Okay, so next up welcome to Balashankar C or value, feeling less adventurous. So value is going to talk to us about the tool Omniverse that he uses in his daily work at JITLAB as a Build Engineer. Yeah. Thank you, value. Thank you. Yeah, I guess I'm audible. Okay, so my name is Balashankar, but you can call me Baloo. That's too many syllables in my original name. So I go by Baloo. I work as a Junior Distribution Engineer at JITLAB. In my first life or in my open source life, I'm a Debian developer and they contribute to other projects like GNOME where I'm a foundation member and Mozilla regarding their localization efforts. So today I'm going to talk about a tool called Omniverse. So Omniverse in a one liner, it is a tool that helps you create full stack installers. I'll be explaining what full stack installers and why they are. So the agenda in a brief is why this tool or why full stack installers are needed and then introduction to the tool, the internal architectures, the technology used and the process that we take while using this tool and outputs and some other features of it. And if time permits, I will show you demo or how we use it at JITLAB. So to begin with, why this tool or why am I talking about full stack installers or why they are necessary, one of the mantras of the current century or the current time that we live in is automate everything. We want to minimize the manual work and we want to automate almost any possible steps while developing a software, while releasing it, testing it, monitoring it, whatever it is. So we want to automate everything. So just how many of you work for a product software company? Not a services one, but create a software product. Anyone? Okay. So basically if you are developing a product, one of your worst estimates is to distribute it having multiple operating systems or multiple architectures and stuff like that. With the arrival of containers or orchestrations, it has been reduced but there is still a pressing need for the good old OS packages like Debian package or RPM package that can be deployed easily to production because it is a familiar workflow for the operations guys. All this is a means. So full stack installers are basically these packages, this OS packages that provides a batteries included feeling like you get every software dependencies or everything you need to run your application in a familiar RK format that you can use with your regular package managers with Debian, it is the depth format with Red Hat family, the RPM one. So why this full stack install is or why this batteries included concept is good is because it safeguarded you from dependency version mismatch. So I do not know how many of you were affected by it but recently there was an issue with LibSSL version upgrade. Basically LibSSL 1.1 is in backward compatible with 1.0 and one example I know is Ruby depends on LibSSL for building. So all of a sudden all the Ruby 2.5 builds started failing because the OSS had upgraded from 1.0 to 1.1 and one fine morning every builds were starting to fail or the production instances were going down because the citizen guy just did a regular upgrade of their system they did not expect something like this to happen. And one other advantage of using full stack packages is that almost all of us using a operating system whether it be a GNOME Linux based one or a Mac OS based one the basic thing we will be familiar with is its package manager. For Debian you will be using apt or aptitude or apt-get for the redhead family there is DNF, SUSE has SIPR and all those. So this OS package manager provide you a familiar workflow whether it be with installation, upgradation or removal any of that. So providing your software so providing the product that you created in the form of an OS package actually helps your customers because you are giving them that they are familiar with. It is not that Docker or Kubernetes is hard to understand or hard to deploy but providing it in a native package format actually saves them from learning yet another orchestration tool or yet another deployment tool. So that is one of the advantages of providing a full stack package and the third one is because you are providing a batteries included format because you are bundling everything that your software needs you are pretty much guaranteeing that what you are providing will work will actually work it does not depend on what machine they are running or it does not depend on what init they are using my software does not work if you are using system D. So such conditions never occur. So basically this is why we are thinking back to full stack packages or native OS packages. So that is about full stack packages. So what I am talking about is a tool for creating these packages. It is called Omnibus. It was developed by Chef Software Ring that was earlier called as Obscote. So this is the repository where they do the development you can visit that repository if you need. It is a free and open source software which is licensed under Apache 2.0 license and it follows a Ruby similar DSL like a DSL that is so close to Ruby. So that is easier to understand and easier to hack upon. So before we start with the project DSL I will briefly explain what this tool does.  So it bundles all of this stuff all of the software and their dependencies and it converts it into a package that can be installed on different operating systems. So if you are creating it on a Debian machine it gives out a depth package if you are running it on a Fedora machine or a Red Hat machine it gives you an RPM package. So the components include basically the project information like methodology regarding what the project is and what all are its name, version and all those stuff and in addition we are describing the dependencies that these projects use. So as I said it's a Ruby like syntax so this is the project DSL like where we describe what our project is and what it do. So it has a name, maintainer field, the home page replaces so people using OS packages may know sometimes one of your packages may be replacing the older version of another one. So this is an example from GitLab because Debian has a native GitLab package the one GitLab in provides replaces it install path is where the software gets installed to the bundle software gets installed to and you have the version and here you are specifying the dependencies what all dependencies or what all libraries or software your application needs to run. So there is one called preparation there is a PostgreSQL is needed software called GitLab cookbooks is needed so this is basically the project DSL it consists of your brief overview of the project and the method that are regarding it and the software dependencies it has. Now the next step we need to do is we have to instruct omnibus where to get the software's how to build them and where to install them to so similar to project DSL each of the software's gets their own definition or manifest file it's called a software DSL so this is an example of one library called bzip2 the first range is the name bzip2 the default version is the version we want to use with our software the license, license file and again these software's can have other transitive dependencies like bzip2 bzip2 requires the zlib library and the open access to work so we have those described as the dependencies and we will be providing software definitions for those dependencies also then we do some integrity checks we specify the MD file some of the source starboard so omnibus actually validates whether we are