But today we're in 1 Samuel, we're going to look at verses 12 through 26 and what I'm going to do is I'm going to read verses 12 through 17 and get into our study and then move on into verses 18 and conclude at verse 26 today. And we're looking really at a contrast between the sons of Eli and a boy by the name of Samuel. So let's begin reading here 1 Samuel chapter 2 at verse 12, we'll read to verse 17 and get into our study.  They did not know the Lord. And the priest's custom with the people was that when any man offered a sacrifice the priest's servant would come with a three-pronged flesh hook in his hand while the meat was boiling. Then he would thrust it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot and the priest would take for himself all that the flesh hook brought up. So they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. Also before they burned the fat, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who sacrificed, Give meat for roasting to the priest, for he will not take boiled meat from you but raw. And if the man said to him, They should really burn the fat first, then you may take as much as your heart desires, he would then answer him, No, but you must give it now. And if not, I'll take it by force. For the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord. For men abhorred the offering of the Lord. And so what we have here is we have a picture that we're going to be looking at and developing of some evil sons, evil sons who belong to the high priest, a man by the name of Eli. We need to remember that as you look at the Old Testament God had established what is called a priesthood. The priesthood was established under Moses and the first high priest was his brother, a man by the name of Aaron. Aaron and Moses were from the tribe of Levi and so all the priests from that point on were to be from the tribe of Levi. Now, Eli is from that lineage and so as high priest, Eli has sons. These sons are also priests, but I want you to see something in verse 12 as they're being described to us. It simply says the sons of Eli were corrupt. They did not know the Lord. And so though he had sons who were priests, these were people who were unsaved. That word corrupt literally means sons of Belial. The word Belial literally speaks of that which is worthless, evil, or ungodly. And that word Belial is used for Satan. You see that in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 15. And so it speaks concerning these men not having a relationship with the Lord. These are men who are working there at the tabernacle. But God has no influence in their lives. These are professional ministers if you will. People who have the responsibility of bringing people to a knowledge of God. But these are men who do not know, do not worship, do not love, do not serve, do not fellowship with, and do not fear God at all. These are unsaved corrupt men there at the tabernacle serving but only as professional hirelings, not men of character, not men of integrity, not men of faith, not men who love the Lord.  People who don't have a relationship with God. They don't have the fear of God in them. And having no fear of God allows them to sin without any concern for any consequences whatsoever. As far as they're concerned, they can do whatever they want and they're going to get away with it. And that's because they have a lack of the fear of the Lord. Now it's interesting how in the book of Romans in chapter three, the apostle Paul, when he's speaking about people who don't know God, in Romans chapter three verse 18 says that there is no fear of God before their eyes. You see, it's the fear of God that causes people to depart from evil. The Bible says that in Proverbs chapter eight verse 13, in Proverbs chapter one verse seven, it says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. And so the fear of the Lord actually has benefits to it. In Proverbs 10, 27, the fear of the Lord prolongs the days, but the years of the wicked will be shortened. There are benefits that come from having this reverence of God, this sense of his awesome power and might that causes us to realize that as the God of this universe, the most powerful being in existence, we ought to have a reverential fear of this God. But they didn't. They could go there to the tabernacle and they could do their duties, even though they had a father who was a high priest and they did not care at all. They didn't listen to what was being said. They wanted nothing to do with his counsel. They didn't care at all. They were professional. They were hirelings. And to them, serving God was inconsequential. It didn't matter to them at all. I was talking to a friend of mine just this last week, a friend who's a music minister, and he serves as an assistant pastor and as a music minister in another church in Northern California. And we were speaking just this last week and as we were conversing, he said to me that he has a responsibility in his area of meeting with young people who want to be in worship ministry, who play guitar or sing, play piano, whatever, and he meets with them because these are kids who are saying that they want to be mentored into becoming worship ministers. And as we were talking, he said that the majority that he meets with are not looking to be mentored at all. He says what they're asking him, he says almost inevitably, the first question that they'll ask is, how do I make contact with somebody who can become a producer or how can I get my music published? He said the things that they're more concerned about is really related to professional things, money, and how do I get a name and how do I start making my CDs and all of that. He said that's what they're really concerned about. He said that this one young man came to him and was speaking to him about music ministry and all. And my friend said to him, when did you come to know Christ? And the young man says, I don't know the Lord. He said that, he said, I'm not a Christian. And so my friend says, why do you want to be in gospel music? And he says, because it's a foot up, it's a leg in, it's a way to start. He says, I really want to do my own music and I think I can get into gospel music. It's easier to break into that. And then from there, I want to move on into what I really want to do. For him, ministry, for him, it's more money. It's more what you get for doing it. And that's how these people are. That's how Eli's sons, Hoffney and Phineas are. These are people who are corrupt. They don't have a relationship with God. And yet there they are at the tabernacle, serving ostensibly as men of God. When in reality, God says, they don't know me. Their hearts are far from me. And so this is what we're looking at today. We're looking at people who see ministry as a means to an end. It's an easy job to have. And when you have that kind of mentality, you can sin without a conscience. And that's what they're doing. And I want to point this out to you. What is it that they're doing? Well, look at verses 13 and 14 first. What happens when you don't have a relationship with God and yet you have a place of influence? Well, it says in verse 13, the priest's custom with the people was that when any man offered a sacrifice, a priest's servant would come with a three-pronged flesh hook in his hand while the meat was boiling. And then he would thrust it into the pan, or kettle, or cauldron, or pot, and the priest would take for himself all that the flesh hook brought up. So they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. Well, the first thing they did is they stole. They were stealing. They were stealing from men in this particular instance. You see, what they're doing is they're taking that which belonged to the one who was making the offering. And they're stealing from that person in the law called the law of Moses. God made provision for the priests to be supplied. Their needs were to be cared for by the people. Deuteronomy chapter 18 makes that clear, verses one through five. There it says the priests, the Levites, all of the tribe of Levite, shall have no partner or inheritance with Israel. They shall eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire and his portion. Therefore, they shall have no inheritance among their brethren. The Lord is their inheritance, as he said to them. And this shall be the priests do from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice. Whether it is a bull or sheep, they shall give to the priests the shoulder, the cheeks, and the stomach, the first fruits of your grain and your new wine and your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep shall you give him. For the Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand to minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons forever. And so they had a certain portion that was allocated to them. But by using the flesh hook, they were taking what belonged to the other person who was making the offering. And what belonged to them as priests was the right shoulder. It was what was called the wave breast. But they were taking what they wanted. They were demanding for themselves what belonged to somebody else. So for them, ministry was simply a way for them to eat and live well at the expense of somebody else. And that's what they're doing. They're ripping off the people, stealing their offerings, getting the choice pieces for themselves because they think that they deserve that. It's interesting in 2 Peter in the New Testament, chapter 2, verse 3, how the apostle writes concerning false believers who by covetousness, he says, will make merchandise of you with deceptive words. There are those who enter into ministry who are hirelings. Their hearts are not right with God. And they use the ministry position and the authority for their own means, for their own gain so that they might live well. I remember an individual who was invited to be a minister over a particular church, a pastorate church, and they were discussing his salary. And as they were discussing his salary, the man said, listen, I'm not going to ask for you to set a salary for me. What I'd like you to do is simply give me 10% of the offerings. And this is a very small church. And they were thinking within themselves, well, he's not going to receive very much. But this is one of those guys who went out and did everything he could to attract people. And eventually, they had over 2,000 people showing up, 2,000 people that he was teaching to tithe. And so he had a considerable income, but he was a hireling and not a man of God. And that does happen. Taking what doesn't belong to you, taking what belongs to somebody else profiting from the ministry, that's exactly what they were doing. They were taking that which did not belong to them. It belonged to the person making the offering. But a second thing we see is found in verses 15 and 16, where it says, also, before they burned the fat, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who sacrificed, give meat for roasting to the priest, for he will not take boiled meat from you but raw. And if the man said to him, they should really burn the fat first, then you may take as much as your heart desires, he would then answer him, no, but you must give it now. And if not, I will take it by force. So one, he's stealing from the people, but two, he now steals from God.  The burning of the fat actually was an offering to the Lord. And that was to take place first. And that portion belonged to God because the fat represented the best part of the sacrifice. And so with no fear of God, it was easy for them to steal from the Lord. When they would make their offering, the fat was first given because it was representative of that which is best.  Something about fat.  