're going to pull away from the parables and actually go into the epistles and what Jesus says, what Paul and Peter says.   [00:48:33] And we start to start to see these things and now we start to piece together. These things have been really tough to understand. Now we start to see the pattern. It all starts to make sense. And now we see what the Lord is trying to tell us. So I'm going to read these because they're long and I'm just going to truncate some things along the way. But these are going to be the parables of the miners and the talents. OK, we'll start with the miners. You can open up your Bible to it if you want. I'll read it, though. It's 19 and we're going to basically read 19 verses, 12 through 26. So, Cirlot, the parable of the miners and the talents are two completely different parables, but they are very similar. And I think we're going to see some similar truths here. So starting with Luke 1912, he said. Therefore, Jesus says a nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return, calling ten of his servants.   [00:49:29] He gave them ten miners and said to them, Engage in business until I come to the first came before him saying, Lord, your miner has made ten miners more. And he said to him, Well done, good servant, because you've been faithful and have very little, you shall have authority over ten cities. And the second came saying, Lord, your miner has made five miners. And he said to him, and you were to be over five cities. Then another servant came and said, Sir, here is your miner. I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not. So his master replied, I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant. You knew, did you, that I'm a hard man taking out what I did not put in and reaping what I did not. So why then? Then you put my money on deposit. So then when I came back I could have collected it with interest. Then he said to those standing by, take his mind away from him and give it to the one who has ten miners. Sir, they said he already has ten. He replied, I tell you that to everyone who has more will be given. But as for one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away. All right. So let's ask a few questions about this parable to understand who is the nobleman being represented in this parable, do you think?   [00:50:56] Jesus, yeah, so Jesus is a nobleman who are the servants? US, us as people and what was his command?   [00:51:09] His command was to be about his business, to engage in his business until he tried to engage in business until I come.   [00:51:18] And so does engage in business mean.   [00:51:24] It means.   [00:51:26] Do the business that I have given you to do.   [00:51:30] Very good, I'm going to clarify just a little bit, if you don't mind, engage in business means to take what a noble men gave them and produce more of it for the nobleman's benefit.   [00:51:45] Oh, does that make sense?   [00:51:48] Mm hmm. Do you see do you see that as represented here? Yeah, yeah. OK, so how does this pattern resemble the parable of the sower?   [00:52:02] Well, taking the seed, yeah. And producing more, so, yeah, producing more.   [00:52:10] Yeah, you take the seed, you accept it, you steward it well, you produce fruit that has more seed in and we're producing more of what's been given to us. OK, so for the servant who did nothing, why was he called a wicked servant?   [00:52:27] Because he didn't do what Jesus asked him to do, he didn't engage in business, he didn't engage in business.   [00:52:34] Why do you think he did not? What do you think is the fundamental difference between the wicked servant versus the good and faithful servants? What is the primary difference?   [00:52:47] Oh, well, the first word that comes to my head is laziness.   [00:52:51] Ok.   [00:52:53] I don't think that's it, so go back to what we just finished talking about with some of the other just a few moments ago, what did we do? What did we discuss in terms of the difference between a disciple and a convert?   [00:53:08] What what causes the difference works versus someone who's pursuing their relationship, pursuing the growth.   [00:53:18] Ok, yeah. So if we were to take that, here's what I would say. The question is.   [00:53:25] For the servant who did nothing, why was he called Wicked? He was in my what I understand he did not value the noble man enough to work on his behalf. In other words, he he merely took but he did not serve in pursuit. Does that make sense? Yeah.   [00:53:44] Yeah. It's only when you serve and pursue. You become a disciple if you're simply looking at it for what you get out of it and you treat it with contempt. You don't serve them per se. Does that make sense?   [00:54:00] Mm hmm. OK, so then if we used. So then what happened to the one who did not serve and pursue but merely took and hid?   [00:54:14] What happened to him? His his portion was taken from him and given to the one who had more, so what he had been given had been is now taken away.   [00:54:25] Mm hmm. Is this this talking about spiritual things? Right. Yeah, wow, that's pretty scary, isn't it? It is, yeah.   [00:54:34] Ok, so since this is a parable about Jesus and his servants, here's a question. Did all of the servants accept what Jesus gave them? Yes, ma'am, did all who accepted it enter into Jesus's blessings?   [00:54:52] All that, the one.   [00:54:55] Oh, OK, so if we lose so so if we go back to all who accept Jesus, go to heaven.   [00:55:05] Base, if we're using this parable and the pattern we're seeing. I say there's a difference between merely accepting what Jesus gives and stewarding it, well, does that make sense? If we use the terms, convert and disciple on this, which of the servants would be converts and which of them would be disciples?   [00:55:30] The first two would be Disciple's and the last one who didn't do anything with his portion would be the convert.   [00:55:37] Yeah. All right. So let's we wrap this up. Let's read about the challenge. So this comes from Matthew, 25 versus 14 through 30. We're going to see the same pattern. OK, so Matthew, 25 versus 14 for he'll be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property to one. He gave five talents to another, two to another, one to each, according to his ability. Then he went away. He received the five talents win at once and traded with them, and he made five Tallas more. So also the one had the two talents made to tell us more. But the one he received, the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. Now, after a long time the master, those servants came and settled accounts with them. He you five talents came forward bringing five talents, more same master you delivered to me five talents. Here I made five talents more. His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. And he also, who had had the two talents, came forward saying Master, you deliver to me to talent. Here I have made two talents more. His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant.   [00:56:57] You've been faithful over a little. I will set you overmuch enter into the joy of your master shortie. He also, who had received the one talent, came forward saying, Master, I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you did not. So in gathering where you get scared or no seed. So I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is here. But his master answered him. You wicked and slothful servant. You knew that I where I have not sown and gather where I gather no seed over our shadow, no seed. Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers and that my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him. Who has the ten talents for to everyone who has will more be given and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away and cast the worthless serpent servant into the outer darkness. And that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth now again. So when the master gave the talents his servants, did he expect them to work on his behalf to bring increase?   [00:58:14] Did each of those servants accept the talents?   [00:58:17] They did.   [00:58:19] And so what's the difference between the servants?   [00:58:24] We have disciples and we have a convert again, yeah, yeah, one love the master and it says Win at once and traded with them. They eagerly worked on his behalf and eagerly came to the master, said, Look, Master, I got you even more. Sure. Like when you have a young child that comes and said, Daddy, Daddy or Mommy, Mommy, look what I did for you all eager because they want to please you, right? Mm hmm. The last one simply dug a hole and hid it in the ground, doing nothing to benefit his master, not master, always demanding of me. He gives me this money, says do business. I I don't care, I'm going to throw it in the ground and give it back to them, right.   [00:59:12] No concern for his master. So did the servant who did nothing. Look like the other servants of the master, do you think?   [00:59:23] Yes, yeah, he probably dressed the same. So these are servants of the master, so they probably had uniforms, they had probably protocols, they probably had some prestige among the community because they work for the master. And looking at them, you couldn't tell any difference. But what happened to that servant, the wicked one? What happened to him?   [00:59:45] He was cast out. What was what was given to him was taken away. Then he was cast out and then he was cast out.   [00:59:52] So do you see any parallels with all these other parables? Mm hmm.   [00:59:57] A lot of a lot of patterns here. Right. And they all point to the same thing. So this is the key. When you start to see everything point to the same focal point, you start to pick up. This is important, right? This is something God is saying over and over and over again. We're going to see this a little bit more on the next sessions. But let me just kind of wrap up some things I think are the takeaways. All right. So the parable of the summer shows that the key. Is we have to steward what we've been given. We see that in the parable of the talents, in the parable of the miners. We see this throughout scripture. We've got a steward it if you value something a lot, you'll steward it. Well, if you value it little, you won't steward it at all. Does that make sense? Yes. OK, that's what we see in all of these parables. Are you stewarding what you've been given and both of these parables? The servants who value the master. Took what the master entrusted them. And worked on the master's behalf, you know, the question I saw like to ask is, are we taking what the Lord has given us and working on his behalf or are we taking what the Lord has given us and simply using it on our behalf? That's I think that's kind of the critical point here that that's being communicated. Those who did all the Christian like things, they were working on their behalf.   [01:01:27] Did we not heal the sick, cast out demons, do all these mighty works? So. So if we were to then go back to kind of summing this up, a convert is that person who accepts what is given without valuing the giver. A disciple accepts what is given and values the giver so much that they steward well, that which was given them. So we it comes back to where is your focus? We see this in the parable of the merchant of fine pearls or the parable that the treasure in the field where they sell everything they've got because they want it so much, they pursue it. If we use kind of Christian these terms, you know, they've all been given like if we just look at the talents in the minus, they'd all been given the million minus or talents. They've been given the gift of salvation. They all accepted the gift. But only those who stewarded it obtained the gift. And the gift was removed from those who did not. So same thing we saw in the poor soils. So kind of the big take away. A couple of other things we see on this actually. Now the big take away. Yeah, but there's one more pattern that we see in these two parables. So the minus and the talents. One more thing. Do you know what that one thing that they have in common is?   [01:02:58] Hmm.   [01:03:02] There were three every time.   [01:03:05] Oh, that's a good pattern, yes, there's three three is three is a whole number, right? OK, so there's there's something there. OK, it's a whole truth with holy.   [01:03:17] No, the thing I saw it and saw is they all occur over a period of time. OK, in other words, I think this is what Jesus is saying, telling us. You can't assess the heart immediately. It takes time to see the fruit of the heart and over time. OK, what one does? Well, evidence what their heart is truly like. And it's only the ones with a true heart for Jesus who will enter his kingdom. And and so I think that's kind of the message here. A lot of it is is the one with a true heart. The other thing that's been convicting of me as I go through this is the focus of discipleship. And if you think about discipleship, so a lot of times a lot of us, you know, we want Converse, go share the gospel list, bring in, you know, bring people to salvation, which is good. Definitely not criticizing that, but it's a focus is sharing the gospel, bringing people to salvation.   [01:04:24] Then what's happening afterwards, the way I see it, this is a low image the Lord gave me, not a vision, but just kind of well thought in my mind is it's like raising kids, OK, you birth a child and then for the next 18 or 20 years, you're nurturing and training that child and disciplining them and helping them grow to maturity. And all your focus is on those few children. And then they go do the same thing. OK, but it's not you just go berserk, you know, 30, 40, 50 kids and just, you know, have at it and hope you do well. OK, so I think there's a time to, you know, really focus on making sure that we're raising disciples and not just converts.   [01:05:11] Yeah, that's really good.   [01:05:13] All right. So we got to wrap up. But any thoughts? Anything hit you?   [01:05:19] Oh, gosh. Just so Eye-Opening, you know, I mean, I know these passages. I recognize them all, but it's just so good to kind of dig a little deeper and really get to the heart. I love how the heart of the father was portrayed with the same tree that was producing fruit. I love how I think that would be my encouragement to anyone who's listening, who feels like I've messed up. I can't. I was too late for me, that kind of thing. I've just created way too many things, that kind of thing that the heart of the father is always to restore. And I just love how that was evident in that scripture. You know, that he is the God of second, third, fourth, fifth chances, you know, because his heart just wants you to be connected with him.   [01:06:06] So you lost that and he gives time. I've got to read one saying this. This is a bonus, Jeremiah. Eighteen. Okay, because it talks on that. Jeremiah Yeah. For those people who may be saying it's too late for me, I've done so much bad, I've known the good, but I've kept going after the bad. Let me share what Jeremiah God says. And Jeremiah, he says, this is Jeremiah starting with FF7 If at any time I declare to a nation that I will pluck it up and break it down and destroy it because it's been evil and wicked, and if that nation then turns from its evil, I will relent to the disaster I promised it. What God is saying is judgment is coming. But if you simply relent or repent, this is what John the Baptist said at the, you know, bear fruit. In keeping with repentance, the Lord says, I am quick to relent if you will simply repent. And he keeps relending.   [01:07:11] Yeah, he does. And that relenting is changing his mind. He changes his mind. I think there's actually a translation of scripture that reads it that way, that he will change his mind. And I love that I do, too.   [01:07:24] All right. Well, let's wrap it up.   [01:07:26] Well, baby, thank you so much for today. This was so great. And I'm just encouraged by, again, just all the time and effort that you put into studying and preparing for all the listeners. And I hope this has been an encouragement to everyone. And I look forward to our next call and I hope that everyone can join us again.   [01:07:47] Amen. We all have a great day.   [01:07:49] Thank you so much. Bye. P023

