So, the idea and the format here is that I'm going to ask a set of questions to John and then John will try and answer those questions, we'll certainly answer them eloquently and then we'll open it up to the floor. So it's about half an hour maybe on the fixed questions and then open it up then to more open questions for people from the audience. So there's a couple of different themes we were going to try and get John's insight into. First was joining up the consumer in competition policy. How did the two work together? The next one then is competition policy with the new technologies and disruptive change that's happening right across the economy and many economies across the world. The next one then is politics and political economy of competition and regulation. How do we deal with the new politics not only here locally but also again globally? And the last one I thought just given where we are at the moment we had a lot of questions on Brexit and it was great, hopefully we'll get John's great insights into Brexit. I'm not sure you'll have all the answers John but at least we can get an insight into where we are at the moment. So let's start off with consumer and competition policy. So the first question really John is we've seen the experience you know of the evolution of regulation. I mean the UK was a leader here. You know over the last 20-25 years you know you've seen the split up of the industry that created a creation of secular regulators competition coming right the way through. So what does that look like today from a consumer perspective given what we've already seen happen? Thanks Art. It's very nice to be back here. Tom Arnold reminded me that I was here. I spoke here last in 2007 but when I was with the competition authority our offices were and the PC is still just here in Parnell Square so it's very nicely back on familiar turf. I mean when I was when my parents had me and moved into a new house they waited four years for a telephone instrument and it wasn't because telephone instruments required four years to make but because there was a monopoly on telephones and if you knew a local TD you can get it faster and the UK really led in in that breakdown or breaking up of the relationship between state-owned monopolies in the government and trying to get markets to deliver things that had been you know post-war and earlier seen as things that only the state could deliver and maybe it was right that only the state could deliver them then and the UK started that and it certainly had a huge influence in Europe and I think there were enormous benefits from the liberalisation having the UK and and consequently in the European Union so you you see for example how telephone charges have fallen, airfares fell, new entrants entering those markets so I think it was a really fantastic to do but my view now is that the sector regulators in the UK are inimical to the interests of consumers and the way that they operate and and I've thought this for about five years I spent six months advising David Cameron in Economic Policy and one of the papers I took to the cabinet was a proposal to abolish all the sector regulators and he stopped short of doing that but agreed with a lot of the rest of it and I'll tell you what I think the problem is though first of all the UK has given all of the regulators consumer and competition powers and they don't use them instead of going and enforcing the regular law they write the conditions into the licenses of the firm so they can control the ex ante and that has made the firm is slightly dependent on the regulators so the regular is a bit of a puppet master with the the firms on one side there's a punch of the market and it's become increasingly a puppet master on the consumer side as well we now have got to the stage in the UK where consumers who don't switch are seen as problem and their problem for the regulator and the regulator has to make them switch in energy as opposed to saying if you're getting ripped off in the market do something about it we've now got to the stage is the government's problem and I remember when I started the competition authority there was high inflation and the government put in an order on the price of the pint this was in 2001 I remember a piece of or key footage of a guy sitting in a pub in Dublin he's probably the stag's head saying a pint of Guinness is five pence cheaper across the road and what's the government doing about that and so you know but so we've no competition law enforcement they become more and more interventionist and the very existence and by the way the people running them are all good friends of mine is not about the individuals but they've become like a a lightning rod for all of the political desire to intervene in markets and because they exist as they do the politicians have to do something with them so let me contrast in 2010 2009 Gordon Brown 2010 David Cameron 2011 David Cameron all of them were very upset with rising energy prices and so they went and got lots of things done in by off-gem in the UK but petrol prices were going up and they kept putting pressure on the OFT to do studies of the petrol market and I refused on the basis there wasn't a problem we weren't going to do it and we were able to withstand but the energy regulator couldn't so you know petrol prices were going up and domestic energy prices were going up and domestic energy prices got all of the the heat because there was a regulator there to do it and I think over time what's happened is the regulators are also then required by law to do lots of consultation and so what we now have is that any I advise that companies in energy telecoms the regulators produce 100 page documents to consult on more or less on a weekly basis only industry and deciders can do them inside the companies the people whose careers do well are they would understand regulation they have no incentive to change anything BT has just appointed an independent chairman for open reach they've gone and picked somebody's an ex-member of the off-com board because they obviously consider that in order to restructure make open reach more efficient it's better to have somebody's been on the board of off-com than somebody who's actually driven change within the industry so we don't have people running these companies anymore who are really skilled in change management and driving efficiency and so there's chronic inefficiency inside them we don't have I mean I you're far better internet access in most parts of Ireland and 3g access 4g access than you have in the uk and ad so the uk haven't been an early leader with a model that really worked well has let that model live beyond its useful life and so my proposal to Cameron and still is my view and by the way it also makes entry really difficult and it makes it impossible for organizations like which the consumer association to engage in these consultations because they're so technical so my proposal then and still is that they should have one single access regulator for access to critical infrastructure that's cross sector and move the competition consumer powers back to the competition markets authority and I know I come from a competition background but that's what I would do those criticisms don't necessarily apply in Ireland Ireland's at a different stage of development so I don't mean to imply that here but there comes a point at which you say the system has outlived its useful function I think we've got there in the uk and I think that will happen but it just may not happen soon enough it might take another five or ten years before people wake up to it okay so a question that's somewhat related to this then John is really what the effect of the crash has had on regulation more generally you know you mentioned about the sort of the the the puppet master for the regulator as long as we're not punching Judy I suppose that's about but to what extent has that you know crash changed the the balance between producers and consumers and I was is there a perception that the producer is much more powerful now I post the crash and is there something we should look at as regulators in that context I mean the there's a lovely book by juliano matter former italian prime minister called anti trust and the bounds of power and he makes the point that in a liberal market democracy you give people economic freedom and they use that economic freedom to become economically powerful and then they use that economic party to get close to politicians and that causes the decline of democracy and he said that the reason why the Sherman act came about in the United States was to deal with the trust that had grown up in the late 19th century and he makes the point that the origins of the the founders of the European Union wanted a strong framework of state aid control competition rules in order to protect democracy more than just to protect consumers and I think in the financial crisis you've seen actually not just the sort of producer interest scroll but you've seen them growing away the damages democracy and you see that in the states you see it with the brexit vote in the uk and so on and and I think it has you know the independence of regulators been undermined I in seven years of the oft every single year there was a report from some official report commissioned by government and proposing a redivision of our responsibilities taking some powers away usually and giving to somebody else all of them incremental and I'm not opposed to institutional change but but not incremental stuff and so every year I had to be careful what we did what we said because somebody was going to get away jail and start bringing about an institutional change and so we don't have institutional stability and in a time of crisis that becomes more acute because it's very difficult to run in the agency independently if parliament is constantly redoing your boundaries I think consumers have got even weaker if you look at in 10 years ago which the consumer participation in the UK was very powerful because it was the only person doing price comparison and product comparison work and it could use the revenues from that to cross subsidize its advocacy work and it had specialists in financial services energy telecoms now we have price comparison websites rich doesn't have that money anymore and actually there's almost no consumer advocacy in the UK so so that's quite difficult so yeah I think we're in quite a bad space with that and I think the the the politics of the moment do not favor independent institutions and you see that in the UK with the attacks on the bank of England over the summer the attacks on the office of budget responsibility and so on so it's it's a you know it's there is a risk of what a matter said is coming to pass and that's also true I mean I I don't want to get into too much the apple tax case I'm giving a speech about in next week but the way in which Vastaya handled that case where she treated the Irish government the way she's stopped using state aid control to deal with steel in Germany railways and a whole lot of other