Okay. All right. The recording is on. Good morning and welcome everyone to BC 309, our course on urban church planting. This is our second lecture for this week on 309 urban church planting. Let's take a moment just to pray and we will get started. Can I request somebody to please pray with the class today and we will start. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this beautiful day and beautiful time, Father God. As we are going to learn this topic, Father God, about urban church, we submit ourselves to your mighty hand, Father God. And we ask you the Heavenly wisdom and understanding, Father God. Help us to understand Father God and all the inputs that Buster is going to speak, Father God. It will be in our heart, Father God, so that it will be helpful when we will do the ministry, Father God, in our future. Father God, we commit Buster and all the students to your mighty hand. And we ask the spray in Jesus mighty name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Okay. Good morning once again, everyone. We are talking about the spiritual aspect of church planting or pioneering of work, especially in urban centers. So we talked about the aspect of prayer and exercising spiritual authority. I'm just kind of breaking it down. This is how you pray. This is how we can exercise spiritual authority. So we just wanted to want us to be clear how to go about doing that. And of course, before doing that, we talked about the little preparation that we need to have that is in our heart and mind. We are clear about our spiritual authority. We need to know it. We need to be established in it. And then we engage in prayer for people in the region, wherever we are serving, wherever God has called us to pioneer of work. And then we also engage in exercising authority over the powers of darkness. And the reason that we gave at the very beginning of this section was because the enemy is trying to obstruct the like of the gospel of Jesus Christ from entering into the hearts and minds of people. That's what the enemy can try to do. And he does that primarily in the area of the mind by introducing all kinds of ideas, reasonings, arguments, strongholds, paths that interfere, that conflict with the knowledge of God. So while we are bringing the message of the gospel proclaiming the word of God, the enemy is trying to interfere with that. So Paul refers to it as the blindness that he has put. And so through our prayer and through the exercise of authority, we are dismantling it so that people can then clearly hear the gospel, clearly understand it. And of course, we can't make the choice for them. We're just making it easy for them or make spiritual atmosphere more conducive for them to hear the gospel and then make a decision to believe in the gospel. That's where our prayer and intercession and exercise of spiritual authority comes. And that's the kind of influence it has in the spiritual practice. But like we said towards the end of the last class, in addition to the worship, the prayer, the intercession, the exercise of authority, in addition to all of that, we must proclaim the gospel. Without proclaiming the gospel, people can't hear the gospel, obviously, and they can't make a decision for Jesus Christ. So that brings us to our next chapter, which we're going to consider today, which is the proclamation of the gospel, lesson number 19. I will go through this quickly because all of us are familiar with this aspect, because we have to share the gospel, the uncompromised gospel with the power of God. So Jesus commissioned us to go and share the gospel, to do it with science wonders and miracles, so that not only is there the proclamation of the gospel, but there's also the demonstration. So people can experience and believe. There will be those who hear and that may be sufficient for them, they will believe. For some people they need to hear and experience something, experience God healing them or delivering them or working a miracle in their lives, something, a demonstration of the power of God. And that would then lead them to faith in the Lord Jesus, so that they hear the gospel, they understand the gospel, but they also experience in every personal way that the gospel is real, that Jesus is real. And so Jesus instructed us, and we know in Mark 16, verse 15 to 20, he said, Oh, into the all, going to all the world, it preached the gospel to every creature, whoever believes in it, but that should be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned. In verse 17 onwards, he said, And these signs will follow those who believe. In my name, they will cast out demons, they will speak with your tongues, they will take up serpents.  Then as he was lifted up into heaven, it says, And they went out to the disciples, they went out and preached everywhere. Mark 16, verse 20. And the Lord worked with them, confirming his word with signs following.  You know, depending, of course, on the situation, they would cast out devils or they would pray for this. They would heal the sick or there would be the supernatural signs. And they went out and preached everywhere and the Lord was working with them, confirming the word with the signs that followed. And the Holy Spirit has been given, Acts 1-8, to empower us to do that.  