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text] Listen via YouTube video if desired [/fusion_text][fusion_youtube id="https://youtu.be/AV9uhPwklFs" alignment="center" width="" height="" autoplay="false" api_params="&rel=0" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" /][fusion_text] Transcription (was completed by automated process.  Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:04] Well, hello, everyone, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm super excited and welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael.  Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Beatty, I am super excited about our call today. What do you have for our listeners? [00:00:28] Well, I am very excited about it as well, Penny, because I get to do today what I love doing. And sometimes I pinch myself saying, Lord, do I really get paid to do this stuff? And the answer is yes, ultimately. So we're going to do not a real estate marketing call. We're going to do a radical face call for those who may be new to us. As a reminder, we do two types of calls. So if you're here for real estate marketing, that's not going to be the topic of today's call. The topic is going to be living as a Christian, and what all of that type of stuff means. So if you want to enjoy that, please continue listening. Otherwise, you can turn off this episode and come back to our next one. So what I want to do when we talked last time, Penny, on the topic, Do all who accept Christ go to heaven? Do you remember that topic? [00:01:26] Yes, I do. I do. [00:01:28] Ok, well today we're going into part two, OK? And next time when we do, another radical faith call will be it part three. And I'm not sure if it's going to be three or four parts, but is this really incredibly exciting for me and very interesting. And I think there are a lot of deep application in terms of what we do with our lives that come out of it. So I want to go into that. So this is a quick review. We started last time with some statements that Jesus made and now we're going to test your memory. Do you remember what those statements Jesus made that we started? [00:02:11] It was something that has to do with we were talking about do all people go to heaven if they get saved or the all believers go to heaven? And it was something it was something along the lines of, all right, that's OK. [00:02:27] That's OK. Yeah, no, that's OK. [00:02:30] Hey, I got it written in front of me. You don't. So that's the key. Oh so the gospels have four times God found is so important. They put four times in the gospel, the basic statement by Jesus that the one who endures to the end will be saved. Yes. Yes. The one who endures to the end by your endurance, you will gain your lives. Okay, so the question was. What in the world has Jesus talking about? So let me ask you a question. When Jesus teaches that you must endure to the end to be saved, does that mean that some people don't endure to the end? [00:03:11] Yes. [00:03:13] And therefore they don't endure to the end. They're not saved. [00:03:18] That's correct. They're not going to go to heaven. [00:03:20] Yeah, and that interesting and yet we think. Huh? OK, so we talked last time on the parable of the Sower, one of the most important parables, because it's the only one that is in all three synoptic gospels. Matthew, Mark Luke is the only one that is in its entirety in all three gospels is the only one that is fully interpreted by Jesus in all three gospels and is the only one that Jesus says, if you don't understand this one, how can you understand any of the parables? So it's kind of like the key, the master key that unlocks every single parable if you dig into it. And what we learned in the parable of the Sower is several things just in a quick review. OK, so you have a sower, we assume the soldiers us, OK, it's not very clear, but go out and you sow the seed everywhere. The seed is the word of the kingdom. And do you remember who the word of the kingdom is? If you were to put a name Jesus. Right. So where it is. So Jesus everywhere and some falls on the path and birch take it away. It's rejected. Some fall in on Iraqi soil. They accept it with enthusiasm. And as soon as the sun comes up because there's no root, it withers. Then some falls on the thorny soil. [00:04:44] Ok, we call that soil number three. If we do soil one, two, three, four. So the stony soil falls among the thorns. It grows up into a plant. It grows up with the thorns, but there's no fruit. And then there's the for soil good soil that it produces some 60, some 30, some 100 salt, OK? And Jesus and Jesus says only the see that falls in the good soil is good. And you have to produce fruit and so what we kind of came through with all of that is that three soils accepted Jesus to some degree. You know, the rocky soil accepted the seed enough that it produced something. But there were no roots. The thorny soil accepted the seed. It actually went in the ground. It produced roots because we know now plant grew, but it was bad. And then the fourth soil, the soil accepted the seed, accepted Jesus and produced fruit. And so what we start to understand is put this parable is telling us, I believe, is that not everyone who accepts Jesus goes to heaven. Not everyone who accepts Jesus actually produces fruit. We also describe that fruit is the womb of a seed is for the seed is formed. And so what Jesus is telling us and we're going to get into this today a little bit more, that unless you're unless Christ is formed in you and you're producing more of Christ, then you're not good. Okay, so that's kind of where we ended up. Any questions or any thoughts on that before we move forward? [00:06:33] No, just such a good reminder. Such a good refresher from last week. So I'm looking forward to this week. [00:06:41] Good. I am too. So we covered one quick topic last time and wrapping up. And I want to I want to focus on this more today. And that's the difference between converts and disciples. So let me just cut in that. What we talked a convert is one who accepts Christ. A disciple is a convert who pursues Christ. Does that make sense? [00:07:10] Yeah, yeah, OK. [00:07:12] And and so it's kind of like a two step process. First, you accept Christ, but accepting Christ. Doesn't mean you go to heaven, it's what happens after there, so you accept Christ and then you pursue Christ. Now, this is not saying we're going to kind of touch on this maybe in a later session, OK? The question is, if you're currently a bad soul, can you become a good soil? That's not the topic of this call, OK? This isn't the topic of once I accept Christ, do I have to do something special? That's not the topic. All I'm saying is very clearly there is evidential difference between good soil, bad soil. And so let's look at it and then let's also analyze it within our lives. So what we find is not all converts go to heaven. But all disciples do all right. And then, John, 15 eight, this is Jesus, and he says by by this, my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit. And so can you finish this sentence on that? [00:08:21] And so go and bear fruit and so prove to be my disciples, right, when you bear much fruit, you prove to be my disciples. [00:08:31] And this is what Jesus is talking about. This is, by the way, the great commission go and make converts of all the nations. Now go and make disciples of all the nations. And so there's something there about this mandate. So with that, I now want to move in to where we're going to be talking about today and it's really quite fascinating. I like to look at what John the Baptist had to say about frit. By the way, this is now trivia. Do you recall anything John the Baptist said about fruit? [00:09:08] So. Wow. Mm hmm. [00:09:12] I don't know, off the top of my head, so let's turn to Matthew three verses eight, nine and 10 and let's see what he says about fruit. [00:09:25] Bear fruit in keeping with repentance and did not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham is our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now, the axes laid to the root of the tree. Every tree, therefore, does not bear good fruit that does not bear good for it. Cut down and thrown into the fire. [00:09:52] Ok, just a little back. Back up. Scripture uses the metaphor trees a lot as representing men. OK, so that's why you see this. The access to the trees, every tree that does not bear fruit when he's talking to people and he says bear fruit with keeping with repentance. So when you see the word tree, typically that's going to be speaking about men when there are different types of trees, is talking about different types of men or the human race. Not always, but that's one of the things. So what does this say that what type of fruit are we to bear? Fruit that keeps with resentence fruit that keeps with repentance, so let's go back and cover one thing that's really important. When we read the Bible, the Bible is a book written by a single author, God himself. And when we when we see common terms throughout, there are always going to have something. They're always going to mean about the same thing or typically. OK, so you have just as we talked about last time, you have characters in a book. And if a character named John is introduced at the beginning, the book, then when the author calls out John toward the end of the book is the same. John is the same person. In this case. We have the character of fruit. The last time we talked about with a state in the sower that the good soil produces fruit, we had to understand what fruit is. But here John the Baptist is talking about fruit bear fruit in keeping with repentance. So we kind of understand that what John the Baptist is talking about is the same thing Jesus has been talking about. Does that make sense? Mm hmm. Yeah. OK, so this fruit is fruit in keeping with repentance. Here's something also interesting. What was the message that Jesus came preaching to you? Remember what that message was? [00:11:58] The kingdom of God is here or now, but there's one one part right before that. [00:12:03] Do you remember what it was? It was an action and love, love one another now repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. OK. Oh, so close your so close. So there's something about repentance that's really important when we talk about healing later, whenever the Lord guides me in that direction, repentance is really a key part of of that. So so we are to bear fruit of repentance, OK, if we don't bear fruit. [00:12:38] What does John's passage say is going to happen. [00:12:43] Hmm. [00:12:46] Well, if we don't, it says that every tree or person that is not very good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. [00:12:54] Ouch. You think what do you think that's actually going spiritually? What is he communicating? [00:13:03] Going to heaven, crash and crash and burn. [00:13:05] Yeah, OK, right, OK, so we see this thing about trees. We see this thing about fruit. We see this thing about an axe cutting down a tree and we see this thing about being burned. OK, do you recall any other parables that Jesus uses about a tree being cut down? [00:13:30] I do not. [00:13:32] All right, turn with me to Luke, 13 versus six through nine. This is the parable of the barren fig tree, OK? [00:13:45] Oh, now you remember, right? OK, yes. So let's read the parable of the barren fig tree and what we're looking for. OK, this is let me kind of give you the Cliff Notes version of all this. God works in patterns. You see the same pattern throughout scripture in all kinds of areas. Last time we saw this pattern of something about fruit is important to being, you know, going to heaven. If we want to use that term, that's really to being part of the kingdom of God is the better term. [00:14:15] And we saw that a lot of people produce something, but they didn't produce fruit. The soils produced a plant to some degree. And so we see this pattern. And I want you to be looking for the patterns as we go through. So let's read about the parable of the barren fig tree, OK? [00:14:33] And he told this parable a man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vine dresser, Look, for three years now, I have come seeking fruit on the fig tree and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground? And he answered him, sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good. But if not, you can cut it down. [00:15:08] Hmm. Wow. OK, so it's not bearing fruit. John talks about bear fruit with keeping with repentance or you get cut down. This is talking about it's not bearing fruit. Let's cut it down. All right. So we have some patterns and similarities there. Here's the question. Does a good tree produce good fruit? [00:15:28] Yes, and how do we know that? [00:15:34] Well, that's a good tree. Then that's its nature, its nature is to produce. OK, all right, so nature is wrong with it. It's going to it's going to reproduce itself, right? [00:15:48] Ok, so seed reproduces after kind. Good. All right. Let's go real quickly. You don't have to turn there, but let's look at what Jesus says. It's in Luke 643 and he says for no good tree bears, bad fruit. Nor again, does a battery bear good fruit for each tree is known by its own fruit. So does a good tree produce good fruit according to Jesus? The answer is yes. OK, so now we're using trees. OK, keep in mind, the metaphor is mankind. Jesus is saying no good man produces bad fruit. Every man will be known after the fruit he produces. OK, there's a way to look at it. So if a tree produces no fruit, is it a good tree? [00:16:37] No, and why is that how do we know that because Jesus just said it, a good tree is going to produce good fruit, right? [00:16:47] Yeah, yeah. Parable of the sower. Only the good soil. The good soil is known because it produced fruit. Jesus said that. By this, my father's glorified that you bear much fruit and so proved to be my disciples, so we know that a good tree will always produce good fruit. A tree without fruit is not good. That's soil number three. If you recall, the plant grew up but produce no fruit. OK, so that's kind of where we are here. Let me give you a little background also. This is interesting, the background on the fig tree. So throughout scripture, the fig tree, in fact, do you know what the fig tree represents throughout scripture? Did you know that? Did you know that it represented something? [00:17:39] I know I did not. [00:17:41] All right, so there are two trees that are used all throughout scripture, sometimes are used in the same passages, sometimes are used differently. One is the fig tree. Do you remember what the other one is? [00:17:52] My guess would be an olive tree. [00:17:54] Yeah, so you have fig trees and olive trees. The question is, what are they? OK, so here we go back to patterns again. Same thing as Paul talks about. The pattern of not all who are descended of Abraham are Abraham's descendants. You remember him saying that? I think it's in Romans. OK, what is he talking about? Abraham had a physical bloodline and Abraham had a spiritual bloodline. The physical bloodline is a shadow of the spiritual, but it's not the spiritual. And we see this thing with fig trees. So throughout scripture, the fig tree represents the chosen people of Israel, of the natural. OK, you can call it the physical descendants of Abraham. And within that physical descendants, it's in a sense, it's death. OK, that's that's why you see all the time the fig tree without any fruit. That's why this parable is the fig tree that's going to be cut down. But then you have the olive tree and the olive tree represents the chosen people, a betrayal of the promise. These are the spiritual descendants of Abraham. And in a sense, the olive tree is always represented with life. [00:19:11] All the fig trees always represented with death and saying, yeah, and an interesting. [00:19:18] So just as the natural the natural world is a shadow of the spirit world, then the people of Israel, the fig tree is a shadow of the people or the promise represented by the olive tree. So that's kind of what we're seeing here. We've got this parable, the bear and fig tree. The fig tree, by the way, is there do you recall any other place in the Gospels where there's a barren fig tree? [00:19:51] Hmm, I do feel like this story is brought up again, but I don't remember where Jesus is going into Jerusalem. [00:20:01] Oh, yes, yes. You see the fig tree and leave. He walks over to get some fruit and there's none there and there's none. [00:20:09] And it's not the season of fruit. It's not the season of fruit. And he curses it. Why do you think he curses the fig tree? [00:20:18] When it's not the season for fruit, I don't know, I've always wondered that because I've always just thought that that was one of those moments in Scripture where it's just showing the sense of humor of God. [00:20:32] Ok, so if we if we say I digress, but this is important, is fun. So the fig tree represents the natural Israel and sin and death, even though it's not the season for figs, as a believer, it's always the season for fruit. This is why you read through revelations and and other passages like in Psalms and other places where you have visions of the heavenly realm and the trees and the plants are always producing fruit all the time. There is no season without fruit. It's always the season for fruit because there's always a season for life. OK, and so Jesus curse, is it the same as the natural descendants of Abraham had been cast with death because they're in bondage to sin, ruled by death, made a covenant with death when Adam fell. OK, and and so you see all these all these patterns, imageries and all these concepts kind of coming together in this one image of Jesus cursing the fig tree. And so we kind of have something similar here. OK, so we have this fig tree. So Israel had been chosen and set apart by God from among all the nations. OK, so this is where you have kind of the chosen people. And Israel had been given gods promise of salvation. Right in that tree, an issue with God's own people, but yet here's what's interesting. Turn with me real quickly, John, 111, so so I want I want