Podcasts about so noah

Tune in now and don't forget to sign up for www.solciety.co!Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. online teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:43):What's up Solarpreneurs Taylor Armstrong here to change your life as a soar sales professional, we are back with another show today, got an exciting topic, and we're going to jump right into it. I hope you enjoyed the previous episode. We have Lenny Gray the master of door to door on. So if you didn't go listen to that, go check it out. He's written two books, amazing episode have gotten great feedback. So thanks again, Lenny, for coming on the show with us in this episode, we're going to do something that I don't think I've actually done before. And that is actually take a topic suggestion from our audience, from our Solarpreneurs. So guys, if you have a topic suggestions, people you want to bring on things you want to talk about things you want to jam on. Hit me up. I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook trying to be more active on there.Speaker 2 (01:37):So I'm send me a message. Let me know if you have suggestions, feedback, just anything really appreciate the comments and tips that you guys give me. And it's nice to be able to interact with, with my crew, with my solar peeps. So this tip actually comes from, um, someone that doesn't actually have their name on Instagram and talk to him. So I apologize that I never got to your name on here, but Instagram is WVRRVN. Give them a shout out if you want to go follow them. One of our solar friends and he sends me a message. Um, so it was about three weeks ago. He says, Hey brother, been listening to your podcast over the past few months, getting tons of value, have an idea for a topic, no one discusses too much on overcoming negative online reviews. Is this something you can help the community discuss?Speaker 2 (02:34):Well, my man WVRVN I hope that's not your real name unless you're some kind of droid. Okay. But, um, that's his Instagram handle. That's what we're going to cover today. We're going to jump into it. And it's something that has at times come back to bite me negative reviews. I know a lot of people, especially guys with our bigger companies. Sometimes they struggle with these and it's something that, um, guys have to learn how to overcome. Guys, have to learn how to really turn in a strength. How can we overcome this objection? So I've got three tips. I want to share with you going to be quicker episode. We're going to jump right into it. Share three tips. Things that I do that have helped me and things that I've also heard from guys at larger companies specifically, specifically at Vivint Solar. I know that's a huge company.Speaker 2 (03:27):I have a lot of friends that are managers over there. Um, I guess I should say Sunrun now because they are now Sunrun direct, but they're a large company. Um, had some pretty terrible reviews. I know that I looked him up and one time I was considering going in selling with them and this was something I always came back to is like, how do you guys sell with so many negative reviews? Like I lose deals myself with negative reviews, but how are guys over a Vivint Solar, some of these larger companies they're selling dozens and dozens of deals every quarter. And I mean, they, they seem to be just fine with the negative reviews. So I'm gonna tell you a few things that I heard from these guys, a few things that have helped me and hopefully they help. Okay. So let's get into it.Speaker 2 (04:16):Tip number one is bring it up before they do. Okay. A lot of, a lot of guys have heard this. Hopefully you've had training in your sales organization that something we all should be doing is bringing up objections before our customers. Our clients can, if you have a great book on this, go read Sam Taggart's ABC's at closing. He has a whole section on this. He calls it eight. Milling your customers, right? It comes from the eight mile movie where a M and Eminem is, you know, bringing up all the objections. The rappers can throw out them that you grew up in a trailer park. They use white trash, all this stuff. So we need to do the same thing. And this is something specific specifically for this objection that I think works great. Bring up the negatives before they can. Cause if you bring it up and if you bring it up while you're in the home, they can't go look it up.Speaker 2 (05:12):Matter of fact, pull it up on your computer right there while you're in the home with them. Mr. Customer, I know we don't have the greatest review. Here's here's why. Um, and then you can explain to them what's going on. A lot of the reviews you see anyways, are just completely false. Like things that never happened. So, okay. It's that's another point is know your online presence. You should always know exactly what is written about them. You should always know exactly what potential negatives your clients, your customers could find about you. You should know what dirt they can dig up on you. So go look that up. I'm constantly Googling my companies, my installers I'm Googling. Cause I want to know exactly what people could possibly find negative. Okay. You gotta be in the know because if you don't know it, then it's going to be surprised to you when they bring up a negative and then that's when you're screwed.Speaker 2 (06:07):Okay. So bring it up. No, your views. A good example of this. I know a lot of guys, myself included are so on. Um, so Noah, right? So Noah as the financer, as the lender. So if you go look up Sunnova they don't have great reviews. Okay. And so you've got to know this people. When I sell a deal through some Nova PP, we are alone. I almost always will bring it up. Hey, so nowhere they're the lender for this, just so you know, you can look them up. Um, but yeah, unfortunately they've done, um, they've done their own installs. They've done deals all over the country. So they have a huge client base, but they are just the ones financing this case. You're not working with them and really stress that they're working with the installation company, they said no is simply the lender.Speaker 2 (07:00):Hey, and then focus it on the installation company on the installers. And so that's something I do when I deal with Sunnova specifically. Okay. So tip number two is bring up how many customers you have. Okay. This is something that comes from again. I mentioned my Vivint Solar guys, my, my buddies that sold with Vivint Solar, while these larger organizations they're going to have tons of negatives. Okay. Sunnova is a no way as an example of that. That's just the fact of the matter. When you get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of customers of clients, you're always going to have names. So what do you do? Bring up examples, do math with them right on the spot. Okay. So you can go. Um, I mean, in the Sunnova example, they have thousands and thousands of customers across the country, right? So if you look on there, you're going to see what maybe a couple hundred reviews, negative reviews.Speaker 2 (07:56):So for example, let's say there are a hundred negative reviews. Maybe you've done 5,000 installs. You have 5,000 customers. You do the math on that, a hundred divided by 5,000. What is that? That's only 2% of your customers, right? So, I mean, do the math, show them on the calculator? You look, Mr. Customer, this, um, represents about 2% of the people we've done. See, I understand there's going to be mistakes. Um, fortunately there's, um, issues that happened, but let me ask you, Mr. Customer, how many times have you had a positive experience and not written? Yeah. About it. Like you probably went to Starbucks yesterday. Got your coffee. Just fine. Did you write them a good review? Probably not. Right. So how many people are out there that had a fantastic experience, that everything went super smooth. Write about it. And guess what those, those people were working with, I'm going to take care of you.Speaker 2 (08:57):We're going to make sure everything goes smoothly. I can pinky promise you if you want you on pig. You want me to pinky promise you. Okay, great. So we'll make sure everything goes good. So right now we're just going to get a few documents submitted. Boom. That's how you do it. Okay. So bring up the math, bring up, um, ask them, ask them how many times they've written positive reviews and that's going to, that's going to call them out on the spot. I mean 99.9% of people do not go right in positive reviews about every interaction they've had. That's just the fact of the matter. So if you can do the math with them, if you can get them to realize that people do not just, you know, write pure positives, that it's a business, then that's going to help. Okay. So that's the second tip.Speaker 2 (09:41):Bring up how many customers you have do some math with them and then get them to realize that there's going to be negatives, but we're going to get it figured out. Okay. And then the third and final tip I have is tell stories of neighbors close by. And this is where testimonials come in. If you haven't listened to the episode from a couple of weeks back about video testimonials, go listen to that and that's going to change the way you sell. Okay? And that's going to probably prevent you from even having, having to overcome objections like this, because if you can solve, um, show them solid video, testimonials of neighbors, of especially people in the neighborhood they're in, then they're not even going to bring up these things because they're going to trust people in their neighborhood a way more than anything they can find online.Speaker 2 (10:27):Right? That's why I suggest getting a video testimonial with every everyone that you can. Hey, and then another thing I learned from a lot of my guys over at these bigger companies, Vivint Solar is pull up maps. If you can get your start tracking, have your company start keeping a spreadsheet or keeping track on a map of all your installs, okay? A reference sheet sheet, utilize them, make sure you have pins on a map, something where you can pull up, pay this, how many people we've done in the area. Do you think this many people would have gone with us? If things were terrible? Probably not. And that's, what's so powerful about some of the software that's Vivint Solar, or some of these other companies have access to Sunrun is on their proposals or in their knocking apps. They can see every past customer. Right?Speaker 2 (11:19):How powerful is that? If you're in a home mean, say, um, Mr. Homeowner, this is all your neighbors that actually are already on the program. So yeah, there is, uh, negatives, but look, there are six people just in your neighborhood that are already on the program. So rather than trusting all these online shenanigans that may or may not be true, why don't we drive by? We can go look at the people that are installed in your neighborhood and we can go off of that. Okay. Obviously, if you're a smaller company company, you don't have installs, then you're not going to say that, but I mean, still can use references in the neighborhood though. Even if it's from another company, you can say, Mr. Homeowner, do you think your neighbor across the street would have solar? If things were all terrible? Okay. You can talk to these people beforehand.Speaker 2 (12:10):I've gotten lots of times, people that aren't, even with my company that just have solar on the roof. Hey, would you recommend your solar to your neighbors? Great. Do you mind if I use your name as a reference? There you go. You got a name, you got a person you can use as a reference right there, and that's going to help out a ton. So make sure you're just collecting as much social proof as possible. Get pictures out as a last resort. Um, something I heard from, um, my friend river Skinner. If he's listening to this, uh, my referencing him from one of his, uh, Instagram stories, but what's really cool is he will send out a thank you card with his picture in the customer's in it. And this is kind of off topic, but that's something super powerful. You can do get pictures with your customers.Speaker 2 (12:59):Send out cards.com I think is a website where you can actually just create online cards. You can throw your picture in there, send your customers so sort of off topic, but make sure you're collecting all the social proof as possible. This is going to help reduce cancellations and help you continue to dominate out there. So thanks again for the topic recommendation. Let me know what you guys thought. Let me know if you guys have any other, uh, ideas on, um, overcoming negative reviews, things you have done and love to hear your feedback again, shoot me your topic suggestions. Let me know what you thought and send me your guest suggestions as well. If you guys know of anyone that is absolutely dominating that we need to have on the show, let's get them on. So hope that helped hope you'll tune in for the next show. And we will see you on the flip side.Speaker 3 (13:53):Hey Solarpreneurs. Quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new solar learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with the top performers in the industry. And it's called Solciety. This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give solar pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and to help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds. For, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently society's closed the public and membership is by invitation only, but Solarpreneurs can go to society.co to learn more and have the option to join a wait list. When a membership becomes available in your area. Again, this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to www.solciety.co to join the waitlist and learn more now. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you again in the next episode. 

So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him. [1 hour 5 minutes]

Genesis 8:6-19 6 At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ship which he had made, 7 and he sent out a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 He himself sent out a dove to see if the waters were abated from the surface of the ground, 9 but the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned into the ship to him, for the waters were on the surface of the whole earth. He put out his hand, and took her, and brought her to him into the ship. 10 He waited yet another seven days; and again he sent the dove out of the ship. 11 The dove came back to him at evening and, behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth. 12 He waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove; and she didn't return to him any more. 13 In the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ship, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. 15 God spoke to Noah, saying, 16 “Go out of the ship, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons' wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth.” 18 Noah went out, with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives with him. 19 Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, whatever moves on the earth, after their families, went out of the ship.

Genesis 6:5-22 5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Noah and the Flood 9 This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress[a] wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.[b] 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit[c] high all around.[d] Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.” 22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him. Genesis 8:18-22 18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. 19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another. 20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though[a] every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. 22 “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Genesis 9:1-17 God’s Covenant With Noah 9 Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. 4 “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. 5 And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. 6 “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind. 7 As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.” 8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” 17 So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

Marla Stroup 18 But I will confirm my covenant with you. So enter the boat—you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 19 Bring a pair of every kind of animal—a male and a female—into the boat with you to keep them alive during the flood. 20 Pairs of every kind of bird, and every kind of animal, and every kind of small animal that scurries along the ground, will come to you to be kept alive. 21 And be sure to take on board enough food for your family and for all the animals.” 22 So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him.

With family: Genesis 8; Matthew 8 Genesis 8 (Listen) The Flood Subsides 8 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, 4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. 6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore. 13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. God’s Covenant with Noah 20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse1 the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” Footnotes [1] 8:21 Or dishonor (ESV) Matthew 8 (Listen) Jesus Cleanses a Leper 8 When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. 2 And behold, a leper1 came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” 3 And Jesus2 stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 And Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” The Faith of a Centurion 5 When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, 6 “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” 7 And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” 8 But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant,3 ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” 10 When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel4 have I found such faith. 11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13 And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment. Jesus Heals Many 14 And when Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. 15 He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him. 16 That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.” The Cost of Following Jesus 18 Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. 19 And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” 20 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 21 Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 22 And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.” Jesus Calms a Storm 23 And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. 24 And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. 25 And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” 26 And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. 27 And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” Jesus Heals Two Men with Demons 28 And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes,5 two demon-possessed6 men met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way. 29 And behold, they cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” 30 Now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them. 31 And the demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.” 32 And he said to them, “Go.” So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters. 33 The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon-possessed men. 34 And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region. Footnotes [1] 8:2 Leprosy was a term for several skin diseases; see Leviticus 13 [2] 8:3 Greek he [3] 8:9 Or bondservant [4] 8:10 Some manuscripts not even in Israel [5] 8:28 Some manuscripts Gergesenes; some Gerasenes [6] 8:28 Greek daimonizomai (demonized); also verse 33; elsewhere rendered oppressed by demons (ESV) In private: Ezra 8; Acts 8 Ezra 8 (Listen) Genealogy of Those Who Returned with Ezra 8 These are the heads of their fathers’ houses, and this is the genealogy of those who went up with me from Babylonia, in the reign of Artaxerxes the king: 2 Of the sons of Phinehas, Gershom. Of the sons of Ithamar, Daniel. Of the sons of David, Hattush. 3 Of the sons of Shecaniah, who was of the sons of Parosh, Zechariah, with whom were registered 150 men. 4 Of the sons of Pahath-moab, Eliehoenai the son of Zerahiah, and with him 200 men. 5 Of the sons of Zattu,1 Shecaniah the son of Jahaziel, and with him 300 men. 6 Of the sons of Adin, Ebed the son of Jonathan, and with him 50 men. 7 Of the sons of Elam, Jeshaiah the son of Athaliah, and with him 70 men. 8 Of the sons of Shephatiah, Zebadiah the son of Michael, and with him 80 men. 9 Of the sons of Joab, Obadiah the son of Jehiel, and with him 218 men. 10 Of the sons of Bani,2 Shelomith the son of Josiphiah, and with him 160 men. 11 Of the sons of Bebai, Zechariah, the son of Bebai, and with him 28 men. 12 Of the sons of Azgad, Johanan the son of Hakkatan, and with him 110 men. 13 Of the sons of Adonikam, those who came later, their names being Eliphelet, Jeuel, and Shemaiah, and with them 60 men. 14 Of the sons of Bigvai, Uthai and Zaccur, and with them 70 men. Ezra Sends for Levites 15 I gathered them to the river that runs to Ahava, and there we camped three days. As I reviewed the people and the priests, I found there none of the sons of Levi. 16 Then I sent for Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah, and Meshullam, leading men, and for Joiarib and Elnathan, who were men of insight, 17 and sent them to Iddo, the leading man at the place Casiphia, telling them what to say to Iddo and his brothers and3 the temple servants at the place Casiphia, namely, to send us ministers for the house of our God. 18 And by the good hand of our God on us, they brought us a man of discretion, of the sons of Mahli the son of Levi, son of Israel, namely Sherebiah with his sons and kinsmen, 18; 19 also Hashabiah, and with him Jeshaiah of the sons of Merari, with his kinsmen and their sons, 20; 20 besides 220 of the temple servants, whom David and his officials had set apart to attend the Levites. These were all mentioned by name. Fasting and Prayer for Protection 21 Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods. 22 For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, “The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.” 23 So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty. Priests to Guard Offerings 24 Then I set apart twelve of the leading priests: Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their kinsmen with them. 25 And I weighed out to them the silver and the gold and the vessels, the offering for the house of our God that the king and his counselors and his lords and all Israel there present had offered. 26 I weighed out into their hand 650 talents4 of silver, and silver vessels worth 200 talents,5 and 100 talents of gold, 27 20 bowls of gold worth 1,000 darics,6 and two vessels of fine bright bronze as precious as gold. 28 And I said to them, “You are holy to the LORD, and the vessels are holy, and the silver and the gold are a freewill offering to the LORD, the God of your fathers. 29 Guard them and keep them until you weigh them before the chief priests and the Levites and the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel at Jerusalem, within the chambers of the house of the LORD.” 30 So the priests and the Levites took over the weight of the silver and the gold and the vessels, to bring them to Jerusalem, to the house of our God. 31 Then we departed from the river Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month, to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes by the way. 32 We came to Jerusalem, and there we remained three days. 33 On the fourth day, within the house of our God, the silver and the gold and the vessels were weighed into the hands of Meremoth the priest, son of Uriah, and with him was Eleazar the son of Phinehas, and with them were the Levites, Jozabad the son of Jeshua and Noadiah the son of Binnui. 34 The whole was counted and weighed, and the weight of everything was recorded. 35 At that time those who had come from captivity, the returned exiles, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, and as a sin offering twelve male goats. All this was a burnt offering to the LORD. 36 They also delivered the king’s commissions to the king’s satraps7 and to the governors of the province Beyond the River, and they aided the people and the house of God. Footnotes [1] 8:5 Septuagint; Hebrew lacks of Zattu [2] 8:10 Septuagint; Hebrew lacks Bani [3] 8:17 Hebrew lacks and [4] 8:26 A talent was about 75 pounds or 34 kilograms [5] 8:26 Revocalization; the number is missing in the Masoretic Text [6] 8:27 A daric was a coin weighing about 1/4 ounce or 8.5 grams [7] 8:36 A satrap was a Persian official (ESV) Acts 8 (Listen) Saul Ravages the Church 8 And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2 Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. 3 But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Philip Proclaims Christ in Samaria 4 Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. 5 Philip went down to the city1 of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. 6 And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. 7 For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. 8 So there was much joy in that city. Simon the Magician Believes 9 But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. 10 They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” 11 And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. 12 But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13 Even Simon himself believed, and after being baptized he continued with Philip. And seeing signs and great miracles2 performed, he was amazed. 14 Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, 15 who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16 for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17 Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. 18 Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, 19 saying, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” 20 But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! 21 You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. 23 For I see that you are in the gall3 of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.” 24 And Simon answered, “Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me.” 25 Now when they had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans. Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch 26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south4 to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. 27 And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” 30 So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this:   “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter    and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,    so he opens not his mouth.33   In his humiliation justice was denied him.    Who can describe his generation?  For his life is taken away from the earth.” 34 And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. 36 And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?”5 38 And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. 39 And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. Footnotes [1] 8:5 Some manuscripts a city [2] 8:13 Greek works of power [3] 8:23 That is, a bitter fluid secreted by the liver; bile [4] 8:26 Or go at about noon [5] 8:36 Some manuscripts add all or most of verse 37: And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” (ESV)