industries that are close to the German and French government and she targets this particular type of taxation it's just deeply political and so I fear that the Commission is sort of foregoing its competencies in the areas where it matters most for democracy and actually doing things that are very populist as well so I think we're seeing that at a European level and I say that as somebody's very pro-European it distresses me that the European Commission is not behaving better um but so I think we're seeing independent institutions that should be independent um being um uh threatened by politics and that feeds into the next question then about the sort of the role is part of the solution certainly in competition you've got a single strong entity for imposing and enforcing competition law would if we had something similar on a consumer end in some sort of pan-European if we look at VW and some of the scandals there or whatever is that would that be better than what we have at the moment? Absolutely the um the the company the consumer responsibility in Europe got split between three different commissioners and the Yonker Commission and I actually wrote a paper about this at the time saying it was a you know they should be together and it's I don't want I wouldn't want enormous amounts of centralisation I think the decentralisation and competition law is a very good thing and the decentralised consumer law is a very good thing but the current situation in Europe is a really fragmented consumer policy at the centre of Europe and that's not good for the citizen because it means that they interfere on things like roaming where they have the instruments to do so but they fail to deal with things like Volkswagen so I completely agree with that and I also think having DG comp jump more joined up with the consumer side would be better it's something I've long told you know. The other question then that's sort of the last question then on this consumer competition piece is when we talk to industry we turn around and they say well we're champions of the consumer and industry comes back and says oh actually your job was to pull competition how do the two work together and is there a tension between the two or how can we ensure that they complement each other? I don't think regulators should be advocates for the consumer but I think they should be I think it's better if regulation is there to promote the interests of consumers I mean if you promote the interests of producers you're on a slippery slope to nowhere and you know I've always thought that a competition authority that has consumer powers there's a number of benefits from having them together and one is that problems in markets are not always you look at a problem in a market it's not over solved by just one instrument so probably the best example of this was drip pricing in airlines so people remember back in the middle of the last decade airlines right now in particular were charging you know ridiculously low amounts close to zero for airfares but then adding lots of extras so you paid 70 pounds but you can get them until later in the booking and that was intense competition an intense competition without you know fair grounds of engagement fees to be the consumer can actually bad for the consumer so what we did was we intervened with our consumer powers and said you if something's essential to the fair it has to be in the upfront price and as a result we stopped a lot of that drip pricing now Ryanair ran around that another round ran around it with credit card fees and seating charges and even speculated about toilet charges but we then did an evaluation and our evaluation showed the consumer saved 120 million a year from the increased competition that resulted from that because people could compare prices more easily but if we'd just been a competition authority we couldn't have done anything about that and I think it would have been really difficult for a consumer only authority to have had the intellectual and analytical apparatus to have understood the competition dynamic was that important because those evaluation numbers surprised me we often evaluation numbers that surprised me negatively but those were surprisingly good evaluation numbers and it was actually an example of a consumer intervention increasing competition another example of that was the government liberalized directory inquiries in the UK back in 2002 as a result the prices went up by about tenfold even the incumbent managed to increase their prices it was a really bad liberal liberalization and the the problem was as with other liberalizations people hadn't thought about about the consumer side enough we did as well with mobility aids the government of the UK decided rather than buy wheelchairs for people where they got a bulk this time to give them the money and let them buy their own people buying wheelchairs are very prone to doorstep selling and doorstep selling is a notorious form of ripping off of vulnerable consumers and so we found that they were paying on average 50 percent more than the government was paying for the mobility aids and so your well intention moves to empower consumers and so on that don't think about but not just the competition aspects but the consumer aspects together so I'm a big fan of them being done together because I think you get better answers and I know that you know that's happened here if the way it is in the UK to a large extent and I think in Canada Australia and the United States competition consumer powers are joined up and I think the agencies there are stronger for that one of the things you touched on in responding to that was you know the technology in that sense that we're seeing disruption coming through from technology we've got our group of regulatory network we're sharing we're seeing more and more cross cutting areas across the various areas that we regulate take for example a consumer trying to use some sort of financial transaction on their mobile phone so you've got a transaction that's financial you've got the mobile phone which is in the calm sector you've got competition issues you've got sort of data privacy issues if they can't charge the phone it becomes an energy market issue and they're the consumers just doing one simple thing they're just doing a transaction on their phone so how can we try and adapt for this rapidly changing environment what's your suggestions I mean I think so I'll talk about Uber Uber's a client of mine and so I and I as people may know I've a long standing interest in taxi markets so it's the I would I would advise them for free because I saw like taxes don't don't tell them that but so what's really interesting about and Halo here is a bit the same so it does a number of things so first of all Uber gives you levels of quality one of the things that I mean I think taxi regulation here went really sharply downhill after I left the country not because no causality but just couldn't send it but you know I don't see why I mean I get Uber cars all the time in London I don't need things painted on the door there are a cost increase some people might like that some people might not but why do you have a regulator imposing a quality standard it excludes poor people so and so one of the things you get with those with Uber is you get a variety of quality from Uber pool right up to Uber Lux and the consumer can choose the quality they want secondly because you have a rating system because the rider rates the the the driver and the driver rates the passenger everybody behaves incredibly well and and they value their their ratings and you can get it excluded if you don't behave well thirdly it's for regulators it poses a big opportunity but also a huge challenge so let's just take the issue of wheelchair accessibility for for taxis the way we currently do wheelchair accessibility is in a really clumsy way around vehicle standards so in London it's 100% mobility but even there the cost of loading and unloading your car when somebody's in a wheelchair as opposed to able-bodied is is higher and so people in wheelchairs still find it difficult especially at peak times to get taxis but with an uber style technology and sorry Dublin does it Ireland does it differently we have minimum numbers of taxis that are accessible and we reduce the license charges for them but we still don't change the marginal incentive for a driver to pick up somebody who uses a wheelchair or has another disability that requires some extra assistance but with a technology like uber you can say to uber we want you to report back to us on the average wait times of people who are booking who call themselves differently abled or whatever and the average wait times of able-bodied passengers and we want you to report the difference and we want you to get that difference you know constant but the people who currently regulate vehicle standards the individuals inside the regulator are not the people who are going to be doing big data regulation and so that's a big challenge so there's a huge opportunity there to get much much better outcomes for the consumer to basically use these quasi-market mechanisms that exist on these platforms to deliver much better outcomes but it requires a totally different skill set within the regulator and so taxi regulators all over the world are struggling with this because they're mostly at a city level they're mostly very small and they totally lack the resource and capability to switch their regulatory focus and there's some risk in switching your regulatory focus like that so I think that's one example where there's a problem for regulators another example to look at is what the financial conduct authority has done in the UK with its regulatory sandbox and this was an idea I had when I was advising David Cameron that we took to the the financial conduct authority so the financial conduct authority has created a sandbox and a unit for dealing with very financial technology startups and what they're doing is they have a unit where anybody who's running a fintech business can go to them and talk to them they help them through the licensing process they allow them to operate in a safe space so they don't have to get fully regulated and fully licensed where they're under a different type of control because they recognize that they won't fit into one regulation model so if you take peer-to-peer lenders as an example a peer-to-peer lender takes money from me and then lends it to you so it is both a lender and a borrower and it then has to get a license to credit license and a license more or less as a bank and so what they've done is they've created a new type of quasi-license for peer-to-peer lenders but they they just keep them under slightly tighter leash in other ways and and it's a really good model for what what regulators can do so I think there's lots of opportunities there but it requires quite a lot of creative thinking by regulators and it's a challenge for smaller regulators compared to larger ones because you know larger regulators have the resources and bandwidth to do this