installing the correcting it's a source URL and thus at the bottom there is a build block so build block is where we actually specify how you want to build this software for regular libraries it may be normally you have to configure make and make install for go libraries it may be go get the library name for Ruby gems it will be bundle install so it is in the build block that we specify how we want to install each software so this is the build process explained or expanded so basically you specify the environment flags you want to use during the build if you have some patches to apply you specify those patches then at last you perform your regular make functions like make pass the arguments and use this make file and run make install with these environment variables so this build block actually specifies how you want to build your software where you want to install the software like your application may be expecting all the libraries in certain folder or your assets in certain other folder so you can specify all those in the software DSL specifically in the build portion of it so in short these two are the necessary things for an omnibus project to work or omnibus to convert your software to a package like we say here we can provide patches or we can provide overheads and stuff like that if needed like you do not want upstream turbo to hard link a specific location you want a patch to override that you can specify that in a patch file and omnibus will automatically use that while building so that is basically the two method or manifest files that you need so to understand what actually happens when you run omnibus or when you use omnibus so on the left side you see the basic explanation like you have your project DSL you have your software DSLs like what all software you need so the process is like this first it reads the project definition or the project DSL it understands what the metadata regarding the project is it gets a list of the dependencies then once it gets a list of dependencies it has to go and start collecting these dependencies it may be from an upstream turbo it may be from a Git repository or it may be a local file so it fetches the software sources the next step is you actually start building those sources like we specified in the software DSL we have a build process for each software so one by one you start building so the order of building is that the leaf dependencies gets built at first because the software that depends on them can be built so you one by one you start building the software once all the software has been built you generate a license information regarding the all the software that are included in your package and after that we do something called health check so health check is an important step why because the main reason we are doing full stack install is all full stack packages is that you do not want a dependency on your OS libraries like you want to provide a batteries included a concept so you want to provide your own libraries and your own executables so health check actually verifies that all of your software components or all of your binaries link against the libraries that you provided not the system provided one or not the shared library but the once you have bundled in your package so health check basically verifies whether your executables are using the bundled libraries or not if it is not it reports that okay this software requires this library and it was not provided or it was not bundled so once health check is completed and health check is satisfactory it goes on to creating the dev file it is using the default package management systems that different operating systems have like for debian it is using dpkg dev the tool dpkg dev to create a package so on a basic idea this is the entire process like you read the project definition you understand when you start collecting the sources of these dependencies then you start building them one by one you generate a character license information because you should not be what violating licenses of upstream code then you do a health check to verify everything is using the embedded libraries and not the system libraries then you create a dev package and we have some concepts called cache that I will explain later so in short this is the process that goes with omnibus the output of this process like what we get at the end of the process are basically three things the one is the platform specific package why it is platform specific is in the sense that if you run omnibus on a debian machine or if you run it on a debian virtual machine or a debian platform the output you get is a dot deb file similarly if you run it on a Fedora machine you get an RPM file you run it on an ARM board with RASB and installed you get a deb package for ARM machines so it provides you the platform specific packages that you can simply install and use that is the first output the second one is a package method at the file this is like a everything included report like it provides the complete information regarding the packages the included software their name their upstream URL everything the third one is a version manifest file version manifest file is a JSON file that you can use to verify like which version of the libraries were included what were their licenses or what from where they were downloaded all those so in case one of your softwares were pulled from a git repo not an upstream tarboard it will show the git commit that was used to pull the upstream source code so for tarboards it will show the version string so these three are the output that you get out of a omnibus run okay so I mentioned that there was a concept of caching involved this is to make sure because suppose you have a software with 60 dependencies and you made a tiny mistake in writing one of these of your definitions the next time you build you do not want the entire process to be repeated like you made a mistake in the 60th software dependency of the definition and you do not want to wait for the whole 15 and wants to be completed just to verify what you changed work so there is something called caching omnibus two types of cache first one is for the upstream sources in the first step of the omnibus process we see that omnibus downloads the source code whether from upstream tarboards or whether from git repositories so the first cache is for caching these downloaded softwares it is backed by an s3 bucket you can specify an amazon s3 bucket or gcs google cloud storage bucket so what it does is that it caches all the software definitions and in subsequent runs if the versions have not changed all the git commit shas have not changed it will simply pull from these bucket and it will not go such all the internet such as the specified url to download the software cache so that is the first type of cache this the second one is a bit more complex it is a cache that is used during the build process so I said the build order the order of how softwares are built is that the leaf dependencies gets built first so like if a depends on b and b depends on c while building c actually gets built first so that we can use it during its own build then b gets built then a gets built so the problem with this is that whenever you want to change something in a you wanted to change some configuration or some build process in a the entire process gets repeated you start with c you build b then you go to a so each time doing this is time consuming so there is a cache available during the build process what it does is that it uses lightweight