Psalms and Wisdom: Psalm 7 Psalm 7 (Listen) In You Do I Take Refuge A Shiggaion1 of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning the words of Cush, a Benjaminite. 7   O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge;    save me from all my pursuers and deliver me,2   lest like a lion they tear my soul apart,    rending it in pieces, with none to deliver. 3   O LORD my God, if I have done this,    if there is wrong in my hands,4   if I have repaid my friend2 with evil    or plundered my enemy without cause,5   let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it,    and let him trample my life to the ground    and lay my glory in the dust. Selah 6   Arise, O LORD, in your anger;    lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;    awake for me; you have appointed a judgment.7   Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you;    over it return on high. 8   The LORD judges the peoples;    judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness    and according to the integrity that is in me.9   Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end,    and may you establish the righteous—  you who test the minds and hearts,3    O righteous God!10   My shield is with God,    who saves the upright in heart.11   God is a righteous judge,    and a God who feels indignation every day. 12   If a man4 does not repent, God5 will whet his sword;    he has bent and readied his bow;13   he has prepared for him his deadly weapons,    making his arrows fiery shafts.14   Behold, the wicked man conceives evil    and is pregnant with mischief    and gives birth to lies.15   He makes a pit, digging it out,    and falls into the hole that he has made.16   His mischief returns upon his own head,    and on his own skull his violence descends. 17   I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness,    and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High. Footnotes [1] 7:1 Probably a musical or liturgical term [2] 7:4 Hebrew the one at peace with me [3] 7:9 Hebrew the hearts and kidneys [4] 7:12 Hebrew he [5] 7:12 Hebrew he (ESV) Pentateuch and History: Genesis 8:1–19 Genesis 8:1–19 (Listen) The Flood Subsides 8 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, 4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. 6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore. 13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. (ESV) Chronicles and Prophets: 1 Chronicles 8 1 Chronicles 8 (Listen) A Genealogy of Saul 8 Benjamin fathered Bela his firstborn, Ashbel the second, Aharah the third, 2 Nohah the fourth, and Rapha the fifth. 3 And Bela had sons: Addar, Gera, Abihud, 4 Abishua, Naaman, Ahoah, 5 Gera, Shephuphan, and Huram. 6 These are the sons of Ehud (they were heads of fathers’ houses of the inhabitants of Geba, and they were carried into exile to Manahath): 7 Naaman,1 Ahijah, and Gera, that is, Heglam, who fathered2 Uzza and Ahihud. 8 And Shaharaim fathered sons in the country of Moab after he had sent away Hushim and Baara his wives. 9 He fathered sons by Hodesh his wife: Jobab, Zibia, Mesha, Malcam, 10 Jeuz, Sachia, and Mirmah. These were his sons, heads of fathers’ houses. 11 He also fathered sons by Hushim: Abitub and Elpaal. 12 The sons of Elpaal: Eber, Misham, and Shemed, who built Ono and Lod with its towns, 13 and Beriah and Shema (they were heads of fathers’ houses of the inhabitants of Aijalon, who caused the inhabitants of Gath to flee); 14 and Ahio, Shashak, and Jeremoth. 15 Zebadiah, Arad, Eder, 16 Michael, Ishpah, and Joha were sons of Beriah. 17 Zebadiah, Meshullam, Hizki, Heber, 18 Ishmerai, Izliah, and Jobab were the sons of Elpaal. 19 Jakim, Zichri, Zabdi, 20 Elienai, Zillethai, Eliel, 21 Adaiah, Beraiah, and Shimrath were the sons of Shimei. 22 Ishpan, Eber, Eliel, 23 Abdon, Zichri, Hanan, 24 Hananiah, Elam, Anthothijah, 25 Iphdeiah, and Penuel were the sons of Shashak. 26 Shamsherai, Shehariah, Athaliah, 27 Jaareshiah, Elijah, and Zichri were the sons of Jeroham. 28 These were the heads of fathers’ houses, according to their generations, chief men. These lived in Jerusalem. 29 Jeiel3 the father of Gibeon lived in Gibeon, and the name of his wife was Maacah. 30 His firstborn son: Abdon, then Zur, Kish, Baal, Nadab, 31 Gedor, Ahio, Zecher, 32 and Mikloth (he fathered Shimeah). Now these also lived opposite their kinsmen in Jerusalem, with their kinsmen. 33 Ner was the father of Kish, Kish of Saul, Saul of Jonathan, Malchi-shua, Abinadab and Eshbaal; 34 and the son of Jonathan was Merib-baal; and Merib-baal was the father of Micah. 35 The sons of Micah: Pithon, Melech, Tarea, and Ahaz. 36 Ahaz fathered Jehoaddah, and Jehoaddah fathered Alemeth, Azmaveth, and Zimri. Zimri fathered Moza. 37 Moza fathered Binea; Raphah was his son, Eleasah his son, Azel his son. 38 Azel had six sons, and these are their names: Azrikam, Bocheru, Ishmael, Sheariah, Obadiah, and Hanan. All these were the sons of Azel. 39 The sons of Eshek his brother: Ulam his firstborn, Jeush the second, and Eliphelet the third. 40 The sons of Ulam were men who were mighty warriors, bowmen, having many sons and grandsons, 150. All these were Benjaminites. Footnotes [1] 8:7 Hebrew and Naaman [2] 8:7 Or Gera; he carried them into exile and fathered [3] 8:29 Compare 9:35; Hebrew lacks Jeiel (ESV) Gospels and Epistles: Luke 4:14–44 Luke 4:14–44 (Listen) Jesus Begins His Ministry 14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. 15 And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. Jesus Rejected at Nazareth 16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, 18   “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,    because he has anointed me    to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives    and recovering of sight to the blind,    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,19   to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” 23 And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘“Physician, heal yourself.” What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’” 24 And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. 25 But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. 27 And there were many lepers1 in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. 29 And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. 30 But passing through their midst, he went away. Jesus Heals a Man with an Unclean Demon 31 And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, 32 and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority. 33 And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, 34 “Ha!2 What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” 35 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. 36 And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” 37 And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region. Jesus Heals Many 38 And he arose and left the synagogue and entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf. 39 And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her, and immediately she rose and began to serve them. 40 Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. 41 And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ. Jesus Preaches in Synagogues 42 And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, 43 but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.” 44 And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.3 Footnotes [1] 4:27 Leprosy was a term for several skin diseases; see Leviticus 13 [2] 4:34 Or Leave us alone [3] 4:44 Some manuscripts Galilee (ESV)

Old Testament: Genesis 7–8 Genesis 7–8 (Listen) 7 Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals,1 the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, 3 and seven pairs2 of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. 4 For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing3 that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” 5 And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him. 6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, 9 two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, 14 they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. 15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. 16 And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the LORD shut him in. 17 The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18 The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. 20 The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits4 deep. 21 And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. 23 He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. 24 And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days. The Flood Subsides 8 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, 4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. 6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore. 13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. God’s Covenant with Noah 20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse5 the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” Footnotes [1] 7:2 Or seven of each kind of clean animal [2] 7:3 Or seven of each kind [3] 7:4 Hebrew all existence; also verse 23 [4] 7:20 A cubit was about 18 inches or 45 centimeters [5] 8:21 Or dishonor (ESV) New Testament: Matthew 3 Matthew 3 (Listen) John the Baptist Prepares the Way 3 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”1 3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,   “The voice of one crying in the wilderness:  ‘Prepare2 the way of the Lord;    make his paths straight.’” 4 Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” The Baptism of Jesus 13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him,3 and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son,4 with whom I am well pleased.” Footnotes [1] 3:2 Or the kingdom of heaven has come near [2] 3:3 Or crying: Prepare in the wilderness [3] 3:16 Some manuscripts omit to him [4] 3:17 Or my Son, my (or the) Beloved (ESV) Psalm: Psalm 4 Psalm 4 (Listen) Answer Me When I Call To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Psalm of David. 4   Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!    You have given me relief when I was in distress.    Be gracious to me and hear my prayer! 2   O men,1 how long shall my honor be turned into shame?    How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? Selah3   But know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself;    the LORD hears when I call to him. 4   Be angry,2 and do not sin;    ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah5   Offer right sacrifices,    and put your trust in the LORD. 6   There are many who say, “Who will show us some good?    Lift up the light of your face upon us, O LORD!”7   You have put more joy in my heart    than they have when their grain and wine abound. 8   In peace I will both lie down and sleep;    for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety. Footnotes [1] 4:2 Or O men of rank [2] 4:4 Or Be agitated (ESV) Proverb: Proverbs 2:1–15 Proverbs 2:1–15 (Listen) The Value of Wisdom 2   My son, if you receive my words    and treasure up my commandments with you,2   making your ear attentive to wisdom    and inclining your heart to understanding;3   yes, if you call out for insight    and raise your voice for understanding,4   if you seek it like silver    and search for it as for hidden treasures,5   then you will understand the fear of the LORD    and find the knowledge of God.6   For the LORD gives wisdom;    from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;7   he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;    he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,8   guarding the paths of justice    and watching over the way of his saints.9   Then you will understand righteousness and justice    and equity, every good path;10   for wisdom will come into your heart,    and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;11   discretion will watch over you,    understanding will guard you,12   delivering you from the way of evil,    from men of perverted speech,13   who forsake the paths of uprightness    to walk in the ways of darkness,14   who rejoice in doing evil    and delight in the perverseness of evil,15   men whose paths are crooked,    and who are devious in their ways. (ESV)

Old Testament: Genesis 7–8 Genesis 7–8 (Listen) 7 Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals,1 the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, 3 and seven pairs2 of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. 4 For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing3 that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” 5 And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him. 6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, 9 two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, 14 they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. 15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. 16 And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the LORD shut him in. 17 The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18 The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. 20 The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits4 deep. 21 And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. 23 He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. 24 And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days. The Flood Subsides 8 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, 4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. 6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore. 13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. God’s Covenant with Noah 20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse5 the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” Footnotes [1] 7:2 Or seven of each kind of clean animal [2] 7:3 Or seven of each kind [3] 7:4 Hebrew all existence; also verse 23 [4] 7:20 A cubit was about 18 inches or 45 centimeters [5] 8:21 Or dishonor (ESV) Psalm: Psalm 4 Psalm 4 (Listen) Answer Me When I Call To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Psalm of David. 4   Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!    You have given me relief when I was in distress.    Be gracious to me and hear my prayer! 2   O men,1 how long shall my honor be turned into shame?    How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? Selah3   But know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself;    the LORD hears when I call to him. 4   Be angry,2 and do not sin;    ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah5   Offer right sacrifices,    and put your trust in the LORD. 6   There are many who say, “Who will show us some good?    Lift up the light of your face upon us, O LORD!”7   You have put more joy in my heart    than they have when their grain and wine abound. 8   In peace I will both lie down and sleep;    for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety. Footnotes [1] 4:2 Or O men of rank [2] 4:4 Or Be agitated (ESV) New Testament: Matthew 6 Matthew 6 (Listen) Giving to the Needy 6 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. 2 “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. The Lord’s Prayer 5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this:   “Our Father in heaven,  hallowed be your name.110   Your kingdom come,  your will be done,2    on earth as it is in heaven.11   Give us this day our daily bread,312   and forgive us our debts,    as we also have forgiven our debtors.13   And lead us not into temptation,    but deliver us from evil.4 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Fasting 16 “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Lay Up Treasures in Heaven 19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust5 destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.6 Do Not Be Anxious 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?7 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Footnotes [1] 6:9 Or Let your name be kept holy, or Let your name be treated with reverence [2] 6:10 Or Let your kingdom come, let your will be done [3] 6:11 Or our bread for tomorrow [4] 6:13 Or the evil one; some manuscripts add For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen [5] 6:19 Or worm; also verse 20 [6] 6:24 Greek mammon, a Semitic word for money or possessions [7] 6:27 Or a single cubit to his stature; a cubit was about 18 inches or 45 centimeters (ESV)

Genesis 8–11 Genesis 8–11 (Listen) The Flood Subsides 8 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, 4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. 6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore. 13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. God’s Covenant with Noah 20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse1 the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” 9 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. 6   “Whoever sheds the blood of man,    by man shall his blood be shed,  for God made man in his own image. 7 And you,2 be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.” 8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” Noah’s Descendants 18 The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) 19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.3 20 Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.4 21 He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24 When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said,   “Cursed be Canaan;    a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.” 26 He also said,   “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem;    and let Canaan be his servant.27   May God enlarge Japheth,5    and let him dwell in the tents of Shem,    and let Canaan be his servant.” 28 After the flood Noah lived 350 years. 29 All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died. Nations Descended from Noah 10 These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood. 2 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 3 The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. 4 The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. 5 From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations. 6 The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. 7 The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. 8 Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man.6 9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.” 10 The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11 From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and 12 Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. 13 Egypt fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, 14 Pathrusim, Casluhim (from whom7 the Philistines came), and Caphtorim. 15 Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn and Heth, 16 and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, 17 the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, 18 the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the clans of the Canaanites dispersed. 19 And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. 20 These are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. 21 To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. 22 The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. 23 The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. 24 Arpachshad fathered Shelah; and Shelah fathered Eber. 25 To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg,8 for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother’s name was Joktan. 26 Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. 30 The territory in which they lived extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar to the hill country of the east. 31 These are the sons of Shem, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. 32 These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood. The Tower of Babel 11 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” 5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused9 the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth. Shem’s Descendants 10 These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood. 11 And Shem lived after he fathered Arpachshad 500 years and had other sons and daughters. 12 When Arpachshad had lived 35 years, he fathered Shelah. 13 And Arpachshad lived after he fathered Shelah 403 years and had other sons and daughters. 14 When Shelah had lived 30 years, he fathered Eber. 15 And Shelah lived after he fathered Eber 403 years and had other sons and daughters. 16 When Eber had lived 34 years, he fathered Peleg. 17 And Eber lived after he fathered Peleg 430 years and had other sons and daughters. 18 When Peleg had lived 30 years, he fathered Reu. 19 And Peleg lived after he fathered Reu 209 years and had other sons and daughters. 20 When Reu had lived 32 years, he fathered Serug. 21 And Reu lived after he fathered Serug 207 years and had other sons and daughters. 22 When Serug had lived 30 years, he fathered Nahor. 23 And Serug lived after he fathered Nahor 200 years and had other sons and daughters. 24 When Nahor had lived 29 years, he fathered Terah. 25 And Nahor lived after he fathered Terah 119 years and had other sons and daughters. 26 When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Terah’s Descendants 27 Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. 28 Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29 And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. 31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32 The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran. Footnotes [1] 8:21 Or dishonor [2] 9:7 In Hebrew you is plural [3] 9:19 Or from these the whole earth was populated [4] 9:20 Or Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard [5] 9:27 Japheth sounds like the Hebrew for enlarge [6] 10:8 Or he began to be a mighty man on the earth [7] 10:14 Or from where [8] 10:25 Peleg means division [9] 11:9 Babel sounds like the Hebrew for confused (ESV)

Genesis 8–11 Genesis 8–11 (Listen) The Flood Subsides 8 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, 4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. 6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore. 13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. God’s Covenant with Noah 20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse1 the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” 9 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. 6   “Whoever sheds the blood of man,    by man shall his blood be shed,  for God made man in his own image. 7 And you,2 be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.” 8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” Noah’s Descendants 18 The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) 19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.3 20 Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.4 21 He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24 When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said,   “Cursed be Canaan;    a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.” 26 He also said,   “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem;    and let Canaan be his servant.27   May God enlarge Japheth,5    and let him dwell in the tents of Shem,    and let Canaan be his servant.” 28 After the flood Noah lived 350 years. 29 All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died. Nations Descended from Noah 10 These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood. 2 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 3 The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. 4 The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. 5 From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations. 6 The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. 7 The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. 8 Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man.6 9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.” 10 The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11 From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and 12 Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. 13 Egypt fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, 14 Pathrusim, Casluhim (from whom7 the Philistines came), and Caphtorim. 15 Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn and Heth, 16 and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, 17 the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, 18 the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the clans of the Canaanites dispersed. 19 And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. 20 These are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. 21 To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. 22 The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. 23 The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. 24 Arpachshad fathered Shelah; and Shelah fathered Eber. 25 To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg,8 for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother’s name was Joktan. 26 Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. 30 The territory in which they lived extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar to the hill country of the east. 31 These are the sons of Shem, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. 32 These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood. The Tower of Babel 11 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” 5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused9 the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth. Shem’s Descendants 10 These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood. 11 And Shem lived after he fathered Arpachshad 500 years and had other sons and daughters. 12 When Arpachshad had lived 35 years, he fathered Shelah. 13 And Arpachshad lived after he fathered Shelah 403 years and had other sons and daughters. 14 When Shelah had lived 30 years, he fathered Eber. 15 And Shelah lived after he fathered Eber 403 years and had other sons and daughters. 16 When Eber had lived 34 years, he fathered Peleg. 17 And Eber lived after he fathered Peleg 430 years and had other sons and daughters. 18 When Peleg had lived 30 years, he fathered Reu. 19 And Peleg lived after he fathered Reu 209 years and had other sons and daughters. 20 When Reu had lived 32 years, he fathered Serug. 21 And Reu lived after he fathered Serug 207 years and had other sons and daughters. 22 When Serug had lived 30 years, he fathered Nahor. 23 And Serug lived after he fathered Nahor 200 years and had other sons and daughters. 24 When Nahor had lived 29 years, he fathered Terah. 25 And Nahor lived after he fathered Terah 119 years and had other sons and daughters. 26 When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Terah’s Descendants 27 Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. 28 Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29 And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. 31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32 The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran. Footnotes [1] 8:21 Or dishonor [2] 9:7 In Hebrew you is plural [3] 9:19 Or from these the whole earth was populated [4] 9:20 Or Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard [5] 9:27 Japheth sounds like the Hebrew for enlarge [6] 10:8 Or he began to be a mighty man on the earth [7] 10:14 Or from where [8] 10:25 Peleg means division [9] 11:9 Babel sounds like the Hebrew for confused (ESV)

Morning: Genesis 6–8 Genesis 6–8 (Listen) Increasing Corruption on Earth 6 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in1 man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim2 were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. 5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. Noah and the Flood 9 These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. 10 And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. 13 And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh,3 for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 14 Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.4 Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. 15 This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits,5 its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. 16 Make a roof6 for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. 17 For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. 20 Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive. 21 Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them.” 22 Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him. 7 Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals,7 the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, 3 and seven pairs8 of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. 4 For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing9 that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” 5 And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him. 6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, 9 two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, 14 they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. 15 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. 16 And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the LORD shut him in. 17 The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18 The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. 20 The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits10 deep. 21 And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. 23 He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. 24 And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days. The Flood Subsides 8 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, 4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen. 6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made 7 and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore. 13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 18 So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. 19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. God’s Covenant with Noah 20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse11 the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” Footnotes [1] 6:3 Or My Spirit shall not contend with [2] 6:4 Or giants [3] 6:13 Hebrew The end of all flesh has come before me [4] 6:14 An unknown kind of tree; transliterated from Hebrew [5] 6:15 A cubit was about 18 inches or 45 centimeters [6] 6:16 Or skylight [7] 7:2 Or seven of each kind of clean animal [8] 7:3 Or seven of each kind [9] 7:4 Hebrew all existence; also verse 23 [10] 7:20 A cubit was about 18 inches or 45 centimeters [11] 8:21 Or dishonor (ESV) Evening: Matthew 3 Matthew 3 (Listen) John the Baptist Prepares the Way 3 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”1 3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,   “The voice of one crying in the wilderness:  ‘Prepare2 the way of the Lord;    make his paths straight.’” 4 Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” The Baptism of Jesus 13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him,3 and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son,4 with whom I am well pleased.” Footnotes [1] 3:2 Or the kingdom of heaven has come near [2] 3:3 Or crying: Prepare in the wilderness [3] 3:16 Some manuscripts omit to him [4] 3:17 Or my Son, my (or the) Beloved (ESV)

So Noah built the ark, and now we see that God does what he says he will do - bringing the flood. This week in our spotlight, we want to specifically talk about how this story relates to the second coming of Christ.