the final point I'd say is that there's the other side of the coin is the disruptive entrance like uber and airbnb could behave a lot better and your airbnb has now yesterday woken up to the fact that it is able to regulate 90 days a year so we helped we um worked for a company called one finds day and we helped them um supported them in getting persuaded in the government to bring in legislation allowing 90 day lets for short term lets you can let your house up to 90 days a year but airbnb said well we can't monitor that and the government has basically then said well you might lose your license to operate in the country so yeah yesterday they said they could do it they shouldn't have to be dragged kicking and screaming to this and it's actually one of the challenges you can have in regulating disruptive entrance is that you get a race to the bottom and then finally there's a huge issue for labour market regulation because you're getting this economy um started with um ebay and in airbnb and then it's more acute with uh taxi drivers where you have people earning small amounts of money doing an array of small things and sometimes some big things but they're totally outside of labour market regulation so you're seeing in the uk hmrc revenue falling um you're seeing concerns about social dumping and people not being protected on pensions maternity cover everything else and i don't think they regulated company they sorry the disruptive companies have been as good as they could be at coming up with with um appropriate solutions that all that and they're getting better at it so we want to try to sort of explore then a bit politics and sort of how politics impacts on regulation one of the things we're seeing and i think it's sort of true right across europe is this loss of faith in institutions and european institutions to some extent we we're challenged locally and in various member states as well is the solution to that that we would try and have more independence so it's some of these sort of like to take dg comp should it be an independent agency there's a parallel question here around data and facts and evidence and we try and provide as much information to show decisions but there's a loss of faith and experts there's a loss of faith and expertise generally you know we've seen this in the uk where people said brexit and the concept brexit oh look that's just the view of experts in it in a sort of a dismissive way how do we try and adapt to this changing political environment is is it changing the institutions to the solution well i mean first on on independence i'm a big fan of independent regulators and i i think looking at dg comp now going back to my earlier comment i would be absolutely in favor of dg comp being politically independent because i don't think it's ever been fully politically independent but it's gotten worse under the last two commissioners and so favor that but i think independent bodies require very careful thought about how you manage them and at the beginning of independence things work very well but as it goes on over time it can get more challenging because you know politicians change the people who put in place the independent organizations will value them but then the next generation of politicians may not so i think it's very important to have really clear lines of engagement with government departments it's very important that the right issues go to the right place so if there's distribution on question so the very simple example in regulation is things like universal coverage um you know anything about redistribution of some you're taking money from one person giving to another that is best to be something that's decided by the government and ideally implemented at a government level and then the regulator might very well advise on that but it should all be quite open and transparent i i think it's quite useful to have a formal communication system between regulators and government so that the government writes and sets out strategic strategic steer for the next three or five years or whatever we knew governments earlier but these are the things we care about but the regulator in terms of enforcing the law is fully independent and similarly when the government is designing a system to do some redistribution that the regulator is able to inform us with who's going to be affected and how much and give them the data and i was always struck at the oft that we would do things that would benefit you know we'd enforce the law in one area and it would benefit one group of consumers and not the other we were very bad at explaining to the government who was losing out and if you look in the uk at the moment we have this concern with inert consumers in financial services telecoms you know people with landlines and telecoms are current issue energy etc etc but the regulators in the uk and i've said this to them privately over the last few months they don't know if it's the same consumers across all of those markets are the people are inert in energy inert in telecoms and inert in um in credit markets because if they are you have a slightly different problem um but if they're the people who are with the monopoly the legacy monopoly supplier in each case then it's a sector specific sector by sector issue and not only the regulators in the uk have got together to answer that question and that's a really important question you know for policymaking so i think there's a lot to be done um by regulators grouping together by having a lot more clarity between regulators and government around those issues but actually having widespread um acceptance of the principle that independent regulators are good because politicians when they do get involved in markets really um you know it's protect me before i kill again you know um type of arrangement in a lot of these markets and politicians sort of know that um and i think they're quite happy in principle to give up power but they want to know that they still have some levers and they want to know they want to understand what they're getting for it and they don't think they often get enough for it so we've touched on politics then in the context of how people feel about the institutions and obviously independence helps in that but let's let's talk specifically about the political changes coming up from regsit i think we feel i feel it quite strongly here in ireland i think the concern we would have and each of us as regulators deal very closely with our european counterparts and to be honest we quite rely heavily on our uk counterparts as part of that process there's a natural alignment in many times in the way we look at things you've got some sort of shared history that helps the way we view stuff and what does that look like once we lose the uk as a strong voice i mean do we it does the does the the way that the that the eu develops become different once we've lost the uk at the table as part of the formulation of of regulatory strategy a more general policy level um i mean you're living in the uk for 11 years it's quite interesting comparing the mood in ireland every time i come back you know a little bit of distance and things and now that i advise businesses i see a lot of business people and when i come back to ireland now as opposed to say even three years ago the sense of the sense of optimism amongst people in business in this country is quite tangible i mean the business community in this country feels really agile dynamic positive and optimistic probably less so people in government and less so the further you go out of Dublin and cork but and some other cities with universities but um in the uk that's just not the case so at a high level i've quite a lot of and the second thing is i'd say in my experience the uk government is much more agile in policy making than the uk so i'm quite optimistic at one level about how ireland is going to be affected by this but there's absolutely no doubt that a lot of the things ireland has traded on within the european union and benefit from the european union are things that britain has supported and britain um has been very powerful at the table so we the financial crisis has meant i mean the european union was run with um german money french intellectual influence and sort of british mediation for the best part of 40 years um or 30 years until the financial crisis and post financial crisis german money and german intellectual influence the britain spritz have stepped back and the french have lost their position as as having intellectual leadership so and that's that's very damaging to the european union but it means that britain's influence there is damaging so in the area of regulation um i would be quite fearful that you're going to see much more political interference you know the is very initially a very small issue but um you know the bundeskartel in germany which is a politically independent institution with constitutional protection has become unbelievably political in the last two or three years because and the two very good examples of that are the facebook privacy case is taking his and his facebook on abusive dominance around privacy breaking the privacy law and even the out the former head of the french competition authority said at a public event i was that recently that it was not a case he would have brought in france and that was quite a sharp criticism because people don't normally see that in public um and of course madame vestair has encouraged them and told them that's a fuel on the fire and similarly on there's a hotel online booking case and every other country in europe the ducted hotel online booking came up with one answer and the germans came up with a very different answer and both of those i think were very political so you're seeing um a lot of politics coming into regulation and i think the uk has been very good on promoting independent regulation and promoting um regulation based on consumer welfare and productivity growth and and that's going to go and you're going to also see um for example on things like corporate taxation a lack of support from the uk on things like that so i think on policy making and ireland has very few levers in brexit um ireland will struggle to get its core requirements from brexit i.e northern ireland in the border um but its leverage beyond that to influence the larger member states in europe is going to be very very low i suspect because it's going to use all its you know considerable capital i suspect politically in europe but it's going to it's going to need all of it for some really really core things to do with ireland and so it's going to be difficult to win a lot of these other policy issues across europe and john you clearly identified this challenge for us is there things that we can do as regulators as policy makers to try and adapt to this new situation it may not be you can surely there's a short term issues but even in the medium term how should we best try and get as much influence as we can albeit it'll be a challenge i think um there are two things one is um ireland ireland just needs to make