And it would have a sweet smelling savor to it. It's like when we go out into our backyard and we throw some meat on that fire, it's just something about it. I don't know, it just makes you grunt. I don't know. It's just, it's good, you know? And you cook that meat, and I don't know if any of you are like me, but I'll slice a piece just to make sure that it's okay, you know? I end up eating a steak before I even bring it into the rest.  There's just something about that smell. And you know, during the summer, like on 4th of July or various times, neighborhoods can have that smell, and you understand it. There's a sweet smell to it. It's a delicious smell, and that's the whole point. That smell that was rising to heaven was an offering to God. It was a picture of total consecration, is what it is. And it was a picture of this wafting to God as an offering to him.   That fat belonged to him. It's interesting how in the New Testament, Jesus actually represents that particular offering, that total consecration. In Ephesians 5, verse two, Paul says it like this. He says, walk in love. As Christ also has loved us, and given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma. So Jesus' death is pictured as an offering to God that rises with a beauty to it. And so when they were having these sacrifices in the Old Testament, it's completed by what Jesus actually did on the cross in the New as a total consecration offering to God. But what they were doing is they were taking of what belonged to God and they were keeping it for themselves. Now it's interesting, as this is taking place, that people actually would rebuke them. Notice verse 16. If the man said to him, they should really burn the fat first, then you may take as much as your heart desires. What they were doing is they were using the Bible to correct these people, these sons of Eli who were corrupt. The people actually said, but the law states that you are not to take that. And that's how correction comes. It comes through the word of God. It comes because God's word had declared what should be done. In Leviticus in chapter three, verses three through five, it says, he shall offer from the sacrifice of the peace offerings an offering made by fire to the Lord. The fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails, the two kidneys and the fat that is on them by the flanks, the fatty lobe attached to the liver above the kidneys he shall remove and Aaron's sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is on the wood that is on the fire as an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord. They got corrected by the word of God. It's like somebody in a church walking up to the ministers of the church and saying, you've been doing this, but I've been reading the word of God. And God's word says that that ought not to be done. Why are you doing it? That's how correction ought to take place. They walk up and they say, but as I was reading the word of God, this is what it says. It seems that you're ignoring that. With them they'd say, no, wait a minute. You're really supposed to burn the fat and then you get what comes after that. But they wouldn't listen to them. They rejected what was being said. And so as a result, their ungodliness began to turn people away from the Lord. Notice verse 17, the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for men abhorred the offering of the Lord. They started turning people away from God. When people are associated with the service of God and they live ungodly lives, it has a way of stumbling people and keeping them from coming to know the Lord. Beliefs are always evidenced by consistent behavior. Belief always produces behavior. Doctrine always produces deeds. And so when the word of God finds resonance in my life, it's intended to transform me. The way that I demonstrate that I am sincere in my beliefs is how I act. I'm a walking sermon, we all are. Known and read by all men. People can read the Living Bible when they're reading my life. Does he really fear God? Does he know God? Does he love God? Is this a man of God? It's the way that you live. It's a walking sermon. I can tell my kids go to church, but if I don't go to church, or I can say be consistent in the things of God. If I'm not consistent, what are they gonna do? Are they gonna listen to my words or are they gonna emulate my behavior? They're gonna emulate my behavior. I grew up as a young boy and a Catholic home like many of you. And the nuns who taught us Catechism and our Catechism teachers would refer to what they used to call once a year Catholics. I wonder how many of you ever heard that phrase. Once a year Catholics. That's what we heard that. What was a once a year? Well, you know what a once a year Catholic was. It's one who goes to church on Christmas or goes to church on Easter. And they say, well, the once a year Catholics are coming to church this weekend. That's how they would speak. And they spoke that to us when I was seven years old. I still remember that phrase once a year. They were the people who showed up on occasion. They were the ones who would come to the wedding. They were the ones who would come to the baptism. They would come perhaps to the confirmation. They would come for the funeral. They would come on Christmas. Maybe they would come for Easter or something of that nature. I mean, but they were not regular. And so they were referred to as once a year people. And you know what, I still remember that because I didn't want to become a once a week or once rather once a year Christian. I want to be a once a day Christian. Not even once a week Christian or once a month Christian. I want to be a daily Christian. I want to walk with the Lord on a daily basis in other words. When I got saved I thought, you know what, if I'm going to give myself to the Lord I ought to give myself completely to the Lord. And so I had to learn that from the very beginning because I didn't want to be somebody who came once in a while. I wanted to be somebody who was there consistently with the things of God because I knew that my behavior would influence other people. I was influenced by those who believed in Christ and I knew that I would influence others by the way that I lived because what I am speak so loudly people can't hear a word that I say and I realize that. Some people's lives are lived out for Christ in such a way that their good works demonstrate their knowledge of God. Jesus said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who's in heaven. And so there are times that our lives are so evident, filled with the things of God that people will say that God must be working in this person's life and you and I we have met people, perhaps they were instrumental in us coming to Christ who had that kind of lifestyle. There was something about them and we found out it's their faith in Christ. It was more than a religion. It was more than a once in a while thing that they would put on like their Sunday, go to meeting, school clothes and stuff. They would actually wear Christ daily and for me, that made a difference. It really did. And all the Bible tells us that our works demonstrate who we trust in and we were actually created for good works. Ephesians 2 verse 10 says, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Titus tells us in chapter 2 verse 14 that Jesus gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people zealous for good works. And so there's something about a life that is lived for Christ that can have a real drawing effect on people's lives. They see that you're sincere and they say, you know, God is with you and I'd like to know more about this. And again, our lives can actually push people away. These people's lives pushed them away. They actually began to abhor the offering of the Lord. They despised it. They looked at it as something that wasn't necessary. What happened is their sins stumbled people and caused them to turn away from the Lord. And this is not a sin that God takes lightly. You know, when I first got saved, there were seasons in my life when I most definitely did not have the appearance of a believer. Definitely did not look like I had a relationship with God. And as a result of that, I could actually turn people away from the Lord. And I grew to learn that early on that I need to walk with the Lord in such a way that I don't push people away. God doesn't take that lightly. And in Matthew chapter 18 verse six, Jesus said, whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. I can actually encourage someone to have a walk with God or I can discourage him simply by my own walk. These people caused the people of Israel who were coming to worship God there in Shiloh at the tabernacle, making their offerings. These people had them turning away from God. And it's something that God didn't ignore. Now in verse 18, but Samuel ministered before the Lord, even as a child wearing a linen e-fod. Moreover, his mother used to make him a little robe and bring it to him year by year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. And Eli would bless Al-Khanan, his wife, and say, the Lord give you descendants from this woman for the loan that was given to the Lord. Then they would go to their own home. And the Lord visited Hannah so that she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the child Samuel grew before the Lord. Now Eli was very old and he heard everything his sons did to all Israel and how they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. So he said to them, why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all the people. Know my sons, for it is not a good report that I hear. You make the Lord's people transgress. If one man sins against another, God will judge him. But if a man sins against the Lord, who will intercede for him? Nevertheless, they did not heed the voice of their father because the Lord desired to kill them. And the child Samuel grew in stature and in favor both with the Lord and men. Now before we look at Samuel, I wanna add to that look that we're having of his sons. So instead of looking at verses 18 through 21 immediately, I'm gonna take you into verse 22 and touch on something else here. These are the things that these corrupt sons are doing. Verse 22, Eli was very old. He heard everything his sons did to all Israel, how they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Eli was very old. According to chapter four, verse 15, Eli was 98 years old. That's very old, 98 years old. And his sons are of this condition. His sons are evil. It must have broken this old man's heart to have these evil sons. It's interesting, he didn't ignore their sins, but they ignored him. And you see that. He heard of what his sons are doing. He knew that they were guilty of it and adding to the sins of ripping off the people, adding to the sin of ripping off God, adding to the sin of causing people to disrespect and reject the things of God.  Exodus 38 verse eight speaks of these women as serving women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle. So these were men who would take advantage of the women who came there to serve God. Some believed that these women were assembled there for the purpose of devotion. Others believed that they were there keeping watch during the night, but whatever the case may be, these were women who were there serving at the tabernacle and these two men were taking advantage of them and using their power and authority to use them for their own lustful desires, lust in the ministry. Billy Graham was asked a long time ago, many years ago now, what kind of advice would you give to a young minister? What are the things that a young minister ought to be concerned about? And he said three things.  