What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of next gen gaming theory by Nick. Awesome. And I just want to talk to you guys today about Samurai games, are these games going to just continue on? Are they something that as a fad, I feels like to me these games are something that is definitely going to continue on. And the reason I say that is we got Noah, we got Noah too. And we got a lot of mechanics coming from Star Wars Jedi fallen order that are based upon the samurai games and also Dark Souls, and all these other platform games that are third person, kind of lewd slash really tough, challenging games that are not easy to be games. So Noah is kind of this game on PlayStation, that you're a samurai and you're trying to travel through and be mythical beast and survive in Japan. And you also have the new game goes to Shima, which a did a really good job. So this is really going to bring that Samurai culture to life. So maybe this is going to create this enlightenment of Japanese culture because of these games, that hasn't been really explored as much on the western side. So if they're able to kind of meet halfway in regards to that, and just looking back in recent memory, it hasn't been really explored since Total War, did their version of Japan deeply by Western audiences, who were not already into that Samurai culture, so what we're going to see is, I think we will get a lot more Samurai games, yes, they're challenging, yet, they are really great RPGs if you really get into them. And the Japanese RPG aspect is definitely there, or it's a longer dialogue, challenging parts, you're going to spend many hours playing the game, we're probably going to have to invest over 50 hours to beat the game. But to be honest with you like Assassin's Creed Odyssey was over 50 hours, and people still beat that. So maybe that's not a valid excuse. But when you look at these games, they really bring that ability to immerse yourself in the Japan culture and learn from it and learn the mythologies and learn why it is the way it is. And then you're also a samurai. So you kind of get to read the culture of what it means to be a samurai. And there's so many different lanes here. And then also like the sword combat is really good. And Noah, for instance, there's low stances, there's high stances, there's kind of these backwards stances. And you don't really realize there's all these sorts of stances until you play a game like that. And then you also get more of a blocking, and how to attack the correct way and when to use your power attacks and when not to use those power attacks. And it can really give you a target of just to improve personally, just from a combat perspective. And and also looking at from a game perspective, you're learning a lot about how Samurai used to fight how, how this is brought into the mold. And I think this is a really neat concept that will get kind of expanded in the future, as we see this coming into fruition, as we saw the ghost of Tsushima really taking off in the United States. And I think what you're gonna see, it was actually like one of the top PlayStation games almost ever. And I don't think that was just due to COVID-19 I think this game had a lot of hype to it, they did a really great job of marketing it. And that marketing just paid off for them. They did like those trailers and I was like, I want to play this game. And the whole idea of foxes and going into the Japanese mythology about what that actually is and how you could travel those shrines and, and take on the mythology part of those games really brings it and people got really excited about this game before it ever came out. I remember people talking about it. And some people didn't want to have the mythology, they just want to have a kind of like a samurai experience. So I think that can definitely be explored in a lot of different games. From that aspects. That's not that big of a deal. But th --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgengame/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/nextgengame/support

Sermon Manuscript: Genesis 6-9 Series: Known in the Unknown Title: Living in Chaos Date: 8/2/20 Location: Rock of Generations / Perris.Online.Church     Genesis 6:8-16 (NLT) 8 But Noah found favor with the Lord. 11 Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. 13 So God said to Noah, “I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. 14 “Build a large boat from cypress wood and waterproof it with tar, inside and out. Then construct decks and stalls throughout its interior. 15 Make the boat 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. 16 Leave an 18-inch opening below the roof all the way around the boat. Put the door on the side, and build three decks inside the boat—lower, middle, and upper.       God has all the answers.     Genesis 6:17-22 (NLT) 17 “Look! I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes. 18 But I will confirm my covenant with you. So enter the boat—you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 19 Bring a pair of every kind of animal—a male and a female—into the boat with you to keep them alive during the flood. 21 And be sure to take on board enough food for your family and for all the animals.” 22 So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him.     Sometimes we have to move forward into the unknown.   Genesis 7:5 (NLT) 5 So Noah did everything as the Lord commanded him.   Genesis 7:7-22 New Living Translation (NLT) 7 He went on board the boat to escape the flood—he and his wife and his sons and their wives. 8 With them were all the various kinds of animals.   9 They entered the boat in pairs, male and female, just as God had commanded. 10 After seven days, the waters of the flood came and covered the earth.   11 When Noah was 600 years old, all the underground waters erupted from the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky. 12 The rain continued to fall for forty days and forty nights.   13 That very day Noah had gone into the boat with his wife and his sons. 14 With them in the boat were pairs of every kind of animal—domestic and wild, large and small—along with birds of every kind. Then the Lord closed the door behind them.   17 For forty days the floodwaters grew deeper, covering the ground and lifting the boat high above the earth. 18 As the waters rose higher and higher above the ground, the boat floated safely on the surface. 19 Finally, the water covered even the highest mountains on the earth. 21 All the living things on earth died. 22 Everything that breathed and lived on dry land died.       The Lord provides for those who follow his instructions.       Deuteronomy 28:1-6 (NLT) 28 “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. 2 You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God.     Genesis 8  (NLT) 8 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the boat. He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the floodwaters began to recede. 3 So the floodwaters gradually receded from the earth. After 150 days, the boat came to rest.  6 After another forty days, Noah opened the window he had made in the boat 7 and released a raven. The bird flew back and forth until the floodwaters on the earth had dried up. 8 He also released a dove to see if the water had receded and it could find dry ground. 9 But the dove could find no place to land because the water still covered the ground. So it returned to the boat, and Noah held out his hand and drew the dove back inside. 10 After waiting another seven days, Noah released the dove again. 11 This time the dove returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. Then Noah knew that the floodwaters were almost gone. 12 He waited another seven days and then released the dove again. This time it did not come back. 13 Noah was now 601 years old. 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Leave the boat, all of you. 17 Release all the animals—so they can be fruitful and multiply throughout the earth.” 20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord   Genesis 9:12-17 (NLT) 12 Then God said, “I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living creatures, for all generations to come. 13 I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth. 14 When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, 15 and I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the floodwaters destroy all life.   God always keeps his promises.     John 16:33  (NLT) 33 I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

Welcome to Day 1447 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomGo Forth and Multiply – Humor UnpluggedWisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your Captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1447 of our Trek, and time for a 3-minute mini-trek called Humor Unplugged. Our Thursday podcast will provide a short and clean funny story to help you lighten up and live a rich and satisfying life. Something to cheer you and give a bit a levity in your life. We are told in https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+15:30&version=NLT (Proverbs 15:30) A cheerful look brings joy to the heart; good news makes for good health. We are also encouraged in https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+17:22&version=NLT (Proverbs 17:22) A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength. Consider this your vitamin supplement of cheer for today. So let's jump right in with today's funny which is titled: Go Forth and MultiplyAfter the great flood, Noah was so anxious to rid the Ark of all the animals, and move onto a normal life. After investing 100 years building the Ark and then being quarantined for over a year with a bunch of smelly animals, Noah opens up the Ark and let all the animals out. Follow God's commands, Noah stands at the door and tells every pair of animals to “Go forth and multiply!” This feat alone took over a week before all the animals were out of the Ark. After he thought all of the animals we out, he went back in to sweep the Ark clean and to make sure no animals or creatures were left behind. Noah thought he was all finished, but did one last walk through with his family checking every corner.  As Noah was closing the great doors of the Ark, he hears something move in a dark corner. When checks closer, he notices that two snakes are sitting in a dark corner. Noah being very disturbed that the snakes were not off of the Ark. So Noah says to them, “Didn't you hear me? You can go now. Go forth and multiply." The snakes looked a bit embarrassed and replied, "We can't; we are adders."I hope that brought a smile to your face today. If it did pass your smile onto some else, we all could use a kind smile each day. Our Thursday thought is, “https://www.azquotes.com/quote/478622?ref=snakes (When you've been around a snake long enough, you learn how to crawl in the dirt.)” Here is our verse for today: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+9%3A1&version=NLT (Genesis 9:1) Then God blessed Noah and his sons and told them, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth. Just as you enjoy these nuggets of humor, please encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along tomorrow for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.' If you would like to listen to any of our past 1446 treks or read the Wisdom Journal, they are all available at Wisdom-Trek.com.  I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day will be downloaded to you automatically. Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most importantly, I am your friend as I serve you in through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day. As we take this Trek of life together, let us always: Live Abundantly (Fully) Love Unconditionally Listen Intentionally Learn Continuously Lend to others Generously Lead with Integrity Leave a Living Legacy Each Day I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to 'Keep Moving...

Diane Dayton  0:01  This is changing the rules, a podcast about designing the life you want to live, hosted by KC Dempster and Ray Loewe the luckiest guy in the world.KC Dempster  0:13  Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Changing the Rules. This is KC Dempster and I am podcasting from home today because we're in the middle of tropical storm Isaias. And so the only one who actually made it to the studio is our wonderful engineer Taylor. But  let's let's get back right into the thick of things. We call our show changing the rules because we believe that it is an important thing for people to understand and appreciate. And the bottom line is when we're born, we have people that start imposing rules on us from the very beginning. It's our parents, teachers, churches, society, and and that's fine because they're usually trying to keep us safe. To help us to learn how to live in society successfully. But as we get older, oftentimes these rules start to become restrictive. And they keep us from doing the things that we want and need to do in order to be successful in life. So we've discovered that the luckiest people in the world recognize that fact. And they start to change the rules, to modify them or to make totally new rules for themselves in order to be successful. And that's what this podcast is all about. We'd like to introduce you to people who are rule changers. Good morning, Ray. Are you staying dry?Ray Loewe  1:35  I'm dry, I'm safe and sound in my home and and it's pouring rain outside. It looks like the world is flooding. And we have a special guest later and it's very appropriate because while the world is flooding, we have Noah on the phone. Now Noah,  it just say hello from that. Okay, we're going to come back again and say hello. Okay, so Let's, let's talk a little bit about these luckiest people in the world. This is a group of people that I've been following now for 45-50 years, most of my adult life. And and the reason is because they're absolutely fascinating. They're fun to be with. They're the people that walk around with a halo around their head, and they're always happy. And they always seem to be excited about life. And I decided long ago that these were the people that I wanted to hang out with. And in fact, this was the kind of person that I wanted to be. And one of the things that we found out is that these people do several things. Number one, they design their own lives. They don't put up with the rules, they don't put up with the lives of others, they they step in and do it their way from the beginning. And there are a series of mindsets that they had that set them apart and we're going to explore three of them this morning. Okay, that our guests, particularly exhibit number one is changing the rules, our guest, very early in life learned that he's not going to let the rules restrict him and that he's not going to be bound by tradition. The second thing is that he knows what he wants. And you're going to see that in a minute when we bring him online. And the third thing that's going to happen is he follows very much what fascinates and motivates them. He doesn't get bogged down in things that he's not happy with. And he doesn't want to do and you're going to see this right away I am. We're going to take a short break. And we're going to come back with Kristine Parsons, who is in our non studio today, right? She's Skyping in, too. And she's actually going to introduce Noah. So Taylor, quick break.Diane Dayton  3:52  You're listening to changing the rules with KC Dempster and Ray Loewe the luckiest guy in the world. We will be right back with more exciting informationRay Loewe  4:05  so I love the short breaks, okay? Okay and and you wonder why they have them but but they're so that you know that you're listening to us. So you're right there right channel. So let me reintroduce Kris Parsons. Kris is our PR person. She does a whole lot of stuff for us in the background and she actually introduced us to Noah Preihs. So Kris introduced Noah for usKris Parsons  4:31  Yes, I'm just honored to introduce him because I've known him since a little boy. Noah is the family friend of ours, he and my sons are cross country runners, they've been in high school together, and one of my sons went to college with him. Noah is a 2021 graduate of the College of New Jersey, up north a little bit  in New Jersey. And actually, he's a graduate this year, but he only went three years. So he's already advanced there. He was on the dean's list, a business management major. And at the ripe old age of 15 years old, which was six years ago. That's when he started his business that we're going to be talking about today. His business is Noah's Everything Shop, where he buys and sells all sorts of items. And he'll tell you a lot of details about that.But he started this at age 15. And now at 21. He's serving the tri state area, he's selling everything and anything to clients who wants to downsize, they're moving or they're just looking to find some extra cash for some of the things that they have around the house. It's now grown to a $200,000 a year business with sales of over 7000 items. He also handles the shipping all over the world. So I would say no is probably one of the luckiest people in the world though. So then KC and Ray, Oh, there's no there's there's no question here. So let's talk about changing the rules first because Most people when they get out of college, they go and get a job.Ray Loewe  6:06  Okay, I don't think Noah did that. So Noah started his own business. He didn't follow the traditional plan. And tell us what motivated that Noah I you know, it's about time we let you talk I thinkNoah Preihs  6:20  I appreciate. Yeah, so it really started out like Kris said, when I was 14, I was just I've always had that entrepreneurial spirit. So I was just looking around the house for stuff to sell and I found some old sneakers in my closet that I ended up selling on eBay. And the first sale is probably the best feeling ever. I just so like fulfilling you know, being able to find something that I wasn't using, and then selling it for money to someone who you know, actually wanted it. So started from there and it really just branched out by me selling everything around the house for my parents, and then quickly branch out to family and friends. Because I realized that you know, if my parents had stuff to sell then my neighbor probably has something to sell. And any family friends have something that can be listed on eBay. So that's really how I branched out and started that small idea and seeing that it worked. And this now, from there.Ray Loewe  7:16  So, KC, have you ever sold anything on eBay?KC Dempster  7:19  No, I haven't. Because I'm basically a princess. I would love to have that I don't want to do the work.Ray Loewe  7:29  You know, I wouldn't even know where to begin. And and I think the role and I think this is what happens to a lot of people, you know, everybody's kind of enamored with this internet and internet sales and all of that stuff, but but how do they begin and what do you bring to the table? Now? What What do you do for people like me that don't know what to do?Noah Preihs  7:48  Yeah, and that's one of the things that I try to educate people on. I mean, I always tell people that you know, I can help you sell on your own if you really want to, and then if you don't have any luck, you can always you know, come to me down. Later on the line. But yeah, that's the big thing. Anyone could sell on eBay but I but really with my service, there's an expertise of how to list things, what to list them at, and professionalism. You know, how I take care of customer service and how I ship every day. So that's really the big thing. And you know, when someone gives me something that it's gonna get sold, and you know, you're gonna get a fair price for it based off the research that I do. So that's really the big thing. It's not, you know, super complicated business plan or, you know, you know how to list things, but it's effective and people enjoy it because once something's out of their hands, they no longer have to worry about it. They just get a check every month for what is sold.KC Dempster  8:43  I sound sounds like you're who I've been looking for.Noah Preihs  8:47  Yeah, I get that a lot.Ray Loewe  8:49  Yeah, so he gets rid of stuff that I get rid of clutter out of my house and I get a check. That's all I have to worry about. So what are some of the most Interesting things that you actually sold.Noah Preihs  9:03  Yeah. So I've had, obviously a wide range of things that have been a little quirky or weird in general that I've sold. But definitely the one that takes the cake is I did a consignment pickup in North Jersey. And a gentleman had old bottles, which I thought were maybe soda bottles or medicine bottles, which I knew there was a market for. But he revealed to me that they were actually bottles for embalming. So he had a collection of these things. And I would have never guessed that they would have went for money. But apparently, there's a huge market for it. And I was able to sell for him. So it just goes to show that everybody has something to sell. And there's literally a market for anything. Because there's always somebody interested in what you may no longer have an interest in.Ray Loewe  9:49  Yeah, I never would have thought of putting a pair of used sneakers online. I never in a million years and yet, stuff like that happens all the time, doesn't it?Noah PreighYeah, it does. More than people think.Kris Parsons  10:02  Celebrity Well, excuse me wasn't a celebrity who started a business selling sneakers? Wasn't thatNoah Preihs  10:08  Yeah, there's there's a couple people on and that's actually how I really got started was it started out with us sneakers, but then I you know branch out to higher end sneakers and that was really like my first experience in you know, reselling. And I kind of took my, a lot of what I learned from that and brought it to my consignment business, which is obviously my full time hustle. Now.Ray Loewe  10:31  Let's, let's talk a little bit about what you do for people. I mean, here, here we are a I'm definitely a novice at this. But and one of the things I'm going to be doing sooner than later is moving again, and when I move I'm going to have to downsize quite a bit. And so I'm going to have stuff right? stuff.Yeah. And, you know, you can throw it away or you can call Noah right? And so what are the things that you bring? You can tell me what's worth putting up? What's not worth putting up? How to do this? You know? Go ahead, tell me Give me some insight.Noah Preihs  11:12  Yeah. And that's one of the big things is educating people on you know what actually sells. So that's why when I have a client that tells me they want to, you know, they're moving or they want to just downsize in general. I tell them don't throw anything out. Like let me look through everything and I'll tell you exactly when I know I could get money for and what you know, might also have value that I can take.But you know, it's a shame because a lot of people especially right now, during the total lockdown and COVID era, people were going through their garages, basements, you know, really any room in their house and they were throwing out a lot of things before you know, even considering that there may be a value for it. So that's my big thing is just educating people to you know, really, you know, thanks for throwing something out like hey, maybe there is a market for it on eBay or at least You know, giving me a call and you know, see what I think about it.Ray Loewe  12:03  And you know, you know what to throw out and what to say, hey, maybe it's gonna shell. Okay? Tell me. Let's tell everybody how to get in touch with you again so we don't forget about that. And then I want to come back and I want to probe a little bit into your mindset about why you got into a business like this. But how do we contact you first of all,Noah Preihs  12:27  so I'm on basically all social media platforms, Noah's Everything Shop on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and then My website is ebay.com/Noahseverythingshop and that'll take you right to the eBay store where you can search all the products that I have through the different categories. And you can also reach out to me that way as well.Ray Loewe  12:47  Okay, so we can post that on our on our notes section on our podcast, right. Okay. All right. Now, let's figure out what motivated you because This one will you really get into why you are one of the luckiest people in the world? So I have a note here that said that you help individuals and families who are not able to sell things on their own, or could use extra money to make ends meet. What a great goal. Okay, yeah, well,Noah Preihs  13:19  it's really the most redeeming aspect of the business is just knowing that I'm helping out people that would have no you know, capability of selling us on due to, you know, other jobs or, you know, just other things that they want to pursue. And it's seamless. I mean, the big thing is, once it's out of the person's hands, it's no more work on their part. And I take care of the rest. So it really is, you know, rewarding knowing that I'm helping people out who could use the extra money or, you know, just want to declutter, and a lot of times, people that, you know, want to get rid of all this stuff, and declutter their house. It's just, like mentally clearing that, you know, it's, it's a lot less stress than, you know, knowing that it's not around and I'm actually you know, storing it and then shipping it when it sells and then they get a check in the mail every month. So I mean, that's really the big thing is that people really enjoy that they don't have any work on their part. And you know, I'm, I bring a sense of professionalism that can help people sell their items.Ray Loewe  14:16  And then this came this all stemmed from selling a pair of old sneakers that you didn't, what what would, you know, what did you just wake up one morning and say, I'm going to go to my closet and see if I got an old pair of sneakers to sell, you know, how did how did this come up?Noah Preihs  14:33  And literally, that's what happened. I mean, throughout my childhood, I was always, you know, mowing lawns, or doing even younger doing lemonade stands and stuff. So I was always just, you know, looking for an edge, you know, besides just having a, you know, regular job. So that's really what it came down to. I heard from my friend that he was or someone that was actually older than me at the time that they were selling on eBay, because you know, technically you're not even selling eBay when you're that young. That was a double life that I was livingKris Parsons  15:08  changing the rules, yeah,Noah Preihs  15:09  it's not like I had, you know, collectibles to my name at that age. So it was really just a limited selection of what I could sell. And I saw some old sneakers that, you know, I knew were worth a little more when I bought them, but I saved up all my money to buy them. So I figured, you know, why not sell them and they were in decent condition, then they definitely get some value on eBay. And I was so excited when they finally sold because it was it was silver leaving knowing that, you know, I had so much more stuff like that, that, you know, may not go for a lot of money, but you know, it makes a difference when boy 14 or 15.Ray Loewe  15:43  So you fed off of this right? You had a success. And then and then what happened? You went back into the closet to find more stuff to sell, right?Noah Preihs  15:52  Yeah, exactly. And so Wednesday, my mom's closet eventually the basement soRay Loewe  15:58  so did you ever sell anything of your moms and dads that they weren't ready to show you that?Noah Preihs  16:03  I'm not actually I would say with my dad, there was a couple of things that he was like, he was like, Oh, he only got 40 bucks. And, you know, that's a lot of times one of the problems that I deal with is just you know, people have this idea that things are worth You know, a lot more than it's actually worth.So, a lot of it is educating people beforehand, just so you know, make sure things that are, you know, 100% clear, you know, how much they can expect to get for it. But yeah, like, he was like, all that was my prized possession.Ray Loewe  16:32  And, and, and, okay, so you did this all through high school, and then all of a sudden, when college was done, did you ever really consider getting another job?Noah Preihs  16:43  I mean, I wouldn't say that I never considered it. But I just know that I believe in what I sell in and I'm extremely confident that you know, I can help every single person because everyone has something to sell. So that was really my approach that I was gonna, you know, really go after after college and you know, try and help as many people as possible.Ray Loewe  17:06  Okay, well, unfortunately, we're near the end of our time here. But But Noah, I think you're an inspiration. I think what I've seen here is that you've been able to take something that you got excited about, that you're passionate about. And you've been able to create your own business here, a niche where you can support yourself where you're working with things that you love to do. And this is what the luckiest people in the world all hope to do. And I think as our listeners, take a look at what Noah has been able to do here and how he's been able to build a business for himself, at only 21-22 years old, and I think you got a career I can't ever see you working for anybody else at this point in time. Any Any closing remark you want to make we only have a minuteNoah Preihs  18:00  Yeah, I just want to encourage other people, you know, that are, you know, in college or, you know, just graduated high school that, you know, it is possible to run your own business if you're, you know, super passionate about it and you know, you have, you know, clear insight into what you want to do. I would say go for it. I mean, especially at a young age, you know, you shouldn't take risks. So I would encourage everybody to, you know, try something that they're, you know, passionate and see if they can, you know, turn it into a business somehow.Ray Loewe  18:29  Cool. Okay, I think we're near the end of our time. Let's do a quick break Taylor, and then we'll come back and close us up.Diane Dayton  18:39  You're listening to changing the rules with KC Dempster and Ray Loewe the luckiest guy in the world. We will be right back with more exciting information.KC Dempster  18:50  Welcome back, everybody. I'm just so fascinated by by what Noah had to say. And I've been I apologize for not listening closely. Because I've been mentally going through my head and making a list. But anyway, you know, getting back to the luckiest people in the world, it's it's not a one time decision to be lucky, you have to make it a lifetime commitment. And you have to make your choices constantly to take you down the path where you maybe you have to change rules, or maybe even change something even bigger. But we have several ways that we can help you be lucky and stay lucky. And one of them is our new website, www,theluckiestpeopleintheworld.com. And on that we have, you know, links to the podcasts. We have books that Ray and I have put written together, we have some courses that might be able to help you if that's where you want to go. So visit our website and we always want you to listen to the podcasts because we have so much fun doing them.Ray Loewe  19:56  Yeah, and on our website, we're gonna have a link to Our virtual conferences coming up in September. And this is a chance to meet people like Noah. We've got an exciting presentation and hopefully Noah is going to be there too. And maybe we'll even condiment into running one of our breakout sessions like that. Okay, but Okay, so we'll see everybody next week and have a great rainy day.Diane Dayton  20:28  Thank you for listening to changing the rules, a podcast designed to help you live your life the way you want, and give you what you need to make it happen. Join us in two weeks for our next exciting topics on changing the rules with KC Dempster and Ray Loewe the luckiest guy in the world. 