sure that his own policy house is in order um you know the before brexit in the uk all the big problems confronting the british economy had nothing to do with the european union there was this myth put about among many myths that britain was holding or sorry the european union was holding britain back from being great um but the european union wasn't stopping britain building a runway it wasn't stopping britain from improving its education system it wasn't stopping britain from building infrastructure um from relaxing the planning laws that would enable housing to be built and the myriad other microeconomic reforms that britain needs to do and should be doing but won't tackle because of vested interests so um and in ireland we have similar problems and so the the the first thing should be ireland should be focusing on education and skills one of the lessons from brexit and from trump is that you if you don't equip your domestic population to to be competitive globally you're on a hiding to nothing and britain has a large rump of people who are abandoned in a globalized world as does america ireland probably has fewer but if we don't get that right and everything from preschool education right through to university and lifelong learning and re-skilling people when they when industries closed down and restructure and we're very lucky in ireland that we didn't have an industrial revolution and we bypassed we went from agriculture to services in a way that few countries have done and therefore we were we're getting that infrastructure housing research and development um a strong competition policy small economy really needs strong competition because vested interests are always stronger in a small um economy and so just getting ireland's own policy environment in order so that ireland has talented individuals on the global stage and a really rich environment in which to do business um that's going to be incredibly important and that is going to be an insurance policy of ireland because you're not ireland can't is not never going to be big enough to determine the terms of trade of what happens globally or the global markets in which we operate we never have been we've always been a price taker and we're we're going to be a regulation taker and a standards taker in almost every instance so we we need to adapt and be agile in the face of that but having said that I think what the regulators then should be doing is I think first of all continuing to operate as though britain staying in the european union is to communicate really to communicate with business very and consumers in this country about what the costs are and building support and building the arguments for a soft rather than a hard brexit say and just being good communicators around a lot of these issues so that ireland so that ireland's influence on this issue is not confined to the department of foreign affairs and the t-shirts department but actually to the ireish diaspora in britain and europe to the ireish people working in the european commission to ireish business trading across europe and just having a sort of a consistent well-informed narrative for ireland and then ireland ireland has a lot of a lot of wider i suppose soft power that it can use and so if it can use that well it could be good but its hard power is limited so and i've been asking a lot of the questions here so i want to sort of open it up to the floor to allow other people to ask some questions but this question i suppose is really around a fear we have if you look at this effectively what we're saying is one member is leaving the club of 28 and it's going down to 27 if this doesn't at a simple level be a painful exercise for the person who's leaving does that encourage other people to say well we leave too our worry looking at that here in ireland is that somehow we end up being collateral damage and we get more affected by that than the other the rest of the 27 what's your own view on that and is there any strategy we should adopt in that context i mean ireland ireland is going to be the country most affected by brexit the even ireland companies that don't export to the uk most of their exports to the continent europe go through the uk this is easier to run logistics across the uk than take everything on ferries directly to the continent and if Britain's outside a customs union that's just going to provoke havoc even just for ireland's trade with the other 26 so so ireland's ireland is certainly going to be be be adversely affected and it's in ireland's interest i think to have the uk in a single market and to be making that case but i'm not sure there's much more than what i've said earlier that ireland can can do about


I got shot. We need a medic. Hi guys, my name is Noel and you're watching another episode of Don't Brotherhood of Gamers. First off guys, I want to say thank you for everyone who showed their interest in the show. Look at the flying comments.  Thank you. I would like to thank everybody who submitted their clips via the Google Form. You guys are awesome. The show is for you guys and I would really love to just play and record with you. So here's one of my clips or games with a freedom partner. But first, it's time for the most funnest joke ever. Hit it. Why did Sadako from the ring series become famous? She crawled out of the freaking TV. Nobody does that. That concludes the episode guys. I hope you liked it. I should stop writing my own jokes, right? So if you can help a brother out, send me your funniest jokes ever in the comments section below and get your channel promoted through the brotherhood of gamers. So here's my gameplay of Paladins with my buddy Cameron Wright, who is a freedom partner. Subscribe to his channel guys, visit his channel and collaborate with him. In that way, he can grow as a family the freedom way. DJ, spin that. What the heck? Oh, excuse me. I got hit by a roost. Oh, you got it! Nice. Nice, nice. I'm not doing anything. My computer won't hit. Yes! Yes, yes, yes! My computer won't hit. I heard my Wi-Fi won't be low. Is that last one? Ooh, the chickening. Yeah. What was the chickening? The chickening. Oh, I got it! Awesome. I got it. I got it again. Awesome. Hey, you were top. Hey, you had twice in a row? I had twice in a row. Yeah. My turn. Awesome. Oh, I got it. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome, man. Awesome. You heard it. Yeah. You got a big-ass gun right there. Oh, they were lined up. Are you dashing? Awesome. Awesome. That was a good game. Yeah, it was a good game. So I gotta ask you a few questions. Is that okay? Yeah, that's all right. So the question is, why did you join Freedom? It seemed like a really friendly community and everybody seems to have a lot of fun and it seemed like a really good place for budding and YouTubers trying to help out everybody. What's your experience? How long have you been with Freedom? I've been with Freedom, I believe. He made four or five months, three to five months or more in that area. Awesome. So what's your experience between those months? I met a lot of really cool people. I met what's his name, Frosted Fricks. He's really cool. He helped out with reviewing my channel and I changed a lot on the channel. I changed the brand name. I got a brand new brand and everything and it all seemed to work out. I mean, I liked it. What are your expectations for Freedom in the next few months or years? A few months or years? I want to try and get over 100 subs. That's what I want to try. All right. Okay, last thing. What's your message for Freedom and for all the Freedom partners out there? Never give up on your dreams. Keep having as much fun as possible. It doesn't matter if you have zero people or one person watching your videos. And having the time of your life making videos that one person can turn into two and so on and so forth. Just keep going. Freedom Family. Cameron is the very first Freedom partner who got featured in the show. I'm really excited to meet the next lucky person who will be featured in the show.  The fun doesn't end there, guys. Here are my top gameplay picks. Submit it to us by our Freedom partner. Check out their channel, subscribe and ultimately collaborate with them in order to grow as a family. The Freedom Way. Hit it. One shot. One kill. Plus brutal executions. How did he do that? I see what he did there. The old loop around the turret trick. Classic. Let me guess. The next clip will be giant fists killing three people, right? What did I say about Torbjorn in my last video? Gash in a blessing. Let me guess. Reaper in the last video. What the? I must be psychic, guys. Alright. Pistol. Head shot. Next clip. I promise you. Watch. What did I say? But this guy is good. He's really good. I played with him before. Again, guys, this show is for you. I would like to thank everybody who submitted their clips to us via the Google Form. Hey! But... But... You will be no longer using the Google Form. Cheer up, guys. You can still submit your videos to us by posting it in our Freedom's Forum speedy page. In order to post your videos, you need to earn credits. You can earn credits by just simply signing up, posting threads, commenting on threads, and a lot more. Always remember, guys, that you need to be interactive. You need to be engaging and always, always be active in the community to earn a lot of credits. Also, guys, you need to post your videos in the folder of the Brothers of Gamers in the Media tab. Just a few reminders, guys, in order to join the show. Number one, you need to become a Freedom partner. Number two, your video should be less than or exactly one minute. Number three, you're not allowed to use any copyright material. And, of course, swearing. Like this. That's a big no-no, guys. Swearing. No. Number four, when you upload your content, the title format should be like this. Your channel name, the date you posted it on our media board, and then the name of the game. So, it's like this. Ninja Maker 123. August 2, 2017. And League of Legends. There you go. Number five, lastly, guys, I need to see that you're having fun playing the game. Like, seriously, that's a big percentage on the clips that you're going to submit to us. So, always remember, have fun. I'll be dropping the links of all Freedom partners who made it through on this episode. Check out their channel, and, guys, collaborate with them, share, subscribe, and, ultimately, just give them love. If you want to know more about our gaming brand, check out our MGM channel. And, if you want to play with us on Steam, check out our Freedom Steam community. Also, don't forget to check out our amazing forum speech where you can get all the materials you need to grow your channel. Materials like intros, outros, betters, and, of course, Freedom Partners who you can collaborate with. The links will be in the description below. Lastly, guys, if you're not yet partnered to our amazing network, the link will be in the description below. And that's it for me, guys. I hope you enjoyed this show.  My name is Noel, and you're watching The Brotherhood of Gamers. Out!