There are just so many different ways, but the thing is, everywhere the gospel is preached, whenever there's an opportunity, we also demonstrate, pray for people and let people experience the message of the gospel by the power of God. That's what we must do. And so the goal is to, or as Paul says in Romans 15, we proclaim the full gospel. So let's turn to Romans 15. I just want to highlight just one word so that we understand, you know, this whole term or terminology of the full gospel. It's Romans 15 and verse 29. And we could read that, please. Romans 15 verse 29 for us. Romans 15, 29. Can I read faster? Yep. And I'm sure that when I come, Christ will reach the blessed time together. Romans 15, 29. Okay. Let me just read from New King James. What was that? Okay. Romans 15, 29. But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. So, Paul says, Romans 15, 29, when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel. So that's where we get the term full gospel. So what is the full gospel? It's the gospel that brings the fullness of the blessing of Christ. That means the proclamation, the message we proclaim should bring the full blessing. Not part of the blessing, but the full blessing, which includes salvation to the total person. So that's why we say the full gospel, the proclamation of the gospel, that brings the full blessing of Christ to people. The signs, one of the feelings that make us proclaim the full gospel. Also, the other important thing to keep in mind is to present the gospel in ways that are relevant, addressing the needs of the people, the questions that are in the minds of the people. While demonstrating supernatural, demonstrating supernatural power of God. So we see in the ministry of the apostle Paul that, and we've done this in the Apolitics course, that Paul reasoned and demonstrated. In so many places at events, he presented the gospel in a way that people there would understand. It would address the questions in their minds, as well as demonstrating, praying for them, ministering to them. It signs, one does a miracle. So he reasoned and demonstrated. And we should do that today. Let's make the presentation of preaching of the gospel relevant and address the questions that people have. Answer the question, but they know that the gospel does address the real issues matters of life and also demonstrate the supernatural power of God. So I don't think we have the option of choosing one versus the other. So sometimes in the Christian church, people may say, okay, I want to engage in apologetics. Fine, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't demonstrate the power of God. You shouldn't expect God's power to be manifested. Or then you have the other group that says, well, I want the supernatural power of God to be demonstrated. It is good, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't also reason with people. So what I want to encourage us is that as we are doing a work, especially a pioneering work in an urban setting, keep in mind that in an urban setting, people are thinking people. In most cases, they are people who are trying to think through various questions. They're trying to think through questions of life. They're trying to think through various struggles they're facing with. So they have questions and they are sincere, sincerely asking these questions. So we should be willing to respond to their questions, meaningfully at the same time demonstrate God's power. So we take the example of the Apostle Paul and in what we do, let's address both. And then we also break controlling paths through, now we do it by establishing God's presence in that community. Now, when we say establish God's presence, that means the church or the work that we are pioneering becomes a place where God is welcome. God is being, you know, quote unquote, hosted of God is having a dwelling place among the people through what we do be the people of God too. Because let's say in most cases before we have come and started the work to establish the gospel, the enemy has been there and it's already affected the minds of people and doing all kinds of things. And so we are coming in there, bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ and saying, you know, we're going to extend God's kingdom and the hearts and legs of people in this, among this community. So how are we going to do it? We're going to do it through praise and worship, through prayer, through our deeds of righteousness. So yesterday, towards the end, we mentioned, you know, that we do the opposite of what we see prevalent among the people. If there is hate, we demonstrate love. If there is, you know, unrighteousness, we demonstrate righteousness. When cleanliness, we demonstrate holiness. Whatever, you know, then the evil, we overcome evil with good by doing the opposite, by living the opposite, by demonstrating the opposite. Because the good always triumphs over evil, over, we overcome evil with good. But then we need a people who would do that, who would demonstrate that. And then we also proclaim and demonstrate the gospel of Jesus Christ. And even basically establishing communities of people, that is groups of people, who would keep on doing this. We are there in that city. We're going to establish God's presence. This is what we're going to do. And through the life we live in the midst of the people, we are breaking the influence of controlling powers. And we are just telling devil, you know, you may have been here all this while, but here's a group of people who are saying no to that, who have a poverty over that influence. And you cannot have any influence over that. And we are going to increase the influence of God's kingdom in this place. So in the Bible, and I think, you know, I referenced these yesterday, in Acts 8 when Philip goes to Samaria, the people are set free from the influence of Simon the Sorcerer. When Paul and Barnabas, they go to the island of Paphos, they're in Acts 13, the ruler of the governor of that island. He is set free from the control of a man practicing sorcery. Or in Philippine, people are under the control of a spirit of python. It was actually working through a fortune telling girl. But if they're all set free, or in Acts 19 we see in Ephesians, the goddess Diana who controlled them is dethroned as Paul and his team ministered it. So we are seeing that the advancement of God's kingdom in all these cities is destabilizing, is breaking whatever was prevalent among them from the powers of darkness. When the kingdom of God comes in, that power is pushed out, people are set free. And so we, you know, we establish this, we see this