Noah didn’t need to take two of every species, just two of every “family.” So Noah probably had less than seven thousand animals on the ark.

NOAH, A PATTERN OF GOD’S ECONOMY AND THE EMERGING APOSTOLIC CRAFTSMEN PART 17. Defining the quality of men who will lead the reopening of this new era, we have ushered in is critical to the administration of the economy of God. It is clear the Lord is up to something that is changing the balance of power in society. The movement of God in the earth begins with finding the right instrument of representation. Men are designed to be visionary leaders who birth creative and innovative resources to reform, transform, and restore their society. As Noah became the first man to step out of the Ark during the post-flood era, the Spirit of the Lord is now releasing certain kingdom-value men with governmental grace, going ahead to set things in order as they lead their families and nations to reopen the prophetic program of the Father. The Spirit of the Lord stirred the atmosphere of our devotion in the direction of praying for the men of the nation of South Africa. It is clear the Father has begun to rebuild the various components of the economy of the nations. One of the major aspects of kingdom value within a nation is the quality of the men who live within the walls of such a society. The searchlight of heaven today was turned on the position and role of men in our cities. The reopening of the economy of our nation and the rest of the nations should be focused on the type of men seated at the gates of affairs. If we do not get quality, spiritual men with the precise visionary spirit to lead and rebuild that which as been broken and has become dysfunctional, then we are not truly ready to step into a post-rest era. Genesis chapter 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Come out of the Ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.” 18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. 19All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the Ark, one kind after another. 20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though a every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

GOD IS RAISING AN ARMY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS MEN IN SOUTH AFRICA. PORTALSGATE PROPHETIC PRAYER SCHOOL. SESSION 312. Defining the quality of men who will lead the reopening of this new era, we have ushered in is critical to the administration of the economy of God. It is clear the Lord is up to something that is changing the balance of power in society. The movement of God in the earth begins with finding the right instrument of representation. Men are designed to be visionary leaders who birth creative and innovative resources to reform, transform, and restore their society. As Noah became the first man to step out of the Ark during the post-flood era, the Spirit of the Lord is now releasing certain kingdom-value men with governmental grace, going ahead to set things in order as they lead their families and nations to reopen the prophetic program of the Father. The Spirit of the Lord stirred the atmosphere of our devotion in the direction of praying for the men of the nation of South Africa. It is clear the Father has begun to rebuild the various components of the economy of the nations. One of the major aspects of kingdom value within a nation is the quality of the men who live within the walls of such a society. The searchlight of heaven today was turned on the position and role of men in our cities. The reopening of the economy of our nation and the rest of the nations should be focused on the type of men seated at the gates of affairs. If we do not get quality, spiritual men with the precise visionary spirit to lead and rebuild that which as been broken and has become dysfunctional, then we are not truly ready to step into a post-rest era. Genesis chapter 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Come out of the Ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.” 18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. 19All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the Ark, one kind after another. 20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though a every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

MAKE YOURSELF AN ARK There are some remarkable similarities between the event of Noahs ark in the time of the flood to this time of the novel (brand new) corona virus and the global pandemic that has us all shut in. novel new like the flood – never been seen beforeGenesis 6:14…Make yourself an ark…18… and you shall go into the ark—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. And you shall take for yourself all kinds of food, and you shall gather it to yourself; and it shall be food for you and for them.” Noah did according to all that God commanded him. Noah’s ark is a story of people being saved from worldwide disaster, a flood that lasted for many months (5) and finished off the life and culture of that world at the time, in order to bring a new world into being, a new kind of life and culture. It was the end to former things and a beginning of new things - The global gamechanger – You could say that the flood was even the novel climate change gamechanger. We are in the midst of a global event where certain emerging new ways of life and culture now perceived as temporary game-changing things will become permanent realities in many many aspects of our routine lives – working from home, banking and finance, education, even church.As far as global game-changing is concerned there is an amazing spiritcode message – the number 120 – it is hidden in a comment that God makes as he speaks to Noah about the ark, when he looked at the things going on in the earth and decided he was going to stop things happening the way they were and prepare the world for a new way for life to happen Genesis 6:4 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not contend with man forever, for his heart is totally self centred: so his days shall be 120 years.That number 120 is not talking about what the span of human life is going to be. It is talking about how long Noah has to prepare an ark before the game-changing event occurs that marks the end of things being done man’s way and beginning to be done God’s way- the end of former things and a beginning of new things. Building an ark is now the biggest and greatest project in our lives – but we need to know what it means… This is the first specific mention of the number 120 in the Bible and it always signifies a situation of the old passing away and the new emerging. There are two very significant further mentions of the 120 code The next was about Moses who was 120 years old when he died (Deuteronomy 34:7) - and his end-of-life age pointed forward to the rule of life under the Law coming to an end and a new rule of life would emerge in due course. The game-changing message here is that the new thing would be life under the rule of the Spirit of God. The next was in Acts 1:15 - There were 120 Jewish disciples living under the Jewish Law in an upper room of prayer when the world at that time as they prayed, was visited with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and humanity was now able to live a life guided by the Spirit of God and not just their own understanding. We are living in a number 120 moment in the earth today. New things are going to come to pass we will be doing things in a new way that we haven’t done before. It’s no good my trying to guess what they will be but they will be done God’s way and not our way and we will experience a time of letting go – letting go of the old and embracing the new living way that is waiting for us to walk in. The ark was a place of safety in a time of disaster and destruction – a flood - a global crisis, and the ark was where you had to go and had to be to preserve your life. So what kind of life are we talking about preserving in our current situation? We are all doing the best we can to observe the life-saving protocols of the lockdown shut in life in our homes for as long as we have to. It is in us as human beings want to preserve that and everything that goes with it – the outward form of things. But there are some outward forms of things we are learning to have to let go of and that is hard and often sad and perplexing to see them pass away. That is causing much grief and sense of loss and we are finding ourselves coming closer together even in our social distancing through our faith and our love for one another. That brings me to the inner life and THAT is where we can build the real ark and preserve the things that do not pass away but are eternal. Letting go of outward things that pass can keep alive the inner things that last. So Noah’s ark has lessons for us in finding the wisdom for safeguarding both inner and outer things in our lives. We might lose some things of our outer life in this crisis that help us to gain the inner things. Some things in our lives may have to die to so that other things might live. How does this MAKE FOR YOURSELF AN ARK compare to the current corona virus disaster that we are experiencing at this moment?Noah was told to prepare for something that he had never seen before – rain. There is no mention of rain on the earth till this time. Genesis 2:5 For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth…but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground… So how could Noah prepare to survive and overcome something that he didn’t know even existed How do we prepare for something today that we didn’t know existed? We can hear Noah saying to God after he was commanded to build an ark‘ Lord could you tell me what an ark does?– I honestly don’t think we need one’. God was not going to teach him about what a flood was or how to predict rain. And we can hear God replying ‘This is not the time for me to teach you about weather forecasts Noah – just build an ark’.Covid 19 is called ‘the novel’ – the new corona virus – no vaccine – so no defence – no treatment so no cure as such at this time except for protocols of lockdown. so what do you do? You build an ark.That is what you are on the earth for now – at this time.There are outward things you are I are doing now that are different to what they were – and difficult -if we are taking the good advice from the authorised experts who are responsible and caring, and not only the facebook posts. So we listen carefully in that respect and try to get it right. How do we let go of things that pass? Well mostly they just cease to be and will not be there so the only thing we cling to is the emotional attachment we have to wanting to have them still there or to get them back. Some we will and some maybe not or maybe different. That is the meaning of spirit code120.Many people in this time of crisis don’t have their work and occupation or interaction with others that was their everyday life, at least not in the same way. Our hearts go out to each other in these things and we feel for one another, all over the world in our common sense of loss and grief. All of us no longer have the freedom of movement and travel to and fro and gathering together but yet we stay close.So let’s move from the letting go of outward things that pass and get to keeping alive the inner things that last. That’s our real ark. So how do we build an ark?This is the building of the inner place of refuge. The ark had three levels Gen 6:16 This speaks of the Trinity Father Son and Holy Spirit. He was told to build three levels – upper, middle, and lower. A huge Cruise ship. I’ve never been on a cruise ship but this is the kind of cruise ship that I want to be in at this time and I believe many of us have been seeking to travel our sea of life with God as father son and Holy spirit and to have this as our refuge. The upper level represents the Holy Spirit, as the Bible speaks of the dove being sent out across the waters from a window in the upper deck to see if there was dry land, and the dove returned with an olive branch – the branch of inner stillness and peace. That dove was finally set free by Noah to fly through the skies. He is our freedom, gentle but powerful and the giver of truth and love.The middle level represents Jesus who joins us with the Father. Jesus is there in us and as us – in everything – he’s been there in danger and in crisis and he always had the Holy Spirit to lead him and guide him and he always had the Father, in whose arms of love he could rest. Jesus is your Noahs ark experience in this calamity He is your strength in your weakness. And The Father cradles us all from underneath as his children. I mentioned last week about our human need at this time to know what to do... What do I do next what do I not do OR What is happening – God is happening. God happens to us as the three in one, Father Son and Holy Spirit. There is one Scripture that sums it all up regarding building an ark and living the ark experience, and it speaks to us about The Holy Spirit who helps us to know what to pray for in a time like this because we don’t even know what to ask.Romans 8:25 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought to, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts (that’s Jesus)knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He(that’s Jesus) makes intercession for the saints (that’s us) according to the will of God (That’s the Father- and Father always answers Jesus’ prayer). And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose (invited to share with him in the unfolding purpose he has for our lives).You have the Holy Spirit to touch your feelings and pray your prayer, and you have Jesus to take that to the Father so that your prayer is answered in the most powerful and caring way in a supernatural dimension that is above all of our attempts to know or to understand the unknowable and the incomprehensibility of the things which are beyond our control. This is your ark – God knows the thing you need, your health and material provision, your hope in times of anxiety, your fear of the unknown – he knows these things and he is quick to answer and to give you faith. You are his children.So be conscious that this process is going on all the time and we can become part of this four way prayer meeting simply by knowing and believing that it is there and muttering our thankyous to God every time fear or anxiety try to wrestle this reality away from us. Make for yourselves an ark.

Then, Noah remembered God. Although Genesis 8 is primarily about God remembering Noah, it also contains wonderful truth about how Noah remembered God. In Verse 15-17 God tells him it was time to leave the ark. Taking the family and all of the animals off the boat and get ready to repopulate the earth. “So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on the earth—came out of the ark, one kind after another” (Genesis 8:18-19).  I do not think we appreciate how much courage it took for Noah to leave the ark.  As I have already pointed out, the ark had been crowded, cramped, and no doubt somewhat smelly. But it has been home, and it was safe. Now they were leaving the known for the unknown. The world they had known and left when they got on the ark was gone forever.  It might have been easier to stay in the ark, uncomfortable as it must have been. It took great courage for Noah to step out of the ark into a brand-new world.  Sometimes, often times, God calls us to do things that are hard and may even seem impossible. We are called to leave the known for the unknown, and we have to leave the ark that has taken us this far and step out on our own.  Some of us are stuck because we know it’s time to move forward but we are afraid to take the first step. God blessed Noah who knew when to get on the big boat and he also knew when to get off! Praise God! Support this podcast

Here is ye old Murican chinwagger, 3 parter! In the first section, we discuss our initial meeting and learn about what Noah does (spoiler: he's Arnold Schwarzenegger's assistant, Cray cray!). So Noah gives us an inside look at the life of Arnold. We kick part two off with Noaches experience in NZ. We then hear a bit about life in LA before inspecting the social media climate. The last part gets into Rick and Morty, SIX60, the beauty of sports and Noah's Hip Replacement. P.S. Happy Easter y'all, take her easy, eat choco. Recommended tunes: -The Trouble with Us by Chet Faker and Marcus Marr -Pride and Joy by Stevie Ray Vaughan Website: https://scruffychinwags.wixsite.com/sc19

So Noah has completed 6 weeks of lessons and is sounding amazing, check out this new mix from this awesome student.