But today we're in 2 Samuel chapter 15, and we're not going to go through the entire chapter. Normally I try to take a chapter at a time, but we're not going to do that today. We're only going to do the first 23 verses of this particular chapter as we continue our study here in 2 Samuel. And what we did is we began with 1 Samuel, went through 1 Samuel, and I felt it was such an edifying, instructive portion of Scripture in 1 Samuel that we just continued on. And we've been looking at the life of David, and so what we find here in chapter 15 is a continuation of some of the events that followed his transgression, his sin of adultery and murder and a variety of things that relate to that. And so let's begin in 2 Samuel at chapter 15 verse 1. I'll read verses 1 through 6, and we'll get into our study. 2 Samuel chapter 15 verses 1 through 6, and what we're looking at is stolen hearts, and you'll see this when we get to verse 6. He says, after this it happened that Absalom provided himself with chariots and horses and 50 men to run before him. Now Absalom would rise early and stand beside the way to the gate. So it was whenever anyone who had a lawsuit came to the king for a decision that Absalom would call to him and say, what city are you from? And he would say, your servant is from Chino. No, he wouldn't. Your servant is from such and such a tribe of Israel. And Absalom would say to him, look, your case is good and right. But there is no deputy of the king to hear you. Moreover, Absalom would say, oh, that I were made judge in the land, and everyone who has any suit or cause would come to me, then I would give them justice.  In this manner, Absalom acted toward all Israel who came to the king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. Absalom stole the hearts. We're looking at the subject of stolen hearts. This is one of those studies, by the way, that is usually given in pastor's conferences or in leadership training because it speaks concerning how people can steal other people's hearts and the devious ways in which they can do so. Obviously in society, at large, it can happen on your work place, it can happen also in politics, it most certainly happens in the church today. And so there's a word that we, as pastors, might use in reference to somebody who has been stealing hearts, and that word is Absalom because that's what Absalom does. Absalom steals the hearts of the men of Israel. He does so in a tactical way. Now we need to remember what has taken place up to this point. You know, King David was a great king. David was a warrior king. He's known for a variety of things. When you look in life of King David, and many people have, you'll see that he was a great king, he was a great son, he was a great warrior, he was a great man in every way. And the nation of Israel, early on, had a deep affection for him. The nation of Israel greatly loved him. But David was also a man of great appetites. And when he saw a beautiful woman, a woman by the name of Bathsheba, she was taking her a bath and all in us, he saw her and his heart lusted for her and he conceived a plan in order that he might have her. Well, when David did finally take her and she conceived a child by him, sent word to him that she was pregnant with his child, then David tried to find a way to make her husband, Uriah, believe that the child that she was carrying was his. And we know the story. We've gone through this. Everybody knows it. Ultimately, because Uriah was a noble man, a loyal man to him, David repaid his loyalty by putting him in the front lines and he ultimately was killed. As a result of that, in battle, he died. As a result of that, God sent a prophet by the name of Nathan to speak to David and as Nathan came and spoke to David, Nathan made it very clear to David that his sin had not gone unnoticed. God had paid attention to it and as a result, he said, trouble's not going to leave your house. And so we've seen David after his fall and we've seen the repercussions of that fall because David had a daughter by the name of Tamar and she had a half brother by the name of Amnon and a full brother by the name of Absalom. And as we saw, Amnon had lustful desire for his half sister and raped her. Absalom, when he discovered what had been done, waited for a while until things seemed to be cooled down and ultimately orchestrated the death of his half brother Amnon and promptly fled into exile into his grandfather's land, a place called Ghashur in Syria, and stayed there for three years. Finally, David brought him back and now he's under basically house arrest for two more years. David hasn't seen him. He got upset. He wanted to have an audience with his father. His cousin Joab has a field that's next to his and he has it lit on fire. Joab comes and Absalom says, look, if I've done something worthy of death, then put me to death. But if not, I want to see my father. And last time we were together, we saw that David took his son Absalom, embraced him, kissed him, and basically was fully reconciled to him. David was reconciled to Absalom, but Absalom was not reconciled with his father, and that's what we're seeing take place here in 2 Samuel chapter 15. We're seeing what takes place in the heart of a son who is angry at his father. We're going to see a betrayal here, a betrayal that would break any father's heart. We're going to see a son intentionally destroying his father. You see in Exodus in chapter 20, verse 12, the Bible says, honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. So the Bible makes it very clear that we're to honor our parents. Absalom breaks that commandment, even as his father broke the commandments against murder and adultery. And so as we see this, Absalom has been laying the plans, the foundations for what we today would call a hostile takeover of the kingdom. From all outer appearances things seem to have been okay between David and his son, but from Absalom's perspective it's time for a regime change, and he's going about the fostering of that. Now if you wanted to undermine somebody, if you wanted to find a way to displace them and to replace them with yourself, what would you do? Well here we see a few things in the life of Absalom and how he went about stealing the hearts of people that can give us a warning to teach us not to be men and women like this, because we see what he does. We see that he has certain tactics that he uses to steal a position of importance, and we see these tactics as we examine Absalom and see what he did to achieve this kind of end. And as we go through it, let me give you a few things. Verse one, let's begin there. If I wanted to steal some power position, if I wanted to usurp some authority, if I wanted to get something somebody else has, what can I do? Now verse one gives us the first thing, after this it happened that Absalom provided himself with chariots and horses and fifty men to run before him. Now when we look at this, you need to see that these are symbols of royalty, and so what this does is it gives him the appearance of importance. These horses and these men running before him gave him this air of importance as he would arrive into the city, and so what he did is he took advantage of his present position in order that he could put himself in the limelight. He wanted to steal people's attention. If you want to steal a position, get known by the people.   That's exactly what he did. And so he used these symbols of royalty to give himself the appearance of importance. We know that symbols communicate powerful messages. We know that symbols are used all the time so that people might have brand name recognition. For example, if I were to put on the video screen just the symbol of a Mercedes, everybody here knows what the Mercedes symbol is, all of us do. It looks like a peace sign without a leg. That's what it is. Or the Lexus symbol, they have spent millions of dollars marketing these symbols so that you know that the Lexus symbol is an Allen and oval. We know that the crest and the wreath is the symbol of Cadillac. And so these marketing specialists will do that so that you don't even need to know the name of that product. The Hyundai Genesis today has come out, and you see the Hyundai coming towards you. It doesn't have anything. There's no Hyundai insignia of any sort on it. But just the grill itself tells anybody who knows anything about cars. That's a Hyundai Genesis, because that is used as name brand recognition. Symbols are used that way.  You see, to the people, Absalon appearing in public in this way was something that they expected. He was a king's son, so they thought this kind of behavior would be normal. So when he would show up like that and people would see him, they would be thinking of royalty. It's kind of like when they have the Academy awards and all, and the Hollywood actors arrive. How do they arrive? Do they arrive in a taxi, a yellow cab? You know, no, they come arriving in limousines, and people expect them to be in those limousines because that's a symbol to them. When they roll up and they go out in that red carpet and these Hollywood actors and actresses climb out of that car and they make their appearance and all of that, people are fully expecting that. And that's how it was with him. They expected him to be somebody who did that because this was a king's son. And so it made him seem important. Just arriving in that way made him and his opinions seem more important than the average person. Again, the Hollywood actors seem more important. And so when they come in and they come in in that kind of way, they're important in every way to some people. So they give lectures on climate change and they give their opinions on politics, things that they have really no experience with, and yet people will listen to them because after all, they are Hollywood actors. And that's the way people think, and Absalom was that way. Absalom rolled in with his chariot, with the 50 men running before him, and the people would see him and immediately he had the air of importance. And so he conducted himself in such a way that the average person would immediately think some very important person has entered into the room. So if you want to steal somebody's heart, get people to run around you acting like you're very important, and before you know it, people will start thinking, this is an exclusive kind of