Those three things, less of flesh, less of the eyes and the pride of life, these are the things that they ought to be concerned about and guard themselves. They need to guard themselves from these kinds of things. These are the things that these men are involved in. They're greedy people because they're taking the offerings that don't belong to them. They're prideful people because they're bullying the people and saying you need to give that to us and they're lustful people because they're taking advantage of the women who are coming there to serve the Lord. Ministers need to have pure hearts. Pastors need to have pure hearts because many times the women who come to the church are vulnerable to them and they can use their power and they can use their authority and if they don't guard their heart, they might find themselves in a position that they ought not to have put themselves in. I know that and I know that very well. Our church began when, this church began when I was 30 years old and as a young man I knew that. I knew I had to guard my heart. I knew that I needed to be careful. As a matter of fact, I've been very careful with that all along and I remember when our church was young, it was about a year older so we used to meet in the Ontario Christian Elementary School and those of you who may be familiar with the school that they have their cafeteria that would seat a little over 200 people. I forget how many now but it was a small cafeteria and that's where we would meet on Sunday mornings and during worship I used to sit in the second row right in the center there, right on the aisle seat there and I would sit there in the second row and partake in the worship and then the bulletin would be read and then the announcement would be made, let's get ready to get into the word and I would at that point, I would just stand up and come walking up and actually go up the side and come in and then I'd stand behind the pulpit as I do now and I'd pray and we'd get into the word. I was doing that regularly but as I was there I would pray God I just want to have a good heart and all of that, that's what you do during worship. Well, I remember on one occasion I was there where I normally would be seated and directly in front of me was a blonde, long blonde curly hair, I still remember, shoulder length blonde curly hair and during worship I leaned forward and I had my face down and this person in front of me leaned forward and their shirt rose up and you could see the lacy underwear and I said, oh no, God, please, I don't need this, oh Lord, I'm gonna go up and teach and I closed my eyes and I said, oh Jesus, I don't need lust, oh Lord, I don't and I still remember, oh God, I kept my eyes closed the whole time during worship, I wouldn't even look in front of me and I was just saying, I hate to say this but Lord, may the worship in so I can get up there, I gotta get up there now, I don't want, oh this is terrible and I didn't even want to notice those underwear but I did and now what I feel, I feel dirty and I don't know if you've ever felt that, I sure did, oh Lord, I feel so dirty and closed my eyes, I went walking in front, I had to go in front and I closed my eyes when I walked by and I'm not gonna look at you and I remember walking up, walking up and closing my eyes and walking to the platform, you see, I have a habit to this day, I don't look at the front row, some of you, I'm looking at you now, I don't look at the front row when I teach, I never do because early days, sometimes the girls would sit there and sit in an immodest way and so I learned a long time ago just to look above their heads, I mean that's how I teach so I never look in the front row, never do, never do, it didn't sit modestly, some of the guys don't either but that's another story. But I come walking up and as I come walking up I'm saying, oh God and I had my eyes closed and I prayed and I started to teach and I said, let's open our Bibles too and I had to look in the direction and you can't imagine how I felt when I turned and looked at the person who had been seated in front of me, it was a guy, it was a man with lacy underwear, I even felt worse, if you can imagine that for a minute, oh Lord, I'm worse than I thought, there's a lacy guy in my church, his name was Linda, no, I, you know what, there's something in your heart that God is constantly dealing with that you yield to him, in ministry it is very easy to enter into improper relationships, it is, even if you're as ugly as a toad, the women think you are something special and that's the truth, they do. Oh, he loves his wife, he cries about her, he loves his family, I wish I had a man like that. And before you know it, they stop saying, I wish I had a man like that, they start saying, I am gonna have a man like that and before you know it, I'm gonna have that man and over the years, every minister knows that some get confused in their love for Christ and what you do and they confuse it with you, that's why I don't do counseling with women. I stand in the front and I'll pray, I'm always around other people, I will not even give an opportunity for something like that because for years I have sought the Lord, purity of heart is what keeps you qualified. You don't go after their money, you don't bully them and take from them what doesn't belong to you and you respect those women. That God taught us that a long time ago in his word, the sons of Eli didn't care, they didn't care. For them, they could live well, they could have the women, they could have it all and now their daddy, as Eli is saying, what are you doing? Your reputation, what you're doing has come to my ears, people are speaking about that. They're saying things that it's coming to me and what are we gonna do? And notice he says that in verse 23, why do you do such things? I hear of your evil dealings. Those kinds of sins aren't hidden for long. The people coming to Shiloh began to speak of them and they're being stumbled by what they're hearing, what they're seeing as a result of that, they're taking the law of the Lord lightly. He's causing, he says in verse 24, my sons, it is not a good report that I hear, you make the Lord's people transgress. What you're doing is you're ruining the work of God here. It's terrible what you're doing because of you. The name of God is being blasphemed. Now as a little boy, my mom, my mom loved my dad and my dad loved my mom very much and mama taught us to respect my father. My mom was one of these moms who taught you to respect the father. My mom never spoke down about my dad. My mom was just a very good wife to my dad in many, many ways. And she respected him highly and she taught us to do the same. I shared this with you before. Perhaps you might remember how I couldn't have been more in six or seven years of age. My brother, Frankie, being a couple of years older than Macy, he probably was about nine. Well, my parents were going to go visit some friends and we didn't want to go. They didn't have any kids.  They don't have any kids. There's no toys. It's just a backyard. You're standing there looking at each other. There's nothing to do. You get bored. And so we did not want to go. I still remember, I don't want to go. And the way we would make that known is just the way that we would act. My parents would see, you know, because we were taught that you didn't get smart with your parents. We didn't say things to them that were disrespectful. So we didn't know how to say anything other than, but we don't want to go. And then mom and dad said, no, we're going to go and visit. It's not going to be that bad. You know, we want to see our friends. They're going to go. Can't you leave us with somebody else? No, we're going to take you. So we climb in the car. I still remember this.  We didn't want to go. And we're sitting there like that. And my mom and dad, you know, they'd talk to you, well, boys, and we don't talk back or we say yes or no or just, you know, short answers.  I still remember pulling up in front of these people's houses.  And my mom leans over the seat and looks at my brother and me.  And she says, now, these are friends of ours and they respect your father. If you do anything that causes them to disrespect your father, I will deal with you. I still remember that to this day. I will deal with you. Okay, you know, and I still remember going in because my mom would have dealt with us. In Mexican homes have what you call a chancla. And we would have. This is a shoe man and you just don't want that. And my, you don't want that. And so we were good. Do you know that stuck with me into my Christian life?  It was a lesson my mom taught me about my earthly dad that the Lord has been trying to teach me about my heavenly father.  Don't live in such a way that the name of your heavenly father is rejected and disregarded and disrespected because of you, David.  Paul, when he was speaking to the Jewish nation in Romans chapter two, verse 24 said the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. And so when you don't live in such a way that brings honor to God, dishonor ensues. And so that's what he's doing. He's dealing with these sons who are ungodly and is causing this. And so that's why he says my sons is not a good report that I hear. You make the Lord's people transgress. Verse 25, if one man sins against another, God will judge him, but if a man sins against the Lord, who will intercede for him? Nevertheless, they didn't heed the voice of their father because the Lord desired to kill him. That's interesting how that's put there. You see, as a father, he loves them and he's actually very gentle in his rebuke. But he really doesn't deal with them as he ought to. One of the commentators that I use as I study wrote, he contended himself with a verbal rebuke and did not restrain them and inflict those punishments upon them which such high crimes deserved by God's law and which he as judge and high priest ought to have done without respect of persons. He let them get away with it. As a result of that, they ignored him. Nothing he said really mattered. And so God judged them. Now, I need to touch this. It says, nevertheless, in verse 25, they did not heed the voice of their father because the Lord had desired to kill them. What had happened is their hearts were hardened. They would not receive correction. And in as much as Eli would not bring the correction, God determined to do it himself. And what they were doing actually put them in a place of being guilty of receiving as punishment, capital punishment. And so God made the determination to bring justice on them even though the father refused to bring them under the law. And so God had made a determination, Eli is ignoring them, I won't. Now in contrast, you have a little boy by the name of Samuel. Notice verse 18, Samuel ministered before the Lord, even as a child wearing a linen e-fod or a fad. A linen e-fod is a picture of a priestly garment. So this is a picture of him, even from childhood, doing service to God there in the tabernacle. Moreover, his mother used to make him a little robe and bring it to him year by year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. So they were seeing him on at least a yearly basis. She'd come in, she'd give him a gift and she was watching him grow and still had influence in his life. And Eli would bless Alcanine, his wife, and say, the Lord give you descendants from this woman for the loan that was given to the Lord, then they would go to their own home and the Lord visited Hannah so that she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the child Samuel grew before the Lord. So you see that in verse 21, the child Samuel grew before the Lord and in verse 26, the child Samuel grew in stature and in favor both of the Lord and men. So what you have here is the same environment but different responses. He innocently goes about his duties while the others are sinful in theirs. And so what happens is in spite of the corrupt environment, Samuel matures and Samuel grows. He didn't grow cynical, he didn't reject God, he remained innocent of evil and in the same environment under the same conditions influenced by the same man, two sons became corrupt and one, a little boy grew up to serve the Lord. You can be raised in a home where the mom and dad may not even have stayed together or if they did, they hated each other and every day you hear hateful words and you see mean things happening and it's a painful, painful upbringing. And yet God grabs hold of your heart and teaches you lessons. And so you say to yourself when I get married and I want to, in spite of what I've seen, I wanna get married but I'm not gonna do that to my kids.  