happen as we establish God. So the proclamation of the gospel, the full gospel, in a way that is relevant to the people addressing their questions, and establishing the community of people amongst them, it's an ongoing thing, right? It's not something that happens immediately, it's going to take time. But as we do that step by step, we are advancing, step by step, demonic influence is being weakened, step by step, we are advancing. Therefore it's going to become easier as time progresses for people to come to faith in Christ. And we just have to stay on this journey. And in relation to that, part of the spiritual work that we have to do is, as we are pioneering the work, remember we need more people engaged in reaching that urban center. And it's the same, it's the believers who are going to be able to go out and be salt and light, who are going to be able to go out and influence the community, the region. So faith must be equipped to do this work. So that's part of what we must do. We've talked about it in the previous section, just re-emphasizing it here. So from a spiritual aspect, teach the Word of God. That's what's going to feed God's people. That's what's going to equip them, fill them with truth, wisdom and understanding. And that's how the church is going to uphold truth in the society, emphasize the supernatural because through the demonstration of the power of God, the people of God are going to be able to influence, equip the people to be salt and light. That is, keep teaching them things. This is how you can bring kingdom influence to whichever part of, whichever sphere of society you're involved in. So we're equipping the people, so they can be an influence, wherever they are positioned. So this is very purposeful equipping. Also equip them for lifestyle evangelism. That means they should be ready to share Jesus anytime, anywhere. So encourage them, give them tools, give them training, give them opportunities. And equip and empower and send out people of God. So this is part of our spiritual work that happens. The people are encouraged to go out, do whatever they can in that, wherever they are. So basically God's people are taking the message out to their spheres of influence. Now we need to extend it a little further, and this is something for us to think about, which is to engage as the citywide church. This is lesson number 21. So in any urban center in today's world, it is very likely that there are already other churches and other ministries who are at work. It's very rare that there would be a place or a region, at least an urban center where there isn't already found Christian presence. Most likely there's a church or there's some ministry going on. So as we go and pine here, now of course we need lots and lots of churches and lots and lots of ministries because cities are so big. Cities have so many people. So one more new church starting or one more new ministry starting is just all welcome because there are so many people to be reached. But we need to learn how to work together. And so for that, we need to build trust and strength amongst ourselves with other churches and ministries. So we are not a threat, but we must work together. And I like this, you know, what Francis from Japan said, he was a minister of God, I think he's still alive. I'm not very sure, but he was wonderful minister back in the 18th, 19th, so on. He said it takes a citywide church to win a citywide war. It takes a citywide church to win a citywide war. That means one ministry, one church on their own cannot do this entire work. The citywide church, all believers in the city, if we can work together in some way, some fashion, then we can then win the citywide war because the cities are so big these days. So that's why we must think in terms of the citywide church and see what we can do to build trust and strengthen relationships with other churches and ministries in the city and then to be able to serve together. One is to serve other churches and ministries so that we can strengthen them and then we find ways to work with them. So both are thoughts to keep in mind. How can we bless others who are already working in the city and how can we work together with others who are already working in the city? That's very important and which means we must have a kingdom mindset. That means we are saying, look, what we do together for God's kingdom is more important than our own individual churches and ministries becoming big or famous or whatever. The kingdom of God supersedes our individual ministries and churches. And so if you have a kingdom mindset, then we could do this. We could bless other churches as well as work with other churches and ministries. And that's how the citywide church can begin to engage. Now, some of you may have, we have covered all of this in the book on kingdom builders, which we did in the second year. And also there's another book called Divine Order in the City by Church and encouraged you to read that. But the main point here is this, that while we are learning to pioneer a church or pioneer a ministry, remember we are not the only ones doing the work. There are other churches, other ministries. So if we can think in terms of working together or extend possible and think in terms of a citywide church engaging in a citywide war against the powers of darkness, we are going to be more effective in seeing transformation. Let me pause here and take, see if there are any questions before we step into the last section. Any questions here? Any thoughts here? So what we've done is we've gone to the spiritual side of things. How do we spiritually engage? We talked about the natural aspects when you're pioneering a church or a ministry, the spiritual aspects which we have just covered. Any thoughts or any questions? Hello, is asking a question. Pasi, can you give an example of citywide war? Okay. So talking about a citywide church engaging in a citywide war, we are of course