person, can't get close to them, they're just out there, they're more than I'll ever be. And that causes that kind of worship that takes place that people can have even in ministries. I mean, I get comments every once in a while, and actually quite often people say, I appreciate the fact that you speak the way you do about yourself and you're willing to show your warts. That's all I am as a wart. I mean, what's the problem? I'll say what I am, I'll say what I've done because I'm not trying to create some kind of error if I'm better than you. You know, we're in this together, a bunch of sinners who need the Lord Jesus Christ, and to be treated differently is not right. And so of course, you're one of the people because that's what you are. Well, Absalom was one who wanted people around him to make him feel important, to look important because when people saw how important he was by the way other treated him, well naturally they would just join in. He used that to steal the hearts of people. Self-importance. Secondly, I want you to see this in verse two, Absalom would rise early and stand beside the way to the gate. Now that's another way of saying that he would go to the place where cases were tried, where people would come to get their cases settled. But what this was showing about him was given an appearance of being a hard worker and diligent. It appeared to others that he cared about how things were going because he'd arrive early. And that would also communicate to them that they have a problem he could act immediately. You see, some people think nobody cares if somebody's not there exactly when they need them. So if they have to make an appointment or they're unable to see the person they want to see, they immediately feel unimportant or not needed or not respected. In the case of Absalom, he showed up bright and early. So when people who were coming in, they were disgruntled, these were people with problems. When they showed up, he would be there given the appearance that he, of all people, cared about them. So he was available to them. That's the third thing you see. Whenever anyone had a lawsuit and they came to the king for a decision, Absalom would take the time to talk to them. So the third thing you see is not only is he appearing to be diligent, not only is he royal, but he's also accessible. He gives that impression that he cares for them. So he has an outward compassion. These people would come by to get their grievances settled. So he had a group of disgruntled people to speak to by asking them, where do you come from? He was given an impression of genuine concern for them. So his easy accessibility and apparent personal attention would go a long way. And so these people thought, he's here for us and David's not. As a matter of fact, he actually capitalizes on that because notice in verse three, Absalom would say to that person, look, your case is good and right, but there's no deputy of the king to hear you. And so that's another tactic. He would foster a belief that the king's too busy to be concerned for them. The king's too busy and the king's too old to help you. He's out of touch. Obviously, his other sons don't care else they'd be here and seeing that I'm the only one here early in the morning, I care about you. And so what he was saying there, one is the king doesn't care and then two, the king doesn't know how to appoint people with wisdom to help. And as a result, because of his lack of administrative skills, people are getting hurt. And that is a common tactic of an Absalom. Now notice, he would say, your case is a good one. When he would say to them, your case is a good one, he was saying to them, I understand what you're going through, we used to use the phrase that was used, I can feel your pain. And that's basically what he's saying. And so he's saying, look it, I'm on your side. But in doing this, well, Proverbs 29 verse five says, a man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet. What he was doing was setting them up to steal their hearts. Now in verse five, Absalom, rather verse four, Absalom would say, oh, that I were made judge in the land and any, everyone who has any suitor or cause would come to me. Notice, I would give him justice. This is a fifth thing. He made it appear that he was being overlooked for a position that he was qualified for. The people knew that he had been gone for three years and had recently returned. So that comment would move them to think that he had been treated unfairly. And that gets what you call the sympathy vote. So people will look and they'll say, well, he's qualified, why haven't they placed him there? It's true, he's here early. He obviously has royal dignity.  And so he's getting their sympathy. And he's saying, if I were in office, you would get your case settled because I would be just. Now this is one of the things. See, I normally will take about 45 to 50 minutes to go through these six verses. I'm rushing right now and I feel it. But I'm gonna still rush, but let me give you this. People have a tendency. If they have a problem, and we know this is true, all of us know this is true, we've done it. If not, we've got two problems. We've done it and we're lying about it. But I'll talk about that some other time. If I have a problem that I need settled, it's easy for me to give my side of the story and to omit the other side. I can paint it in such a way that the other person that I have a problem with is totally at fault. It's easy to do that. I just omit certain facts. I just don't give the other side. I just give my side. All of us know that. Your dad busted you doing something wrong. Did you say, yeah, I did it? Did you come to it? No, you didn't. What you said is, well, you know what? And you gave your side of the story. That's what we did as kids. We can do that as adults. As a minister, there have been many times when people who have had a problem with somebody else have come to me as a pastor to ask for some advice. And they will give me their side of the story. And so if I ask them about other things, they always kind of blow it off. No, they always blow it off. Well, you know what? The Proverbs says something about that. Proverbs 18, verse 17, the first to present his case seems right till another comes forward and questions him. It may be right. You may be giving me all the facts, but you're leaving out some. Well, that's what they would do. And that's how he was. In other words, when they came, Absalom would say, oh, yeah, I'll side with you because the average person who's got a problem with somebody else wants to hear that they're right about that. They don't want to hear. You need to go back and reconcile. They don't want to hear that. They don't want to hear it. Could it be that you're wrong? Could it be that what you've done is, they don't want to hear that? No, I came to you to settle for me and that's what Absalom's doing. He said, oh, if I were a deputy, if I was a judge, if my father was wise enough to have placed me here, I am certainly capable of doing this. I am after all the prince. I'm the king's son. No, I've been exiled. No, I've been exiled. I've learned many things. There's no reason why I can't do this. I get up early. You see me here. And so they come to him. Where are you from in a friendly way? Oh, I'm from this place. Oh, yes, I'm familiar with a beautiful town. What's your problem? Well, I wanted to see the king. Well, he's too busy for you and he doesn't have a deputy here who's capable of hearing. Now, if I were the deputy, if I were appointed to this, I could help him. And by the way, I'm certain that your case is just and I would settle it for you. Well, everybody wants to hear that. That I'm right and everybody else is wrong. And that's how he was doing it. He was using a tactic just to draw these people to himself. Well, notice verse five. So it was, whenever anyone came near to bow down to him, they would put out his hand and take him and kiss him. In this manner, Absalom acted toward all Israel who came to the king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. Finally, he presented himself as just one of the guys. Charming, great personality, and the people had come. Now, the people had come to see the king, but he made it seem as if David was unavailable. And so he replaced his father with himself. Here's your question. Was David unavailable? And the answer is, no, he wasn't. We already saw how this wise woman of Techoa came and had audience with him and spoke to him and he listened to her story. We've seen that David is available. He is accessible, but the fact is Absalom played on the people's perception of authority to the degree that he was able to steal their hearts from the king. Javern and McGee, I don't know if you've ever heard of him, most of you have. Javern and McGee writes this. He said Absalom was a bad son, but a good politician. Many politicians have no qualifications other than the fact that they are good at handshaking and back slapping. Today, there are many preachers who use this method. They cannot preach and they cannot teach, but they sure can slap backs. Unfortunately, that is exactly what appeals to us. That's absolutely true. Most people prefer personality and entertainment when they go to church than a Bible study.  Personality, charm, entertainment, that really gets people in the United States excited. That's the kind of tactic that was used by Absalom. Absalom seemed to be there. He had, in terms of, he had the royal feel to him. He was accessible. He was personal. If somebody came and showed him the kind of respect that a prince would receive, oh no, don't go down, just one of the boys, and he'd kiss him, and he won their hearts very slowly in this way. And that's what he says in verse six. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. Now, verse seven. It came to pass after 40 years that Absalom said to the king, please let me go to Hebron and pay the vow which I made to the Lord. For your servant took a vow while I dwelled at Geshur in Syria saying, if the Lord indeed brings me back to Jerusalem, then I will serve the Lord. And the king said to him, go in peace. So he arose and went to Hebron. Remember with me that he had gone into exile. He had been up in Syria in this place called Geshur. And he is simply saying, I made a vow while I was there and I want to keep my vow. Now I want to make a sacrifice and I want to do so in the city of Hebron. Absalom was born in Hebron and David had been crowned king in Hebron and to that day they were still having sacrifice in that city because the temple was yet to be built. And so he's given to him a reasonable explanation as to why he wants to go to this city. But I have to touch on something very briefly here. And I want you to see it with me in verse one, rather verse seven, when it says it came to pass after 40 years. Now that couldn't have been 40 years because it doesn't fit with the biblical outline. David ruled for a total of 40 years. You see that in 2 Samuel chapter five, verse four. Absalom was born after David began to rule. You see that in 2 Samuel chapter two, verse four. This event did not occur at the end of David's reign. So conservative scholars find that number 40 suspect. Conservative scholars believe the number to be a copyist error. The correct number would be after four years. There's only a couple of letters, difference between four and 40. And so there are those and I happen to agree with them who would say that that number 40 more than likely is really four and it would have been a four year period of time. Now, immediately by saying that there are some who say, are you saying that the Bible is not divinely inspired? I probably shouldn't even have brought this up, huh? No, of course it's divinely inspired. The original manuscripts are 100% accurate. Is it possible that over the centuries two letters may have been misplaced or displaced? And the answer is yes. Does it change anything about the inspiration of scripture? Absolutely not. Does it change any doctrine of scripture? Absolutely not. The conservatives argue over that, whether or not the number is 40 or the number is four. I happen to believe that it's a four year period based on the things that I just said. But the bottom line is this, as you're looking at this, what he begins to do is he begins to try and find a way to get into the city of Hebron so it could rally his troops. Now, here's something for you. He's using his father's religious beliefs as a tool against him.  So all Absalom has to do is say, dad, I'm gonna go worship God, and David's all for it. Absolutely, son, go for it. Do people still use their parents' religion against them? Absolutely, absolutely. I did a Bible study, an evening study, and two teenage girls walked up to me after the study, this was years ago, walked up to me and said, pastor, do you have a bulletin? I need to take a bulletin home, I wanted to show it to my dad because I wanted him to know I went to church.  And then they left, and as they went walking out, I started thinking, no, wait a minute, you walk up to me after church is over asking for a bulletin. Duh, I mean, I've got kids, oh, I felt like man, I was taken, and I was, I was.   All they wanted is they wanted to give proof to their dad that they were in church because dad was a religious man, they used their father's religion against him to go out and do what they wanted.  And so David, hearing his son say, I wanna go to Hebron, I wanna make a sacrifice. David doesn't even think about it, he just thinks that's great. My son wants to worship the God that I worship and serve. Of course, son, you can go, but he's using his father's religion against him. And so what does he do? Well, in verse 10, Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then you shall say Absalom reigns in Hebron. And with Absalom went 200 men invited from Jerusalem and they went along innocently and did not know anything. So what he's doing is he's setting him up. He sends these men throughout the tribes and he has them speaking his name and saying good things about him and asking, have you guys heard of Absalom? And they would say, well, of course, well, what do you think about him? And then the people would give their opinion and the spies would say, you know, we think that Absalom's a great guy, he should be king. And that's what they were doing. Now he's making his move, so he gets 200 of the leading men of Israel to go with him and they're innocent in this. They are assuming that David is behind this and it's no problem. But now he's got spies out there saying he's a good guy. He's got 200 leading men with him and everybody knows that you will actually borrow status from the people you know because sometimes a person may not be known by somebody else but they are known by the person that they're friends with. So what he wants to do is he wants to build his reputation by having these great men around him giving the appearance that they believe that he should be the next king and he's using it all against his father and then finally it says in verse 12, Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gelenite, David's counselor from his city, from Gilo while he offered sacrifices and the conspiracy grew strong for the people with Absalom continually increased in number so his plan is working its way out. Now he brings Ahithophel. Ahithophel's advice at that time, you'll see this later, he was looked at as being divinely inspired by having this counselor with him it gives the appearance that everybody supports him. Now Ahithophel may have a bitterness towards him because Bathsheba is Ahithophel's granddaughter. So Ahithophel would be angry at David for what David had done in taking his granddaughter impregnating her and having her husband killed.  Now as this is taking place, verse 13, a messenger came to David saying the hearts of the men of Israel are with Absalom. This messenger may have been one of those 200 who discovered what Absalom was doing and came and reported. So David said to all his servants who were with him in Jerusalem, at Jerusalem arise, let us flee or we shall not escape from Absalom. Make haste to depart, lest he overtake us suddenly and bring disaster upon us and strike the city with the edge of the sword. The king's servant said to the king, we are your servants ready to do whatever my Lord, the king commands. Then the king went out with all his household after him but the king left 10 women concubines to keep the house. David knew the temperament of his son, he knew that he'd better get out and everybody with him or else Absalom would come and wipe him out. If Absalom made sure that Amnon, his brother, died, he would make sure that David died and everybody with him. And so David immediately responds to this and he takes them and he leaves. And as he does, so he leaves behind 10 concubines, these are women who are supposed to take after the house. Now as this is taking place, David actually wrote a Psalm, Psalm three. And in Psalm three verses four through eight, this is what he was going through. He said, I cried to the Lord with my voice and he heard me from his holy hill. I laid down and slept. I awoke for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of 10,000s of people who have set themselves against me all around. Arise, O Lord, save me, oh my God, for you have struck all my enemies on the cheekbone. You have broken the teeth of the ungodly. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Your blessing is upon your people. And there are times when we say you need to pray the Bible, well this is a good prayer.  So what happens? Well, verse 17, the king went out with all the people after him and stopped at the outskirts of the city. Then all his servants passed before him. All the keratites and palatites, these were his personal bodyguard. And all the Gittites, 600 men who had followed him from Gath passed before the king. And the king said to Etai, the Gittite, why are you also going with us? Return and remain with the king, for you are a foreigner and also an exile from your own place. In fact, you came only yesterday. Should I make you wander up and down with us today? Since I go, I know not where. Return and take your brother in back. Your mercy and truth be with you. I wanna spend a few moments looking at this because I think this is very important. Some basic things to see in this. That can be of application to us in 21st century. Basically, as we see here, we have the keratites and palatites, they're the personal bodyguard, but you also see these men from Gath. The city of Gath was one of the five leading cities of the Philistines. This tells us that these are Philistines who are with David, 600 strong. And they have a leader, his name is Etai. Etai, as David just said, just recently arrived in the city of Jerusalem and David is saying to him, why is it that you're arriving so soon and having to leave? And he actually says, what you should do is just remain here and join Absalom. You have no obligation to be with me. He's saying, return to Jerusalem with your men and may God show you kindness for your loyalty. Now, this is the application I wanna make here because Etai knew David and respected him in a way that his son, Absalom, did not. Etai saw something in David that Absalom refused to see. Absalom was a bitter son who refused to see the greatness of his father. Absalom, I'm certain, could only see the failure and did not see a lifetime of loyalty to God. And he used it against his own father. David somehow had lost the respect of Absalom to the degree that Absalom believed that he should be displaced and replaced with himself. And that happens sometimes. There are in families good men and good women who have children who do not hold them in the respect that others do because maybe they saw in the life of their father or their mother, maybe they saw something that for them they struggled over, I don't know. I don't know a single child that was raised in a perfect home outside of my own.  