Come to Christ and be used by the Lord in a wonderful way and somebody says you must have been raised in a wonderful home and you have to say, well to be honest with you, God was not present in my home when I grew up, not through my parents but God's presence was there because I sought him out as a child and God worked in my life and made me different. Then there are others who are raised in an environment with a mom and a dad who do devotions and pray and seek the Lord and serve the Lord and go to church weekly and are committed fully and they say I want nothing to do with this, I don't want anything to do with God. I've seen both, I've seen both. I've seen those kids who were raised, I've known their parents. Seen them serve the Lord loving Jesus and prayed with them as they're saying my kids want nothing to do with God. I've seen it.   I have a friend whose mother had more than one husband and one of the men that she was with worked for the government.  He knew how to use mind games to control but if the mind game didn't work he knew how to inflict pain that would make you not wanna do anything wrong again for a long time and he would do that to this friend of mine. Mind games and physical torment.  Ultimately his mom though was institutionalized. And so she never really did know exactly what was going on with this man and his and her son. And as soon as this young man, this little boy grew into young man who had was able, he moved out of the house, he got out as fast as he could. He's a very brilliant, very brilliant man. It's a pastor now in a church up north but he had this pain in his heart. As he moved out of the house there was this aching and longing, this agony that he carried. But one day he heard the gospel and when he heard the gospel he gave his heart to Christ and began to serve the Lord. He made decisions that his wife would be treated well that his kids would be loved but he never forgot the man who used to torture him. He wanted him dead really. At least he was dead in his memory but word came to him that the man was dying, he was in the hospital and now he's a pastor, we go and visit him. And he has to think, will I or will I not go see this guy? Guy used to torment me. So he said the right thing to do would be to go see him. So he did.  He's dying there in this bed. And the first thing the man does when he sees him walk in is he says the thing that he used to say to him when he was a little boy to keep him afraid of him. He uses that phrase to him to try and control him even from his death bed. Well, my friend is a man at this point. This is a weak old man dying in this hospital bed. He's not afraid of him but he says the thought of what he said and how he said it brought back all those memories of the way this man would torment me and hurt me as a child. The fear that I grew up with in that home. So now he has a choice to make.  So he says he sat down next to him and he opened his mouth and spoke to this man. He hadn't seen him for a long time and he spoke to the man and he said to him, I want you to know I love you and I care about you. And I want you to know that you need the Lord Jesus Christ. And the man starts to speak to him. Are you kidding me? But he doesn't give up. He sees him again, sees him again and stays there with him. Finally, the man died after he held my friend's hand and prayed and asked Christ to forgive him of his sins. My friend who was raised in a home with no love, only pain, only hatred, physical torture found the newness of life that Christ can give. Others are raised in homes with the love of Christ and they never embrace it. And so as I was reading this, I made a notation to myself, what kind of son am I? I can be like the sons of Eli or I can be like this young one by the name of Samuel, of one who grows in favor with the Lord and men or one who causes people not to want anything to do with the Lord. That's the decision that I have to make. Which one will I be? As for me, I desire to be like a Samuel to know the Lord and to serve him, growing up in the same environment to different people. And I guess we should ask ourselves the question, which one of those are we? Which one are you? Father, I ask that you would work in us today. I ask that you would work in us today, Lord, that we might love you and serve you to fear you, to worship you, to know you, fellowship with you. I lift this to you. I lift this congregation that we, your church, might be truly Christians, that we would truly be born again, that our lives would truly reflect you in all that we do. I thank you, Lord, because many of us desire that. And I thank you, Lord, because many will decide for that today. Even as our eyes are closed and our heads are bowed, perhaps I have some in this room right now who need prayer. If you need to get right with the Lord right now, you need to. I wanna pray for you. Would you raise your hand? Let me pray for you right now, right where you're at. If you need to get right with the Lord right now. Father, you see these hands? You know the reason why they're being raised to you. You know what's inside of these hearts, Lord, and I'm asking that you would reach down now and touch them. I'm asking that they might unburden themselves and unload themselves of anything, Lord, that you're not pleased with even now and open themselves to your washing and cleansing by your blood, Lord, and through your word and by your spirit. And I'm asking that you would infill them even now. And may they even respond to you even now, Lord, as your Holy Spirit is now just invading their lives, Lord. Wash them and cleanse them and strengthen them from this day forward that they might serve you, Lord, with everything within them. As they receive from you, Lord, may they sense your presence now. Wash them of their sins, cleanse them from unrighteousness, fill them now, and may they serve you, Lord, from this day forward. You can put your hands down. And Jesus, I pray that you continue to work in all of us and walk with all of us now, bringing glory to yourself in your name, amen. Let's all stand. Amen, may the Lord bless and keep you and strengthen you and use you. If you have opportunity to come to evening services, I encourage you to do so. Get involved and serve the Lord. Let's pray and close with the song. Our Father, we ask that you'd work in us and we're about to leave this place and go into the mission field. May we be found faithful as we serve you. We give you praise. We give you honor in Jesus' name, amen. God bless you.


Good evening and welcome to the Private Property Podcast. I'm your host, Zaman Tumwa Khumalo. This is episode 18 of the Private Property Podcast and we're of course on day 41 of the National Lockdown. This evening's topic is quite an exciting one and I'm sure many of us are trying to find different ways that we can make money, especially if you've got a bond facility or more than one bond facility and that's exactly what we're going to be talking about. We'll be looking at the different ways that you can make money from your bond facility or you can access some of that money. And to help us better understand how we can do this, I'm joined in the line by Nundu Misso Kapai, who's the head of products at Apsa Home Loan. Nundu Misso, thank you so much for joining us this evening. Good evening. Good evening, thank you Zaman. Excited to be here and to be chatting about this topic. Thank you. I mean, a lot of us who've got home loan facilities want to find out how we can best maximize that facility, how we can make money from that facility or how we can even save money. I mean, oftentimes I hear a lot of people saying they would want to open as many home loan facilities as the bank would grant them because you're essentially able to maximize each facility as much as possible. But so many of us probably don't know what that even means or how to go about them. So I'd like us to first just start off with, have some of the key ways that people can actually make money from their respective bond facilities. Great, Zaman. So let's break it down and make it as simple as possible. So let's take a scenario. You are a home owner and you have a bond with the bank. There can be three ways in which you can access money from your home loan. The first one is called a Flexi Reserve and it goes through the detail as well. The second one is called a Re-Advance and then the third one is called a Further-Advance. So I'm going to start with the one that excites me and we're going to laugh about it because even as little as saving money from your coffee every day, it can make a huge difference. So simply a Flexi Reserve is when you pay extra over and above your normal monthly home loan installment, right? Now the benefit of doing that means that over time you can save on interest, okay? So as we know for a home loan, interest is calculated daily on the outstanding balance and it's capitalized monthly. Now I want to take a very simple example of Usama. Let's make an example where you might have a property and to the value of a million and you have bonded it over a 20 year period. Now you decide, hmm, I'm paying about at a rate, it's usually interest rate 7.75 and you are probably paying about 7,300 a month in terms of monthly installments. Now you decide actually, let me see if I can save at least a hundred bucks a month by putting it into my home loan. And I'm gonna play around with the calculator just to make it simple. So what it does, when I calculate that, it means over the term of that loan, the 20 years, you're actually saving over 30,000 grand in interest. But now let's take it further. Saving on interest is one thing, but you can actually then access the extra payments that you are making monthly to your home loan. And you can access it in easy ways from a banking point of view, it could be you simply transacting between your check account and your home loan account through this facility, either via the banking app or via internet banking. So it's as simple as that. If we think about a flexi reserve and just paying a little bit extra. Obviously the more you put in and as often as you can, the better that you are able to save more on interest and also the benefit of having to tap into the extra funds when a rainy day does come along. I do think the other important aspect is obviously with regards to interest rates, right? So when interest rates do go down, one would then think about, can I keep my monthly instalments the way they are? Because that extra bit becomes your additional funds that you would then be putting into your home loan, which you can access at any point in time. So that's something that's a flexi reserve, yeah. And with the flexi reserve, so we're saving on the interest. So if you had that one million rent bond essentially and you're putting in just an extra 100 grand, you're saving above 30,000 rats. With that option, are you able to, does that also have an impact on your loan term? Because when oftentimes when people pay extra, we say to you would have saved 30,000 rands on interest and you would have lessened the term from 20 years down to let's say 17 years or whatever the term would be affected. Does the flexi reserve option also reduce the loan term essentially as you're paying that extra money? Yeah, absolutely. So it