to give you this picture, it all ties back into this barren fig tree parable we're talking about here. So the picture is. God had chosen Israel, God had given Israel the promise. Israel was God's people, OK, and now let's read what happens, John, 111, can you read that? [00:22:50] He came to his own disguise, right? [00:22:54] So Jesus came into his own OK, now, now finish it and his own people did not receive him. [00:23:00] Hmm. OK, so his own people did not receive him. So we have kind of this this thing. This is the victory. OK, so now let's move back to the parable of the barren fig tree, 13, six and nine. What do you think this parable is telling us? [00:23:22] Oh. [00:23:27] Well, if we're relating it to what you just kind of give that description, the fig tree and the physical nature of the descendants of Abraham and bondage to them, then the fig tree. Who was in bondage, bondage to sin is not going to produce fruit. [00:23:48] There's no loss almost that that may be a little too much, so so the parable is going to be giving basically one simple point that Jesus trying to make. Let's look at the let's look at the key aspects of the parable first. OK, man has a fig tree. The man comes seeking fruit. There is none. He says, cut it down. OK, those are the basic elements of the parable. So what this tells us is that if you don't produce fruit, you get cut down. [00:24:18] Right? OK, yeah. [00:24:21] And cut down. What do you think that means? [00:24:28] Removed from your purpose, yeah, is it you think this is similar to what John the Baptist was saying just a moment ago? The axe is laid at the root of the trees, and if you don't produce fruit, you'll get cut down and thrown into the fire, right? [00:24:42] Yeah. Yeah. [00:24:43] Ok, so that's I think it's what's talking here is you can get cut down and discarded that purpose that you're talking about for which you've been there, you're going to lose. All right. So but what about the vine dresser? This is real interesting. It says that a man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. Where do we where do we hear about a vineyard and a vine dresser? Does anything come to mind? [00:25:12] Yes. Jesus. He says, I am the vine dresser and we are the vine almost. No, sorry. I'm sorry. We are his the vine. The father is a vine dresser. [00:25:24] That's right. There are the branches. We are the branches, not the fruit that. Yeah. So John, that's John Tuffin one. So let's go there real quick. I want to show you something. OK, we're just going to read what you just said, basically, John, verse one. [00:25:41] Yeah, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. [00:25:46] Ok, so now we have again characters. The olive tree is planted in the vineyard and the owner comes and talks to the vine dresser. Do you see all these pictures coming together now? OK, so in the vineyard, Jesus is the true vine. He's the olive tree is in the presence of Jesus. The Vineyard, who is the father is there. And the owner says to the to the father, God, the father cut it down. Now read what the vine dresser says. I want you to see this. This is really cool. [00:26:25] This is verse eight, right? Yeah, OK. And he answered him. The vines are the the dangerous, right? Yeah. He answered him, sir. [00:26:36] Let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on the newer. [00:26:44] Yeah, then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down. [00:26:52] Oh, so this is the vine dresser. This is God, the father saying, hey, before we cut this down. Let me work on it special, let me give it special attention, let me let me dig around it, put in manure, let me really do everything I can to give it every opportunity to produce fruit and then if it does well and good, but if it doesn't, then let's cut it down. And that interesting. The heart of the father. [00:27:23] Yes, he's the God of second chances. [00:27:26] He's got a second chance for us. That's right. [00:27:30] And we actually see this same picture. And John, 15. So Rejon 15 first to. [00:27:41] Ok. [00:27:43] When they get back, they're looking to all right. Every branch and me that does not bear fruit. He takes away in every branch that does bear fruit. He pretends that it may bear more fruit. [00:27:59] Okay, perfect. So every branch that does not bear fruit he takes away. There's actually different ways to translate that takes away. And when we look at scripture, it's always multidimensional. Sometimes there's a lot more meaning than just one simple meaning. And so one way to translate in which most Bibles translate as he takes away. But another way you can translate that same word that's been used takeaway is to lift up. So you get kind of the image of if I'm a vine dresser and I'm in the vine is very valuable. This is business. This is what produces livelihood. So I'm not going to just willy nilly, you know, get rid of a branch just because it doesn't produce. I'm going to work with it. Tender care, because if I can get it producing fruit, it's worth a lot. So one way to interpret this is the vine dresser. Every branch that does not bear fruit, he lifts up the idea. You pull it up out of the ground, out of the dirt, you take the dirt off and wipe the dirt off the leaves so they can have sunshine and then you tie it up on the trestle so they can be in the sun and give an opportunity to produce fruit. But then if it doesn't produce fruit, he takes it away. [00:29:17] Does that make sense? Mm hmm. Is that cool? Yeah, it's a great picture. [00:29:22] So that's the same thing we see with this parable of the barren fig tree. Hey, let me give it more time and let me work with it to see if it can produce fruit. It shows the heart of the father really wants to give us every opportunity to produce that fruit. So so now with that, let's start looking a little bit deeper into some questions about this barren fig tree. Did the barren fig tree look like a mature, a mature tree? In other words, had it matured? [00:29:59] No. [00:30:01] Ok, so let me ask you, do you think it was standing tall like a normal tree? [00:30:10] Possibly. [00:30:12] Ok, yeah, OK, if for the owner to come look for the owner to come looking for fruit, should there have been fruit there? Yes, OK, it should have been, which means it's mature enough to have been producing fruit, does that make sense? Yes. OK, so it's mature enough by age and by visual appearance to be producing crude. So. So it's probably at the normal height of other trees that produce fruit, other fig trees, right? Mm hmm. Do you think it has limbs and leaves? [00:30:51] Yeah, probably. [00:30:52] Ok, so appearance wise, it looks like a mature plant. But the problem is there's no fruit. OK, so here's what I think Jesus is also teaching on this. [00:31:08] The same thing we get from Parable of the Sower and some others will say if it's possible for someone to look like a Christian, think he's a Christian because he accepted Christ at some point and may even do Christian like deeds, OK, but still be dead and not born again. That's what you have with this this fig tree. It looks like a healthy fig tree. The only difference is there's no fruit, but everything else about it visually is it looks like it's like a normal fig tree. Does that make sense? [00:31:44] Yeah. Yeah, OK. [00:31:46] And the problem is there's no fruit. [00:31:48] If we use to take this metaphor out and kind of convert it to what seems to be saying how we would phrase it based on the parable of the sower is. There's no Christ being formed in that person. And and if there's no Chrispin been formed in that person, then spiritually that person is dead. [00:32:11] Makes sense. [00:32:12] Yeah, it does OK, because we're only alive in Christ. So based on the four soils of the parable of the sower, which soil would you say that this tree is planted in or represent? [00:32:28] I would say three because yeah, yeah, it's growing and it has leaves and branches and like you said, looked fully mature and like it should have fruit on it. [00:32:40] Yeah, exactly. So this is that soil. Number three, this is why the fig tree is used throughout scriptures that barren, that barrenness. How many people would you think there are who call themselves Christians and look like this fig tree? They look like a Christian, but they bear no fruit while. [00:33:04] I hate to say there's probably way more than. [00:33:08] Then I would want to admit that there are yeah, do you think they think that they're Christians? [00:33:15] Yes, absolutely, yeah, we see this even with Israel. [00:33:19] They thought they were the chosen race, we're all going to heaven because we're part of Abraham. Paul says no. You know, you're you're you're not. OK, so I want to share just a little personal comment on this, because this is actually how all of this study got started for me. So I have a personal friend, a dear family friend named Rich. His parents and my parents have been best friends. His parents were in my parents' wedding. I believe it goes back that far. We've done things with Rich and his family. We've been really close. They've been down to our family farm a lot. And and what happened is in ultra high school, Rich was way a column kind of a hoodlum hurdle may be the wrong word, but he was just way off track. He was chasing the girls, chasing the drugs, chasing, you know, chasing everything. And he was absolutely not a Christian. He gets into college. He goes even more over the deep end there, and then something happens. He's presented with the gospel, he hears it, he receives it with joy, and there's life change in his life, he starts to pull back and stop some of these abhorrent behavioral type of activities he's been doing. And then he gets married and he's later on after college, he starts a Bible study at his home. Lots of people come. They share the gospel. Lots of people claim he claims to accept Christ. And then we start to work together. [00:35:06] He actually worked here with our business for about a year, just over a year, and during that entire time, I saw no evidence at all of Christ being in him. He lives a life of extreme bitterness. He pursues women even now. [00:35:28] He doesn't touch them, to my knowledge, but he sure does pursue them. He pursues riches and wealth that he cannot get, that he cannot get. And everything is very kind of superficial. And so he's even suing me. OK, believe it or not, I'm on something. And through all of this, there's no bitterness in my heart for him. There's only this love and compassion. And as I pray for him and as I analyze what's going on and constant the thing that keeps coming to mine, Lord, is my friend saved. I know he accepted Christ. I know there was a change in lifestyle, but I see no evidence of Christ. And so my it was my concern for my friend that started me digging, taking a deep dive. And what does the scripture say? Does everyone who accept Christ go to heaven? Okay. And and so that's kind of where we are today. And that's what prompted all this. So let me yeah, it's really interesting. So the Lord takes even difficult circumstances in your life and produces good from it. That doesn't mean he's the orchestrator of just like we talked about a while back with the story of Joseph. Okay. You know, if God is sovereign and control, does that mean everything that happens is his will? OK. And even though God did not orchestrate the evil that happened in Joseph's life, he leveraged it to produce the good that he had for Joseph. So that's kind of how this came out. Let me talk as we're talking on this topic of. People who believe they are Christians, people who have accepted Christ at some point, and, you know, my friend Rich, you know, he received a gospel with joy, just like soil number two on the stony ground. [00:37:29] And it actually produced a plant that looked mature. But but my perception of what's going on is it's being choked out by all of the other thorns in life, by the way, sawn OK, in small number three, if you look at thorns as a metaphor, as a character throughout the Bible, it's usually used to on what chokes out life. All right. Everywhere you see Soren's, you can kind of translate somewhat loosely, but translate something is choking life out of this. And if you go back and read, you'll see that you see that common theme. So so the thorns choke out the life of of what's there. But I want to talk on this. There's another parable called I Never Knew You, or at least that's what I call it. Let's turn to Matthew seven versus 21 through 23. So there's word on this topic of the fig tree. The fig tree thinks it's a good tree, but it's not because it produces no fruit. My friend Rich calls himself a Christian, and he may be I'm not I'm not rendering judgment, but I'm rendering observation observationally. I see no fruit. The question is, is it possible to accept Christ and not go to heaven? And so let's read another parable. OK, keep in mind, the parable of the sower unlocks all the parables. So you will see this pattern. Are you ready to read it? [00:38:57] Yes. All right. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father, who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name. And then will I declare to them, I never knew you depart from me. Workers of lawlessness. [00:39:27] Ouch. [00:39:28] That's pretty painful in it, that's stinging words, that's what we call the stinging words. [00:39:34] Yeah, so so let's ask a real simple question on this one. OK, were these people focused on works or fruit? [00:39:45] Works. How do we know that? [00:39:49] Because everything it talks about them doing is they work, oh, did we not prophesying your name, cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name. All right. So what's the difference between works and. [00:40:06] What do you think, um. [00:40:10] Work is to me, this is just my personal opinion, which to me is what you can benefit or gain for yourself, whether it's notoriety or a favor. And then fruit to me comes from the overflow. It's just what's in you and it comes out by itself. [00:40:32] Ok, I think that's very accurate. Very fair. I was summarize it slightly different. Not that that it's a different understanding. It has a different route of of source works is what you do. But fruit is Christ formed in you. Does that make sense? Yeah. And if crisis formed in you, then he lives through you. And therefore, what you do in action, what you do is from him and not you, and that's the difference between works and free. It's what you do versus Christ doing it through you. And the other thing about works in fruit, as I start to think about this deeper think about this works is created in this in this topic of what we're talking about with this terrible works is created by pursuing the activities of Christ. While fruit is created by pursuing the person of Christ. Yeah, yeah. And so when we look at what we do in a lot and I'm going through this series because, you know, the Lord has called me in ministry, I'm a full time minister, secretly describes disguised as a business owner. [00:41:55] And he has called me to do these radical faith podcasts and teachings to teach his people that they may step more boldly out by faith, solidly on God's word and produce fruit. OK. And and that's kind of why all this comes up and why this is, quote unquote, intermingled with business, because the whole purpose for the businesses to do this stuff. [00:42:22] And but what's interesting is. I was going somewhere with that, let me back up, let me figure out where I was going to work. This created by pursuing the activities of Christ. And fruit is created by pursuing the person of Christ and. When you pursue Christ. Then fruit is automatically produced, so we need to take an introspective look at ourselves and our loved ones and ask, what are we really doing? Are we pursuing the Christian activities? [00:42:58] Oh, I want to go kill. I want, you know, give me this gift of healing. I want to tung's gift of tongues or I want to, you know, go help the poor and serve the widows. Are you doing those because you want to be found in favor with the Lord or are you doing those because they emanate from the Lord pulling you through it, wanting to do it through you, because you're pursuing the Lord as opposed to pursuing the work? I think that's kind of really where I want to go and hit on with this is we have to say, you know, what's what's driving us? Are we the tree with no fruit? Are we these people that Jesus says, I never knew you. So let me now let's have some questions about this parable. Back to the parable. So, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name. Too many mind works in your name. And Jesus said, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So do you think these people looked and acted like Christians? [00:44:06] Absolutely. [00:44:08] Yeah. They even did the activities that Christians do. Dendi Yeah. [00:44:12] I was going to say they did activities that a lot of Christians can't do. [00:44:17] That's right. Yeah. So they saw a lot of times you see someone who prays for healing and the person's heal and you think that guy is really spiritual or someone who gets a, you know, prophecy or does somebody we think they're spiritual, but according to this, they could be dead. Right? So they looked and acted like Christians. Were they born again? [00:44:42] Oh, well, according to Jesus, no. [00:44:46] Well, according to Jesus is a good place to be according to you, right? OK. Yeah, OK. So no, how do we know that they're not born again? [00:45:03] I don't know. OK, so back to this so parable, the sower in the seeds, OK, the seed is shown by the sea, produces fruit in good soil, and when it produces fruit, what's inside the seed? I mean, what's inside the fruit? Yeah, the seed is inside the fruit, right? OK, and so the seed is born again. [00:45:31] Does that make sense, yes. [00:45:33] Yeah, OK, and so born again, born again within the fruit, we know these people are not born again because there's no fruit for all who produce fruit are Jesus's disciples and a disciple knows their teacher. In fact, the definition of disciple is one who studies and follows their teacher to become exactly like that teacher. OK, that's