referring to spiritual things. We are not referring to citywide war as in a physical natural war. We are talking about spiritually engaging over the city. So this means that the larger body of Christ is coming together to engage spiritually for the city. What has happened, at least, let me just speak from the perspective of Bangalore City. Okay, so the fact is that in most cities, the body of Christ is quite divided. There are many churches, but they all belong to so many different denominations. So there are those denominational walls that divide us. There are many ministries, but many ministries, we're all focused on our own activities. We don't have time for each other. It's a challenge to think in terms of a citywide church and a citywide war. That means, hey, we are all fighting the same enemy, so can we do it together, as opposed to doing it in our own silos or in our own independent areas of work and ministry? So one of the ways that the citywide church can engage in a citywide war is, for example, come together for praise, worship, and prayer. So that's one way. So we have tried that in the past in our city. So there were a couple of years, I think we did that for two or three years, where we had, we called it in those days, a Unity Sunday. And on that Sunday, we tried to get as many churches as possible. The invitation went to basically all churches in the city, but we tried to get as many people, believers together in one place so that we could pray and worship together. So that was through our prayer, through our worship. We tried to have a common worship service to engage in a citywide war. The biblical principle, you find that in John 21 and verse 22, Jesus said, Jesus, in his prayer, and sometimes this is referred to as his high priestly prayer, in John 21, sorry, in John 20, my mistake, John 17, what's happening? John 17, 21, okay? John 17, 21, Jesus prays, let me type this out for us, John 17, 21. Okay, so Jesus prays, John 17, 21, that they all may be one, as you father and me and I and you, that they also may be one in us. That the world may believe that you sent me. So this is a very powerful word because Jesus is saying, he's praying, he's praying for us. And he's praying that we may be one. And the result is that the world may believe. So us coming together as one is going to be a vehicle, means by which the world will believe in Jesus. So this sense of this unity of God's people in a place is so important. We were trying to practice this, so we designated a Sunday as a unity Sunday where the people come together, like our worship service together. And of course we had to do it in multiple languages because of so many regional languages happening. So we tried that and we did it, I think, for two or three years and then that died out. So that would be an example where we attempted to engage in a city-wide war spiritually through worship, prayer, and so different pastors will lead different fragments of prayer, viet, prayer, and so on. Now there are challenges in doing something like that. It's just that pastors feel insecure, they feel like, okay, maybe I will lose people from my church, I will go to another church, all these things, all the things, the practical side of it. That's one thing. The other thing that we were not able to do but it was on our plan was could we pool into sources to address certain social needs or needs in the city? For example, could we do something about the kids who are made to beg on the streets in the city? Could we like that address certain problems in the city but by pooling resources? And that was so difficult to get churches to come together and say, look, we can do this. So we never even reached that point. We said, okay, let's start with this, let's come together in worship and prayer, but hopefully we can journey together into doing things together, engaging in a city-wide war. So that will be another form of a city-wide war. Now, can that happen? Yes, it can, but it is very challenging. But John 1721 is the promise. I would encourage you and we are looking. I mean, I'm just thinking it's in the back of our minds here as well in our city. Now that the whole pandemic thing is over and we are able to all meet together. And it's to bring that back in some form. One of the things we were doing prior to the pandemic is holding a monthly breakfast meeting. We started that in 2013 and it was going on every month until we had to stop in, I think in February 2020, was the last time we met just before everything closed. But we would host a breakfast meeting and we just had an invitation to as many pastors in the city. Now, just to come together for fellowship, just to build trust, just to get to know each other because if that doesn't happen, then we cannot bring our congregations together for a common place of prayer and worship. That won't happen. So this was more like a precursor to the bigger thing. And it was working fine. There was trust, understanding, being built. It takes time. We have to meet once a month, shake hands, talk, discuss things, pray together. So if we as pastors can do it, then slowly we will trust each other enough to be able to get congregations to come together and pray. So we have to think of resuming that. But that would be an example where the church is engaging in a city-wide war. Now I know that in other cities, they have done much better than what we have done here in our city. There are examples that we can see globally where there's been a greater sense of unity and so on. But I would encourage all of us to think along those lines, see what can be done. Hope that answers your question. Any other questions? Okay, no more questions. We're going to go to the next section. Aaron's okay? Fine. Class is very quiet today. So we move forward to our next section. Let's go. We're going to now the last section in this course, which is the personal life of a church planter. Or the third personal life of a