It seems that with certain Quiet Light Brokerage listings, there is just a mad rush of activity as soon as they come out. Most of the listings that we put out will receive at least 100 inquiries right away, but what does it look like when we put out a “hot listing” that garners two times that much interest? Today we are discussing the type of business that gets 9 offers. We go over how many inquiries those types of listings get, how much discussion and conference calls happen around these potential transactions in a short time frame, and just what it takes to get these listings under contract. We hope you enjoy this little case study of how to set up for a successful sale from the seller side and tips for how to act from the buyer side. Being thoroughly prepared and running a real, viable business are keys to success. Episode Highlights: The main characteristics that made this business so attractive. How the pricing decision played into the transaction. The process of selecting the 15 buyers we entertained. The conference call screening process between the seller and potential buyers, facilitated by the broker. How to choose a buyer and deal with disappointing those who lost out. The 4 pillars of success and how this business checked them all. The one intangible thing that took the business to the next level and attracted the buyers. How the packages that Quiet Light puts together tell a story about the listing and the journey of the brand and its seller. Transcription: Mark: It seems that with some Quiet Light Brokerage listings as soon as when they hit the marketplace there is just an absolute mad rush of buying activity towards those listings. Now to be clear most of the listings that we put out at Quiet Light Brokerage, the vast majority, in fact, it could be an exception to the rule is going to receive at least 100 inquiries from buyers and calls right away. So what does it look like when it we come across a “hot listing”? Well, it looks like a lot of conference calls scheduled very, very shortly and just a mad rush of inquiries probably upwards of 200 and 250 within the first 24 hours in some cases. What's the difference between a listing that is not as hot like that that gets on a 100, 150, which is still a lot and something that doubles that? Joe, I know you launched a listing 3 or 4 weeks ago from the time that we're recording this episode that we would definitely throw in that hot category. What were the top line statistics on that? Joe: It was a let's call it a 95 to 98% Amazon business. It was 30 months old. It was in the category of America's fastest growing recreational sports. It was run by a single owner operator that was a stay at home dad that was a CPA by training yet outsourced the bookkeeping to an e-commerce bookkeeper. $440,000 in discretionary earnings and we went out on a 3.3 which is lower than my recommendation. But in this case, the conservative CPA said no I don't want it to be listed for too long. I really like to get it sold let's … can we go out at a three. I suggested a 3.5. Rarely does somebody come back and say can you sell it for less and he did in this case and we ended up [inaudible 00:02:50.9]. Mark: The guy sounds like one of these unbelievably likable guys. How many inquiries did you get within that first 24 hours? Joe: You know I didn't count the first 24 but I know that you and I were … we were in Dallas and on the way to Houston for a meeting and I think we pulled it up and within the first 4 hours, we had something like 185. So within the first 24, I think it probably doubled to close to 400 would be my guess. Mark: That is insane. Now I do remember obviously these are all loaded questions so anyone listening like I know the answers to most of these questions— Joe: No, he doesn't. He forgot them all. He can— Mark: I actually— Joe: Yeah. Mark: I was introduced by the way this is completely outside; a complete diversion here. So sidebar I was introduced at a group of CEO's yesterday. And in front of the entire group of CEO's the guy that introduced me said “And Mark, by the way, took his son, they have seven kids or is it they're expecting their seventh kid. He's got so many kids he forgets their birthdays because he took his son to urgent care the other day and he got his birthday wrong.” I'm like thank you for that. I'm so glad to be known as the guy who forgets his kids' birthdays. Joe: You've got a lot of kids man. Mark: I got the month right. I didn't get the year or day right. I know the answer to this. We were in the car together and your phone was blowing up. We were at a conference. You were trying to schedule out all of these people wanting conference calls and you did this right over the conference itself which maybe we can talk about in just a little bit here. Within that first 24 hours if you would just guess how many conference call requests did you get? Joe: Well, let's keep in mind that that our process requires that the buyer either speak to me first before requesting a conference call or we've spoken in the past. So in this case in the first 24 hours, I had at least 10 requests for conference calls with buyers that I've already spoken to in the past that have looked at prior listings of ours and they wanted to make sure they were on a call with this one. We wound up with a total of 15 on this. As I said the owner of the business, Paul, is a stay at home dad. It's funny and I don't know if they loved this or just love making fun of Paul for this but he's a stay at home dad right? His son is a couple of years old but he takes his son to daycare at eight and picks him up at five. So I'm not sure how stay at home that is. Anyway so … but the beautiful thing is that he maybe … Paul if you're listening I'm sorry, maybe it's nine to four and you expanded it. Either way, you're a great guy and people love you and your business. I am not getting a Christmas card from Paul this year. Mark: I'm sure you are. Joe: Anyway, he was able to clear his calendar which was great. I was getting so inundated and I was at eCommerceFuel and I'm like I can't do these conference calls. And I had said to Paul on the way through eCommerceFuel look I want to bump this launch a week because it's going to get crazy and I'm not to be able to be on this conference calls. He says oh god really? Come on I really want to get it launched and it totally got my heartstrings so we launched it anyway. So I took the two days … it launched on a Wednesday I think and I took Thursday and Friday and all I did was talk to folks and schedule the calls for the following week. Paul cleared his calendar. We set up a link so that people could just grab a link and schedule them. We did a max of three a day separated by at least an hour a piece and we wound up I think by Monday closed the business. We had all 15 slots scheduled. We capped it at 15 which is really five too many. You just don't have to have that many conference calls. Normally we have three to five conference calls and we have at least one acceptable offer. Here we had 15 scheduled and we wound up with nine. Mark: These are 45 minute slots or are they an hour long slots? Joe: They were hour long slots. I go with an hour yeah. Mark: So just to put this in perspective for people that have not been on the sell side, I know I had this with a listing last year that I represented where it was just a really favorable price on the business and so we had that 15 conference call sort of scenario that we were doing in one week. For anyone on the receiving end of that our clients, the sellers, that's exhausting to go from one conference call to the next to the next; an hour where you're being asked the same questions and you're doing the majority of the talking during that time. This might be a little bit beside the fact but how did he hold up throughout all those calls? Joe: He did pretty well. They were spread out which was nice. He usually had … he had a minimum of an hour but usually, it was two or three hours in between. And we had one drop out so it ended up being 14. But he did pretty well. He had to keep moving around the house. That particular week his son was home because he got a fever a couple of days before and he was quite sick so he couldn't take him to daycare. And his mother flew up from Arizona to be with his son while he moved around the house to be in an appropriate place to do the conference calls. Most of the time he was actually in the nursery doing the conference calls from his laptop. Mark: Right. So I want to get into a couple of big topics here. I want to talk about what were the characteristics that made this business and you already talked a little bit about this but what were the characteristics that made this business so attractive? Because I also know that we suggested to Paul going out at a 3.5. He's the one that wanted 3.3 for the asking price on this. That's the multiple that we're asking on the earnings. So I want to go into what was it that made this such a hot listing where people just needed to look at the teaser that we gave and that alone generated 200 plus inquiries within the first 24 hours? So what's going on there and then second I want to go through a little bit more of the process that you went through in selecting the buyers that were going to get those conference calls. Because out of 250 finding 15 you know I know a lot of buyers out there would be like well how would I become one of those 15 if I'm going to be competing against this? And then last I mean this is kind of the darker side now or the bad side I guess of what we have to do when you have a hot listing like this is we have to disappoint a number of people that actually really want this business but lose out in a bid for it. So I want to go over those three categories with you and then obviously Joe you're better at this podcasting thing than I am so if there's something I'm missing let me know. Joe: Can you repeat that last part again, please? Mark: You are better at this podcasting thing than I am but I still have the number one episode thank you. Joe: And two and three, yes you've got them all, but you do the title so I think there's a little trickery going on it. Mark: And I used to do the promotion too so … your podcasts easy for me what with number one. Joe: I mean you talked about the four pillars; risk, growth, transfer ability, and documentation. And when you go through these things Paul's business just checks all of these off and all the subcategories within those checks them all off. He owned his own brand. He developed it himself. It's in a niche that is out there and there are other brands but he picked a … he specifically chose a niche within a larger niche to serve a certain segment of these people to start with. So there's a growth opportunity to go. He picked the sort of beginners in this sport. He didn't go with the top end of the product. He went with a middle of the road product that beginners … a price point that beginners would enjoy. So right away you could say okay well I'm learning this business and now I'm going to take this to the new level and go with the more professional people that play this sport. It's not quite professional but retired professionals can play. So he did a really nice job there in picking the category. It was just by happenstance. He happened to be on vacation visiting his folks in Arizona and saw this game that they are playing and said what the heck is that? Looked it up, studied it, researched it and it started growing like crazy and chose to go in that category. A registered trademark, beautiful brand, beautiful packaging, and again let the business age. We've been talking for probably nine months and it was getting close to the 24 month mark but we got through that Christmas holiday season. This particular business is not fourth quarter heavy seasonal. It's actually better in the spring and summer months. So we got prior to the spring and summer months so that a new one would have a great advantage with an upswing in the summer months. It was clean books, SBA eligible which helps cast a broader net to probably half the offers. I can't say half because they were nine. So four out of the nine offers, five out of the nine were SBA offers. The growth trends were fantastic; 80, 90, 100% year over year, month over month growth. It looked really good comparing month to month and from year to year. Transfer ability; super easy, he owned the brand. He wasn't reselling anything. He had a good relationship with his manufacturers. And the documentation, of course, good SOP's in place. He did it all himself so there weren't VA's that were combing [inaudible 00:11:42.3] anybody else or people that works on his house or anything like that needed to transfer. This sort of intangible thing that I think took this to the next level is the person behind the business. He's not transferring with the business but he is so, so likeable and so trustworthy; just the full story behind him. And I'm not suggesting that everybody goes and becomes a CPA, quits their job, and works from home and be a stay at home dad. But people want to invest in a business and buy something from somebody that they like and they trust. As Mike Jackness said on a call recently you have to be a good human being in order to get the deal done. It needs to work for both parties. And just describing who Paul is and then how he is in the video and how he came across, he's just a good person and people wanted to buy the business from him. Mark: Yeah, I'm looking at the teaser right now. It's cool if I read some of the teaser, right? Joe: Yeah of course. Mark: All right so again I'm just looking at this. I'm … this is selfish on my part, the next listing I put out I want to get 250 inquiries because that's awesome. I mean that's great for our clients. All right so I'm looking through this and look in through the prism of those four pillars of risk, growth, transfer ability, documentation. Risk; Amazon businesses, this is primarily Amazon. The biggest thing that I find and maybe you'd disagree is that it needs to be defensible against competition. In here I see towards the bottom there's a trademark and the brand is brand registered, there we go. There are over 2,000 reviews you are … these are getting harder and harder to fake. So you're speaking towards this … the main risk that people associate with Amazon. Right away people are thinking oh awesome that's great. Growth; this is rapidly growing. You leaved this but this is rapidly growing as one of America's fastest growing sports. So A. this business is growing, B. this niche is growing; two really good things, so growth is checked off pretty easily. You have some other stuff in here. Transfer ability; the owner, single owner, dedicates approximately 15 hours per week running the business. I could do that right? Who can't do 15 hours a week on something? And then lastly documentation; the owner is a former CPA. Do you need to say anything else? I think you checked each of those boxes with a giant red check mark to say everyone looking at this; this thing is going to check all of these boxes and become really valuable. It turned out surprisingly enough to be true. These four pillars work. Joe: Yeah, they do. They do. And one of the pillars is growth but within that is growth opportunities and growth trends. And the opportunities I'll dig into the package itself. I can't quite remember but he had launched new SKUs in 2018 and so we look at the revenue when did he launch those and the revenue by SKU during that time period. And it was clear that some of these SKUs had gained some traction in 2018 but they hadn't been available for the full 12 months. So that's a built in path to growth. So it's one other thing that buyers liked. And then when you … I mean that teaser it obviously checks all of those four pillars but then when you get into the package and we recorded a video, a video interview with him via Xoom like we're doing now. Obviously, people are listening to mostly audio but we do the video as well. And he's in his home you can see the kitchen in the background and he's got the packaging and he holds up the packaging and it's just beautiful. It's a really nice product and this is again hard for people to duplicate but this particular product it's just cool. It's just a cool niche and a cool place to be and he did a really nice job with the packaging. He did everything right as far as I'm concerned and obviously as far as buyers are concerned as well. Mark: Yeah, one thing I want to touch on here because we talked about this a lot for buyers that you want to be likable and come across well to the potential sellers. But it works both ways too right? I mean obviously, somebody who's selling who's a complete jerk probably isn't going to get too far with us because the process is just too difficult. So most of the … most of our clients are great people anyway but there are some people who have just magnetic personalities. And for this deal, you for I think one of the first times we experimented or you experimented by doing more video conferencing between buyers and sellers on that. How did that impact the deal and what should buyers take away from boy these guys want to do a video conference should I turn on my camera or should I, oh no, no I don't really have good lighting for this and a good set up for it. Joe: Do it. One of the best calls we had was with a guy named Noah. And he hadn't planned on doing video because he was on his dad's party boat. I know he's 35 years old but he's helping his father move this big boat from one port to another because it's being sold. And Paul and I are on video and we said the video is optional and said it's recommended but optional. And he said well both of you guys are there and he goes I'm kind of embarrassed. I'm on my dad's boat. I'm on a boat. I'm like we have to see it, turn it on. Mark: It's great. Joe: Yeah. His dad was in the background moving stuff around and he's shooing him out of the frame. It was fantastic. So Noah was like able and memorable and that stuck with Paul. Paul wanted to sell the business to Noah at the end of the call. So that makes a huge difference. Not everybody did it. There were two or three that were in the top three. Yeah, obviously three when the top three but two or three that stuck out. Two of them did a video one of them didn't do video. The very first person that we had a call with he chose not to do video. He made a great offer and he … we came close on having him but we ended up … Paul ended up choosing someone else. But I think you do the video. I'm doing it more and more and if you've got an opportunity as a buyer to do a video if your broker allows that then, by all means, do it. Mark: I think on the sell side this is something just to note. To people listening, we're going to be doing this more and more because it really makes a difference on the sell side as well. Sellers most likely will be doing video. And I love that he was able to just hold up some of the product on the video to be able to show it there directly. I mean how cool is that? Joe: People are … I mean they're buying a business potentially just based on the black and white information that we put in a package. It's worked for years but we moved to doing videos in the interviews and making it part of the full business summary. 24 months ago I remember doing the very first one. It was horrible. I just did audio actually. I recorded it on my phone and it was horrible but beneficial. And now we've moved beyond that to video. You get to look relatively in the likes of someone's eyes and gauge whether you trust them or not and if you're going to put your life savings on the line and buy their business. And I think it just makes a tremendous amount of information. Mark: Yeah, absolutely. That's really cool. And again this is coming from somebody like myself that does not like video … doing video personally. I tend to be one of those shut the camera off types of guys but I'm more and more warming up to it and definitely getting more accustomed to it as well. So that's pretty cool. And also the odd story, by the way, I know our content director Chris Moore and Chris I know you're listening to this you're going to hate this that I'm saying this but some of the most memorable conversations I've had with people have been in the oddest places. The podcast with Chad Annis where he was in his RV and I could see the pine trees out in the background or Andrew from ECF Live, eCommerceFuel, awesome forum, he was in his van holding up a microphone. I'm like this is great. It's this weird background that only entrepreneurs understand. Joe: Exactly it's classic entrepreneur stuff. You know people when I'm having calls with them and valuations and you hear the dog barking in the background oh I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm like you're an entrepreneur you're going to hear mine any minute. This is the life that we live. It's great. So back to the points, the last point I want to make in terms of what makes a difference … what made a difference for this particular business I think is the images. Paul provided me with great images for the package. And he had them because he had professional photography. And it helped. Obviously, everyone knows that runs an Amazon business what a difference good images make. But he had great images of packaging, of the product being used by human beings having fun and all that stuff. And I was able to litter them throughout the package and it just brought the whole thing to life. And I think it made a bit of a difference too. Mark: Yeah, you know something I've said over the years I've told you Joe and the others here at Quiet Light is that some of the packages that we put together are supposed to tell the story of the business. And I look for that with every business I represent. Like what is the thread that I want to tell you? What is the common thread throughout this? The data and everything else supports a story. And hey people love stories right? That's … we're all drawn to them. Joe: Right. And you said data, I just want to say one more thing I keep looking at the package and I'm like there's another thing. One more thing they gave me was data; data from the outside world that proved that this is one of America's fastest growing recreational sports. So I was able to link to outside magazine articles and newspaper articles and outside sources that backed up what he was saying and what I was saying in the package which is really, really helpful. Mark: Okay, I might regret this question because I don't want to go long on the episode here but you said more than once that he was just a really likable guy. Do you know what made him likeable? It's such a hard question to ask, right? How can somebody be more likable than another person? We've identified when Walker did an acquisition through Quiet Light Brokerage thanking the seller; taking the time to thank our client and saying thank you for agreeing to sell me your business and how much of a difference that made at that point. Was there anything that kind of stood out outside of the video that really made him stand apart? Joe: He was who we described him to be which was a CPA, a stay at home dad, and honest, and uncomfortable in front of the camera, and vulnerable, and real. He never watched the video that I did with him. I told him. He's like I might watch it because I hope that was okay. I was really conscious here and there. I'm like well let's not watch it because you were great. You were human. You were real. And I'm not editing anything out of it and I'm not redoing it because you were great. People are going to love you because you're just normal. And he never watched it. I don't know if he's … I ought to ask him if he's gone back and watched it since we've got it under contract. But he was just real. Just real and honest and he wasn't selling. He was just stating the facts and that's one of the things that we do … I get excited so maybe it feels like selling but stating the facts is what he did. He didn't try to pitch or sell. He was just being himself; likable. Mark: That's … I think I heard that somewhere recently about authenticity among like millennials and I would broaden that out and say among those within internet realm because we've seen so much stuff that it's so easy to colossal or make yourself look bigger or better or more polished than you are. I think people within the internet world we tend to value authenticity a bit more than people might think. And so that vulnerability I think is a key. I'm not saying that you put on a show like oh look at me I'm all vulnerable. Hey, look if you are really confident in what you're doing be confident. Be true to who you are. That comes through. You can tell that in people, right? You can tell when they're being real or when they're trying to make themselves sound better than they actually think they are. Joe: Absolutely, no doubt about it. You want to go on to process and what we do there? Mark: Yeah. I want to know. So 15 conference calls tell me … again mistake that you probably made in this and you told me this, I'm not accusing you of this; launching a listing during two conferences. You were sick that week. You were flying to two different cities, driving to one city with me as well. So how did you manage getting that many inquiries, that many requests for conference calls with everything else going on? Joe: Well, it actually worked out pretty well because I was not feeling well and I was at the conference and I said I am not doing this over the next two days we're going to push it all the next week. And it enabled me to communicate in writing with all the people that inquired, all the people that … look there were a couple of hundred in the first few hours of course but those that I've spoken to before that know the process they reached right out to me. They called me, they texted me, they e-mailed me and said, Joe, I want to talk to this guy. I want to get on a conference call. Because they know that's the process. And so those that have followed our process, looked at as many listings as possible so you know the right fit when it comes along and you can act quickly did just that and reached out to me. And so I just walked it all off and we scheduled the calls. For the process when we had the calls if anyone hasn't been on them, us the broker we talk as little as possible. We make introductions, hand the call over to the buyer to give a little bit of background on themselves and then go right into their calls. We put ourselves on mute and in this case, I took myself off camera as well and we listen and we jump in if we can help out but for the most part we stay quiet until the very end of the call and then we just wrap things up. At the end of each day, I had a quick wrap up call with Paul and I said okay you've had three today, its Monday, you've had three, who do you like the most? And then on Tuesday, I said all right you've had six who are your top two? And the same people kept rising to the surface. Although people near the end of the week very quickly got to the … Noah I think was probably on Wednesday or Thursday. So we ran through the process and I think one mistake I made Mark in hindsight when I look at it, I knew it was going to be a frenzy and as much as people think oh multiple offer situation you going over asking price etcetera. We did. Yes, we had them and yes we did go over asking price because we priced it right. We didn't price it too high or too low; we priced it right. And that gets more increase than anything else buyers know. We chose to go best and final. And I think in hindsight I probably would have had two rounds so that … you know what we did was we told everyone we're going to have a call with every buyer. You may submit offers prior to the following Monday at noon if you wish too but we will not be making a decision until close the business the following Tuesday. You've got to have it in my Monday at noon and we'll make a final decision close the business Tuesday. It gave us a little time to review. Everyone gave it to us in the same exact format that I provided so it was easy. We didn't have to interpret different offers. And most kept it simple which is what I knew Paul was looking for and what I suggested that they do. One made it a little complex but I know them and I know what their goals are. They're raising funds so they've got investors to satisfy. And then tell me what you did? We get a clear deadline of Monday at 12 pm Eastern Standard Time. I got one that came in maybe at 4 o'clock that day and one that came in at 9 o'clock that day, pm, with apologies and a text saying I thought it was midnight. Would you have allowed those offers to be presented or would you've been cold and said no? Mark: I don't … it depends on the situation. That's a tough one especially because of the [inaudible 00:27:08.9] when you said 12, and 12 is I mean you can interpret that both ways. Joe: 12 no we had a total of nine offers. We ended up with 14 conference calls because one fell out. We had nine offers. Mark: No I mean you put your deadline at 12. Joe: Why? I said 12 pm Eastern Daylight Time. Mark: Yeah but I mean you have to think like 12 pm, you think night and you know. Maybe I'm the only one that can read time but— Joe: I don't … I only speak Eastern as I tell everyone else in every other time zone. There's too many time zones and I just say Eastern. I try not to coordinate with their times anyway now we were accommodating. In hindsight I think we probably should've narrowed it down to the top two or three and gone back out to them. But the reality is that when you have a seller that has multiple offers it's hard on the seller. First is that they're on … in this case 14 conference calls that are lasting about an hour each. That's 14 hours. And then he's talking to me for 15 to 20 minutes at the end of each day as well. That's a lot of time in one week. More time than he spends running the business right? 15 hours a week of running it. More time selling it than running it. And then you've got to make a decision based upon we had one offer that was … let's see; it was $150,000 over asking price. Mark: Wow. Joe: A pretty big jump. Mark: Yeah. Joe: That one was an SBA offer. So the benefit there is that not only is it $150,000 over asking price but it's going to take upwards of 60 days longer to close than a cash buyer. So he's going to put another $50,000 in his pocket by waiting an extra two months. I mean just a cash windfall right? Mark: I want to disagree with you on something real quick before we get too far away from this point because it said that— Joe: Is it back to me being the better podcaster or something else? Mark: I'm going to say that to the end after this because I think I'm doing such a stellar job at this interview. Joe: You're doing great. Mark: It's easy when you know the person you're interviewing and you know the story as well. But I'm going to disagree with you on is should you have gone a second round with the offers. Okay, that would be the standard process when you're not expecting multiple offers and when maybe … like if I have a listing that's been sitting around for a month and we narrowed down and we happen to have three buyers that kind of called us around the same time then it makes sense. Because the buyers don't know that they're in a competitive situation but … and I might sound a little harsh here but hey if you're a buyer and you're in a situation where you know it is competitive, and the buyers, in this case, knew it was competitive, that there was a lot of stuff going on. Joe: Yeah. Mark: My guidance has been the same like put in your best and final. There's two sides of that coin; the first … one side is don't try and necessarily get a discount because the market is going to speak. It is going to push that price up necessarily. And two don't over bid what you're comfortable bidding. Find out if I get it at this price I'm going to be happy or satisfied at least? If I go above I'm always going to wonder if I paid too much. Find that, make the offer, and get it done. So I actually think that you did the right thing by doing one round instead of two rounds. I would recommend the two round again if it was kind of a surprise multiple offer situation. Joe: Well, I think … you know I had one person tell me they wish there was a second round. But it was crystal clear in writing in black and white that it was best and final. And so I took his suggestion and constructive criticism in a way that I thought maybe was worthwhile and we could do a second round next time possibly. But when you're in a multiple offer situation it's emotional for the seller. Mark: Yeah. Joe: Believe it or not people it's hard. It's hard for the broker as well. So I just want to reemphasize one thing that you said and that is you don't want people to get … the buyers to get emotional in their offer. We want them to make an offer that they're going to be happy with after they're under letter of intent because we want two happy individuals at closing; the buyer and the seller. It has to be a good transaction for both of them so we don't want them to overbid and so we work really hard to make sure that they're making an offer that they're comfortable with that assuming everything's good in due diligence that we'll get all the way through the closing with. Mark: Yeah and I think if you're a seller out there you're thinking why wouldn't you want to get something above what they're comfortable with? The reason is simple; the offer is the beginning of a longer journey, right? You've got to go through that due diligence, you've got to go through transition, planning, there's a lot of time in there for those cold feet to really, really freeze up a little bit. And for the buyer to say I made a mistake I got caught up in the heat of passion and now yeah. And I want to emphasize one other thing that you said here and that is we think multiple offers is a really good situation and it is but for anyone that hasn't been in that situation before where you have multiple buyers all of whom are very qualified to buy your business and given you good offers. It's really tough to choose because you can't choose five offers. You've got to choose one. Joe: Yeah. Mark: And in your head, you're going to be thinking I've got to get this right because I don't want to go through this again or I don't want to go through this due diligence process and then have to go back and what are people going to think I have to go back. So it's actually really stressful and one of those good problems to have but still a problem. Joe: And that's where I think the video … the folks that did video you know a better connection with Paul little bit although one of the top three didn't do the video but just a super nice guy. I mean I just wanted … we both, Paul wanted him to be able to buy the business. He travels all over the country all the time and has two teenagers that he just doesn't see enough and he wants to work from home. Mark: So there was that personal connection. Joe: Well, it's that personal connection tugging at Paul's emotional heartstrings, at mine. I think he's a great guy. I would love to help him find an amazing business so he spends more time with his family and becomes an entrepreneur which he's not now. He's in the corporate world. Mark: All right we're getting close to the end so let's wrap. I want to get to the end here and talk about— Joe: Sad news. I'm sorry. Sad news having to tell eight people they didn't get it. Mark: Then also I want to know the metrics. Because I know you had recommended to him go out, we should go out at a 3.5 multiple. We covered that the beginning and he said I don't know if we need that you know as … being and Paul sounded like a great guy 3.3 is what it went out at. I'd like to know where the highest and lowest came in and then also the sad news portion having to tell so many people that wanted this business sorry we're going to keep you in mind, we'll keep looking for you. Joe: Yeah, again I wanted it to go at a 3.5. I thought it was worth a push and I let him know it's a bit of a risk. We haven't sold one at 3.5 that's 100% Amazon business with discretionary earnings this “low”. It's still 440,000. We wound up with the highest one being at 3.6, 150,000 over asking and the one that he chose was 50,000 over asking at 3.4, 3.41. And it was an all cash buyer and had the funds on hand. Had had the funds and had the experience and has bought Amazon business before so he looked at the full package. Cash buyer, close in 30 days, hiring Centurica for due diligence but understands Amazon really well and that training and transition was going to be a breeze. It's the full package and that's why he chose that particular buyer. Mark: Yeah, again we've talked before about people winning with lower bids. Not necessarily being the top bidder but still being able to win. And we've also talked about the idea that financial motivation isn't always the sole motivation right? People sell for a variety of reasons and so being able to understand, as a buyer understand some of those secondary goals can really help you out quite a bit. Joe: Let me just jump in, it's not always a cash buyer that wins as well. If everybody remembers the story I've had Syed Balkhi on the podcast and he chose a buyer that was an SBA buyer at full price on his business versus a cash buyer because he just really bonded with that SBA buyer. And he carried a 10% seller note on that particular listing too. So he chose an SBA buyer and a seller note over an all cash buyer. So SBA wasn't necessarily the problem it was just a combination of a number of things and Paul really wanted to get the business sold. And he is kind of a nervous guy a little bit so he didn't want to have to wait upwards of 90 days; 30 was comfortable. Mark: All right what final thing should people know about this particular deal? Because this is a fascinating little case study of just a listing that's going crazy, how to act on the buy side, and also how to set your business up from the sell side. So what final things should we probably round this episode with? Joe: Well I hate to finish it with … you know just because this one sold a 3.4 doesn't mean yours is worth 3.4. This one has all of these little points and metrics to it. I launched one this week Monday at 3.3 and some of those same buyers, those eight buyers a few of them have looked at it and said no. Others are comfortable with the niche and like it and see the upside to it so I think we'll get at or close to asking. But just being prepared running a real business, think about it from a buyer's point of view. They're going to be investing their life savings and if you were them what type of business and what type of person would they want to buy that business from? We want them to succeed. You want them to succeed. And that's really what you need to focus on. Mark: That's fantastic. Hey, thanks for sharing all of this. I know that you always have the best case studies mainly been because you do the most deals at Quiet Light. So thanks for sharing this one. The next one I'm going to write a better teaser than yours and I'm going to try and get like 251 inquiries in the first 24 hours. Joe: You taught me how to do it so I know you can do it. Mark: Well, then I'll make sure that I'll let you know in every podcast. All right cool, hey thanks, Joe. I appreciate all of it. Joe: You bet.     Links and Resources: https://www.quietlightbrokerage.com/ Listen and subscribe on Itunes  