kind of technically the definition of disciple. We know these aren't disciples because Jesus says, I never knew you. [00:46:09] There's no fruit. So if I were to ask, were these converts or disciples, what would you tell me? Converts. Hmm, yeah, converts, they receive the Seiver joy, they receive the good news, they look like Christians. But there's no fruit, there's no fruit because they're not disciples, so did they obtain eternal life? [00:46:36] No, no. [00:46:38] So do you see this pattern again, it's possible to call yourself a Christian, even to those Christian type works? But not truly be born again. Do you think maybe at some point these people that Jesus is talking about had actually, quote unquote, accepted Christ? [00:46:57] Yes, I do. So then what happened? [00:47:05] Too focused on works and doing instead of getting to know the Lord and being transformed by Jesus in them. [00:47:15] Yeah, to focus on works, to focus on themselves and Jesus. So if we go back to our last session on this topic, again, the parable is sweet and sour. We use a word called stewarding the soil that stewarded the seed well is the good soul that produced fruit. But when it's stewarded it poorly, it didn't produce fruit at all. And I think we can use that word here. These people accepted the seed, but they did not steward the seed because they weren't pursuing Christ, they were pursuing Christlike activities. Do you see the difference? Yeah, yeah. So now let's look at two more parables. That tie in, we're going to see a similar pattern and what I'm looking for here. I want to make sure you and everyone else sees this. There's this pattern and it's not a single time pattern over and over and over and over again. We start to see what the Lord is telling us by looking at the patterns of the parables. And as we move into our next session later, we're going to pull away from the parables and actually go into the epistles and what Jesus says, what Paul and Peter says. [00:48:33] And we start to start to see these things and now we start to piece together. These things have been really tough to understand. Now we start to see the pattern. It all starts to make sense. And now we see what the Lord is trying to tell us. So I'm going to read these because they're long and I'm just going to truncate some things along the way. But these are going to be the parables of the miners and the talents. OK, we'll start with the miners. You can open up your Bible to it if you want. I'll read it, though. It's 19 and we're going to basically read 19 verses, 12 through 26. So, Cirlot, the parable of the miners and the talents are two completely different parables, but they are very similar. And I think we're going to see some similar truths here. So starting with Luke 1912, he said. Therefore, Jesus says a nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return, calling ten of his servants. [00:49:29] He gave them ten miners and said to them, Engage in business until I come to the first came before him saying, Lord, your miner has made ten miners more. And he said to him, Well done, good servant, because you've been faithful and have very little, you shall have authority over ten cities. And the second came saying, Lord, your miner has made five miners. And he said to him, and you were to be over five cities. Then another servant came and said, Sir, here is your miner. I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not. So his master replied, I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant. You knew, did you, that I'm a hard man taking out what I did not put in and reaping what I did not. So why then? Then you put my money on deposit. So then when I came back I could have collected it with interest. Then he said to those standing by, take his mind away from him and give it to the one who has ten miners. Sir, they said he already has ten. He replied, I tell you that to everyone who has more will be given. But as for one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away. All right. So let's ask a few questions about this parable to understand who is the nobleman being represented in this parable, do you think? [00:50:56] Jesus, yeah, so Jesus is a nobleman who are the servants? US, us as people and what was his command? [00:51:09] His command was to be about his business, to engage in his business until he tried to engage in business until I come. [00:51:18] And so does engage in business mean. [00:51:24] It means. [00:51:26] Do the business that I have given you to do. [00:51:30] Very good, I'm going to clarify just a little bit, if you don't mind, engage in business means to take what a noble men gave them and produce more of it for the nobleman's benefit. [00:51:45] Oh, does that make sense? [00:51:48] Mm hmm. Do you see do you see that as represented here? Yeah, yeah. OK, so how does this pattern resemble the parable of the sower? [00:52:02] Well, taking the seed, yeah. And producing more, so, yeah, producing more. [00:52:10] Yeah, you take the seed, you accept it, you steward it well, you produce fruit that has more seed in and we're producing more of what's been given to us. OK, so for the servant who did nothing, why was he called a wicked servant? [00:52:27] Because he didn't do what Jesus asked him to do, he didn't engage in business, he didn't engage in business. [00:52:34] Why do you think he did not? What do you think is the fundamental difference between the wicked servant versus the good and faithful servants? What is the primary difference? [00:52:47] Oh, well, the first word that comes to my head is laziness. [00:52:51] Ok. [00:52:53] I don't think that's it, so go back to what we just finished talking about with some of the other just a few moments ago, what did we do? What did we discuss in terms of the difference between a disciple and a convert? [00:53:08] What what causes the difference works versus someone who's pursuing their relationship, pursuing the growth. [00:53:18] Ok, yeah. So if we were to take that, here's what I would say. The question is. [00:53:25] For the servant who did nothing, why was he called Wicked? He was in my what I understand he did not value the noble man enough to work on his behalf. In other words, he he merely took but he did not serve in pursuit. Does that make sense? Yeah. [00:53:44] Yeah. It's only when you serve and pursue. You become a disciple if you're simply looking at it for what you get out of it and you treat it with contempt. You don't serve them per se. Does that make sense? [00:54:00] Mm hmm. OK, so then if we used. So then what happened to the one who did not serve and pursue but merely took and hid? [00:54:14] What happened to him? His his portion was taken from him and given to the one who had more, so what he had been given had been is now taken away. [00:54:25] Mm hmm. Is this this talking about spiritual things? Right. Yeah, wow, that's pretty scary, isn't it? It is, yeah. [00:54:34] Ok, so since this is a parable about Jesus and his servants, here's a question. Did all of the servants accept what Jesus gave them? Yes, ma'am, did all who accepted it enter into Jesus's blessings? [00:54:52] All that, the one. [00:54:55] Oh, OK, so if we lose so so if we go back to all who accept Jesus, go to heaven. [00:55:05] Base, if we're using this parable and the pattern we're seeing. I say there's a difference between merely accepting what Jesus gives and stewarding it, well, does that make sense? If we use the terms, convert and disciple on this, which of the servants would be converts and which of them would be disciples? [00:55:30] The first two would be Disciple's and the last one who didn't do anything with his portion would be the convert. [00:55:37] Yeah. All right. So let's we wrap this up. Let's read about the challenge. So this comes from Matthew, 25 versus 14 through 30. We're going to see the same pattern. OK, so Matthew, 25 versus 14 for he'll be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property to one. He gave five talents to another, two to another, one to each, according to his ability. Then he went away. He received the five talents win at once and traded with them, and he made five Tallas more. So also the one had the two talents made to tell us more. But the one he received, the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. Now, after a long time the master, those servants came and settled accounts with them. He you five talents came forward bringing five talents, more same master you delivered to me five talents. Here I made five talents more. His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. And he also, who had had the two talents, came forward saying Master, you deliver to me to talent. Here I have made two talents more. His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. [00:56:57] You've been faithful over a little. I will set you overmuch enter into the joy of your master shortie. He also, who had received the one talent, came forward saying, Master, I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you did not. So in gathering where you get scared or no seed. So I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is here. But his master answered him. You wicked and slothful servant. You knew that I where I have not sown and gather where I gather no seed over our shadow, no seed. Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers and that my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him. Who has the ten talents for to everyone who has will more be given and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away and cast the worthless serpent servant into the outer darkness. And that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth now again. So when the master gave the talents his servants, did he expect them to work on his behalf to bring increase? [00:58:14] Did each of those servants accept the talents? [00:58:17] They did. [00:58:19] And so what's the difference between the servants? [00:58:24] We have disciples and we have a convert again, yeah, yeah, one love the master and it says Win at once and traded with them. They eagerly worked on his behalf and eagerly came to the master, said, Look, Master, I got you even more. Sure. Like when you have a young child that comes and said, Daddy, Daddy or Mommy, Mommy, look what I did for you all eager because they want to please you, right? Mm hmm. The last one simply dug a hole and hid it in the ground, doing nothing to benefit his master, not master, always demanding of me. He gives me this money, says do business. I I don't care, I'm going to throw it in the ground and give it back to them, right. [00:59:12] No concern for his master. So did the servant who did nothing. Look like the other servants of the master, do you think? [00:59:23] Yes, yeah, he probably dressed the same. So these are servants of the master, so they probably had uniforms, they had probably protocols, they probably had some prestige among the community because they work for the master. And looking at them, you couldn't tell any difference. But what happened to that servant, the wicked one? What happened to him? [00:59:45] He was cast out. What was what was given to him was taken away. Then he was cast out and then he was cast out. [00:59:52] So do you see any parallels with all these other parables? Mm hmm. [00:59:57] A lot of a lot of patterns here. Right. And they all point to the same thing. So this is the key. When you start to see everything point to the same focal point, you start to pick up. This is important, right? This is something God is saying over and over and over again. We're going to see this a little bit more on the next sessions. But let me just kind of wrap up some things I think are the takeaways. All right. So the parable of the summer shows that the key. Is we have to steward what we've been given. We see that in the parable of the talents, in the parable of the miners. We see this throughout scripture. We've got a steward it if you value something a lot, you'll steward it. Well, if you value it little, you won't steward it at all. Does that make sense? Yes. OK, that's what we see in all of these parables. Are you stewarding what you've been given and both of these parables? The servants who value the master. Took what the master entrusted them. And worked on the master's behalf, you know, the question I saw like to ask is, are we taking what the Lord has given us and working on his behalf or are we taking what the Lord has given us and simply using it on our behalf? That's I think that's kind of the critical point here that that's being communicated. Those who did all the Christian like things, they were working on their behalf. [01:01:27] Did we not heal the sick, cast out demons, do all these mighty works? So. So if we were to then go back to kind of summing this up, a convert is that person who accepts what is given without valuing the giver. A disciple accepts what is given and values the giver so much that they steward well, that which was given them. So we it comes back to where is your focus? We see this in the parable of the merchant of fine pearls or the parable that the treasure in the field where they sell everything they've got because they want it so much, they pursue it. If we use kind of Christian these terms, you know, they've all been given like if we just look at the talents in the minus, they'd all been given the million minus or talents. They've been given the gift of salvation. They all accepted the gift. But only those who stewarded it obtained the gift. And the gift was removed from those who did not. So same thing we saw in the poor soils. So kind of the big take away. A couple of other things we see on this actually. Now the big take away. Yeah, but there's one more pattern that we see in these two parables. So the minus and the talents. One more thing. Do you know what that one thing that they have in common is? [01:02:58] Hmm. [01:03:02] There were three every time. [01:03:05] Oh, that's a good pattern, yes, there's three three is three is a whole number, right? OK, so there's there's something there. OK, it's a whole truth with holy. [01:03:17] No, the thing I saw it and saw is they all occur over a period of time. OK, in other words, I think this is what Jesus is saying, telling us. You can't assess the heart immediately. It takes time to see the fruit of the heart and over time. OK, what one does? Well, evidence what their heart is truly like. And it's only the ones with a true heart for Jesus who will enter his kingdom. And and so I think that's kind of the message here. A lot of it is is the one with a true heart. The other thing that's been convicting of me as I go through this is the focus of discipleship. And if you think about discipleship, so a lot of times a lot of us, you know, we want Converse, go share the gospel list, bring in, you know, bring people to salvation, which is good. Definitely not criticizing that, but it's a focus is sharing the gospel, bringing people to salvation. [01:04:24] Then what's happening afterwards, the way I see it, this is a low image the Lord gave me, not a vision, but just kind of well thought in my mind is it's like raising kids, OK, you birth a child and then for the next 18 or 20 years, you're nurturing and training that child and disciplining them and helping them grow to maturity. And all your focus is on those few children. And then they go do the same thing. OK, but it's not you just go berserk, you know, 30, 40, 50 kids and just, you know, have at it and hope you do well. OK, so I think there's a time to, you know, really focus on making sure that we're raising disciples and not just converts. [01:05:11] Yeah, that's really good. [01:05:13] All right. So we got to wrap up. But any thoughts? Anything hit you? [01:05:19] Oh, gosh. Just so Eye-Opening, you know, I mean, I know these passages. I recognize them all, but it's just so good to kind of dig a little deeper and really get to the heart. I love how the heart of the father was portrayed with the same tree that was producing fruit. I love how I think that would be my encouragement to anyone who's listening, who feels like I've messed up. I can't. I was too late for me, that kind of thing. I've just created way too many things, that kind of thing that the heart of the father is always to restore. And I just love how that was evident in that scripture. You know, that he is the God of second, third, fourth, fifth chances, you know, because his heart just wants you to be connected with him. [01:06:06] So you lost that and he gives time. I've got to read one saying this. This is a bonus, Jeremiah. Eighteen. Okay, because it talks on that. Jeremiah Yeah. For those people who may be saying it's too late for me, I've done so much bad, I've known the good, but I've kept going after the bad. Let me share what Jeremiah God says. And Jeremiah, he says, this is Jeremiah starting with FF7 If at any time I declare to a nation that I will pluck it up and break it down and destroy it because it's been evil and wicked, and if that nation then turns from its evil, I will relent to the disaster I promised it. What God is saying is judgment is coming. But if you simply relent or repent, this is what John the Baptist said at the, you know, bear fruit. In keeping with repentance, the Lord says, I am quick to relent if you will simply repent. And he keeps relending. [01:07:11] Yeah, he does. And that relenting is changing his mind. He changes his mind. I think there's actually a translation of scripture that reads it that way, that he will change his mind. And I love that I do, too. [01:07:24] All right. Well, let's wrap it up. [01:07:26] Well, baby, thank you so much for today. This was so great. And I'm just encouraged by, again, just all the time and effort that you put into studying and preparing for all the listeners. And I hope this has been an encouragement to everyone. And I look forward to our next call and I hope that everyone can join us again. [01:07:47] Amen. We all have a great day. [01:07:49] Thank you so much. Bye. P068 [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Radio Sweden brings you a round-up of the main news in Sweden on July 29th 2020. Presenter: Lee Roden Producer: Kris Boswell