Every one of us has been raised by parents or a parent who did their best, I'm sure with the best that they had, but they were not perfect, who is? And so what happens is you can have a kid who's bitter. Now, in the case of David and Absalom, as we've seen, David did not react to Amnon. Amnon raped David's daughter and David did not respond, but Absalom did, and Absalom certainly knew that David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, and there's no doubt that was common knowledge. So something had happened in the heart of Absalom so that he felt his father should be replaced. But God's grace and mercy had been poured over David, and it was something that even though David would reap the repercussions, as Nathan had said, the sword will never depart your home. What you've done, God has taken notice of, and he is displeased with it, and David, you will reap the consequences as a result. David knew that it was blessed to be forgiven of his sins, and he had made his offerings to God and had been reconciled, though he knows that he's gonna reap what he has sown. Absalom, as the son sees the father and feels that he should displace him. Now Jesus, in Mark, chapter six, verse four, said a prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house. I think that sometimes children don't see their parents the way others do. Billy Graham has a son by the name of Franklin Graham. Franklin Graham many years ago wrote his testimony, a book, his testimony, and in it he shared how he was a wild kid, didn't listen to the things his dad had to say, wasn't interested in the things of the gospel. Billy Graham is the most famous evangelist that we'll ever know in our lifetime. He's a man who is known for his devotion to preaching the gospel. He's famous for that world over. On one occasion Billy Graham was in Africa doing a crusade and he and some of his friends decided to take a ride in the jungle and as they were driving through a jungle path, Billy Graham was driving, he found himself kind of stuck and he had to back up to get out and as he was backing down this path, there was a New York Times reporter who was driving in the same path, not knowing who was in front of him. And when he sees this car backing towards him, the New York Times reporter stopped his car, started honking the horn and then stuck his head out the window there and started yelling at the driver and he said, where are you going for Christ's sake? Billy Graham stuck his head out the window and looked back at the reporter and said, I go everywhere for Christ's sake. That was Billy Graham. That was Billy Graham and everybody knew and everybody knows of him in this New York Times reporter. I read this as he wrote it, he said, you know, of all people to ask such a question to I asked it of Billy Graham. Because he was famous for that but did Franklin respect his father? The answer is at first, no. No, he didn't. Did Franklin Graham know that his father was a great evangelist? The answer is no, he was just daddy and a prophet is never, ever honored in his own home. Jesus said, why? Because they see your warts.  I don't respect you. Especially if you have a kid who's rebellious who's looking for warts, looking for problems, looking for something that they can dislike. And there's no doubt about that. Many pastors, many ministers have suffered through this kind of thing. David suffered with it. David failed. But David when he wrote Psalm 32 and Psalm 51 said, oh, blessed is man, God does not impute the iniquity too and blessed is the man who's been forgiven. And if it was sacrifices you asked for, I would give them. But the sacrifices that God accepts are a broken and contrite spirit. These, oh God, you will not deny. You accept these things. He was a broken man. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, he said. God be merciful to me. You see, David had experienced the grace of God even though he was gonna reap the repercussions of sinful choices. Absalom, Absalom's great desire is to get rid of his father which makes this even more powerful to me because I want you to see this. You have a Philistine by the name of Itai who has come recently with 600 men to join David. David is now sorrowfully departing from the city and David sees Itai as they march before him and he says to him and his 600 men, go back and support Absalom. You recently came, you don't need to be with me. But notice Itai's answer in verse 21.  No, I will go with you. I will encounter dangers with you and if need be, I will die with you. With loyal friends like this, great things can be accomplished. You see, because normally people bail at the first sign of trouble. But Itai said, no, I know that you're a man that I can follow and I'm willing to follow you every step of the way. I'm willing, if I need to, to encounter danger with you and I am willing, if I have to, to die alongside of you. Where Absalom was willing to kill his father, Itai was willing to die alongside of him and that to me is a very powerful token of loyalty. Well, David said to Itai, go and cross over. Then Itai, the Itai, and all his men and all the little ones who were with him crossed over and all the country wept with a loud voice and all the people crossed over. The king himself also crossed over the brook Kidron and all the people crossed over toward the way of the wilderness. They wept. They wept over Absalom's evil towards his father. They wept as David left his city. They're there in the outskirts. They're crossing the brook Kidron. They're entering into the wilderness now and they're weeping with a loud voice. The Kidron runs north and south right next to the city of Jerusalem. We've been over it many times. It's the brook that you will cross over to get to the Mount of Olives. When you go to the Mount of Olives in order to remember Jesus there on the Mount of Olives, you can't help but realize that David crossed over this brook in order to save his life. But Jesus crossed over the same brook to prepare to lay his down. David left to save himself. Jesus went across that same brook to prepare himself to return to that city to voluntarily die in a cross for all of us. David fled because of his sin. Jesus wept on that Mount of Olives because of ours. And Jesus entered back into the city so that they could put him on a cross ultimately and so that he could die. David, as he looks at the city of Jerusalem and I wish there were some way we could understand the passion and the pain that he was experiencing at that moment, this beloved city. As he's there with all of these people, weeping out loud as they're crossing that brook and they're leaving into a wilderness, sin always leads you to a wilderness. It always does. It always does. And it always results in pain and suffering even for the innocent when we fail. It does because no one as it's been said is an island unto himself. Every one of us affects somebody else. And your failures may seem inconsequential to you but they are not to the ones who love you the most. And so what we try to do is we try to realize that we can impact others for good or for evil. I for one like you, I'm grateful for the mercy of God, the grace of God because all of us being imperfect, all of us could be reaping consequences eternally. But what God has done is God has washed those consequences away eternally in the sense that my sin at one time separated me from God but now it's been taken care of by Jesus Christ. Now, can I reap the consequences of poor choices that I make today? Yes, I can. Do those consequences enter into eternity with me? No, they don't. I can make some poor choices and reap the consequences. I can commit adultery and reap the consequences.  I can go before the Lord and be washed and cleansed to God forgive me, I committed adultery. Lord forgive me and God will wash me and will cleanse me and will renew me. He will because he's a gracious living God. But does that mean that that venereal disease is disappearing? No, it means that I have a venereal disease that I got that's a result of a sin that I committed. Yes, I could go in backslide, I could go and get depressed and drink some beer or some wine or some whiskey or mixed drink of some sort and I can climb in my car and drive and I can hit a car and I can injure myself or injure that person in that car, maybe even kill them. I can go to trial, I can do time in jail. Does God forgive me of my sin? Yes, the minute I cry out, God forgive me, I am so sorry, forgive me. Do the consequences continue? Absolutely. Because sin has consequences. Now does that keep me from going to heaven? No, I've been washed by the blood of Jesus Christ. I enter into the kingdom of God and I thank God as a forgiven sinner and even as Ezekiel 36 tells us and I loathe my sin for what I've done. But do I reap consequences here on earth? I can and I do. In the case of David, David loved God. He was washed and cleansed, he was forgiven, but the sword did not depart from his house and his own son hated him enough to try and get him killed. Consequences of sin. So what we need to do is we need to learn our lessons as we read this and say, God be merciful to me. I don't wanna take this path. I wanna be wise not to enter into something that has this kind of result. It may seem tempting and good right now, but it has consequences I will pay for later on. Like they used to say, if you're gonna dance, you will pay the piper. If you wanna go and party, you will reap the consequences. You will. For me, I wanna learn not to do that so I have less to regret as I'm growing older and the Lord.


Bienvenidos and welcome to Latin American Studies, the newest course offering from the NCSSM Connect program. Comprising 20 nations and a total population of nearly 600 million people, Latin America is an area of both undeniable natural beauty and cultural diversity as well as troubling socioeconomic inequality. This course will examine the rich and complex history and culture of Latin America using a variety of interdisciplinary activities and materials. By examining people groups, formative events, and cultural habits, students will form a better understanding of the processes and forces that have shaped Latin America from yesterday to today. Course topics will include Indigenous people and colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, religion and popular culture, economic development, migration and urbanization, environmental transformation, democracy and revolution, and political violence. In class, students will be expected to convey their ideas through reading, writing and discussion on a daily basis. Throughout the course, there will be an emphasis on using historical thought to examine the past and make connections to the present. Although this is an honors humanities course, there are no academic prerequisites or requirements. Instead, students will be asked to come to class with a willingness to engage over course topics and a real desire for learning. If you are interested in learning more about this diverse and vibrant part of the world, sign up for Latin American Studies today. Thank you.