git tags it uses git tags to store a snapshot of your build directory so that whenever you are repeating something if the software definition has not changed it can simply use that snapshot so basically unless cache is invalidated it can use that snapshot how cache is invalidated is that if there is a change in the order of build suppose you change it depends on c and c depends on b so the order of build change now b gets built first so if there is a change in the order of build the cache gets invalidated next one if there is a change in the process the entire build process like you are no longer running make instead you have some other tool to do that process so there is a change in the software definition then the cache gets invalidated and the third one is there is a change in the version of the library so unless cache gets invalidated in any of this manner the snapshots that we create that the omnibus create after each build process can be used to speed up the subsequent builds so suppose in our a b and c example you wanted to make a change in a so the next time you run when omnibus checks there has been no change in c so it will simply use that snapshot again there was no change in b it will use that snapshot but there was a change in a so it will rebuild a so c and b does not get rebuilt over and over unless the cache gets invalidated the snapshots gets used and you get faster subsequent builds so this is the concept of caching and in addition to the regular package generation there are some advanced features that omnibus provides first one is gpg signing for integrity you can sign your packages and you can so that your users can confirm that these are the actual ones that you provided there has not been any hindrance or malpractice with it the next one is change log generation this is an experimental feature omnibus can read your git commits and automatically generate a change log file that you can ship with the package the next one is multi-level debugging you get different levels of debugging what went wrong like from where the sources were downloaded whether it was picked from the cache or not what was the output of the build process so there is a multi-level debugging and there is automatic publishing to different back ends like Artifactory or you can push an Amazon or GCS S3 bucket so these are some of the advanced features that omnibus provides you once you create your package okay so I will show you the repository that we use at GitLab where we use this for our GitLab package generation so to summarize the talk food stack installers are still a great idea because they provided a familiar workflow for the CISOP guys all the operations guys so if any of your product developers do take a look at this idea because it can be an easy way to ship your product to different users it is a Ruby based easy to understand and rich DSL it is almost like plain English and you can simply read and understand from the context what it means the third one is there is a single general process for all your operating system needs like for Debian for Fedora for Red Hat anything you can use the same code base and the same process and omnibus will take care of the rest and you get a platform specific build process with caching and these advanced features like GPG signing or automatic publishing and all so let me it is visible right this is one of the repositories that we use at GitLab we use this to create packages of our GitLab communication and enterprise edition so any of you using GitLab personally or at work so you can self host GitLab you can get an entire integrated version controlling system with continuous integration continuous deploying and everything integrated so this is what we use to generate those packages so all the DSLs all the DSLs like the project DSL and software DSL goes into the config directory of the repository so first let us see the project DSL because this is a Ruby based DSL you can use conditionals and all that so if you are building an enterprise edition package we set certain descriptions and certain metadata and for the community edition we set it differently we have the maintainer and like it replaces the native GitLab package because we provide something else there is a runtime dependency on OpenSSH if it is so say the package is called OpenSSH if it is not it is OpenSSH server and we have all these dependencies that we need to make sure GitLab actually runs without any issues so all of these gets a software definition in the software folder like all the dependencies that we specified in the project folder gets a software definition similarly there is a patches folder for whenever we want to patch some software we have a patches folder that we specify in the build process use this patch to patch your upstream source code so basically that is it do take a look at the Chef Omnibus yeah the second one is the upstream project of Omnibus Seth Chisholmora and Christopher Mayor from Opscode or Chef these were the people who actually built the Omnibus tool they actually provided a good presentation introducing Omnibus to it so you can check out that also so yeah thank you thank you very much I suggest we have the next speaker set up yeah


So, here's all the flags from all the nations who will be racing. I am Amsterdam. Back from uploading yesterday's blog. That was a little insane, that's okay. A little slow Wi-Fi in Amsterdam, but we got it done. It's just like in racing, right?  And I think us runners, we love time. At least I love time and like using our time well anyway. So, today was a little hard, just like accepting the fact that, hey, I just got to accept the slow Wi-Fi and use my time well, which means I just stood up in the coffee shop and stretched and stretched and stretched. So, I feel very loosey-goosey right now, feeling good, going to go out for my jog in a second and how can you be too? And yes, I was just listening to classical music, can you hear that? There it is, there it is. You know how I like to listen to classical just to stay calm? But how can you get too down when you get a picture sent to you from True Love? I don't know if you can see that there. There's the little guy, there's the little guy, that's right, he's growing in there. He looks like a demore, he looks like a demore. So, all is well everyone. I'm going to go out for my five mile jog, nice and easy, and then we're going to go get some pasta tonight, start to do the carbs, and what else was I going to say? There was something else, something else, that, that, that, that, oh yeah, the course preview, we'll see. We'll see how much sunlight is left when I get back and all that. So, I was going to go show you a little bit of the course. We shall see, I just love you.  