Tonight, an Australian update with JACK ALEXANDER on freedoms REMOVED there due to Wuhan-19. PLUS Breaking News on Jurist Ginsburg, Trump, AOC, BLM and more!Jump into the chat room at SHRMEDIA.COM!

Graduate student Kate Lloyd — Mary Elizabeth Winstead — is recruited by scientists to study an alien lifeform found frozen in the ice near a Norwegian research base in Antarctica. Removed from the ice, the alien begins killing off the base’s inhabitants. Kate, joined by an American helicopter pilot  — played by Joel Edgerton — attempt to find and kill the polymorphic creature.

Simon Shares Tencent hit a new all-time high on Tuesday and again on Wednesday pushing Naspers (JSE code: NPN) and Prosus (JSE code: PRX) higher and helping the JSE overall. Gold seems to be breaking up out of the consolidation zone it has spent the last few months trading in. Good German PMI data, still under 50, but only just again suggests that April was likely the worst month. Albeit the route back to normal is going to be long and rocky. Mboweni budget; No changes to taxes, but a rough budget. Some key points; The South African economy is now expected to contract by 7.2% in 2020. This is the largest contraction in nearly 90 years. Global GDP -5.2%, broadest collapse in per capita income since 1870 "A post‐lockdown future will require that we build high‐quality physical bridges, roads, railways, ports and other infrastructures.". Some changes in the R200bn Covid loan scheme. Removed the R300m turnover limit. South Africa will "shortly" fall into a sovereign debt crisis if it does not act urgently. The ASHGEQ* ETF is changing and needs your vote. Kristia writes about it here, but, in short, we'll have a cheaper TER after the process.  The delayed April CPI came in at 3%, lowest for 15 years and right at the bottom of the SARB inflation target range. How likely are you to win the lotto? Video: Investing globally, locally. Upcoming events; 01 July ~ The world after Covid-19 08 July ~ Know your derivatives: Long, short or hedge? 15 July ~ Trading 101: Managing risk Subscribe to our feed here Subscribe or review us in iTunes Send money The JSE is currently awash with capital raising. Some just because it makes sense to make their balance sheet stronger, others because they're in real trouble if they don't. The problem is that issuing new shares gives a permanent right to profits, loans are better, but right now bankers are not lending with abandon. Some have been via a quick bookbuild Stor-Age* (JSE code: SSS) ~ R250million Transaction Capital JSE code: TCP) ~ R559.7million Pepkor (JSE code: PPH) ~ R1.9billion Many others will be via a traditional rights issue; Curro (JSE code: COH) R1.5billon (non-renounceable) City Lodge (JSE code: CLH) ~ R1.2billion Sun International (JSE code: SUI) ~ R1.2billion Sasol (JSE code: SOL) ~ not confirmed Mr Price (JSE code: MRP) ~ R3.6billion (idea floated but not confirmed) The Foschini Group (JSE code: TFG) ~ up to R3.95billion This raises a real issue for many shareholders, do you send cash and follow your rights? If you don't you'll be severely diluted, especially with the bigger issues. So you need to decide which you'll follow, but also keep in mind that some of these raising capital may well be back again in the months ahead for more money, and then maybe even again. If you're worried about repeated capital raises, then exiting early may be better than not. I would also add that we will most certainly see a lot more capital raises coming, heck the property stocks haven't even started aside from Stor-Age. So the requests for money will keep on coming and at the end of the day, it's going to be a lot of money requested. * I hold ungeared positions. JSE – The JSE is a registered trademark of the JSE Limited. JSE Direct is an independent broadcast and is not endorsed or affiliated with, nor has it been authorised, or otherwise approved by JSE Limited. The views expressed in this programme are solely those of the presenter, and do not necessarily reflect the views of JSE Limited.  

Radio Sweden brings you a round-up of the main news in Sweden on June 17th 2020. Presenter: Ulla Engberg Producer: Kris Boswell

The attacks on conservative websites and platforms continues from big tech companies firmly rooted in leftist interests, as Google threatens to demonetize 'The Federalist' and 'ZeroHedge' based on objectionable content in articles covering Black Lives Matter protests and anti-police riots. A school in Duluth, MInnesota decides to remove Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' from its curriculum and replace it with works that comvey similar themes with less offensive racial language. What is the cost to free speech, with a cloud of 'woke' censorship looming over content deemed politically incorrect by modern standards?

More and more people are looking back at historical figures and proposing the things named after them be renamed due to their questionable actions. This has brought the question forward, how far back should we look? - Whether you know it or not, you're being followed and tracked all through a wonderful piece of technology in your pocket. While you likely know that it keeps track of your shopping habits, among other things, you might not know that it does much, much more. Guest: Marvin Ryder, Professor of Marketing, DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University - The Annual Stoney Creek Santa Parade has been cancelled! Is it too early to make this call? This question, removing old shows and more all get discussed when Jamie West joins Scott on today's show. Guest: Jamie West, Host of What Were You Thinking on Global News Radio 900 CHML and Chief Executive Officer & Creative Director of WestPro Media