does have an impact on term and the example that we use, and I'm gonna play around with let's say 900,000. And again, you put in 100 grand and at a rate of 7.75, you would save on seven months. So it brings back seven months. I mean, it's as simple as that. I mean, if we care around with different values for somebody who's looking at a 1.5 because I really wanna make it real to those that are listening and you put in let's say 500 grand a month, you are saving over 147,000 rands in interest. And then the term to your point, Summer, it means you're bringing back 20 months in terms of the benefit that you'll see by just paying a little bit extra on a monthly basis into your home loan. And I actually want to encourage our viewers at home to play around with that home loan calculator. I, it's one of my favorite tools to play around with. I mean, I think if anything, you sometimes even able to see if you put in a once-off amount, so let's say you're just putting in 2,000 rand once-off, how much would you have saved is able to tell you that kind of data. So sometimes maybe you don't want to commit to an extra habit of drag. And it might be because you don't have it. I mean, we're currently going through really difficult times financially. So you might not have that little bit extra, but you might have just that 2,000 rand. So if you put it in there, already you can see just by putting it in here, this is how much I would have essentially saved or I would have shaved off, whether it's a month or two months of my bond payment. And again, one of the things that you mentioned that so many of us, I hope are taking advantage of, especially since we've had the interest rate decrease. And so many of them this year is that every time the interest rate decreases, you keep the loan payment the same. So sometimes it literally means calling your bank and saying, hi, please keep it the same. I mean, my bond payment was 7,000 rand. I know we've just had a reduction. So maybe now it might be 6,800, but I actually wanted to stay the same because it would have already budgeted for that 7,000.  So it's already in your normal monthly expenses. So you don't need access really to that additional 200 or whatever the funds are. So I do urge our viewers at home to actually make sure that as we keep getting the decreases and maybe there might be another one. I mean, a lot of us who have home loans would love to see another interest rate cut to just make sure that you call the bank and you just ask them to let it remain the same. And it does have quite a long, a big impact in the long run. So that's the first one. So that's the flex series reserve. You mentioned the re-advance. How does that happen? Okay. So a re-advance simply means that we're gonna use Yuzama again. Let's say you have a million rent property. Over time, you've paid it down to 800,000.  Can I access the difference? So literally, I would like to take my home loan back to the original loan amount that was granted. And it's as simple as that. And I guess here, the difference is that we are gonna look at a credit assessment. We are gonna credit assist the application as it comes through to ensure that again from an NCA perspective, that you are able to afford. Now, the re-advance product does not require any registration at the D's office because it's simply taking what you have already by this time and taking it back to the original home loan amount that was granted when you got the bond initially. It's as simple as that. And often, I mean, I can imagine different people would have different reasons for doing this, but what have you found? Are some of the reasons why somebody would want to take the loan amount back? Is it maybe to finance another property or you just need that cash for whatever purposes that you might want to use it for? Yeah. So as a bank, obviously we wouldn't dictate what customers should do with their money, but typically, home owners would want to renovate and would want to access that cash to make changes to their homes or to renovate or do anything special to their homes. But also it's about being able to access the funds for anything. It could be a rainy day or it could be to purchase other assets and it could be for wealth creation purposes. So really it's up to the individual or the home owner as they decide based on their dreams and goals around what they would want to do with those funds. I think as a bank, we're here to enable to really make those dreams possible for home owners. And I like that idea that you have access to additional funds or funds that you would have already sort of paid up because you now have a bit of equity in your own property. On this readvance with that, essentially also includes, suppose you put down a significant deposit. So say, and that's one million rent property, Zama seems to have a lot of those in our scenarios that one million rent property, I put down 100,000 rent and now I've paid, let's say I've paid an additional 200 over the years. So I essentially have 300,000 rents that I can access. So am I also able to essentially access the deposit component that I paid at the beginning of the term? So it sounds like so we're talking a couple of things. So obviously as you pay your deposit when you've applied, remember there's a loan to value component. So it obviously reduces the amount that you're asking from the bank. I think let's probably separate those. But if you are saying you are paying more and more into your home loan, it takes us back to a situation where you've got those prepaid funds because they'll still be there, right? And it also means that you sit with the readvance benefit as well. So you can actually access both in a way as you pay more. So I just wanted us to separate the initial deposit because that brings down the amount that you're borrowing from the bank but also recognizing the fact that whatever you put in, extra over and above still becomes available and you still get that benefit from an interest point of view and a term. But also it means that what you're owing is less and you can still go back after that original amount that you would have borrowed initially. So I'm going to stay on this one just a little because I've heard people play around with their bonds in interesting ways that I think that's amazing. And it's always great to learn about the different ways that people play around with their bond. So in the event, again, where it's this one million rent property, of course, if I've got the 10% deposit, the odds would have been that the bond that's registered is 900,000 rents. So I'm simply asking, I still have that 100,000 and I want the, I mean, I still have that 100,000 and I want the bond to still be registered at one million rent, even though I'm going to deposit that 100,000 rents. So I know that the bond that's registered, so the Deed's office has it as that one million and I know that the facility in its entirety is still going to be a million, are still deposits that 100,000 after that million rent has been registered, just so from the bank's perspective, I also have a decent road to value, but essentially I want to make sure that, I want to now essentially establish, once I've paid the additional 200,000, let's say I'm able to get there after four years, can I, do I now have access to 300,000 rents or will I only have access to just the 200,000 and not that other 100,000? That was essentially the deposit component. So I love the question because it's taking us into a space where I know some would call it a future bond, where you register a higher bond amount. It's definitely, you can do it. And I guess the benefit, Summer, is that you would pay the cost of registering a higher bond at that point in time. And you can come back, Summer, you're right. You can come back and request for money up to that, above, above, up to that million, whatever that bond has been registered at the Deed's office and you can access that. Certainly, we call it a future bond within the EPSA home loan space and it can be done. Those that can do it, at the point of registering a bond, it is a good thing. And because then it means you won't have to pay those costs to take a bond higher up. Yeah. Before we go to the third one, Nundumi, so you mentioned when we started this conversation that that third one is the future advance. Actually, I want you to take a quick break. We were already getting lots of questions from our viewers at home. Remember, if you have any questions for Nundumi, so do send them through and we'll be sure to address them shortly. We'll be just back just after the short break. This evening, I'm joined by Nundumi Sokapai, who's the head of products at EPSA Home Loans and we're talking about how to use your home loan to access money. And I'm sure that so many of us probably want to be able to access money into our home loans, especially if you've been paying extra. The two different ways that you can access money that Nundumi so mentioned just before the break was the Flexi Reserve and then the second one. And the Flexi Reserve, of course, is when you pay in a little bit extra, whether it's a 100 grand a month or 500 grand a month or whatever little that you have, you essentially will be able to have access to those funds in the future. So every time you have a little bit of spare change, only it's just thrown into your home loan account. It never goes wasted. It really does go a long way.  And then the second one is the re-advance. And of course that re-advance is, if you've already, let's say, paid 200 grand, I mean, 200,000 rands into a one million grand bond and you now want to have access or you want to bring your bond back to a million grand, then you're essentially able to do that. So you'll have access to that 200,000 rands. And of course, Apsa is going to make sure that they still do a credit check to make sure that you're essentially still able to afford that amount. And in the event that you do, then you'll have access to those funds. The third one that we're going to go through right now is further advance. No, no, Miss, if you can take us through what a further advance is and how that one works and how people can essentially make money from that option as well. Okay, great. So a further advance means that we're looking at, you can then apply to access the equity in your property by simply then accessing that difference. So let's take Zama's example where the property is now worth 1.5. It means now Zama is looking at increasing her original bond from one million to 1.5. And it means that at the Deeds office we'll be registering the higher bond amount. And that's when we talk about unlocking equity based on the market value of the property that would have gone up. And it doesn't tell Zama the credit assessment from the bank. It's fundamentally different from a flexi reserve, which is obviously where you pay extra. And here we would need to look at whether you would be able to afford the higher bond amount. I do know that before the break, we also spoke about the future bond component. So here we assume that obviously you hadn't registered the higher bond, but now you're simply asking, I do want a higher one, but obviously it is going to be based on the increased market value of your property. I was actually about to ask that if the market value is taken into consideration, but also then that means that there are also bond registration costs because you are now essentially registering a higher bond than what you previously had to register. Okay, and just a quick one, I don't know if our viewers at home would probably find this beneficial. Are there instances, because I've heard some people say that they're able to get their banks to do this, but have there been instances certainly from Axis perspective where those bond registration costs are able to be absolved within the loan facility itself? So if the bond registration, let's say it's going to cost 20,000 rands, instead of the person paying the attorney's direct, that amount be put, that cost essentially be affected into the loan amount. So let's say the loan instead of it being 100,000, I mean, one million rand, it ends up being a million and 20,000 rands. Is that something that Axis sometimes does with clients who are getting that bond facility? Yeah, so it really depends on the proposition that we would have put out in the market and we'll review our proposition from time to time. And we have always looked at what the bank can put in on behalf of the customer. So in some cases, based on campaigns here, I'm talking about proposition campaigns where we would go out and say to our existing customer that if you do want to access equity, we do have an offer where we as a bank will put in a certain amount towards the registration costs. And then as a customer, you would only have very little to put in. So again, it depends from time to time what propositions we run as a bank to assist customers and to fulfill the needs of our customer's dreams. And that really is quite a great way to unlock value and equity into your property because I can imagine, especially after last year when in Johannesburg, when you saw COJ doing the rates and evaluating the different properties and people saw some of the value of their properties going higher. And also people had quite a number of complaints because it obviously affects the actual rates that you pay the municipality. But I think for some, it probably then makes a good business case to then approach your bank to say, well, when I bought this property, it was valued at one million Rand. COJ has now come and they're estimating that it's now currently valued at 1.8 million Rand. And suppose you actually do qualify for that high up on the amount, you essentially would have unlocked that value. And maybe if you want, you can use those funds whatever purpose that you'd actually want to use it for. So we have been receiving quite a lot of questions and comments from our viewers at home. And remember, if you've got any questions, you're more than welcome to send it through and we'll be addressing them. The first one that I'm going to ask is from, from Unzalama, Monele, who asks, if you aren't working anymore, can you really access the funds? And this is, of course, in reference to, let's say the Flexi reserve where you've already paid in all those additional funds over the years, perhaps you are affected by the current retrenchments that are taking place and you're now no longer working, will a customer be able to essentially access those additional funds that they've paid over the years? That's a brilliant question because it opens up another conversation. But let's start with, I'm no longer working and I've had prepaid funds. So let's assume that you did not fall into our rears, right? Because there are cases where if you do fall into our rears and the prepaid funds will be used to pay the arrears and to bring you up to date. So let's assume you're not in our rears and you found yourself in a situation where you're no longer working, you can access those funds. But then again, Zama, I would then say, rather approach the bank, have a conversation around your situation because there are various solutions that we've got in case to assist customers that find themselves in that situation and we look at different, whether it's a short-term plan, long-term plans for bearing plans, those plans are there. Why I like the question, I like it because it leads us into a payment relief that was launched by Epsa Bank end of March, which looked at how to assist customers during the current context that we find ourselves in as a country. So, and I'm gonna bring it home to a home loan because we're talking bonds tonight. So simply that relief program says, you can defer payments up to three months, for three months, which means that you won't be paying. However, we will continue to charge interest and fees during that period and capitalize. And then at the end of the three-month payment relief, what we will do as a bank, we will then look at you individually and understand what loan term do we need to apply to enable you to pay almost the same amount that you were paying before the payment relief. And I'm glad because the question was raised because it's another way that we as a bank are looking at assisting customers to find themselves in a very difficult situation given where we are as a country. And another question coming in is coming in from Bong Sebagwe, and I've asked, so if you re-advanced, do you get a new term to pay back or do you have to pay the money back in the original term agreed when you first took the bond? So it depends. Remember, we will credit assess it and calculate what is required based on your individual profile. So I don't want to give a standard answer to that, but we will credit assess, and that's why it's important for both products. Re-advance, further advance. When you apply, we look at your own individual affordability and based on that, we're able then to determine what is required in terms of the monthly payments in the term. And then another one coming in is what are the implications of refinance on investment property when it comes to tax seeing that interest that you pay on the bond date is tax deductible? So that's an interesting one. And where it comes to tax, I would really say that is where you need to approach the bank and talk to a tax consultant to understand the implications, especially where you have several properties and what it means to you as an individual. Okay, so if you are, of course, tuned in, do you send in more of your questions? These are really good questions. We've got another one coming in from Sian and Nanga who asked, under re-advance, will the term go back to the original 20 years or remain where it is, including the monthly repayment? So let's take an example. If the term was to remain where it is, of course the implication would be that you would have to pay slightly higher. So, and I think that's an important principle to learn is that the shorter the term, the more you're asking for, the slightly higher it is and obviously considering interest. So, and I'll go back to say, when you do apply, we will look at your own individual application and understand what the new installment will be and the new term. Okay, another question coming in, these are really great questions. I can see a lot of us are into property. We've got different bond facilities and we're really trying to find the different ways that we can unlock some cash in those respective facilities, whether we've been paying extra or whether perhaps you want to have an equity stake or a bigger equity stake in our respective properties. Another one, and this is for somebody who wants a foot into the property letter, is coming in from Zwa Tabeete who asks, how can he apply for a home loan? So where would be the starting point if you wanted to apply for an absolute home loan? So, obviously, if I think about where we are today, the current context, you can apply online on our website, app.co.za. You can also reach us and contact us through our call center line, which is the 0860-21007 line, or you can approach the branch to then engage and apply for a home loan. On the website, we've got all the relevant information. And I guess one of the big ones, Zama, if I can, is talk about the home loan estimator tool that we've got, which will help the aspiring home owner to calculate and get a view of what they're likely to get from a bank if they were to apply. When you go through that home loan estimator process, we will look at your credit profile at that point in time. We will ask you for your income and your experiences to understand your affordability, and we will score it and give you an offer. And you can then use that to go shopping for a home within your affordability. And I think it's a great tool because you don't have to submit an application. Simply go in, in under 10 minutes, you can get a view of what the bank is likely to give you should you apply for a home loan from us. And it really is such a great tool. I think more than anything, it also not only does it help you in terms of how much a bank is willing to potentially give you in a home loan, but it also helps scale down your search. So instead of viewing a two million rent house, you know that perhaps you only qualify for max 1.5. Maybe you should be looking at a property that's around 1.2 to 1.4. So it even helps you in your home search and make sure that you're not too off the mark as you start putting together those pictures on your vision board around the property that you want. So before I let you go, any other tips for our viewers at home around how they can best maximize home loan facilities that they have? Thank you. So let's go back to the Flix Reserve. I would say start with a goal. And if your goal is towards a particular investment at some point in time, or it's a holiday or you wanna renovate your home, start with a goal. And it's about understanding your own budget and trimming on unnecessary luxuries if you have the goal. And saying every little bit counts. Anything that you put in ultimately will become a benefit to you from an interest point of view from a savings and then secondly from a term perspective. And then thirdly, it's about the ability to access those extra funds should you need to even for a rainy day. And I guess the last one around Flix Reserve is that if you have a transactional account with the bank, it makes it so much easier to transact between your home loan and your check account. You can easily put in more using the banking app or the internet banking or you can draw out as and when you require. So that would be the tips. And then around the re-advanced and the further advanced again, it's about understanding your own affordability at that point in time. The two options do mean that we will look at a credit assessment to understand whether your affordability is sufficient for us to grant you that additional credit. And again, from time to time as a bank we will look at different propositions we do launch campaigns where in some cases you are able to pay a certain portion of the registration costs when it comes to a further advance. And then the last one Zama, if I can is also around when you do apply for a bond the first time as a homeowner or property investor. If you are able to register a higher bond amount you can and that can be done. And then further down the line should you need to access those extra funds then you will find that you will not have to incur the costs associated with registering a higher bond amount. And to sum it off, I mean as a bank we're here to enable dreams and really going back to the question around, I'm no longer working what should I do? There is a payment relief program that we have launched as a bank and it's there to help you as a homeowner for the period in which you might find yourself being under a lot of strain financially. Approach us, we're there to help all the information is on our website. And of course if you want to find out more information on that you can go to www.apsa.co.za and they're more than happy to help. Nundumisa, thank you so much for joining us this evening. That's Nundumisa Tapai who's the head of products at Apsa Home Loans. And we've of course been looking at the different ways that you can access money using your home loan facility. We're back again tomorrow evening. I hope that you'll be staying home and staying safe and of course if you want to catch up on some of our older episodes if you've missed any, you can always go back right here on Facebook or go onto YouTube to look at the past episodes. Until tomorrow evening, stay home and stay safe. Thank you Nundumisa.