Made: You were made to Lift Others.You were made for more.Pastor Shawn Wiebers | Feb. 17,________________________________________________To Lift Life is to be a contributor!John 4:31–34 (ESV) Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.____In Genesis 6 God told Noah to build an ark and that he would flood the earth in 120 years. So Noah began to build the ark which took somewhere close to 75 years to complete. Can you imagine the mundane task of Noah building the ark. (Can you imagine what he thought 65 years in!!!) Sure there were times that he doubted that he heard from God, That God would send a flood to destroy the earth. I’m sure there were days where he didn't feel like it. Days where he wanted to quit. But Noah persisted.He wasn’t a consumer. He was a contributor.His persistence caused an eternal difference! (You and I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for Noah’s obedience!)What you and I do here at Heights church may seem like mundane tasks that are insignificant, but they are actually important building blocks for God to make an eternal difference in someone's life!WE ARE NOT SPIRITUAL CONSUMERS; WE ARE SPIRITUAL CONTRIBUTORS. THE CHURCH DOES NOT EXIST FOR US. WE ARE THE CHURCH AND WE EXIST FOR THE WORLD.__________________________________________________HOW DO WE LIFT OTHERS?God Calls us to Use our gifts!We don’t go to church—we are the church.Romans 12:6–8 (NLT) In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. 7 If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. 8 If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.__________________________________________________God Calls us to serve as His Church.Matthew 5:14–16 (NLT) “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.__________________________________________________God Calls us to meet the needs of those around us.Acts 4:33–34 (NLT “...God’s great blessing was upon them all. 34 There were no needy people among them…”We may not be able to do everything, but everyone can do something!God Calls us to use our gifts, to serve as His Church, and to meet the needs of those around us.I see a church where people give more than they receive.Where people serve more than they’ve been served.Where people love more than they’ve been loved.Passionate about reaching the next generation.That don’t judge those without Christ—but love them into the family of God.Where everyone uses their gifts in the church to equip the body of Christ.

Why Dave Decided to talk to Noah Lenz: Noah Lenz is the youngest guest on Funnel Hacker Radio at 12 years old. He joins Dave to discuss building funnels and his future plans of starting his own marketing agency. Building funnels for over a year, Noah started by creating political and marketing websites as learning tools. He is the owner of noahlenz.com and does contract work building funnels for entrepreneurs. Tips and Tricks for You and Your Business: Noah’s experience marketing for websites. (3:30) Building funnels to sell your websites. (6:40) Tips for creating a marketing agency. (12:30) Quotable Moments: "I should use a funnel to sell all these political websites!" "It was the worst experience ever trying to build a complete funnel in wordpress." "I started studying all these legendary marketers and that’s how I got indoctrinated into this." Other Tidbits: Noah discusses his journey from creating websites for political campaigns to building funnels for companies. Working with Maddox Publishing, Noah shares his current and upcoming projects and his plans of starting his own marketing agency. Links: FunnelHackerRadio.com FunnelHackerRadio.com/freetrial FunnelHackerRadio.com/dreamcar ---Transcript--- Speaker 1:     00:00       Welcome to funnel hacker radio podcast, where we go behind the scenes and uncover the tactics and strategies top entrepreneurs are using to make more sales, dominate their markets, and how you can get those same results. Here's your host, Dave Woodward. Everybody welcome back. Speaker 2:     00:18       You guys are honestly, I am so excited to have this podcast has been a fun one, but looking forward to all day long. So let me just introduce you to real quick to the one and only know a lens. No welcome. Speaker 3:     00:33       Thanks for having me on. I'm so excited for this. Speaker 2:     00:37       So for those of you guys, you might not know Noah. Noah is by far the youngest person I've ever had on funnel hacker radio and I think he's probably one of the youngest attendees at funnel hacking live. He's actually crushing it right now. He's building funnels for Matt and Caleb Maddix and I just am so excited just to keep on saying, well gosh, I just can't do it. I'm like, okay, well I want to bring someone on who's been doing it for about a year, just over a year now, and it has all the excuses in the world, why you can't do it, and yet he's crushing it. So no, welcome to the show. Speaker 3:     01:11       Thanks for having me on Dave. Speaker 2:     01:13       So if you guys aren't able to see it because we're doing this via video on zoom, but. So Noah's sitting here and he basically got his, his white Ipod earbuds in under armour shirt on, crushing it. Uh, and I thought, you know what? This will be a ton of fun. So Noah, I tell people, how in the heck did you get started? First of all, how old are you? Speaker 3:     01:33       I'm 12 years old. Twelve years old. Some ups. Go ahead, sorry, go ahead. Because Caleb Maddix, who taught me about video, about how everybody's needed to read dotcom secrets, and I like to put what I learned into action. So this was the one I was about 10 years old, maybe it was 11, I'm not sure. There was about a year and a half, maybe two years ago almost. Um, so I watched the video and then I go and he had his affiliate link obviously and whatnot, and I go and I go to the website and figuring it all out and my dad's like, oh yeah, I actually took a while ago, I just never read it. I'm like, oh my God. He's like, sure. So I read it and like, Speaker 2:     02:21       oh my gosh, you can do a one click up sell you my gosh Speaker 3:     02:33       photo website funnel. And I thought it was gonna be my million dollar idea, what the club was or whatever, but I was still in school and I was kind of busy and it's just about getting done with fifth grade. And so I'm like, okay, I'm going to put this on side for a little bit here. And then I'm freelance websites just on the side. I did a couple for some political campaigns and my dad's like, oh, maybe you should do more of these political campaign websites. So how should I advertise to cold call? Should I, you know, maybe. Speaker 2:     03:16       So you're 10 years old and you're creating political websites Speaker 3:     03:24       like on the side, like Speaker 2:     03:27       get it. Take me back to your younger, younger self. And how in the world did you get involved in marketing and websites? Speaker 3:     03:34       Um, so like when I sold my parents, I'm buying me a Mac computer, which funny enough is actually the computer I'm using right now, but I sold my computer because I haven't, like my dad gave me like Google sites and whatnot. Actually just found my first day. It was hilarious. Like I asked her, I said, do you want us to share your information anyways? So I started making these little websites like I never got into like video games or anything which is good. Um, but I like making these little websites and whatnot. And then one of my dad's friends was running for public office when I was like nine or 10. So I'm like. And he's like, Oh, here I'll pay you. It was like $200 bucks to build. Sure. What else do I have to do? So I make him the website, whatever. And like, okay, great. Here we go. And my dad's like, you did pretty good job with this one. And I made a few other websites for a couple hundred bucks each, but like, I'm like, oh wait, I could, you know, like I was saying before, scale political clients and then I realized I could sell websites for phones. So that's kind of where we were. Speaker 2:     05:04       So what were you, were you making these on wordpress? What type of, what were you making the websites on? Speaker 3:     05:11       Okay. So originally when I was like six and like just getting into it, I was making online google sites, which is like the worst thing ever. Um, but eventually I started making a lot of licks and I realized that was horrible. And, but eventually I just started using wordpress to open source one and that's what I use to make these websites. I remember my dad or my mom, they were at some sort of like, one of them's like musical survivor and I was at my dad's office and I'm like, no sorry, I'm working. And eventually, so it started to move and learn how to make all these wordpress websites. So last one, I first got started with this and again, like when I actually first got started with wordpress, probably like eight when I bought my first actual domain name that like whatever google sites.com or whatever. Speaker 2:     06:17       So tell me how you've gone from creating websites for political people to actually building funnels. So how did you get, how'd you get connected? I mean obviously you heard about dotcom secrets sued Maddix Caleb and his book. What made, what was the next connection? Speaker 3:     06:34       Um, so I read, I read Dotcom secrets and then I got school on June first I believe. And I'm like, okay, I should actually use a political websites. And I tried, this was the biggest mistake I ever made in anybody who's listening to this and you're on the edge about clickfunnels. Clickfunnels is too expensive. 90 seven bucks a month, two months too much for me. So I went and said, here we go, like my dad paid it with his credit card, but I paid him back, whatever. And then I said, let's try this out. And I have some theories about Samcart, like your guys' partnership, but that's just for a number of days. Come on now. Order forms are good that he can't do do. So I'm like, come on now. No, not Sam Cart, not on lead pages, let's just do it all in wordpress. Speaker 3:     07:46       And I like, it was the worst experience ever. Try and do a complete form on word press. I'm like okay, maybe Russell Brunson Guide knows what he's talking about. Maybe I should just use clickfunnels. So I hop on over over here to click funnels. I get my free 14 day trial and meanwhile I'm like, so I'm looking over it with my dad and I'm like that's true. Ninety $7 a month plan. Like so that Bourbon is $97 a month plan. So I get signed up for Edison and like lead pages and all that. So again, my first funnel and it took me like 30 weeks because I thought I knew what I was doing and I didn't want any of these tutorials, any template. Probably the first template that time like Berlin bear or whatever. But I opened up the template and I start typing in my stuff and I know how to do everything. Speaker 3:     08:48       My Dad comes over, I'm asking him for feedback because he's been an entrepreneur for a while, like coffee or whatever like that. I like a couple months later I got into actual marketing because the coffee kind of sucked and whatnot and I realized it went beyond just the design and how'd you get into the actual marketing piece? The actual marketing piece that I. I realized like I was looking over the funnels and I'm working, I'm a few months after I got started with it and I'm like, oh sure to design can be cool and a long and whatnot. But like you actually got to have marketing skills. Something like I came from a world of wordpress and onto websites I was making like just make it look pretty and you'll be awesome. You'll be good to get go. I'm like, well, you gotta actually have coffee and stuff that sells. Speaker 3:     09:50       So it was doing a bit of research. I think I was looking at it. This was a time where I really started getting indoctrinated to your guys' culture. I found your podcast. They found Russell Brunson's podcast podcast. I found all you guys' podcasts. I read like all the little small boats. I got my formal university subscription. I got all this. I'm like, oh, it goes beyond the webpages. And then eventually, like of course like this is probably not normal for a 12 year old idle. But I started, started studying like Dan Kennedy and Frank Kern and all these legendary marketers and I'm like, and yeah, I just got. I started getting inducted into it, you know, sales copy, this and that, and tell people what are you doing right now as how involved are you in actually building the funnels, the copy, all that kind of stuff. So right now to one of the main things I've been doing is working. Speaker 3:     10:51       Most Caleb and mathematics are on the team to build all of our funnels and whatnot. Um, we've had a program called the success that we've had a switch in and shut it down a couple of times and whatnot, just because of how busy we are and wanting to focus on maddix publishing and whatnot, but I've Kinda came in on the side and I'm kind of taking over almost basically taking it on as my own project, recreating the funnel, recreating this and whatnot. And we actually have codenamed it project passive income. That's what caleb named it, passive income for him. I do the work and we slid it. Um, but that's, that's kind of what I've been working on in terms of side on my auto fill out an application funnel for them awhile ago, which has been absolutely awesome. We just did a Webinar are we just did a couple of live webinars which are now getting automation, which is actually just push it over to the application, some of which has been doing in my free time. Speaker 3:     11:56       I've been kind of a marketing agency that kind of helps people with their phones and their marketing and whatnot in there for like six months or eight months. Like after I realized political funnels or call, what should I do? So to try and drop shipping in affiliate marketing and whatnot. And I realized that like I wasn't really passionate about all of this, what I was actually passionate about, what the actual marketing, not necessarily my own course more so an agency, the agency. Then basically what it is is basically a client will come in and we're going to have. So there's going to be video testimonials for them, et Cetera, which is basically going to. The salesperson will get on the phone, close on whatever. Um, there will be a step by step process. So I've found we're finding copywriters and all that so we can scale it up. Speaker 3:     13:03       So then somebody will comment over here and you know, they'll figure it out. These marketing pieces, hey guys, go get dotcom secrets, go read pages one through eight and submit what you found on that page will actually use that to go out and build kind of a traditional marketing agency. But instead it's like wrapped into idea of like step by step process like hand by hand so that they can actually get as possible. So it's more of a high ticket application program. They get to funnels built out, they vacate often cited to get the funnel done. Um, but the base package, and I'm still figuring out some packages, still just an idea in my head supplementing overstuff on. But basically the idea is look at a couple of funnels built out, we'll make an irresistible offer and basically for the price of one person they charge for everything done and yeah, they just get a couple awesome funnel still out and you know, maybe a little bit of marketing guidance along the way. Speaker 3:     14:14       I'm still trying to figure it out. What I'm thinking is, you know, possibly four thousand five thousand dollars for tuition and then in probably different packages for different kinds of offers. But we're just trying to make something that, you know, maybe even like into like the whole Click start coaching type thing. Um, which is basically like they teach you how to do it, you guys do, which is awesome. But some people just want it done for so like, you know, we just get everything we need from them and then we teach, we don't teach them. We actually do amazing converting from a copywriting standpoint. Speaker 2:     14:58       Alright. So a couple of questions here. I'm sure people knew. What the heck is this 12 year old dealing with all this money, Speaker 3:     15:08       most of it my business to reinvest into other things like ads, etc. Etc. Speaker 2:     15:21       Thing is, I am surE. I mean it's two different questions where people, one is going to be how in the world where I get ahold of noah to help them build out my funnel. So how do they reach out to you? Speaker 3:     15:31       Um, we actually sent a really special link for you guys on a different special offer for you guys. You just fill out a form and somebody on my team will actually give you a call and we can discuss different options for actually building out your funnels for you. InvesT no lens.com backslash fade and we'd me or somebody on my team will hop on the phone with you and we can discuss what would be best for you. Speaker 2:     15:58       I love it. So no, so it's a h, l e n z.com. Speaker 3:     16:04       Yeah. Speaker 2:     16:08       And so I can tell you right now, one of the main things people are going to be wanting to know is how in the world does a 12 year old had a team Speaker 3:     16:20       contractors and whatnot. Um, but you know, exact numbers. But I started on my own and then I got on. But like I realized that like, so like, like um, it's just not scalable to school starting tomorrow. It's like literally like 40 hours a week in and of itself. So lIke I can't sit here and so a lot of it's like I will instagram actually I had a big instagram following and I said, hey guys, your funnel builders, I, maybe we can cover on a couple of people here. Let's do this, let's do this. Um, but my dad also researching me a few people that he's worked with in the past, but I can actually go in and train to do different things and that's one thing like a lot of people say like surplus some train which makes sense to a degree like the facebook ads person. Speaker 3:     17:31       I'm not going to train them because I have no idea how to do that, but like the person, like I almost had like this false belief that like, oh well, you know, here's the problem, they might not do it my way and they might do it their way and then that's problem. So I kind to have been training that basically somebody my dad's work flows basically looking for some work and whatnot and in venice just more or less like they come in, you know, pay on her percentage or paying them hourly and then help me the agency. Speaker 2:     18:11       I love it. So people can reach out to you obviously had a note [inaudible] dot com forward slash dave. And then, uh, as we kind of get close to wrapping things up here, any other words of advice to our listeners? Speaker 3:     18:23       Um, no, um, I would just say keep following dave and everything he's doing on the podcast and I know guys I'm dropping in same things. They dropped some fridays, new funnel, they start the marketing secrets, black books, I grabbed all those so just keep up with everything, like it's insane. So like anytime that she would have us like biggest burst to get it, like keep up with the content so you can just keep growing. Speaker 2:     18:56       Oh no, we love you bud. Thanks so much for being on the show. I look forward to seeing you soon and take care of it. And good luck in school. Speaker 3:     19:04       Thanks so much. Text day. Speaker 4:     19:06       Okay. Hey everybody. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to podcasts. If you don't mind, could you please share this with others? Rate and review this podcast on itunes. It means the world to me where I'm trying to get to as a million downloads here in the next few months and just crush through over $650,000 and I just want to get the next few 100,000 so we can get to a million downloads. And see really what I can do to help improve and and get this out to more people at the same time, if there's a topic, there's something you'd like me to share or someone you'd like me to interview, by all means, just reach out to me on facebook. You can pm me and I'm more than happy to take any of your feedback as well as if people would like me to interview more than happy to reach out and have that conversation with you. So again, go to itunes, rate and review this, share this podcast with others and let me know how else I can improve this or what I can do to to make this better for you guys. Thanks.