When you have the low points in a race, it's that mental toughness and adapting to the situation. If it's bad weather, if you miss a water bottle at an aid station, if, if you get tripped at the beginning of a race when there's 45,000 runners, there's all these little variables that can come into play and I have learned over time to just stay flexible. Okay, I'm going to stop there. I could talk to all of you guys, I just love it. All right, let's... I'm going to wear my, going to wear my crazy shorts today. All right, sure enough, we've got enough sunlight. It's actually a really nice fall day here in Amsterdam. So, going out on a bike, rented a bike from where I'm staying here and let's just see, just got to figure out how to unlock this. And then we're going to go to the Olympic Stadium first and didn't plan this at all, but look what I'm wearing today. Oh yeah, there it is, by a bang, by a boom. So, all right, where are we at? We're rolling now. We're rolling now. All right. It's a nice bike. Oh my, look at this. Oh, it's beautiful. I'm just trying to blend in with the locals here. Just do as the locals do as I vlog on my bike. Oh, and look what I found. There it is, to all the runners. Well done. Oh, the Olympic Stadium. Oh my goodness. So, here's all the flags from all the nations who will be racing. I am Amsterdam. Not bad, everyone. Okay, wow. It looks like I can look right in the Olympic Stadium here. All right, let's go check it out. When you're watching this, that'll say two. We're almost there, folks. Not sure if you can see that up there, but yes. Mizuno is the presenting sponsor of the TCS Amsterdam Marathon. So that's kind of neat. I like that. I actually have a buddy who works for Mizuno back in the States. Shout out to Pipe of Life. Anyway, just soaking it in and it's good. The reason I came down here a couple is to preview the course, see how we exit and enter the stadium during the actual race just to see the layout. And it's about what I expected, but also just to make sure on the morning of the marathon, I know how far it is from my hotel. I don't think I'll be, I think I will end up taking some transportation. I wasn't sure how far it was exactly. Now I know. All right, this is it. I think we'll go right out here according to the map. Pretty beautiful place to run a marathon if you ask me. All right, I actually just pulled over here alongside getting out of the way so I don't get run over by the bikes. Pulling up the app. Gonna make sure I'm on the right track. Let's see here. Okay, brilliant. We're right about where my thumb is. So we're gonna keep biking and this green is Bondo Park. And then we're gonna go into the park. Oh my goodness. So it looks like we stay on the right side of the park. I'm actually switching to the other side of the street because I think that's where we're gonna be actually running right over here on the right side. Everyone thinks I'm crazy. Talking to a camera on a bike. I know, I know. All right, this is just brilliant everybody. So right here we're gonna turn right into the park. Here's Bondo Park. This is just brilliant. It helps so much mentally just to kind of know where I'm coming into the park and then we just roll through this park for about two, two and a half kilometers. Just stunningly beautiful. Here's Bondo Park right there and then we're gonna go right.  Well, you go under this museum. So you literally run through there it looks like they haven't blocked off for the race but there's arches through this museum and that is where a lot of the Rembrandt paintings are at. Well, there you have it. That is the course preview for you via bike. I did about 5K of the course and it's exciting. I'm gonna talk Saturday about my race strategy which is impacted by the course of course and it's just amazing to be here to be alive, to be breathing sea level air. You can almost cut it with a butter knife down here. So, alright, so that's that. Let me just just make sure I don't get hit by a car. You know what I mean? What's up? Here we are. I just can't get over this view out this hotel. Alright, I'm feeling much better. Got the run in. Got the course preview via bike for all of you. With all of you, I must say I was a little stressed about that internet situation but I just didn't expect that and you just asked true love like she knows I like to be expeditious in my time. Isn't this cute? Look at this. Taking a little photo shoot in the middle of the street. Gram it. Put it on the gram anyway. I love you all and thanks for walking me off. Thanks for walking me back from that cliff. Thanks for walking me back from that cliff. We got this. We got this everybody. You better believe we've got this. Alright everyone, just getting back from dinner and let me just set this down here. Topping off my nightly. How was that annual? Nightly tea. Oh, there it is. Butter that bread. And dinner was delicious. Got some shots there of the salad and the salmon and the pasta. Oh, just superb Italian putting the carbs in. Getting ready to rock and roll and one sec, let me just pull up a few things here. So let's see. Tip of the day, real quick and actually let's just do it. Question of the day as well. First let me give the tip is I just got done turning off all the notifications on my phone for all of the social media apps. I love you all. Love you all. Love communicating. But there is a time when I shut off and just hone in and focus on the tasks at hand so you will not be hearing from me on Snapchat or Twitter or Instagram or nowhere. Not even on YouTube. That's right.  That's my little tip. That's how I focus in on a big peak race. That's since the Pikes Peak Ascent, which was my last peak race. Question of the day, how do you block distractions before a peak race? Do you have a strategy? Yeah, what do you do? I won't read your comments. I'll read your comments after the race. But anyway, that's the question of the day. Thanks for answering it. And yes, let me just pull up the map here. So you've got the map down in the lower left corner is the Olympic Stadium where we were earlier. And then here is Vondel Park just above. And basically, this is the map. It might look a little confusing to you. And there are, you know, there are some turns in this course. It's not a completely straight course by any means. But I am pretty excited because the streets here in Amsterdam are pretty narrow compared to states, streets in the US. And I even think, you know, compared to streets in London or Berlin, which means I think the crowd, hopefully the crowd is big, but I think the crowd cheering and noise is going to be on point for encouraging all the runners to do the best that they can. I've just noticed that the streets in Amsterdam are not very wide. So that is a good thing. And so here's the course map. Here's a little bootleg down. I guess this would be considered south, I do believe. And I'm pretty excited about it actually. It's along a canal or a river. I'm not sure if it's a river or a canal. And you basically go out and back and it's basically the halfway point toward the bottom. There's 21K right there. So, and yes, you see the musical notes along the way. There is music out there. So it's going to be good, everyone. And I'm excited for this course. All right. And there you have it. So at least I know that was not the entire course today on the bike. Obviously it can't do that three days before, but hopefully you have a little sense of the streets and the park and just what I'll be seeing out there on the ground on Sunday morning. And okay, last but not least, I already asked a question of the day, but today's vlog, it did publish late. However, oh my goodness, I texted you love and said, how are the comments doing? Because remember, I'm not reading the comments. I'm just letting you guys go for it. And she said, oh my goodness, just broke 500 and that was 500 comments. And that was I think an hour and a half, maybe two hours after I hit publish. So if you haven't recorded your guess for my marathon finishing time, go up a right hand corner to, oh, and speaking of true love, there she is calling right now. So I got to sign off. Love you all. We'll toss it back to a couple old random blogs on the right and the left. I love you, love you, love you. See beauty, work hard and love each other. Hi true love. I'm just wrapping up the vlog.