you happen to be watching this. This is Jim at the House at Poot Corner at Orchimedia and this is interview number three with Philip Kraske and he is the author of 11 Nine and the Terrorist Who Loved Banzai Trees. I say that slowly because you probably it's a it's a tongue twister. 11 Nine and the Terrorist Who Loved Banzai Trees and my book review of this wonderful book is at vermontindependent.net so if you go to vermontindependent.net and type in my name something like that or 11 Nine and the Terrorist Who Loved Banzai Trees or Philip Kraske you will be able to read the review that I wrote of this of this fun and exciting and very important book. Philip asked me as a kind of preview to this particular interview to give you a little bit of an update on the activities either in the United States or elsewhere where the 9-11 truth movement called truthers for some reason the 9-11 truth movement is still making an effort to bring certain aspects of 9-11 to court and they have to be very careful. One reason is that the FBI has decided that 9-11 truthers could be considered terrorists. Now where they draw the line of course is entirely up to them but if you bring something to bear as a 9-11 truther that has already been established I don't see how the FBI is going to find a way in and on the other hand if you bring something to bear that's completely ridiculous they'll love that because then it makes truthers look all the more silly. I mean for example what if a 9-11 truther came up with the idea that some guy in a cave defeated the entire military apparatus of the United States and caused buildings to collapse symmetrically when they had had asymmetrical damage and shut down the the FAA effectively and caused the FAA to destroy evidence and caused FEMA to destroy evidence I mean a theory like that I suppose the FBI would love that because it's absolutely idiotic so it's interesting to me that the FBI took the steps to announce that truthers could be subjected to a prosecution through terrorism through domestic terrorism and as you probably know if you're watching this that means whatever they want it to mean at the time and it means it's secret so we will talk a little bit about that with Philip Kraski but here's the latest development from the 9-11 truth contingent and this is tiny print I couldn't make it any bigger and it it's hard to read but let me it's important so I'll try to give you some of this. Two fire districts in New York are demanding a reopening of the 9-11 investigation to sum it up they know that explosives were used and they are demanding a real investigation that has every incident and every crime called to account this is new news they just released the following statement the Franklin Square and Munson fire to fire district 9-11 resolution says whereas the attacks of 9-11 2001 were inextricably and forever tied to the Franklin Square and Munson fire department of New York I'm sorry there's a there's a gap in this so it's difficult to piece it together and Thomas J. Herzl badge 290 of Hook and Ladder company the Munson fire department was killed in performance of his duties along with 2976 other emergency responders and civilians and whereas members of the Munson fire department were called upon to assist in the subsequent rescue and recovery operations and cleanup of world trade center site afflicting many of them with illnesses as a result of breathing the deadly toxins present at the site and whereas the board of fire commissioners of the Franklin Square and Munson fire department recognize the compelling nature of the petition before the united states attorney for the southern district of New York reporting unprosecuted federal crimes at the world trade center from 9-11 2001 and calling upon the united states attorney to present that petition to a special grand jury pursuant to the united states constitution etc in said petition said petition demonstrates beyond any doubt that pre planted explosives and and other incendiaries were used and not just airplanes now I did I forget whether it was two or three programs with those people bringing forward the grand jury petition so we will give you further updates as to the success or denial of the petitions and the work of these two fire departments to bring things forward I said when I first heard about the grand jury effort and I interviewed the wonderful people who were bringing that forward I told them that in the past any evidence whatsoever that would obviously lead back to certain parties would be excluded no matter how difficult it was no matter how legally impossible it seemed that evidence would be excluded if it came right to the heart of the Bush administration the deep state and Israel and I particularly mentioned Israel because they were the only party actually caught everything else is you know we we know that Osama bin Laden couldn't do it we know this happened we know that happened but the only people actually caught and well described in the in the newspaper coverage at the time the only people caught were Israelis and Chertof made sure that that got taken care of and they got sent back to Israel so here we are today in a situation where the evidence is coming it's not new but it's finding its way into the court system into the legal system and so as a journalist I'm interested in seeing how that evidence is either ignored or buried or swept aside just as other evidence has been swept aside in the past and I primarily today want to talk about this wonderful book but then Philip Kraski and I will tell you a little bit about the importance of the historical importance of certain events over the years in this country 9-11 being the one we're going to focus on to me it shows a little bit about me and that I'm not married to the idea of the United States government is always good it always has good intentions that is to say and it sometimes makes mistakes I think that's an idiotic idea and we can talk about that today I have seen in my questioning of officials in the past that they simply no matter what no matter what kind of evidence is possible they will not look at it privately publicly ever they simply will not look at the evidence and that's a combination of willing ignorance and it's also involves the cover-up of evidence that will lead in the wrong places so these people just pretend whether it's you know Bernie Sanders or anybody they just pretend that the whole concept of 9-11 truth is carried out by questionable people who have nothing better to do and not by patriots who would give their lives for the truth to come out and for the guilty people to be prosecuted so with that rather long introduction I will ask Philip Kraski to tell us a little bit more about himself because you may have missed the first two interviews we did and also tell us give us his own introduction to 119 and the terrorist who loved bonsai trees okay take it away Philip well thank you Jim it's good to be on with you again um anyways just briefly the the story which I don't want to go into too much because we've talked about it previously but I'll just give you a brief rundown um 119 and the terrorist who loved bonsai trees is a a thriller and it starts when Trudy who is a conservative quiet statistician arrives at her new company a digital marketing firm to start her first day of work the company is in a converted brownstone in jersey city which is right across the river from Manhattan she goes in and she sees these paramilitary guys all over the place and a bunch of dead people laid out in the living room one of the militaries try paramilitaries tries to grab her but she manages to get away 20 minutes later a car with six terrorists who just botched their job of planting a bomb in the empire state building pulls up to the same house with the police on their tail they run inside a hostage standoff begins the hostages now ostensibly being the employees of the company well this ends badly and the majority of the terrorists are discovered to be Iranian well the US now wants to go to war with Iran so what we have is actually a false flag op that ends in war with Iran which might sound familiar so on one side the story is about Trudy now presented to the public as one of the terrorists running from the people chasing her because she knows that the whole event was staged and on the other side is paul clippen an american state department official who's trying to keep a deep state cabal from starting war with Iran um and i'll give your listeners a hint jim trudy and paul have met before okay anyways that's what the book is about and uh i uh bow in april and i've been quite happy uh sort of a steady trickle of sales that's good and even some of my some of my old books my my previous four titles have uh awakened a little interest so that's uh that's good news so and anyways as to me i i live in uh a little town a little village that goes back two thousand years north of madrid about 50 yards down the street from where i live there are also there is some of these old ones uh from 2000 years ago uh just down the street from where i live so well anyways how's that how's that for an intro well thank you it's romantic is what it is it is romantic back also about a thousand years it was actually put up by the uh arab state as the entrance to their mosque and they could from the top it's about oh i would say about seven stories high and it commands a view from the bell tower way up high it's quite a it's quite an interesting town hmm well it's compelling now i now i really want to go there so yeah that's the nice thing about spain you know it's one of the reasons i really like cycling every five seven miles you've got a little town that you know goes back a thousand years or so and uh beautiful way well i'm i'm glad it's still there yeah i absolutely i lived near i lived in bezelsault france for a while and we were near some charming places like that like pantalier and other small towns in france where the stone homes were built up along the river and so you you couldn't have a more picturesque and romantic lifestyle than to live in a stone home built you know a thousand or hundreds of years ago on a crystal clear river that flows through your little town um yeah yeah that's the nice thing about spain and france the whole the whole country is just one huge museum and you can just go forever just looking at things now yeah but hopefully it can remain that way but that's another topic all together so uh as far as the book is concerned one of the things that you will learn reader gentle reader is that the players on both sides of the table whether they're trying to create war with iran which is on one side or whether they are trying to stop war with iran which is on the other side everyone in the book knows that it is absolutely pointless to bring factual evidence to the media and i i can't emphasize strongly enough that it goes without saying to these people they know that the everybody in the book knows that the deep state and the media are if not exactly the same thing they are married closely and so the protagonists the good guys and the heroes have to do what they do knowing that and there's no preaching about it there's there's no lesson it's just a given in the book and i certainly appreciate that because in real life you meet people who seem to be still enamored of the mainstream press and the mainstream and the alternative media for that matter many of them because such things as what actually happened on 9 11 are never ever mentioned other than to reinforce the lie that we were told on 9 11 the lies about the four disappearing planes and the other fantastical events that occurred are accepted now as legend and myth and there's no point in saying anything about them which makes this legal effort uh which gives a certain amount of importance to the legal effort because there are people higher up as you go throughout the legal system who are also well aware that any move they make in the direction of 9 11 truth could be career ending that's real life that's not just what happens in the book and we know that because i have since i followed this and i've reported it and i've interviewed people whose careers have been ended i'm well aware of the power of that lie and how important it is for them to maintain that lie and so i'm going to ask philip a question that he and i have been sort of playing with which is the importance of 9 11 historically and not just the importance of the event but the importance of the ramifications of the event so if that wasn't too convoluted a question i'll turn it over to philip avoids 9 11 and you know something uh what i i've seen a month not just that they avoided but the mainstream reporters really resent the truthers because the truthers essentially have scooped them they have gotten to the story and the reporters haven't and they don't want to admit that in the second place the the truthers have the freedom to really go after the truth and reporters mainstream reporters