1. INTRO We were honored to be asked to participate in the One Room Challenge. Twenty design influencers were selected from around the U.S. to take the challenge of transforming a room and documenting the process and sharing their sources and professional advice over eight weekly posts. The One Room Challenge™ is currently in its seventeenth season, a highly anticipated bi-annual event held every April and October. This Episode is Sponsored by Helser Brothers Hardware. Helser brothers are a fully custom manufacturer of drapery hardware. It is run by Brothers Jay and Mark. Jay was an expert independent drapery installer and designs new products that are install friendly and engineered for strength and Mark, a talented metal worker with a mind of an engineer, has been regarded as a mechanical genius by all who know him. Helser has an outstanding reputation and has been in business for 24 years. Their customer service agents known as “The Rod Squad” include retired interior designers and drapery workroom owners with decades of experience. They can customize anything and any order over $100 is shipped free. you can see their products at helserbrothers.com or find them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Listen to our interview with Jay Helser on Episode 71. It’s interesting that in deciding to do our podcast studio as the space for the One Room Challenge, COVID was not a thing. Now that so many of us are working from home and doing zoom calls, it seems appropriate that this update is very relevant to those working at home and trying to make their space functional and visually attractive at the same time. Episode 1 hit the airwaves in January of 2018. We have been recording in the same spot and we are now recording Episode 82. One thing that we are not changing is our production company called “Produce Your Podcast”. They offer a full service, turn-key remote recording service with a live engineer in broadcast quality and then do all of the editing, sound mixing and post production of the podcast. One thing we determined from the very beginning was that we wanted high quality sound. Nothing worse than listening to a podcast that is hard to hear or fuzzy. Another goal of ours is to “video” our podcasts. We have found that there are some people who don’t either like to listen to podcasts or don’t know how. We purchased a ring light and that’s about as far as we’ve gotten for right now. 2. OUR PODCAST STUDIO A. Located in the Kandrac & Kole Office i. A 2-story house located in a culdesac of 8 historic homes that are all businesses – We work on the top floor and use the bottom floor for storage and a conference room where we do client presentations. B. Prior to the Renovation: i. A space that we kept overflow fabric books and various finish samples such as carpet, tile, countertop material, wallpaper samples, etc. This is where we WERE recording our podcast because if offered good sound absorption and we figured no one would “see us”. 3. WHAT WE DID A. Removed everything from the space to start fresh i. We had a lot of fabric samples on the wall where we used the Rubbermaid Fast Track Wall Organizing System. Read our blog – Week 2 that shows this versatile system that works great for fabrics or any other type of wall organization. B. We painted over the original green color in Sherwin Williams Spare White – SW6204 – light and bright! Thank you to Sherwin Williams for donating the paint and to Verge and Associates in Atlanta for painting the room for us. Listen to Podcast Episode #55 where we talk about our favorite white paint colors. Also, check out Sherwin Williams “Designer Color Collection”. An exclusive collection of 200 new colors, including brighter and purer whites. C. We selected the entire paint palette for the space – We did a rebrand at the end of 2019 with the help of Franki Durbin (frankidurbin.com) and Emory Kole Designs. The color palette for the brand, and our podcast studio is navy, blush pink and chartreuse. D. We determined the needs and function for the space i. Good sound absorption ii. Comfortable chairs for ourselves and guests of the podcast iii. A way to hide the design resources we still needed in the space (fabrics and finish samples) iv. A way to organize and hide our equipment wires v. Larger microphones for more comfortable speaking posture – we use the Audio Technica AT2005USB vi. Artwork that would energize and inspire us vii. Statement lighting   4. OUR SPONSORS A. LIGHTING - Blueprint Lighting out of New York – Known for custom handmade lighting that is mid-century modern inspired and handcrafted with quick lead times. They work with designers, decorators and architects. We chose the 3 Arm Monarch Chandelier – you can customize the enamel color. We went with a blush/pink to fit our brand color. Check out their website – blueprintlighting.com to see their ceiling fixtures, pendants, flush mounts, floor lamps and wall lamps and sconces. One of our favorites is the Tuxedo Wall Sconce! B. FURNITURE i. Woodbridge Furniture - Our Podcast Table – the Helene Breakfast Table – we needed a fairly small round wood table to fit in the space and this was perfect at 44” round. It has a light wood finish that we knew we would have to make grommet holes into for wire management. Very distracting with lots of wires around! A big thank you to Woodbridge, high end brand of case goods, dining, occasional and outdoor furniture.They make beautiful traditional and transitional pieces and many can be customized in any color with a paint chip or specific manufacturer’s color. We LOVE their barstools and tables. Check them out at woodbridgefurniture.com. and see their new collection from Lauren Liess – I especially love the Revival Chair, Counter and Bar Stool. ii. Fairfield Chair –4 Swivel Chairs to go around the table. They are called the Tipsy Swivel Chair. They are a petite tight back chair with a brass base at the bottom. You can add nail trim to the chair and it’s also available with a dual USB port. We elected to do a COM, which means “Customer’s Own Material”. We used a fabric in the Trend Line of Fabricut, another wonderful sponsor. We chose Fabric #04250 in a solid chartreuse color which came from the Vern Yip book called Palisades Velvet. Fairfield is a major U.S. manufacturer established in 1921 of fine upholstered seating for home, office and hospitality as well as headboards and case goods. They partnered with interior designer, television personality and lifestyle expert Libby Langdon to design several upholstery pieces and case goods as well as bedroom furniture, which is a first for Fairfield. These gorgeous pieces debuted at the October High Point Market. They have a huge variety of products, fabrics and finishes and we appreciate their generous donation. Check them out at fairfield.com iii. Currey and Company – We chose the Thea Credenza in a light wood finish with 2 cabinet doors (with 4 shelves) and 2 drawers. This is where we will house our podcast equipment and keep it nice and tidy behind the cabinet doors. If you are regular listeners of our podcast, you know that Currey Is our go to lighting source that also sells beautiful furniture and accessories. Their high quality products and customer service have made them one of our all time favorite vendors. In our next Episode #83 we will dive into the fabrics we selected, the amazing artists that grace our art gallery wall, our podcast tile logo on the wall, and the professional photography of the space.

Episode 52: Patch Notes 20.6.1 Changes to survival mode "Martial Law" Peaceful citizens now considered enemies Removed the NPC label “press” that protected media, and Reverted a change from update 1.1 protecting the freedom of speech Added new obstacles for citizens: helicopters, predator drones, police cars, chemical weapons Added new surveillance options on server side, players may be investigated and taken from their homes Fast travel options including rental bikes, subways, and rideshare limited or disabled Lobby Chatter Not snitching on cheesecake // Maneater & Jaws Unleashed // Wolfenstein 2 // The Sims // Destiny updates Keep up with the show and send us your questions on Twitter! Support the show by letting us know how we're doing with a review! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/hpp/message

Balancing Buddha mind and Christ's bleeding heart can help us navigate life as the collective spirals deeper into chaos and suffering, and help those spiritual awakening coping with grief and anger. I’ve been reflecting on my own reactions and feelings toward current events over the last few days. The spiritual path asks us to balance the bleeding heart of Christ with the clear detached Buddha mind that sees the perfection of the present moment. Each of us has a bias in one direction or the other and is seeking balance.The clear detached Buddha mind has always come very easily to me. Perhaps too easily. I encounter the world from a state of witnessing awareness. Reactivity is almost a foreign concept. For most of my life I have felt like Dr. Manhattan. Removed from the human condition. Removed from messiness, struggle and pain of others.Before my spiritual awakening at 25 I had never really experienced love. It was a foreign concept to me. I thought it was something people made up as an excuse for their weakness. I saw the world in clear logical propositions. Emotions had no place in my worldview. This compounded my feelings of alienation and loneliness.Then at 25 my heart opened all at once, and I went from having never experienced love to feeling overwhelming love for all beings. This changed my perspective overnight. Since then my path has been one of balancing power and love, and the clear Buddha mind with Christ’s bleeding heart.I have not mastered that balance. I still encounter the world primarily from a place of detached witnessing awareness. I must consciously choose to view the world through the perspective of the heart, and sometimes I forget. So I’m choosing to mourn today.I’m choosing to see the world through Christ’s bleeding heart. I’m choosing to be righteously angry. I’m choosing to feel grief. I’m choosing to look beyond my privileged and comfortable perspective and identify with the struggle, anger and heartache of others.I am allowing myself to inhabit the perspective of the oppressed, the exploited, and abused. What does it feel like to be black in America? What does it feel like to live in fear? What does it feel like? I cannot know entirely as long as I inhabit this skin. But I can try to imagine. I can try to empathize.I am also allowing myself to inhabit the perspective of the oppressors, who are also exploited and abused. What does it feel like to be a police officer in America? What does it feel like to live in fear? What does it feel like? I cannot know entirely as long as I inhabit this skin. But I can try to imagine. I can try to empathize.I’m choosing to feel heartache today. I’m choosing to feel grief. I’m choosing to allow them inside of me and inside of my perspective. Recognizing that having a choice is itself a privilege. Some of you have been heartbroken for a long time. Some of you have been drowning in grief and anger for as long as you can remember or know someone who has been. When you inhabit this perspective fully and are identified entirely with grief and anger, it is hard to see anything else. How is any of this just? How is this perfect? Why is this allowed? Metaphysical explanations are of little comfort to those consumed by anger and grief.So I will offer none. But I invite you to take a break from your perspective at least once a day. When your heart is overwhelmed and you are consumed with anger, grief or fear I invite you to close your eyes and move your awareness within. Focus on your aching heart and breathe into it. Let the breath expand your heart to make a little more room for your grief. Then move your awareness to your third eye and crown and rest there for a while. Allow yourself to experience silence. Maybe repeat a mantra or holy word whenever a thought arises. But sit for a while, for 20 to 30 minutes, and allow yourself to inhabit no perspective at all. If you are too comfortable, too aloof, too indifferent to the suffering of others, bring your awareness to your heart and allow it to ache and grieve.Allow yourself to inhabit the perspective of those who suffer and are in pain. Allow yourself to inhabit the perspective of the oppressor and the oppressed. We cannot spiritually bypass our humanity nor our heart. We must not be overwhelmed by anger, fear and grief. But we also must not become indifferent and unemphatic toward those who suffer. We must find balance between the clear detached Buddha mind and the bleeding heart of Christ.Whether your bias is toward detachment or the bleeding heart, dedicate some of your time and energy toward serving those around you. Those who are in our physical proximity are those we are meant to serve. That is the place where we can have the biggest positive impact. Don’t let yourself become indifferent to the suffering around you or so overwhelmed by the suffering of the collective that you are unable to alleviate the suffering of those around you that you can do something about.

Hey there you are! I've been waiting for you. What took you so long. Hurry and sit down. I have some things that I want to tell you. Did you get lost on your way here? It's okay. I get lost myself. I'm sorry. I haven't introduced myself yet. My name. doesn't matter. Isn't it a beautiful night? The night sky is pitch black and the stars are looking down at us. It's times like this that I really appreciate nature and all of its mysteries. the old gods of this land are watching us. You can feel them gazing upon you sometimes. We're far enough away from the city that there's no light pollution. You could scream and nobody would hear it. Oh don't worry. We're safe. We are beyond the haunted woods. Oh, you haven't heard? I'll tell you a little about that. A mile or so away from here. Down the road. There's an abandoned town. Perhaps you've heard of it. Red Falls. Actually, I would be surprised if you heard of it. It isn't exactly tourist friendly. The town was wiped off the maps. Removed from text books. Marked as a no fly zone. It's truly a town of mystery. I heard that the residents just up and vanished one day. Not all of them however. A few woke up that that day to discover that their neighbors and many others were just gone. Ben. was one of the remaining. So was I... This isn't the first time something like this has happened. The last time was just over 100 years ago. The time before that, another 100 or so years. That land. It's cursed. It used to be home of Native Americans. Local Native American legends say that their patron deity lived in the woods. It was a shape shifter of sorts an was slumbering. Until the colonists came. My grandma used to say. "And the river ran red from twilight to twilight." Whatever that meant. Most if not all of the lands in Massachusetts have tales. Perhaps settling here was the curse. The town history is drenched in blood. Nobody should have ever settled there. The government keeps a tight lid on this place. The nearby town. Green River. Is really a cover for government surveillance. This whole land is cut off from the rest of the state. There's really only one way in and out. What the government interests are. Are closer to supernatural. You don't want to get caught trespassing. Also, you don't want to really get to close to the town or surrounding woods. Don't worry. Like I said. We're out beyond the deep woods of red falls. We're safe so long as we don't. venture any closer. It's time to go. I can feel something in the air...You know the way out of here. Oh my name? You can call me Claire. //////// Sound fx courtesy of www.freesound.org --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/obscureterminus/support

The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. It is the work of the Spirit. It is so easy to slip into legalistic thinking and to start to live by old nature standards. We are crucified with Christ. (Galatians 1:6; 3:1-3) Speaker(s): Pastor Thomas Schaller Sermon 11892 6:30 PM on 5/24/2020 P. Schaller – […]