Revelation 13. Beginning at verse 11, reading to verse 18. Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed. He performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. And he causes all both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here's wisdom that him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast or it is the number of a man. His number is 666. As we begin, let me lay a foundation by saying something that we all ought to remember. And that would be that one of Satan's chief weapons that he uses is deception.  In John chapter 8, for example, verse 44, Jesus said this. He said, you are of your father, the devil and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources for he is a liar and the father of it.   He is a deceiver. Now, since Satan is a deceiver, it only makes sense that those who are under his influence would also be deceivers. His agents that you see in scripture and those who will be in existence during the last days, his agents misrepresent themselves in order to appear as ministers and they always want to appear as ministers of truth. Now, these deceivers will be used by Satan in order to spread his lies. And so in light of this, false teachers are spoken of often in scripture. Warnings against false teachers are found in numerous books of the Bible. In 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 1, for example, it says there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them and bring on themselves swift destruction. In 1 Timothy 4, 1 through 3, Paul said the Spirit expressly says that in latter times there will some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits, doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. You see, warnings against deception throughout the Bible, just considering the New Testament for a moment. There are warnings concerning deception and false teachers found throughout the writings of the New Testament. All four gospels warn us against deceivers. The book of Acts warns us against deceivers. Romans warns us. First and second Corinthians warns us. Galatians warns us. Ephesians warns us against deceivers. Philippians, Colossians, first and second Thessalonians, first and second Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, first and second Peter, first, second John, Jude, Revelation, all speak concerning false teachers. You can find warnings throughout the New Testament. Almost every New Testament book warns us against deception. False prophets have attempted to undermine God's truth from the very beginning. In the Old Testament, they arose early to oppose God's word and in order to destroy God's people. You see it in the fifth book of the Bible, the book of Deuteronomy, where God speaks concerning warnings of deceivers when he says in chapter 13, verses one through three of Deuteronomy, if there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and he gives you a sign or a wonder and the sign or wonder comes to pass of which he spoke to you saying, let us go after some other gods, which you have not known, let us serve them.  He said from the beginning, there will be people. Once truth is revealed, that will come and bring a lie. You see it from the beginning. Jeremiah, chapter 23, 16 says, thus says the Lord of hosts, do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into futility. They speak a vision of their own imagination, not from the mouth of the Lord. And so in the Old Testament, and to be honest with you, I could, I could spend so much more time just, you know, chapter and verse, chapter and verse, chapter and verse from the old to the New Testament with warnings against deception. In the last days, they will once again be working overtime to undermine people's faith in Jesus Christ.  Because of this, Jesus warned the church to be on guard against false teachers. And in Matthew 7, 15, he said, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, they are ravenous wolves. He had said in Matthew 24, 11, many false prophets will arise and will deceive many. Now the chief doctrine that is presented by these false teachers is simply this, and you might want to note this. It's just a very basic thing. The chief doctrine is Jesus is just not necessary. That's the number one message of a false teacher. Jesus really isn't necessary. They'll say things like, well, he's, he's only one of many teachers. He's not more important than any other teacher. Now, obviously that isn't what Jesus taught. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father, but by me. So Jesus would disagree with that. In Acts chapter 4 verse 12, nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. No other name. Jesus said it himself. It's repeated throughout the New Testament. When you, when you look for certain essentials, certain basics, but has been called certain fundamentals of the Christian faith, you will find that there are certain essential building blocks to Christianity. There's the inerrancy and inspiration of Scripture. There is the deity of Jesus Christ. There is the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. There's the substitutionary atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross. And you have the physical resurrection and the personal bodily return of Christ to the earth. These are basic fundamentals. These are essential of faith. These are the things that are called building blocks that we build our lives on. But these are the things that false teachers will argue against. The inspiration and inerrancy of the Scripture say, well, you know, it's just words, it's just men's words and there are mistakes in it. The deity of Jesus Christ will say, well, no, Jesus was a man, a good man, but he wasn't God in the flesh. The virgin birth of Christ. They'll say, no, no, it's not a virgin that's spoken of there in the book of Isaiah. What it's speaking of is a young woman shall conceive and embarrass son. This substitutionary atoning work of Christ will say, well, he did that at that time for a certain group of people, but that's only applying for a certain time, but not for all time. And there are other people out there who have truth that they're bringing. The physical resurrection and personal bodily return of Jesus Christ will say, well, you know, you Christians have been saying that Jesus Christ was resurrected. There's absolutely no proof that he was.  And so there are people who do argue this. And there are some people that actually occupy pulpits who don't believe the things that I just mentioned to you. And yet they're occupying pulpits even now. These are the primary doctrines that Satan works over time to undermine. And he does that through the false prophets. He does that through false teachers. Now, when we were last together, I was sharing with you concerning Antichrist. And we're going to be continuing on in this particular study, chapter 13. And as I was sharing with you concerning the Antichrist, he's going to be a final world ruler who will have both political and he will have a religious influence, even a power over people. Now, from the political perspective, as we've been seeing, he's going to be a world ruler. He's command and he's going to lead as what Daniel would refer to as a willful king. He's a political leader. But he's also a religious has a religious, if you will, a religious deception. And this false prophet that we're looking at is the one who really promotes this aspect. But people will worship him through the influence of this false prophet. When you look at Second Thessalonians in chapter two, verses nine and 10, Paul said, the coming of the lawless one, Antichrist, will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders. And in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing, they perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. He will use counterfeit miracles, counterfeit signs and wonders. There have been movements in the church, even in recent years, where people have said that some extraordinary works are occurring, and that these works are from God. I've heard the the testimonies, TV testimonies of how God causes gold dust to come settling and filtering into the room and settling on people gold dust and, and, you know, things of that nature, ashes that are being miraculously formed on the tip of the tongue of the speakers and, and things that are so bizarre and so odd. And yet, it seems sometimes that no matter how weird the statement there, there'll be somebody who will not only believe it, but will also promote it, because they really believe that and then they sometimes have spoken to me about it. And when I don't agree that that is something that is true, then they get upset and think I have no faith. It's just a really odd kind of thing. And, and, but that's happening even to this day. You see, anti Christ is going to have a false prophet. And this false prophet will go before him and will encourage people to wonder after and worship this beast. There's going to be a partnership between political and religious powers. And anti Christ is going to establish a false religious system. He himself will be in the center of it. And he will demand worship. Now, at a certain portion in the tribulation, that will be the only religion tolerated by anti Christ. Now, when he says in verse 11, I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, and spoke like a dragon. When he says I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, the earth would speak of unredeemed human beings, the unredeemed. So the earth, well, we were created from the dust of the earth. And so he sees another beast coming out of the, out of the earth, it would speak of that this prophet is is a human being. And what's going to happen is the false prophet is going to be appealing to those who are not saved. His words and his works are going to be accepted by those who are susceptible to delusion. How do you become susceptible to delusion? I'll say this briefly. Don't read the Bible. You'll be susceptible to delusion. Just don't read the scriptures. And somebody will come up, knock on your door, and will say to you something that's not found in scripture. But because you don't read the Bible, you won't know that. And so they'll say things to you sometimes. Even that can happen to this day. It happens every day here in the United States. Somebody's knocking on somebody's door, and somebody's saying something about Jesus that's not scriptural. And there are people listening to what's being said. And because they don't read the Bible, and they're not capable of understanding yet, discerning yet, or perhaps they're not schooled yet, or having an interest to be schooled, they end up being deceived. Because these deceivers will say something to them that is appealing to them. You might find this interesting. The word deception is also used for the Greek word for deception is also a word that can be used for seduction. Interesting. Because what deception is, is actually seduction. And the way somebody is seduced normally, is the person doing the seducing, is saying something to that person that is appealing to them. And the way that you can be seduced, we used to say that guys that's got a line or he's charming, he's basically saying something that that victim wants to hear. Whether it is, oh, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Or that, you know, I love the way your hair has got it just flows beautifully. What kind of perfume is that? Oh man, that is so good. And you know what, did you just get, you didn't get some, you didn't get some work done on you, did you?  But there's something inside of that person, right? That wants to hear that. They want to hear it. They want to hear that they look like they've lost 10 pounds even though they gained 20. They do. There's something in us that when somebody says something, and listen, a con man is simply capable of after a few conversations of determining the thing that will work with you. That's all it is. It's just taking the time to study somebody, pick up on their insecurities, and begin to emphasize those insecurities in a positive spin. And it's just called seduction. But deception is a form of seduction. And so you may have a difficulty believing, for example, that Jesus Christ is actually God in the flesh. And so you ask yourself things like, if Jesus is God, then who was he praying to when he was here on earth? And a Jehovah's witness will knock on your door and say, well, that's a great question because he's not God. And they'll give to you an answer that's not biblical, but it certainly appeals to the way you're looking at things at that time. And that's how it happens. I can, I can multiply that with different religious cults. They find something that you will have difficulty with, give you a reasonable explanation, even call it a logical one. And you want to be intellectually logical, don't you? And so you buy into that. And what is this? It's called mind seduction. It's called deception. And the false prophet is going to bring deception. Now, what we see here when it says in verse 11, I saw another beast. This beast that's being referred to is the antichrist's false prophet. Jesus had John the Baptist. Antichrist is going to have a false prophet. Now notice the description in verse 11. He had two horns like a lamb and he spoke like a dragon. So that confirms his religious character. He appears to be a lamb. Now, in the New Testament, false prophets are revealed as something, sometimes taking on the appearance of believers. You see, prophets would wear certain clothing that actually identified them as prophets. You may or may not know that, but in Matthew chapter seven, verses 15 and 16, Jesus said it like this. He said, watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves by their fruit. You will know them. You will recognize them. Prophets at that time wore a certain garb. And so the outer appearance was like a true prophet. So false prophets are revealed in scripture often as taken on the appearance of a true believer. Now, that's why it's referred to as a lamb. Now notice he had two horns. The two horns, horns are symbolic of religious and political power. I mentioned to you that in the Old Testament, horns very often were associated with power. And so this one here has a religious and political power. Now, notice how it says he spoke like a dragon. Now, when it says he spoke like a dragon, that speaks of his message. His message is inspired and empowered by Satan. Revelation 12.9 had said the great dragon was cast out. That old serpent called the devil Satan who deceives the whole world. And so he spoke like a dragon, meaning the message that he speaks has that kind of charismatic power that that comes from Satan himself. Remember, all the way in the book of Genesis in chapter three, how the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God really say you must not eat from any tree of the garden? And then when when responded to, he spoke to her and said, you will not surely die. And so he from the beginning has contradicted and even added to the word of God. But he does so in a way that people will respond to you see what's going to happen guys and people people today are doing the same thing and and I have to be careful because I don't want to take too much time developing things that that that I don't need to develop with you but I'm going to for a moment anyway because this is something I think is very important that I've been noticing I've been going longer than I should. Joe told me that I shouldn't talk as long as I do. But let's talk about this for a minute shall we? Okay again people are open to deception today there's no doubt about that. I have to be careful because I didn't prepare these statements I just there are things that I want to share with you a little bit about and I have to formulate how I want to say them even before I begin start speaking here. I will say that I've been a Christian for a while now I will say that as a Christian there were certain things as a brand new Christian that were emphasized to me that helped me to get settled into my Christian faith. When I first went forward and I gave my heart to Christ I actually didn't go forward I stood up and then I went into the back into a room and spoke to a follow-up minister but when I committed my heart to Christ and had that follow-up experience the man who was following up with me who was sharing with me some of the essentials of the faith that I had just embraced made sure that he told me to read the word of God every day so from the day that I got saved I was exhorted to read the word of God which I began a habit of doing because I had been encouraged to do that and so I got a Bible it was called the good news for modern man you know I was a person who at that time didn't read an awful lot I had just returned to reading I hadn't been reading for a long time the lifestyle that I was living being filled with alcohol and drugs didn't really leave much time for me to read good books but I had started reading again and began to read several books as a matter of fact I began the habit of reading before getting saved I think basically the Lord was preparing me for a lifetime of reading because I had started reading books again and as that had taken place I am now being told by a follow-up counselor that you need to read the Bible and so I started reading the Bible I started with this this it was called the good news for modern man which was a paraphrase but a paraphrase is not a translation a paraphrase is simply taking phrases from the scripture and changing the wording to make it understandable