i'm talking about here they do not have that freedom and they resent it because they know they know that there's more to this story than they've been able to report and of course 9 11 is the biggest the biggest mass uh massacre uh in american history even just a massacre of civilians of people uh just at work going about their jobs it's probably the biggest crime in american history um and yet reporters cannot go there and i think that's one reason that they hate the truthers the other thing is that reporters generally are conservatives in the sense that they are real believers in the system and they don't want to rock the boat you see all those reporters going after the the uh stories of behind the candidates and this and that and they really believe in this system of finding out the truth and the candidates and an election and a democracy and they don't want to rock the boat and they don't want to offer a story that says well this whole thing has really been a lie so anyways that's uh my point about that as to as to 9 11 in history um it's um i would say there are two things that are are really at play the first is in the classic decline of america the classic decline of empire than america's following 9 11 marks the beginning of the drive for power of the military security sector this is this is my opinion they are replacing the rich plutocracy that to a large extent began with the ring and administration that's when really the divergence and income equality really started to take off in the 60s and 70s 50s there the income equality was really not so bad in america but in the 80s it really took off and now what we're seeing is uh the plutocracy which is the next to last step in the decline of empire being followed by a military dictatorship and this is the the military security sector now taking over the country from forms of democracy are always kept in place now you see this very clearly with the homeland security department which is now the third largest uh with defense um and second then completely changed the conversation before we had communism and now we have terrorism which suits the the deep state much more because as you were talking about before jim terrorism is a ghost terrorism is whatever you you want it to call whatever you want to call it's essentially a ghost any this is why we have homeland security which is placed on top of the cia fb i et cetera that we have but this is as i say to me 9 11 of course well and to pick up on what you said about terrorism being a ghost that way they get to invent the scenario continually over and over again and the the to me the fact that terrorism is an invention for that purpose is a something that angers me every time i think about it angers me no end because it it it changed the conversation but it changed the way we all live it changed the way we fly on an airplane it changed the way we we walk into a building it changed everything and it was all created with the myth of 9 11 and so it's so important to keep the idiots the sheep the way that you want to keep them if you can't maintain that myth then maybe there'll be a few more sheep who step out of the flock and more a few more people who are thinking about what actually happened to them and and to me that includes the monetary system the web of debt hegemony over everything and the taking over of territory the slaughter of pallets palestinians sort of fits into that too and the number of americans you find who think it's perfectly okay for israel to slaughter palestinians because and they give you the quote you know they give you the same old crap no matter what the evidence is israel has a right to defend itself end of discussion for them that's that's it so that there are a lot of ends of discussions for these people because they're incapable of following the logic to the next step now we have one minute left so philip uh what do you have to say about that has ever asked why destroy the buildings why not just ram the ram the two buildings with is just what you're talking about jim you had to really terrify the country so you had to bring the the buildings down they had to with you know the risk of of detection and so on and so they had to mine the buildings with explosives and that was really the point that was going to terrify people and it worked very well one thing you have to say about the people who did 9 11 they had a lot of vision and uh that's uh when you look at it very carefully like that it was very carefully planned and very carefully brought off yeah and they knew that they had the media behind them all the way no matter how badly they got caught the media would cover up for them well nine seconds left thank you everyone for listening and uh hopefully we will be back with part four thank you


Background the Clinical and Translational Science Award, CTSA, institutions are increasing development of training programs in community-engaged research. CENR to support translational science dot methods this study sampled posters at CTSA national meetings to identify CENR training approaches, topics and outcomes dot results qualitative analysis of 30 posters reveal training topics and outcomes focused primarily on CENR capacity building, overcoming barriers, systems change and sustainability dot conclusion further research should focus on development and results of CTSA CENR training program metrics. This article was authored by Linda Zeegan, Lucinda Navarez, Thelma Hurd and others.


Alright man, could they just knock somebody from Chaba's universe out now? I think he needs to be taken down a notch. Ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the channel My name is Jack the Buster, I am Shinobi, but you're on episode 101 of Dragon Ball Super and the Tournament of Power is getting spicy! KO has gone Super Saiyan Hulk and it kind of backfired, but it also showed us how I kind of outmatched Goku is against her in a sort of way I mean it's unbridled power so she can't really control it But we also got a sort of a peek at how strong Jiren is and for some reason after witnessing that Goku approached him It's that Saiyan pride, baby. That being said we're gonna hop into this one see what goes down if you're new to the channel Don't forget to drop us up and let's get started You killed everyone Kale That smile No, no, no you need to you need to torment her mind so she does it again if you only praise her she'll never do it This is messed up. Oh my goodness. This is a terrible idea Oh Buddy Goku, I think you're gonna need at least blue man that this guy's stronger than Toppo. Oh Speak of the devil He's coming to back up his teammate Am I cheering for the pride troopers maybe a little bit Wait what oh A team of five pride troopers versus Goku What is there someone underground what go who just got buried There's no way you can't be serious. Oh my goodness five pride troopers casserole and the tiny guy Wait, they changed it. They changed the pronunciation casserole Tupper. What's a little guy's name? The name is Zoyre. Zoyre. Look at how small his boots are Co-cot? Cock? Okay, Kettle's just kind of creeping me out. This is actually just discount getting you, bro The smoke Ah, the pride troopers versus the three Saiyans. You both might want to hang back.  It'd be nice of them Kale is just She acts like one sure man if you want to fight the more the merrier was this how was she? Zuprico, what was that name?  How do you not accidentally kill people?  Where is everyone the gang broke up that hard Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. Oh, what has he been doing? Oh my goodness. He killed one of the bodybuilders Dang bro, he's already out as fatigue sets in contestants are more likely. Yeah make mistakes, too What's Goku doing massive explosions? What are you doing to Goku? Oh, okay. Okay, that's never mind What oh, he's like that girl with the annoying laugh in one piece That's kind of cool. Actually Tupper like Tupperware. That'd be hard to fight against What is already doing shadow boxing? He's just drilling into Goku Why does he ask that? He's not running away. He's dodging bro. I was when did he make though? was Was he like forming them as he was dodging oh Here's cocott cocott zone Okay, what happens there just for you from which you won't wait just nullifies her Castor all though Dimensional illusionist sounds excessive to me just to handle these three measly opponents He's just gonna kick him right in the butt man. Oh boy 17. I'm expecting big things from the androids So what does castle Raleigh do? He seems more like a commander than anything Ah here he goes That's kind of cool She has her hands in her coat bro They got they got to have really good teamwork even though they haven't seen each other for a long time They're like on the same wavelength Like gosh man So it's not like justice flash. He just uses energy as different weapons I mean just as flash is kind of like a key blast a lot of key blasts. Yep. There's the invincible shield That's kind of a thing Goku Yeah, 18 freeing him What are you just taking these hits? Oh, no, there he goes Why do they adds like there's like villains I get to the pride for burst but Justice spin low guy Don't underestimate Zorae. What? What he didn't turn into a tire Oh my god, bro Where does she go? Oh My goodness wait, he can just grow and wait, but why did he not just increase his weight? There's no way. Oh by his toes Please go go. He's my favorite. Let's go. He lives the fight another day.  Let me just murder them in How is that possible isn't this place like dimensionless like this this this place that they're fighting in I guess you could create in that which is not a dimension There's gonna murder these two sands put them on the brink and then toss them out Oh hang on Is she just punching him that was this well that was the plan punch Zoey raised tornado kind of but that's okay.  I don't think she's busting out. Oh Wait, she's in control and buff. She's reached enlightenment. I Saw it to cheer for the pride troopers. I'm sorry. They have Zoey Ray What a line a Beam flash big beam clash She's focusing it into her leg. Oh, she is up. No everything. She's gonna be whole but in control Dog if she's in control of it, then she's like one of the heaviest hitters of the tournament Even though Jiren just one-shot her Old source suit is that what we're calling it? Dude they're being together looks sick like the spiral No shots. Oh my gosh wait the girls not there though. There was only three Boy dang bro. They got to be kind of gas though after that. No Just standing there silently I guess that's like her. Oh, yep gas like Goku grab her and throw her out Oh, there she is Okay, so much for that man the bride troopers low-key disappointing What did I say though the others would be cannon fodder besides our main but I spent it more from Casarale So they have Toppo Jiren Dispo and who hey last chance. Are you sure about letting you're letting them walk away? You two are gonna keep getting stronger. They're not it's either your universe or theirs Oh my god, brother. There's no way I get it's like a respect thing man But like we're talking about everybody everybody in our dimension You're not human or say it. Yeah, okay. Who is that shadowy figure who is that man? Oh, that's what her name Brienne. Oh, no, man. Oh, no Dude these episodes are absolute bangers just insane matchups that I didn't think we would get for a bit because I know it's gonna Be a long tournament but all the pride troopers being thrown out in the span of one episode well Not all but like five of them is not something I expected I mean I didn't know how conservative they would be with eliminating people but that is a lot But they are really just getting rid of a lot of the fodder and keeping the heaviest hitters in sadly Krillin is part of that fodder I think Krillin is the most surprising knockout thus far though that being said I'm glad we didn't get Jiren versus Goku yet because again I think Jiren is sort of one of the strongest in this tournament if not the strongest from what we've seen from how easily he Was able to just knock Cal Kale out of the way in her Hulk form. But yeah, man These sayings from Champa's universe are probably the biggest surprises of the tournament thus far I knew they were able to go Super Saiyan and knew they had a lot of latent power But they are literally the heaviest hitters right now in terms of eliminations I'm pretty sure in Kaba too like all three of them are really killing it I mean say it's not necessarily a good thing because they are really wearing themselves out and taking every single fight possible Is not really the way to do it even though most of our universe has aside from like Gohan and that sort of group That's turtling up still which I hope they continue doing we have to preserve energy Bro in some form or fashion somewhere on our team because that's been it for my reaction episode 101 Drop a fat like on this one even already and I'll catch you in the next one. Peace. Peace