We have some interesting topics to dive into today and invited Veronika Miller-Eagleson as a person “in the know”. She is the CEO of Modenus Media, a comprehensive online resource for design professionals and design enthusiasts, whether its client to designer, manufacturer to consumer, or blogger to fellow blogger, Modenus works daily to grow and enrich our design community. She is also Founder of Designhounds, a network of over 500 design influencers. Veronika is a great friend and highly respected in our industry. Before we get started we wanted to let you know that this episode of Inside Design with Kandrac & Kole is sponsored by Helser Brothers Hardware. Several key roles play a factor in the continued success of Helser Brothers. They offer competitive and simple pricing, free shipping on orders over $100, original custom designs and a six point check and balance system to ensure clients get what they order each and every time. I love that they are trained to patiently help designers work out solutions for difficult window configurations. Helser Brothers makes drapery hardware for designers all over the country. A review from a designer in Denver says “For over 18 years, I have worked with Helser and I am thankful to have such a great company to work! They have evolved over the years and continue to add new styles, colors, and designs to keep up with the current trends. They offer a beautiful product and have the ability to design whatever you can create. They are my go to for providing "support" for all my creative creations! They are the best”. Visit Helser Brothers at helserbrothers.com An interesting Forbes article was written by Jamie Gold on March 31, 2020 on how the pandemic will change our American home. The perspective of 8 thought leaders was given and Veronika was included. 2. HEALTHIER SPACES AND MATERIALS A. Germ resistant countertops and flooring B. Self-sanitizing door handles C. Smart filtration systems D. Smart toilets (pre-wiring near the toilet). 3. PANDEMIC PROTECTION A. A greater need to store non-perishables and frozen foods B. Bulk Storage/Smarter Pantries C. Wine and Beer Storage  4. MORE NATURE CONNECTIONS A. Biophilia will move from trendy to necessary. (DEFINITION OF BIOPHILIA: the rich, natural pleasure that comes from being surrounded by living organisms”). i. Indoor plant schemes including lighting ii. Green walls iii. Indoor vegetable gardens iv. Integrated screens/monitors for nature sounds/visuals throughout the house v. Improved outdoor spaces 5. INCREASED SOCIAL CONNECTION A. Easy to use tech (especially for seniors) B. Communication options i. Zoom ii. Facebook Portal iii. In Home Virtual Exercise products 1. Peloton 2. Mirror Gym 3. Echelon 6. IMPROVED HOME OFFICE SPACES AND TECHNOLOGY A. No dining table or den B. Designed for teleconferencing C. Removed from the rest of the home to minimize household distractions 6. CHANGES IN HOW WE SOURCE PRODUCT A. Markets B. Trade Shows 7. WHAT CAN WE DO NOW? A. Business as usual where it’s safe? B. Reaching out to existing clients with upgrades that make sense? 8. NEWS FROM GERMANY: A. Can you share with us some interesting news you’ve been following?

When it comes to raising money from the investor community, finance executives often find themselves standing in line for job assignments that promise to make them active participants in the process. Such roles allow aspiring finance leaders to check off one of the more essential items on the demanding list of prerequisites required of high-growth­–firm CFOs. For those executives who have climbed the accounting career ladder or toiled for years in an FP&A cubicle, the “money box” is often one of the last ones to get checked off. Such was the case for finance leader Chris Mausler, who after a decade of devouring high-calorie FP&A assignments at IBM Corp. exited the computer giant to join a string of Silicon Valley firms.  Removed from IBM’s sprawling organization, Mausler found himself in closer proximity to the action. Nevertheless, it would take years for the seasoned FP&A executive to land a role that allowed him to check that box and ultimately raise money for a variety of different firms. “Even though my assignments had touched on treasury-type operations in an indirect way, I myself had actually never directly raised money before,” says Mausler, who last fall helped to raise $31 million in funding for San Jose, California’s PeerNova, the data governance company that he joined as CFO back in 2014. “I’m certain that there are companies out there that make their first pitch and get funded with a term sheet, but this is not the norm,” says Mausler, who notes that most companies can expect to receive only a handful of term sheets from roughly 100 pitches.    “It's a little bit of an art, a little bit of a science for anyone going through it,” he adds. –Jack Sweeney      Mausler: As I’m sitting here at home under a shelter-in-place order, my first priority clearly is to manage our company over the next couple of months to make sure that we don’t lose any efficiency and effectiveness in meeting our short-term goals, and this is certainly a new challenge through these times. Other than that, the challenges that I have remain much the same at PeerNova. We raised a good financing last fall. We announced a $31 million round that’s going to take us for a while. We have goals and milestones for getting us through a large kind of growth round in the future. We’ve got to make sure that we get there, so it’s making sure that we’re hitting the near-term milestones and tweaking our strategy to hit the next ones. Here at PeerNova we had good data, so it was just a question of organizing it into one place so that we could manage the business. It’s been very much of a journey for us as we’ve raised rounds to build out this platform and worked with early customers on projects to grow our business. The most critical thing at PeerNova has been to raise the right amount of capital to help to get us to the next set of milestones and to make the right set of investments to get to these milestones so that we can continue to grow the company and keep this kind of growth pattern going. At this point, having worked with a number of large institutions, we’re in that growth phase of a company where we’re ramping up revenue. For me, it’s always been about trying to balance how quickly you grow the company to achieve the next milestone while keeping in mind how much cash you will need to manage the company until the next round. You’ve got to keep an eye on both. You want to build a company that’s growing extremely fast, but you have to reconcile this to some extent with how much capital you have. You also have to organize the milestones that you need to hit to get to the next round as well.

This is an audiobook of The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, narrated by Mark Nelson. The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs is the fifth novel in the Barsoom series. It was published as a 6-part serial between February and March of 1922, before being released as a complete novel in the November of the same year. As of 2020, this is the last Barsoom novel in the public domain. Assuming no changes in copyright law, we can expect to see A Fighting Man of Mars, published in 1928, enter the public domain on January 1st, 2024. The heroine of the story is Tara, the daughter of John Carter and Dejah Thoris. Gahan, prince of Gathol, wants her hand in marriage. Tara is against this; she doesn’t see him as a suitable partner, thinking him a dandy. One day, when shes out on her flier, a storm strands her in an unknown area. While Gahan seeks to rescue her, she comes across Kaldanes and Rykors, grotesque creatures that don’t have anything nice planned for Tara. Title: The Chessmen of Mars Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs Free/Pay-What-You-Want: Librecron Edition Apple Books Link Original Recording: LibriVox If you want all these audiobooks delivered automatically, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Consider leaving a review if you enjoy these books! I cleaned up the recording as follows: Removed the introduction of the narrator. Removed the LibriVox introduction. Shorted or removed long silences. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/librecron/support

This is an audiobook of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, narrated by Peter John Keeble. There’s few lines in literature as famous as “Pleasure sir, may I have some more?” But if there’s one thing Charles Dickens knows, it’s how to write a novel that, almost two centuries after its publication, is still going strong and being adapted. Oliver Twist (full title: Oliver Twist; or, the Parish Boy’s Progress) tells the story of a young orphan, Oliver, who has some not-so-good luck. He’s taken in by several cruel “benefactors”, shuffled around and getting lost, until he finally lands at a place he might call him. At heart, though, he’s a kind boy who doesn’t wish to do ill. It’s all well and good, then, that he gets a happy ending. Still, he did reach happily ever after easily. Dickens explores what the life of a young outcast was like in the early-1800s, illustrating the practice of child labor at a time where workers rights weren’t exactly the talk of the town. Poverty & social class are both major themes in the book. The highly stratified nature of pre-Victorian and Victorian times led to a divisive class structure that wasn’t easily traversed. While it was a time of rapid expansion and industrialization, it also meant that the least fortunate and able were left by the wayside, or worse. As in most cases, the well off were few and far between; most had to subsist or scrounge to stay alive. This, in turn, led to crime – another important theme. A naive Oliver is roped into schemes where, after they fail, he is left as a patsy. Title: Oliver Twist Author: Charles Dickens Free/Pay-What-You-Want: Librecron Edition Apple Books Link Original Recording: LibriVox If you want all these audiobooks delivered automatically, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Consider leaving a review if you enjoy these books! I cleaned up the recording as follows: Removed the introduction of the narrator. Removed the LibriVox introduction. Shorted or removed long silences. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/librecron/support

This is an audiobook of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, by Elizabeth Klett. First published in 1837, Jane Eyre had a powerful impact on prose fiction. It focuses on the moral & spiritual development of its main character, Jane Eyre, through first-person narrative. Its importance and influence was highlighted in 2003, when the novel was ranked #10 in the BBC’s The Big Read survey. The novel has five distinct parts: the beginning, where Jane is emotionally and physically abused by her aunt and cousins; her schooling, where she makes friends but is still oppressed; as a governess, where she falls in love with her employer; her time at Moor House, where she is proposed to; and her reunion with her employer as a governess. Throughout each of the parts, Brontë brings up the eminent issues & ideas of the time and provides her perspective (often critical) on them. The full title of the novel is Jane Eyre: An Autobiography. While a work of fiction, it’s obvious that Brontë’s own experiences helped shape the book. While at school, Jane befriends Helen Burns. Helen eventually dies of tuberculosis in Jane’s arms. The character of Helen is based on Charlotte Brontës own sister, Maria Brontë, who died at 11 of the same disease. Title: Jane Eyre Author: Charlotte Brontë Free/Pay-What-You-Want: Librecron Edition Apple Books Link Original Recording: LibriVox If you want all these audiobooks delivered automatically, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Consider leaving a review if you enjoy these books! I cleaned up the recording as follows: Removed the introduction of the narrator. Removed the LibriVox introduction. Shorted or removed long silences. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/librecron/support

This is an audiobook of Emma by Jane Austen, narrated by Elizabeth Klett. Love is a fickle thing, as Emma by Jane Austen shows us. It might catch you unawares or unfold slowly until, before you know it, you’re in deep. Still, there are some that try to bring it about. Sometimes, it’s because they see a spark between two people and thing they should be together. But just as often, it might just be a romantic notion that two people are meant for (or perfect for) each other. Emma Woodhouse is the latter. While she makes a successful introduction between two people (her governess Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston), she fancies herself as a matchmaker. Title: Emma Author: Jane Austen Free/Pay-What-You-Want: Librecron Edition Apple Books Link Original Recording: LibriVox If you want all these audiobooks delivered automatically, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Consider leaving a review if you enjoy these books! I cleaned up the recording as follows: Removed the introduction of the narrator. Removed the LibriVox introduction. Shorted or removed long silences. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/librecron/support

This is an audiobook of Dracula by Bram Stoker, narrated by Corrinne LePage. The tale of the vampire has been around for ages. You can trace the current word back to the 18th century, but the traits of the vampire have existed in various cultures from around the world throughout time. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 novella Carmilla is one of the first popular portrayals of the vampire. It was preceded by The Vampyre by John Polidori in 1819, which remained popular throughout the century of its publication. However, they all seem to take a backseat to the legendary Dracula by Bram Stoker. Published in 1897, Stoker’s classic is still the goto wellspring of information for anyone that wants to adapt the myth to the screen or stage. Everything popular that you know about vampires – their weakness to garlic and the crucifix, driving a stake through their heart, the lack of a reflection, the turning of a human to a vampire – comes from Dracula. Title: Dracula Author: Bram Stoker Free/Pay-What-You-Want: Librecron Edition Apple Books Link Original Recording: LibriVox If you want all these audiobooks delivered automatically, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Consider leaving a review if you enjoy these books! I cleaned up the recording as follows: Removed the introduction of the narrator. Removed the LibriVox introduction. Shorted or removed long silences. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/librecron/support

This is an audiobook of The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison, narrated by Jason Mills. It’s not easy writing a high fantasy classic. Your competition is immense. You’ve got J. R. R. Tolkien, George R. R. Martin, Brandon Sanderson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Terry Pratchett, C. S. Lewis, and so many more it’s impossible to make a dent, even with a long list. But in the top echelons, there’s another name – E. R. Eddison, author of The Worm Ouroboros. Eddison was different from Tolkien in some important ways, though. For one, Tolkien placed a heavy premium on the linguistic aspects of his created world. His names had meaning, and the overall legendarium is steeped in mythology. In contrast, E. R. Eddison had begun thinking up The Worm Ouroboros while he was a pre-teen child. He imagined some of the story, the characters, and the setting then – and seemed to have kept parts of it. This is especially notable in the names for some of his characters: Lord Spitfire, La Fireez, Fax Fay Faz, Goldry Bluszco, etc. Title: The Worm Ouroboros Author: E. R. Eddison Free/Pay-What-You-Want: Librecron Edition Apple Books Link Original Recording: LibriVox If you want all these audiobooks delivered automatically, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Consider leaving a review if you enjoy these books! I cleaned up the recording as follows: Removed the introduction of the narrator. Removed the LibriVox introduction. Shorted or removed long silences. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/librecron/support

Happy Ramadan! Ramadan Call To Prayer Echoes In Minnesota City JLP breaks down how people are freaking out due to a lack of faith… Somebody somewhere is controlling this… (the virus) Youtube Is Deleting Content That They See as Misinformation Regarding the Chinese Virus Chris from San Diego, CA remembers when he hated Jesse and his message. He reveals being a smug atheist and how he recently tried the silent prayer and his life has changed. —- Adam Schiff: 50,000 Americans Dead Because Trump Wasn't Removed and more lies... Gus from Alexandria, LA challenges Jesse on the bible and Jesus' return. Jesse asks how is talking about 'the return of Jesus' going to help people and change lives?