Genesis 6:21-22 “And be sure to take on board enough food for your family and for all the animals.” So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him.”

Yes, it is the anniversary of the very first +2 Comedy show. So Noah, Will and Laura sit down to talk about their top 5 +2 Comedy moment. 

Patrick Guest is an Australian children's author, Olympic physiotherapist, and father of three. He is most noted for his children's books That's What Wings Are For - dedicated to children with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, and their parents, and The Ricker Racker Club, written for his boys when their baby sister joined the family. Find out more about Patrick's work at PatrickGuest.com.au. What you'll learn: 1. What Patrick's first career was, and why he gave it up for writing.2. The true story that inspired Patrick to write That's What Wings Are For.3. How The Ricker Racker Club is being used to touch and inspire school children in Melbourne, Australia. 4. What success means to him. FULL TRANSCRIPT Elizabeth: Welcome to Writers’ Tête-à-tête with Elizabeth Harris, the show that connects authors, songwriters and poets with a global audience. So I can continue to bring you high-calibre guests, I invite you to go to iTunes, click Subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with your friends. I’m delighted to introduce children’s author Patrick Guest (PG) – father of three, Olympic physiotherapist, children’s author. Patrick Guest – born into an ever loving, ever growing family, 7 siblings, in the beachside suburb of Seaford, Melbourne, Australia. Patrick was blessed with all the things that make a childhood magical – plenty of family, friends and freedom to explore this wonderful world. An assortment of careers along the way – cobbler, elephant washer, failed accountant, anatomy demonstrator at Monash Uni, national team physio for Mozambique. Little wonder he’s been dubbed the Forrest Gump of Frankston. Adventures and stories seem to follow him around and now he’s writing them down. 5 books, (signed with a little hair) in the past 2 years, many more in the pipeline. Patrick Guest, welcome to Writers’ Tête-à-tête with Elizabeth Harris. Patrick: Great to be here, Elizabeth. Elizabeth: Great to have you here, Patrick, on this lovely sunny day in Melbourne, believe it or not, we’ve got the sun. Patrick, we recently discovered we attended the same secondary college.  Patrick: We did. Elizabeth: I had to smile when I read you initially became an accountant. Please tell my listeners about that transgression - and how you escaped. Patrick: Ah, the transgression. Let’s start with that. Look. Fear, insecurity, there was a recession kicking in. But really I think, as a 17-year-old, having to work out what subjects to choose, I didn’t know how to make that decision at 17. Elizabeth: So you did Economics … is that right? Patrick: Economics, Accounting, Legal Studies, Maths. I was really probably inspired at that time by my favourite TV show, Family Ties – Michael J. Fox. Elizabeth: Wasn’t he great? He’s great. Still. Patrick: At the time, I think back now – what a dork he was – it probably says a lot about what a dork I was and still am. I thought he was cool. Elizabeth: He was funny, and you’re funny. Patrick: He was cool, and I thought “Who do I want to be like?”, and I thought “Michael J. Fox”. I went down the corporate path, which was a terrible decision. I don’t regret it – I made some friends for life, and I realized early on that money doesn’t make you happy. Elizabeth: It’s such an important lesson at that age, isn’t it, cause many people learn that quite late, if at all. Patrick: Yeah, so that’s something that has stayed with me, and I’m really grateful. Elizabeth: Was there a pivotal moment when you realized “This accounting thing is just not me”? Was there an incident? Patrick: There was. Elizabeth: Can you share that, or is that private? Patrick: No, no, let’s share this. It’s all about sharing in this session. So I’m walking down Flinders St Station, and I’m walking down in my suit and tie, down the ramp… Elizabeth: How old were you at the time? Patrick: It would have been in my first year out of graduation, maybe 22 or something. 21, 22. Walking down the ramp, with cattle class, just walking down, we were all off to work. Against the flow, this lady came through the crowd and just gently put her hand on me and said, “Smile!” Elizabeth: (Laughter) I promise you it wasn’t me. Patrick: She just said “Smile” and I’m walking down – I must have looked so miserable. Elizabeth: Was she an angel or a real person? Patrick: I don’t know. But I hear where you’re coming from there, because from that moment – and I blame Banjo Patterson – and maybe my dad for putting me onto Banjo. Elizabeth: Why? It’s good to blame other people, isn’t it? Patrick: My favourite Australian poem would be The Great Clancy of the Great Overflow… Elizabeth: Oh wonderful. Patrick: …And where Banjo writes: And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me   As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste, With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,    For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.   So that poem was just ringing in my ears as I was off to the office sitting there, and from that moment I had come to the end of my fancy – I had a lot to change with Clancy. But I doubt he’d suit the office, Clancy of the Overflow. And for someone who had had that instilled in him, the spirit of adventure at a very young age, and parents – wonderful parents that had fostered that– and here I am in this shoebox, little partitioned office thing, and it just wasn’t for me. Elizabeth: Soul-destroying. Patrick: Soul-destroying. For some people it isn’t, and some of my best friends have continued along that path, and it’s a great path for them, but for me it wasn’t. Elizabeth: We need everybody, don’t we, the array of professions and tradespeople, everybody to do their bit. But you had much more important things in store, Patrick. Which brings me to – our school was really quite traditional in lots of ways, being a Catholic coed college, with all the gender bias that goes with that. And I remember going back to Economics, and I remember being one of the few girls in Chemistry and Economics, because it was always the boys who were going to be the accountants, and the girls were going to be teachers or nurses. And in fact I did go on to be a nurse, but I was very happy to do that. So to me in our school, there was a real gender bias. And you address this in your fantastic book, The Ricker Racker Club. Can you tell us more about this great book please? Patrick: The Ricker Racker Club is based on a real club, invented by real people: my two boys, Noah and Reuben. So Noah and Reuben were roughly 4 and 3 at the time when the Ricker Racker Club was formed. And there was one hard and fast rule: No Girls. (Laughter) There were a few other rules: do something incredibly brave, do something incredibly kind, but the real rock-solid rule was No Girls. And then what happened… Elizabeth: I’m sure that’s changed now. Patrick: …They had themselves a sister, little Gracie. Gracie was born, and really the story of The Ricker Racker Club is what happened next after Gracie. Now Gracie is perfectly named. She is pure grace, she is pure joy. She does have an intellectual disability, and her capacity for joy is extraordinary. And she would – as happens in the book – walk up to the wolf next door and give the wolf a big hug. Her courage, her kindness, her unique joy, won the boys over very quickly. They won us all over, and the story sprung from there. Really, it’s a celebration of the joys of being a kid, and the innocence of these rules. They’re not coming from a nasty place, these rules – just boys being boys. But then, just the power of kindness, if there’s one thing that runs through all my books, it’s the power of kindness… Elizabeth: Yes, definitely. Patrick: …to change hearts. So that’s how that happened. And really The Ricker Racker Club is about a father saying to his two sons, “Be good to your sister.” Elizabeth: And you do it so well, Patrick. Patrick: And so it’s done really well. Elizabeth: When did you know you wanted to be a writer? Patrick: From the moment I could write. So I started very young. I do remember a series, ‘Powerful Patrick’. And I must have been about 5 or 6. I was doing the pictures back then and I was stapling them together, making these little books. And I’m sure Mum and Dad delighted in them. But I’m not sure anyone else did. Elizabeth: Have you still got them? Patrick: I haven’t been able to find them. Elizabeth: Oh no. Patrick: I hope I can find them one day. Mum was always a little bit of a hoarder, so it’ll be somewhere in the house. They’re still in the same place I grew up in, so they’ll be somewhere in that house. So I’ve been a natural storyteller my whole life. The vehicle for that telling a story was just verbal stories and emails and love letters to Lisa my wife … I’ve always found a way to put things on paper. But certainly through the barren accounting years, then really trying to work out where my lane was that had been lying dormant, and then the birth of Noah – my first son, Noah – came a flood of stories and the desire to get these things down on paper. The rest is history. Elizabeth: What was it particularly about that event - the birth of Noah – that opened the floodgates, so to speak? Patrick: Well the birth itself…even before the birth I was starting to work on a book. But it’s, I think it’s just this natural, just as we have a desire to breathe, have food and water, a desire to be heard and understood, and then as a parent, it’s just this innate desire to share stories and to bond through stories. Elizabeth: Legacy. Patrick: Legacy. What my dad did was the same with me. My grandfather – I vividly remember my grandfather declaring over me that “You’re going to be an author one day.” Elizabeth: Oh wow. Did he write? Patrick: My grandfather, no. It was more my grandmother – she was a gifted storyteller. She kissed the Blarney Stone a few times, Ma, and... So it’s flowed through, that Blarney Stone – the kissing of the Blarney Stone gift has been passed through, through Grandmother to my dad. Elizabeth: We have a similar heritage then. Patrick There you go. And I can see it in my kids as well. Noah and Reuben, they love telling stories and they love hearing stories. So it’s been passed on for sure. Elizabeth: That’s fantastic. Can you advise all the aspiring writers out there how to get started, and more importantly, how to keep going? Patrick: How to get started… I can only speak, maybe quote Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.” So I can only speak from the authority of my own experience. I don’t have a technique or a tactic or a ritual that I go through. I pray. I pray, and one thing that I’ll say to people when asked this question – again I don’t want to get too preachy here – but if you want to get creative, it helps to get in touch with your Creator. That’s all I can say. That might be a bit controversial but for some ears, but that’s what works for me. I don’t get on my knees and say “God, give me another book!” Elizabeth: “Give me a bestseller or a …” Patrick: “Give me a bestseller!” What I actually do is I surrender my agenda. Elizabeth: So ego is left aside. Patrick: Ego is left aside, and any preconceived ideas are left aside. So I’m not sitting there going “Give me inspiration”. I’m giving myself out, and saying “Take away”. Elizabeth: Use me, as a conduit. Patrick: “Use me”, and if that’s to be the best barista in Mornington, or go back to my cobbling beginnings, or elephant-washing beginnings, so be it. So most of – no, really all of – my flashes of inspiration you could say… There’s that great poem by Rumi, Listening, where he says, “When that voice speaks, may I sell my tongue and buy a thousand ears.” So when I’m hearing that voice, that is always followed by a period of prayerfulness or meditation which just opens up that creativity. Sounds easy. I know when I hear that voice, and I sell my tongue, I know that there’s a double emotion. Joy, and dread. Because I know that I’m in for some hard work. Elizabeth: ‘Cause writing can be hard work, can’t it. And the discipline that’s required – and you know you may not particularly feel like writing that day – but you have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Patrick: Yes, so back to the question, which was “How do we keep going?” How do we start? For me, I don’t really start until I’ve heard the voice, I’ve heard that voice, I’ve heard that spark of inspiration. How do I keep going? I know that I won’t have peace until it’s done. So I’m listening to that voice but I also know that it’s a collaboration after that. So I’m seeking opportunities to get it on paper or get it onto the computer. And they are taken in the busyness of my life with 3 young kids and a fulltime job as a physio. I have to be creative just to find that time. So often it’s my wonderful patients – patient patients – lying on the physio plinth – and I’ll just seek an opportunity to say, “Now that you’ve got all those needles all over you, there’s no way to run out of here. Would you mind listening to my latest? What do you think of it?” Elizabeth: Do they come back for another appointment after that, Patrick? Patrick: Normally they do. I don’t think I’ve managed to scare anyone off yet. Elizabeth: I might need to book for a session. Do I have to have a needle? Patrick: Not always, but it does – has that influence on my clinical judgment. Might be, if I’m honest. But I call it ‘bibliotherapy’. That works well, so I’m looking for opportunity. Sometimes I’ll pull the car over and send myself a text message for a sentence. Or middle of the night, off to the computer, or scribbling in bed on a bit of paper. I don’t have a routine about how to get these things down. Elizabeth: 2 a.m. is a common time for me to receive a sentence too. Patrick: In the shower can be a good place – you can scratch it into the wall, into the mist, write it down, whatever it is. But I’m in the posture of seeking the opportunity to find that time to write that down once I’ve heard that voice. Elizabeth: Can we talk about your work – who you work with, the wonderful men and women that you care for? Can we talk about that? Patrick: Yes, so 2 days a week, I work at the medical centre at Victoria Barracks, which is a service based in Melbourne. They are wonderful, so when I first started working for the military, I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder about war and the work of the military. Elizabeth: In what way? Patrick: I’d been a bit of a hippie, a bit of a peace lover, a bit biased against the war machine, or whether it’s a valuable service that the Army and Navy and Air Force offer. And then you get to meet these people and hear their stories. Elizabeth: Amazing. Patrick: Amazing, the sacrifice made. I see the plague of PTSD is becoming more public or known as an extension of the epidemic of general mental health problems in the world. As a physio you get a front row seat really, and you get the rare – it’s a real privilege to offer probably two of the greatest needs of the human being: to be heard and understood, and to be touched. Elizabeth: Yes. Beautiful. Patrick: To be touched. There aren’t many mainstream medical professionals that offer both. So as a physio you’re in a really good place and space to offer that service and in that way to gather stories. So in that way it does feed into the other half of my career, which is becoming more than half really, the writing side of things, and the gathering of stories from the confessional plinth is part of that, and the sharing of stories is part of that. Elizabeth: They’re exceptionally lucky to have you. Patrick: Goes both ways. Elizabeth: You’ve had wonderful success with your book sales. What does success mean to you? Patrick: About three bucks fifty? (Laughter) So I remember when my amazing editor and publisher Margrete Lamond sat me down – we met face to face for the first time – she’s based in New South Wales – one of her first pieces of advice was “Don’t give up your day job!” Elizabeth: I’ve had the same advice before. Patrick: So in terms of success it’s been humbling and mind-blowing to think that That’s What Wings Are For – my first book – has cracked the magical 10,000 books sold in Australia within 6 months. Elizabeth: Wow. Congratulations. That’s wonderful. Patrick: So now we’re into our second year of sales. I’m not sure where we’re up to now, but has been picked up internationally and translated internationally to Chinese and Korean and several other languages. What does it mean to me? It means that – it gives me a voice, a chance to talk to your lovely self, and to visit schools. I love that side of being a writer. Most writers are more comfortable in a darkened room tapping away. To my surprise, I was a very reluctant public speaker but I absolutely love going out to the schools. On Wednesday, I had a full school assembly, hundreds of kids there, and the audience and ability to speak and share… Elizabeth: ‘Cause you make that fun, don’t you. We’re just going back to The Ricker Racker Club for a moment, and can we know how you make that fun for the kids? ‘Cause the parents listening there would be really interested – we know we’re there to do hard work but school can be fun as well. So how do you make it fun for them, Patrick? Patrick: Well, The Ricker Racker Club – I invite everyone to join this very exclusive club, The Ricker Racker Club, IF they pass the test. So I read the story, but along the way we pause and issue challenges to the members of the audience to come up on behalf of the whole school, see if they can pass this test. So we follow the story. And one of the characters is Max, and in the first week he sticks his head into the fox’s hole. So I make up a little fox’s hole, and find a willing kid to stick his head into this fox’s hole. The whole school are counting 20 seconds and I bring out this little stuffed fox. So the poor kid doesn’t know I’m tiptoeing up behind him and “Raaaahhh!” Elizabeth: (Laughter) Do you get a lot of screams? Patrick: We get a few of those, and then the villain of the book is this wolf next door, which is based on a great German Shepherd that lived next door to me, and I have the scar to prove, the moment the basketball flew over the fence. I rescued the basketball – and Chance (the dog’s name was Chance) – got me. And so the wolf next door – it would normally have a wolf suit – and it’s normally the PE teacher who dresses up as a wolf. Elizabeth: Would you go to our school? They’d love you. Patrick: I’d love to. Elizabeth: Ours is a service school, so you’ll like it. Ours is a service school, so we have a lot of service families that go to... Nice connection for you. Patrick: I’d love to come out. Absolutely. So the kids build up and up and at the end, “Who wants to join this club?” “Yeah!” “Who wants to learn the secret password?” “Yeah!” So I force it down a little and say, “Unfortunately you haven’t done quite enough yet.” Elizabeth: (Laughter) Oh my, the kids will go “Oh what?” Patrick: So it’s a case of “Do not put up your hand, do not raise your hand, unless you are extremely brave.” All the hands go up. “I mean it, I’m warning you now – extremely brave.” Elizabeth: What age group are we looking at, with the hands going up? Patrick: Prep, all the way to 6. Elizabeth: The whole school, wow. Patrick: At this point, some of the Grade 6s I can tell – folded their arms; it’s a bit babyish for them. So picture it: I do target them a bit at this point. So I’ll normally look for the guy who’s lost interest – the kid can be too cool for school here. And I’ll grab this fellow and bring him up. “So on behalf of the school, let’s talk about Courage. Courage comes in many forms. You’ve already demonstrated Courage by standing up in front of the whole school. But Courage comes in many forms. The courage to make a mistake when you know it’s going to get you in trouble. You’re scared of something. And then there’s taste buds. So we go back to Week 3, if you were listening, what did Zack do in Week 3?” And he’ll say “I’m sorry, I can’t remember.” Again in a loud voice, “What did Zack do in Week 3?” And you get the book out again: Zack drank a tomato sauce milkshake. At this point I’m standing behind him with milk, and then I bring out the tomato sauce. And what’s he do now? At this point he’s shaking his head ‘no’. And the school have already started the chant without encouragement: “Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!” So I make this milkshake, this foaming tomato sauce milkshake… Elizabeth: Oh no. Patrick: And I pause again and say “Unfortunately my friend, Zack did that for one person. You’re doing it for 700 people right now. That’s not enough. So I look around – I shop for the largest Brussel sprout I can find. And I bring out this Brussel sprout, drop it into the tomato sauce milkshake, and present it to this fellow. Elizabeth: Poor kid. Patrick: The poor kid. Originally, I used this – it occurred to me that this is peer group pressure of the highest order. So I now use this as an opportunity for this poor unfortunate kid to – they’re saying no at this point – I really esteem that courage. I say “Look, you have done something extraordinarily brave. Everyone here at some point is going to face a baying crowd of people saying ‘Drink! Drink!’ or whatever. Elizabeth: That’s so clever, Patrick. Patrick: And to say no in the face of that, is true Courage. So I give him a round of applause and he sits down. “Now who wants to be a legend?” (Laughter) So someone else comes up. Or I’ll turn it into the “What would the kind person do now?” Or even better. “Maybe there’s a teacher in the audience…” Elizabeth: So what I’ll do is I’ll leave it there, because if the school listens to that one they won’t book you. I will leave them in suspense. When I first read That’s What Wings Are For, I was sitting in a coffee shop, with tears rolling down my cheeks. The other patrons respectfully averted their eyes. And you know you’ve found a great book when so much emotion is ... Can you please tell us about your inspiration for That’s What Wings Are For? Patrick: So That’s What Wings Are For … Maybe I can mention one of my favourite poems of all time, which is The Hound of Heaven. The Hound of Heaven, for those who don’t know, written more than a hundred years ago by a homeless opium addict in London, Francis Thompson. So he was asking the big question: how could a loving God allow such suffering in the world, and particularly in his own life? And the penny starts to drop about halfway through. He says maybe, just maybe, You allow us in Your love to burn and burn until we become charcoal, and You pick us up and You create Your masterpiece. So That’s What Wings Are For – I’m not calling it a masterpiece – it certainly came from a burning charcoal in process. And that process was the great sadness in my life. My son Noah has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which is a devastating condition that involves the wasting of muscles. And the heart’s a muscle, and it’s a devastating disease. So in light of that I was asked to write a book about a certain blue dragon Bluey, who is the mascot for all the families affected by this devastating disease. So I was working on another book at the time, and I was asked to write this book. And I jumped at the chance, but I also knew there was a heavy responsibility writing that. So really you can look globally at that and look at the whole community impacted by that, but really it was a love letter from a father to a son. Elizabeth: Beautiful. Patrick: And that’s how it was written, and that is something I do say when I go out to the schools. You’ve heard Ricker Racker – it’s quite a boisterous, joyous occasion. When I go out to talk about That’s What Wings Are For, I basically start off in a fun way, and then I bring it back sharply and I say, I bring out Bluey, the actual mascot, a blue plush teddy, and I say “I actually met Bluey on the worst day of my life.” And to have a school go from being quite boisterous, and the teachers go “Shh! Shh! Shh!” to your pin drop in one sentence… Elizabeth: Wow, that’s powerful. Patrick: They get it. They get it. From the preppies all the way up to the Grade 6s, they get it, and there’s a real reverence suddenly about the book and why it was written. And then I explain what’s happened from there and we go from there. I still struggle to read it without crying, but they are tears of – what will I say - I heard this line yesterday – “what we sow with tears, we reap with shouts of joy”. And there’s something joyous – it’s bigger than me, this thing. It’s bigger than me. Elizabeth: What you’ve created is magnificent. Patrick: Thank you. Elizabeth: You’re welcome. You mentioned in an interview that 80% of That’s What Wings Are For was written over breakfast with your family, and then one sentence that brought tears to your eyes took you 3 months to write. Can you please share that sentence with my listeners and what it was that finally led you to discover the sentence that made you cry? Patrick: What it was was my incredible ego. I just – it went to my head. The idea of being a published author and all this went absolutely to my head. Elizabeth: Well you are only human after all. (Laughter) Patrick: Well, I’m sitting back there, I’m imagining red carpets, imagining walking up the stairs. It was shocking! And here I am, I’ve written a book for my sick kid, and my ego’s having a field day. At this point I hadn’t even had the manuscript finished… Elizabeth: You were strutting around… Patrick: It was appalling. I’m embarrassed about it, at the way I was carrying on in my head anyway. So we needed – Bluey needed a reason to be doing what he did ultimately, which is find a reason for his wings. And I was trying all these sentences about sending him off to Margrete, and very gently and respectfully she would be saying “That is rubbish.” (Laughter) Elizabeth: Thanks Margrete. She just knew there was more to you – she knows how deep you are. Patrick: She knew how to push the buttons and what’s right. And equally my wife Lisa as well. And more so my wife Lisa, she has a great ability to tell me when I’m writing something that’s rubbish - and good as well. Elizabeth: Good. Patrick: So the to-ing and fro-ing went on for months. And then I had this moment of “You complete goose! What are you doing?” And certainly at that moment I decided that every cent from this book would be given to charity, which it always should have been anyway, and I made that decision, and entered some prayer and reflection, and within really minutes of making that decision – within minutes – I was given this sentence. And I have to set the context of that time. And at the time we had a crudely termed … we called it a ‘year of adventure’ – you could call it a bucket list, and we were doing all sorts of things around the world. So the sentence – Bluey was coming back from the Royal Children’s Hospital. It was broadened to be a magical building filled with magical creatures with all sorts of ailments. So at that moment when Bluey looks out, and when I’m reading the story to the school, I’ll have people close their eyes and put their hands on their hearts, and feel. Elizabeth: Which I’m going to do now. Patrick: And if you keep feeling, you’ll feel something. You may not feel it straightaway, but if you keep trying, you’ll get there. You’ll feel something warm and fuzzy. And that feeling has a name; it has lots of names. Kindness, and hope, and love, and what happens – and at this moment, Bluey looks across, and I share this sentence: “Bluey saw the boy’s soft, floppy legs, and at that moment, something happened in Bluey’s heart. He stopped for that moment thinking so much about his own situation, and he looked inward. He looked out, and saw this boy sharing a similar path. That word ‘empathy’. That changed everything for Bluey; it helped him work out what his wings were for.” So we go on from there. Elizabeth: Beautiful. That compassion for another person. The author-illustrator relationship is such a pivotal one. Can you describe what is important to you in such a relationship? Patrick: Respect, and trust, and space. So ‘let there be space in your togetherness’. Certainly for the first two books – the first one, Daniella Germain, extraordinary talent. And then the same with Nathanial Eckstrom, rising superstar of the illustration world. So first book, I had no contact at all with Daniella until after all the illustrations were done. Had no input into the illustrations at all. So in terms of relationship, it’s one of trust. Slightly different with the second book – some feedback. Poor Nathanial, I saw his amazing illustrations, but – and it was amazing that he managed to draw my 3 kids without having seen a photo of them, quite accurately – except for Gracie wears glasses. And I just politely asked whether he might pop glasses on Poppy (Gracie is named Poppy in the book). So he went back and put glasses on. Then I had a look at that and thought, “No. Makes her look too old now. Can you take the glasses off?” So that was a bit of a diva moment for me, I suppose. But other than that it really is letting go and not being too precious and trusting in the selection of the illustrator – that’s up to the publisher – and I trust Margrete to make that decision, and she hasn’t failed me yet. I know how she is with me with the words, and she’s that way again with the illustrator. Elizabeth: What a wonderful person to find! Patrick: She is great, she’s fantastic. Elizabeth: What are you working on at the moment? Patrick: Well, the undercurrent to all the picture books that have been picked up in the last couple of years has been a novel for children called The Last Secret of Ernie Pigwinkle, and I’ve been working on the story for more than 10 years. And it comes and goes, and then another idea overrides that. But I keep coming back to The Last Secret of Ernie Pigwinkle. That is lying dormant again, but I know I will go back to that, so there’s always that in the background. That story is the story of an old man who loves to tell stories. And he has this great secret. Great secret, that he's burning with this secret, to share it with his grandson Arthur. Long story short, he gets invited to the World Storytelling Competition in Marrakesh, Morocco, up against the greats of storytelling. Professor Chinwag from China, Lord Blabbermouth from England. I won’t give too much away, but he makes it to the final and he tells this great secret, but the secret is revealed slowly as the story goes along. Elizabeth: Suspense right through… Patrick: Right through. It has been a lot of hard work, also joy, and I have a sense that one day it will happen. I’ve also recently finished another picture book manuscript that is very, very dear to my heart, called Tiny Dancer. Elizabeth: The Elton John song. Patrick: The Elton John song, so hopefully Sir Elton will approve, and that’s really dear to my heart, and I’m in an acquisitions meeting on that one. And we’re in the process of illustrating and that process does involve some word changes. My next release which will be next year, I thought that was going to be a book called The Second Sky. It sounds like – based on this week’s emails – it sounds like it will be called Rabby the Brave. Elizabeth: You’re just prolific – you’re pounding on aren’t you, one after the other. Patrick: Look, it’s been a blessed couple of years. There’s been a very rich vein of inspiration and creativity that’s happening at the moment. Really grateful. Elizabeth: We’re very, very pleased too, I must say. Can’t wait to read them. What do you like to do in your spare time to unwind from all this work you’re doing – the physio work with the military, your family, and all this wonderful writing you’re doing? What do you do to unwind? Patrick: I’m clinging to my childhood in terms of chasing a bouncy ball around. I still play basketball. There’s a competition going on in Victoria Barracks actually, so at the ripe old age of 45, I’m taking on the burly soldiers, I’m taking on the burly soldiers in this basketball competition. Elizabeth: Well you have to keep up on being brave. (Laughter) Patrick: I love it. I must say I’m shamelessly, every goal I score – there aren’t many of them – I’m celebrating them like they could be my last. So there’s the fist pump and the whooping after every goal I score. And would you believe I’m still sort of – don’t let Lisa know but I’m still playing football. Full contact. There’s a wonderful competition – Reclink, midweek, battlers’ competition. You may have heard of the Choir of Hard Knocks – Reclink was spawned from it and there’s a football league for battlers, whether it be homeless refugees or people battling addiction. So we’ve set up a team in Frankston, and I’ve been the … Elizabeth: You are brave. (Laughter) Patrick: Madness, absolute madness. And so I’ve been the physio, the chaplain, the halfback flank and the water boy, whatever goes on, whatever’s needed for that team. And there’s just something primal about playing Australian Rules football that I just can’t let go of. And if I ever get the chance, I’ll go out surfing as well. Elizabeth: Isn’t it great to tap into that raw energy and just let yourself go? Patrick: It is. With surfing, it’s one of the few pastimes or sports where you spend 95% of the time staring at the horizon. So you get a chance to unwind – then it goes from the serenity to scrambling for your life. It’s great. Elizabeth: It’s a bit of a metaphor, isn’t it? Patrick: It’s great. Yes, so those are the 3 main things. Elizabeth: Do you want to remain in the children’s book genre? Patrick: Absolutely. Maybe one day a book for grownups, but certainly at the moment I’m loving – when you write a picture book, you are writing for grownups – you’re writing for two generations. Elizabeth: It’s that connection, I think, with parent-child. It’s so special. And you both learn so much when you’re reading together. Patrick: Absolutely. And I’ve been trying to make the transition from picture books into early readers, and I’ve found that quite hard. I might have to leapfrog that and go into older early readers. Because to go from a picture book to an early reader is – you got to dumb it down. You really have to dumb it down. That’s a crude way of saying it, but you do. There are certain concepts you have to avoid, and using poetry or metaphors is a bit more tricky. So maybe that’s not for me, that niche. So certainly The Last Secret of Ernie Pigwinkle is for an older reader, an older young reader. And then the picture books as well. I might stick to those, to genres within the broader children’s book genre for now. We’ll see what happens after. Elizabeth: You’re so insightful. Because you haven’t actually studied Creative Writing or completed a formal uni degree in writing, and yet your knowledge is so vast. Is you’re your intuition at play again, do you think? Patrick: Not sure. I think it’s a blessing. Don’t want to use the word ‘gift’, but I think it’s nothing to be proud of if it’s a gift. Elizabeth: I really have to disagree, because so many people are given, receive gifts, it’s then what you do with that gift. And so many people do not do anything with what they’ve been blessed with. I do think you can claim that proudly and whoop, like on a footy field. (Laughter) Patrick: Maybe. I do love whooping when there’s a sense of victory, a sense of accomplishment – once you finish that manuscript, submit to send, and you know it’s off, and have such a beautiful relationship with Margrete. I should mention Alyson O’Brien, who is also with Little Hare – I’m increasingly involved with her. I know that they will read it and give it the full attention and get back to me quite quickly, so that agonizing wait has been reduced to, in some cases, a few hours now, which is great. Elizabeth: It’s cause you’re so clever, and they know it. Do you have a website or blog, Patrick, that my listeners can go to find out more about your wonderful work? Patrick: Yes, there’s a shiny new website, “Patrick Guest dot com dot au”. I know nothing about the technical side of websites, and a great friend of mine, Jeffrey County, has helped set that up, and it’s sparkling. Elizabeth: Aren’t tech people great? I’m not one of those. Patrick: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. There’s no way I could do that. So that’s up and running now, so there’s opportunity to email me and contact me through that. Happy to do that. Elizabeth: Patrick, this is a signature question that I ask all my guests. What do you wish for, for the world, and most importantly, for yourself? Patrick: That’s a big one. Look, the first thing that springs to mind is a cure for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Elizabeth: I’m with you. Patrick: That would be the first thing. But if I thought more about it, more broadly… Maybe I could go back to Ernie Pigwinkle, The Last Secret of Ernie Pigwinkle. So I’ll give away a little bit, so we get to the end of the story. We’re at the World Storytelling Championships, so Ernie, this old man from Ballarat, has made the final and won, thanks to his grandson. So the secret starts off as “Do you know why dogs wag their tails?” We move on from there to “Why dogs and cats fight – the origins of war”. Then he finishes with a little song, a little poem he says to the world: It’s a war that’s continued to this very day. It’s a shame that Dog and Cat couldn’t think of a way To listen and learn and be understood, And love one another as all of us could. You don’t have to carry on like a dog or a cat. You’re not a baboon or as blind as a bat. There’s a heart in your chest and a brain in your head. So before you lose faith, hold on instead. Hold on to your faith in the goodness of others. Never give up on your sisters and brothers. You’ll see for yourself, as sure as the sun, That there’s something worth loving in everyone. He says that. Elizabeth: I need a box of tissues. [Laughter] Oh Patrick, my goodness, that’s so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Patrick: That’s the world premiere of The Last Secret of Ernie Pigwinkle and… Elizabeth: What a coup on Writers’ Tête-à-tête with Elizabeth Harris. Wow, Patrick! Superb. Patrick Guest, thank you so much for joining me on “Writers Tete-a-Tete with Elizabeth Harris”. We look forward to more of your stunning work. I totally agree with you: hugging is what wings are for. Thanks for tuning in everyone, and may your wishes come true. [END OF TRANSCRIPT]

Four Reasons God Used Noah Reason 1: Noah Was Available ... So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them...But Noah found favor with the Lord. Genesis 6:5-8 Reason 2: God Uses People Who Dare to be Different Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God. Genesis 6:9 NLT Reason 3: God Uses People Who Follow Him Completely So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him. Genesis 6:22 NLT Reason 4: God Uses People Who Never Give Up The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. 2 Chronicles 16:9 NLT