but it's not a translation it's a phrasing and so I knew that that wasn't a literal translation and so I went out and bought what is called the layman's parallel Bible which actually what it was was it had the King James version and it had three other translations and so I would read the King James and then I would if I didn't understand that old language I would look at the modern translations to figure out what the word was that I wasn't understanding with the King James and so that's how I began to learn to read the Bible and I started reading the King James and I started teaching my Bible studies from 1973 until 1983 were always King James always so I learned over the ten years of studying to pretty much interpret the King James ancient English and then I used to actually I would change the words as I was teaching to modern language and then the new King James came out and I was able to begin to teach out of the new King James but when I do studies for word studies I still go back to the King James so that's my habit to this day and that's a habit that's been going for over 40 years since I started to teach and since 1983 when I started using the new King James so I say all of that to say this that in the years that I've been studying the word of God I have had the opportunity to hear a number and a variety of teachings that have come from supposedly the church that when you begin to read the Bible and compare the word of God with what's being said you discover that there is there are things being said that simply are not true and so over the first several years in the history of this church because my first heart if I was not a pastor was to be an apologist I wanted to be somebody who understood the essentials of my faith the systematic theology of it in order to actually communicate and understand it better because systematic theology is something a lot of people are not familiar with but it's something that helps you to know what that what the cardinal essential things of faith really are so that's really where my interest was and were I not a pastor I would be a systematic theologian because that's really what I am interested in on a personal level with that said I hear things being said on TV and I would bring that to this pulpit early on I'll give you an example I hear somebody say that he was teaching and the Holy Spirit came upon him so wonderfully that he stepped off the pulpit hovered in the air without gravity pulling him down awakened to the reality that he was just kind of hovering in the air by the power of the Holy Spirit and then he had to step back on to that onto that platform before he hit the ground because his faith wasn't going to be sufficient and there are people are saying oh that's amazing and I'm saying this is nonsense this is absolute nonsense where'd you get that or the time this fellow gets up and he says this is going to have a problem you're going to have a problem with this theologically this is probably going to disturb your personal theology but it's true I can tell you it's true it happened to me he said I cast a demon out of myself now see some of you probably oh is that right can you do that no as a matter of fact the demon wasn't cast out of him it was still in him it's a lion demon and is probably there to this day but see but I would bring that to you not you in particular some of you were with me and I would bring it to the church and I'd say and then you get the believers who get mad at you how can you say that about a brother how can you say that you are judging your brother and I'm thinking Jesus said that we are to judge righteous judgment he taught us that judge righteous judgment correct judgment profitable judgment the correct be discerning and that's when I started saying things to the church I'd say babies will put anything in their mouth you have to watch a baby don't you every mama in this room knows that for a fact you better watch those babies because they may see something that's poisonous but it smells good and they will put it in their mouth but I cannot tell you I cannot tell you over the years how many people have got offended with me for just loving them enough to tell them the truth and to warn them I still remember teaching in this pulpit here before we built that other building over there and saying be careful with Mormonism because Mormonism is a cult and I shared why certain things and then I get a letter well Mormons are good people they're nice and and they build beautiful buildings and you shouldn't say things about them and and so if people are saying how can the world actually wonder after the beast how can they say who is like him who can make war against him if believers themselves are not discerning enough to see some of the things that are being said are just absolutely not in scripture how much more so the world that does not respect scripture at all and when they see the signs and the wonders that will be performed that will draw their attention to this false religious system and this false messiah they will be drawn to him there's no doubt about it and the bible makes it very clear that that's what's going to take place Matthew 24 12 says this because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold in 2nd Timothy 3 verses 13 and 14 evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived but continue in the things which you have learned and have been assured of knowing of whom you have learned them continuing those things 2nd Timothy 4 3 and 4 the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine after their own lust shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned to fables that's taking place even now it will be rampant when antichrist appears apathy exists concerning truth some don't even believe there's a possibility that something can be true but there's an atmosphere of acceptance that will exist and the false prophet will take advantage of it now god ultimately will give man over to the inclinations of his own sinful nature and after the rapture satan will have great power in deceiving people in 2nd Thessalonians 2 11 and 12 for this reason God sends them powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness the false prophet is going to have a ready and willing audience there will be believers on the face of the earth who will not be deceived but there will be multitudes who hear what he has to say and will embrace it now notice in verse 12 how it says he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence so satan gives antichrist authority antichrist is now giving authority to this false prophet he causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast doing nothing without the antichrist approval he causes people to worship antichrist he is going to promote total acceptance of the beast and the government of the beast he's going to encourage a unified world government there will be a global world village communalism that's what's going to take place in verse 13 he performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the side of men so he's going to perform lying signs and wonders and people will be deceived by that notice in verse 14 he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the side of the beast telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image of the beast who is wounded by the sword and lived and so notice in verse 14 how he makes it clear that he deceives those who dwell on the earth that's his whole purpose is to deceive and he builds an image of the beast now verse 15 he was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed now imagine for a moment two thousand years ago reading these words would you how would you how would you interpret that was it possible then for that to take place it would seem that it wasn't is this kind of thing possible now absolutely there's no doubt about that what happens is there's an image that is is made and it becomes animated and the people who look at it will it'll have the appearance of being alive some some commentators say that perhaps this is a product of genetic engineering it could be a product of artificial intelligence it could be a living computer an animated artificially intelligent cyborg it could be an android an it's kind of like a robot that is created from biological materials and it resembles a human being something is going to happen when when people look at it it will have a hundred percent appearance of being alive of being real now we've had some clumsy attempts at that all along I don't know how many of you are old enough to remember that Mr. Lincoln exhibit at Disney in Disneyland anyway anybody remember that that kind of like you know and go oh wow you know it's so real but we have advanced in our technology so that we're already moving in that direction where we can have