This is an audiobook of Wuthering Heights by Emile Brontë, narrated by Ruth Golding. Wuthering Heights, published in 1847, is the only novel by Emily Brontë, one of the three Brontë sisters. She died just a year after its initial publication, but her legacy has continued; despite being her only work, it has transcended the 160 intervening years with grace. Emily Brontë broke with the norms and mores of the day; she offered a stark look at & depiction of cruelty and tackled timeless themes such as religious hypocrisy, morality, the class system, and more. Containing elements of Gothic fiction, the tale takes place in the moorlands. The frame narrative introduces us to some important characters, especially Heathcliff, before rewinding the time back several decades and continuing from there. The story has a bit of everything – love, revenge, death, family, and more. Title: Wuthering Heights Author: Emily Brontë Free/Pay-What-You-Want: Librecron Edition Apple Books Link Original Recording: LibriVox If you want all these audiobooks delivered automatically, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Consider leaving a review if you enjoy these books! I cleaned up the recording as follows: Removed the introduction of the narrator. Removed the LibriVox introduction. Shorted or removed long silences. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/librecron/support

This is an audiobook of The Republic by Plato, narrated by Bob Neufeld. The Republic by Plato, written around 380 BC, is the best known work of Plato as well as one of the most widely read & influential works of philosophy ever written. It is written as a dialogue – specifically, a Socratic dialogue. These particular works are written to solve philosophical problems & concerns by way of two or more characters conversing with each other, with Socrates often appearing as the main subject. The Republic discusses many of the philosophies of Plato, including his theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, the ideal of the philosopher-king, and more. It is written as 10 books, each of which features Socrates engaging in philosophical debate & Socratic dialogue with other characters. The Republic has been commented on by scores of philosophers, writers, and rulers – each of whom seem to respect it for its place in antiquity (at the least), even if they might disagree with Plato on the substance. Title: The Republic Author: Plato Free/Pay-What-You-Want: Librecron Edition Apple Books Link Original Recording: LibriVox If you want all these audiobooks delivered automatically, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Consider leaving a review if you enjoy these books! I cleaned up the recording as follows: Removed the introduction of the narrator. Removed the LibriVox introduction. Shorted or removed long silences. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/librecron/support

1) Tell us about you! (Family, work, ministry, church, etc)I come from a large family in Oklahoma, married to husband Danny and live in OC - love our life group, community, church RHMV, and walks to the beach where our story started. part time for AKB as the Trauma Trainer and Director of Organizational Healthpart time in private practice in Newport Beach serving children and families through counseling2) Can you share about the mission of AKB?Activate Government, Business and Faith leaders to end the crisis for kids in foster care.3) When did you feel called to start serving in this space and how did that feel when you first began?I had a heart for children for forever & the fatherless since about 10 years oldFamily’s foster/adopt journey + family mission trips seeing hurting people led me to study social workMasters program - clearly interested in working in foster/adopt worldFelt difficult, beautiful, energizing, sad, overwhelming, and yet “right” for me4) Something that I found really incredible about America’s Kid’s Belong is how it talks about the collective impact. I love that the Church is included in this. Can you share how the church can help make a lasting impact in regards to this organization?That is something I am pretty passionate about too!Church/Bride of Christ is the only thing that will last, most sustainableOnly body of people with biblical mandate to care for & bring justice for & uphold the rights of the orphan/widow (James 1:27 & Psalm 82:3)Churches/Faith communities are everywhere- Over 300,000 churches in US- widespreadFaith communities built for caring for people, supporting family, advocating for wholenessRESEARCH: Identify families in your church who are (or have) already fostering. Listen to them. Organize and recognize them as a key ministry team in the church.RETAIN: Support them with a “Wrap Around Ministry”RECRUIT: Host a “Belong” Sunday and a “Next Steps Event” to recruit new families.provide space (video shoots, visitations, meetings, child welfare events)host trainings (trauma, WRAP around, child welfare trainings, documentary showings like Resilience Film or REMOVED films)start foster care related ministryeducate self & surrounding community on felt needscare for & love on local child welfare workerswrap around foster/adopt familiesprovide parents night outteach/preach on current foster care related issues & needs5) Can you share a little bit about the in’s and out’s of adoption here in America? What is the timeline, what ages have the hardest time with placements, and what does the need look like?U.S.Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children’s Bureau  -- AdoptionandFosterCareAnalysisandReportingSystemhttps://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/afcarsreport26.pdf125,422 kids WAITING TO BE ADOPTED (legally free)262,956 kids ENTERED FOSTER CARE437,283 kids IN FOSTER CARE61,901 kids ADOPTED through foster care in 2019 report (25%)Home Study approval process anywhere from 3 - 6 monthsAge 12+ high risk for aging out6) “It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. – Frederick Douglass This quote nearly took my breath away. Is there a story that stands out in your memory of a time The Lord placed a child with a family and a miracle happened within their heart?Educate about and advocate for ALL three responsesUpstream: Provide care for at risk families before child welfare is involvedIn the stream: Provide care for kids in care & foster familiesDownstream: Provide care for aged out youthWe get to hear of teenagers and young adults in their 20’s being adoptedGo upstream and catch them before 10 social woundsPeople need People! Stuff without people/relationships is a bandaid. First few months of placement honeymoon, then grief/loss hit, then slow adjustment and steps toward healing7) For someone listening that what’s to get involved with your organization, what can they do to help? Whether financially, prayerfully, or if they are interested in adoption?PrayFollow social media to stay up to dateWrap around familiesLearn/educate watch videosGIVE!!8) The Living With Less Podcast was birthed from John 3:30, "He must increase, but I must decrease.” If someone approached you and asked what they needed to begin living with less of in regards to this what would you tell them and why? What are you carrying that you don’t need to carry anymore?Our unresolved pain, loss, & shame prevents us from fully experiencing all that He is and desires for us in relationship with HimFor Him to increase in our lives, our barriers to him must decreaseResolve those things through healthy community, counseling, support groups, reconciliation, and inviting Him to heal wounds.Connects to caring for those in pain - How can we lead the hurting to a place of healing if we have never been there ourselves?You can’t give a child what you have never received

Captain Brett Crozier, the commander of a US aircraft carrier that has been hit by a major outbreak of coronavirus has been relieved of command for showing "poor judgment" days after writing a memo warning Navy leadership that decisive action was needed to save the lives of the ship's crew, acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly announced on Thursday. What are your thoughts on the matter?

In this episode, Jeff sits down with Michael Palazzo to hear him reflect deeply and in a very compelling way about his experiences at the opening of his current exhibit "Removed" at Living Arts of Tulsa on display through January 25th and what it all means to him.He also shares about his very unique and highly refreshing artistic perspective, about his process, and about the importance of connecting with the community through his work.

Mike, Joe and Cretched join the show / Joe has been sick / Joe does not trust doctors / Alex Jones wants you to buy everything / No YouTube notifications / Missing 411 : People with memories / People blackout and go missing / Portals and Time Traveling possibility  / Chemtrails are back / National Parks are closing down / COVID stimulus / trillions of dollars and where it's going / Joe reads down the House Bill / Bad Media Math / Chinese Drones telling you want to do / Whats going on in Alaska / Virus Graphs and Curves / End     #### MISSING 411 : Blackout & Memories ####Yellowstone stays open despite calls to close gates as coronavirus spreads https://www.kansascity.com/news/coronavirus/article241444866.htmlYosemite National Park closed to all visitors indefinitely due to coronavirus https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/yosemite-national-park-closed-to-all-visitors-indefinitely-due-to-coronavirus/ar-BB11u5IRAUDIO CLIP: https://the-journal.com/articles/14571 Name: Dale Stehling Age: 51 Location: Mesa Verde National Park is in southwest Colorado==== CASES Name: Helen Bogen Age: 2.5 Date: Aug 1950 Location: Alberta Situation: Was found 30hr after her disappearance on a near by abandoned farm, found naked and splashing around in an old bath tub. She remembers the night she went missing, she spent the night rested and listening on a hill. It was in the 40sName: Rhonda Cardinal Age: 42 Date: July 2012 Location: Calling Late Alberta Situation: Went Missing for about 2 weeks. She was found alive! She remembers blacking out, and living on berries. Removed her shoes.Name: Betty Wolfrum Age: 4 Date: May 1934 Location: Moosehorn, Manitoba Situation: Found 2 miles from her home. Found completely dry even though it was raining. A neightbors cow was also missing during that time. It cow came back milked. #### NEWS ##### #COVID19 Coronavirus: This is what the $2 trillion stimulus bill means to you https://www.beaconjournal.com/news/20200325/coronavirus-this-is-what-2-trillion-stimulus-bill-means-to-you?fbclid=IwAR2ma1HlDRAHCBIzsg7nJkTTmMI2KTQia-FcWHIoIAstkOG0GSeAjvWc9lY Prince Charles tests positive for COVID-19 https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-prince-charles-tests-positive-for-covid-19-11963363 UNDER COVER OF CORONAVIRUS CONGRESS INTRODUCES BILL THAT ALLOWS GOV TO CONTROL ALL INTERNET CONTENT https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/76599/under-cover-of-coronavirus-congress-introduces-bill-that-allows-gov-to-control-all-internet.html Arms over masks: India buys weapons from Israel as coronavirus cases spike https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/coronavirus-india-weapons-israel-covid-19-pandemic Instagram influencers slammed for ‘insensitive’ content during coronavirus outbreak https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/instagram-influencers-slammed-insensitive-content-coronavirus Singapore says its app can slow spread of coronavirus; critics say it’s government surveillance https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/nation/singapore-says-its-app-can-slow-spread-of-coronavirus-critics/article_6958f2b4-6a06-5813-b245-49629f642c3d.html #PARANORMAL URGENT CALL FOR 1 MILLION MEDITATORS https://mailchi.mp/dfb4970313b3/global-unity-and-peace-meditation-3-more-days-1301429?fbclid=IwAR2Ax85R-mdHd_Io6uMb9BjO5NUfi8oGapZ7I-wj423bCjnqB8Mvx9wdGG8 A reported winged humanoid reported by security personnel at O’Hare Airport. https://ufoclearinghouse.wordpress.com/2020/03/16/a-reported-winged-humanoid-reported-by-security-personnel-at-ohare-airport/ Survey Shows 50% Of Britons Believe Alien Invasion May Occur Within 50 Years https://www.strangerdimensions.com/2020/03/23/study-shows-50-of-britons-believe-alien-invasion-may-occur-within-50-years/ #MJConspiracies Michael Jackson is a TIME TRAVELLER – and this pic proves it https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/michael-jackson-alive-time-traveller-17026494 The Fans Who Refuse to Believe Michael Jackson Is Dead https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/paj8ev/michael-jackson-still-alive-conspiracy-theory http://www.michaeljacksonsightings.com/ Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. ▀▄▀▄▀ LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀ ► Phone: 614-388-9109 ► Website: http://obdmpod.com ► Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/obdm ► Subscribe Star: https://www.subscribestar.com/obdm ► Crypto: https://streamlabs.com/ourbigdumbmouth/tip ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ourbigdumbmouth ► YouTube 2nd Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrj4SPfo5ySkEnyaQAW5zvA ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/obdmpod ► Instagram: obdmpod ► RSS: http://ourbigdumbmouth.libsyn.com/rss ► iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/our-big-dumb-mouth/id261189509?mt=2 ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/obdmpod ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/obdmnews ► Everything we do could be considered performance art ► Satire and Parody are often used ► OBDM T-Shirt: https://teespring.com/obdm-dino-wizard?73d3a50c4b#pid=46&cid=2753&sid=front