an actual image that can look like a real human being we're already moving in that direction there's no reason why we can't believe that this can happen now what's going to happen is it's going to be set up on the temple grounds it's going to be connected with what is called the abomination of desolation and when this takes place persecution will erupt and the persecution against believers is even on a greater scale you see what's going to happen is people will refuse to worship this image and when they refuse they will be killed it says in verse 16 he causes all both small and great rich and poor free and slave now this is something we we know today to receive a mark on the right hand or on their forehead and that no one may buy or sell except one who has a mark or the name of the beast the number of his name here's wisdom let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast it's the number of a man his number is 666 Antichrist is going to have a system that is going to require identification personal ID you might find this interesting when it that word mark there you know what that word can be that word mark can be translated it can be translated brand a brand it can also be translated a tattoo isn't that interesting a tattoo on the forehead or on the hand again guys when I got saved 40 years ago over 40 years ago now and when we read this when we first read this marks who in the world would put a mark on themselves we thought that way who would put a mark on themselves you have to understand that when I grew up my mom said if you if you get a tattoo I will cut it off of you she did my my aunt I have an aunt my aunt yeah got a tattoo on her on her hand and we're talking about back in the 50s it was a cross and had little little marks on it my mom said that my hand got really upset because there was a movement called the patchouco movement at that time and patchoucos would have that on their hands so what did my aunt do she got a razor blade true story and she cut it off so my mom said if you ever get a tattoo we'll cut your hand off my mom mama didn't like tattoos brands do people get brands today yeah they do you ever see somebody get those burn marks on their arms that's a brand so we are living in a time right now and I don't want to sensationalize this but we're living in time right now that these kinds of things they're very acceptable they're very acceptable now where in my early life they weren't you see the only ones who got tattoos when I was growing up were military personnel and these were guys who would you know Navy guys who'd come back with some tattoo you know that they'd gotten in some bar whatever and that was kind of what you associated so you'd see an anchor or something like that and you'd know they were military because military guys got that or if you were in a motorcycle kind of club or gang you know they got the gangsters had that or if you were in prison that was basically it so you didn't see average ordinary people with marks on their body you just didn't you didn't see them with that because that was kind of like what my parents would have said in that era would have said well those are people who just you know they're the rough kinds of people they they weren't raised right I mean all kinds of things so you can imagine when my son David started getting tattoos what I was going because that's how I was I was you know as a kid raised you had these ideas that that you know my son taught me I was wrong about so getting back to the Bible study marks on the hands marks on the forehead it is the it is something that relates to finances anti-christ is going to need a system to distribute food we we've already seen that famine is going to be in existence 50 percent of the earth's population has already been devastated and so he is going to create a universal system that is associated with him that is based on a rationing system are we prepared for that right now do you think it's possible that our government could bring forth a program and argue its merit and convince people to get marks I would have to say absolutely what would lead this government to be capable of doing that is the question and the answer would be well is there a way for us to be able to determine the nationality of an individual because we do have people who are crossing borders illegally who are terrorists is there a way to have a national ID a way for us to be able to identify that is painless and the answer is yes are there chips that already exist that you can insert in skin absolutely absolutely you already have that we've been putting chips microchips in animals for a long time the dog gets gets lost and runs away and and they're able to locate them with that locator they have that capacity of doing that right now they've been able to do it for years will that be something that the antichrist can use for his own purposes absolutely it doesn't even have to be a tattoo it doesn't even have to be a brand it can be something that is as small as as a freckle that is placed on your hand that the scanners that we have right now will be capable of picking up all that information and that'll be able to prove whether or not you have a right to purchase food and so this number this numbering system is going to take place we're already prepared for it we have numbers already social security numbers we have debit cards we have charge accounts we already use scanners there are implants and microchips these things exist now that did not exist 2,000 years ago when this was written this shows you how current prophecy really is and what's interesting he says in verse 17 no one may buy or sell except one who has a mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name here is wisdom let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast for it is the number of a man his number is 666 3 when you look at what is called the subject of biblical numerics when you look at the number 3 is the number of completion 3 is the number of the trinity Father, Son, and Holy Spirit it can be the number of God the number 6 is the number of man 3 is the number of God 6 is the number of man 3, 6 is man attempting to be God that's where 666 comes in 3, 6 is man attempting to be God antichrist is going to have a power and authority a false prophet who performs miracles who cause people to regard antichrist he's going to create a system where people are not able to buy or sell now if anybody takes the mark of that beast there will be no forgiveness for them they have sealed their fate there will be a false religion on a scale never seen before and that false religion is on its way even now the world is being prepared if you look right now on the horizon try and find one amazing world ruler one world leader try and find one and you're not going to find any there aren't any right now and so that makes a void and with that void will come an antichrist who will step right into it and the people will begin to wonder after him he will have a false prophet who will be able to deceive he will point people towards this beast the system will be in place you cannot buy and you cannot sell without our numeric system if you take that that mark you have sealed your fate refusing the mark will mean that you're going to be beheaded you will die and so this system is already moving in the direction of being in place the bible the written this was written almost 2000 years ago is current for the 21st century because we're seeing these things even on our day


As far as I'm concerned, we already have one. The president doesn't get to say that he's won the stage. The American people get to say it. America, this election will define our great nation. A critical moment in our history that future generations will look back upon as we do now on so many others. Will they admire our integrity? Has we fought to defend our freedoms? Will they be as proud of us? As an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy. As we are of our forefathers, or will they hang their heads in shame at our failure to unite for the Republic? That depends on what you do next. To the politicians and lawyers putting party before country. But this is just the prelude to what legal experts believe will be an ugly post-election battle. The American people are watching you and we will not allow you to undermine our Republic. We demand that you count the vote. In America's darkest hours, we have put our differences aside and rallied around the common good of our Republic. What we do today will reverberate for generations to come. Respect the will of the people. Make sure the vote is counted. If there's anything I've learned, it is that we Americans do have a way of rising to the challenges that confront us. Just when it seems we're most divided, we suddenly show our remarkable solidarity.