pioneer. Somebody wants to start a church or a Christian ministry. So remember, a lot of the things that we have said, while it does apply to starting a local church, you can also use it in terms of starting any kind of Christian ministry in an urban context. So now we intentionally covered the practical aspects and spiritual aspects, which are more general. And we kept this section to the end because this is something you need to think about at a personal level. These are things you need to be thinking about and praying about before and prepare yourself for. Before you start out to pioneer something, whether it's a local church or a Christian ministry. So the first thing is to recognize your call to pioneer. That means to know that you've been called to do this. People are graced by God to pioneer. And to pioneer, it requires a certain different kind of grift. Some of us can step into an existing work and make that better. Some of us can step into a work and just serve faithfully under leadership. And then there are those of us who are called by God to go and start a work somewhere, like start from nothing. Just dig the ground and start some scratch. But that requires a certain amount of grace. And so I want us to understand that. What would be some indicators of grace that you've been called to pioneer? Here are some things and all of these things are important and you may find one or more relevant to your situation. One is a pioneering spirit.  You're somebody who is adventurous, right? You're willing to step out, try something new to pave the way. It's okay if nobody else has attempted it or it's okay if you have to go do it alone. In a sense, you are adventurous, right? So that's what we're talking about, a pioneering spirit. You're willing to step out. Now, not everybody has that.  They're entrepreneurial. They like to go and start something. They like to, you know, do that. They're just an excitement. But if somebody says, well, that's not for me. I'd love to work in something that's already established, okay? And we need both kinds of people. It's not like one is better than the other. We need both kinds of people. So if you feel that you have a pioneering spirit, you are adventurous, then, yeah, maybe then that's a good point or indicator that maybe God may be calling you to do something. The second thing is you should be able to work independently. Especially when you're getting started.  It's eight o'clock.  You've got to go to work. You know, you've got to do this. No, you've got to have the ability to get up on your own. Lead yourself. Initiate things without anybody coming and telling you what to do. So the ability to work independently, to be your own, in a nice way, to be your own boss, to lead yourself, to motivate yourself. That's an important thing. Thirdly, you should be able to build bridges. You should be comfortable working with people from different backgrounds and cultures.  And so for you, you should feel comfortable that, hey, I can, you know, I can, yeah, they're from a different background, different culture. It's okay. I can sit and talk to them. I can have a conversation. I can connect with them. And also the ability to build bridges with different people, it's especially important if you're working in an urban setting. Now, there may be exceptions to this. I understand that, you know, you may find places where it's very homogeneous and, you know, just one kind of people. I'm not saying that that's never there, but in most cases, you will be required to work with people from different backgrounds and cultures, especially in an urban context. And if you have that, if you're very comfortable doing that, you know, that's a great, great indicator that you could be a pioneer. You could be somebody who goes and starts something. Another important thing is being a visionary. I mean, it's just the ability to see something when nothing exists. So you can go into a city, of course, lots of things happening, but then you begin to see opportunities. Others, you know, others are seeing, yeah, everything is normal, but you are looking at, hey, there's an opportunity to do something there. Hey, there's an opportunity to do something there. Look, there's another way to reach people.  You're just looking at opportunities everywhere. And so it's like if you stand next to an empty plot, some people will see an empty plot, but a visionary sees a big building. He sees, you know, whatever, you know, maybe an apartment complex, maybe a home, maybe an office space, something. He's a visionary. You're not just seeing an empty space, empty plot of land. He's seeing something else. That's a visionary. And the ability to see something and nothing exists. That's a good indicator that God can use you as a pioneer. Also, if you have prior history with God in doing church plans, you've worked in those kinds of settings and God used you that way, that's a good indicator that he's probably going to use you again. Sometimes it comes as a stirring in your heart. You feel like, man, I need to go and I need to start something. I need to address this problem. But in order to address this problem, I need to start something. That could also be an indicator. Something that's really moving you inside. Now, of course, God can give you a clear and confirmed word. However it comes, it could come something that God puts in your heart. It could come through a prophetic word. It could come through a dream or a vision. But God has given you a word. And then sometimes it's just, I put this in quotes, the accidental church plunder. That means God just sets up a situation where you find yourself in a situation where you've got a baby in your hand, so to speak. Okay, I've got to do this because I didn't think this would happen. But look, it's right there. God put it in your lap, so to speak. And I think I shared about how the Nepali church started here. So these are some things I could think about. And so I put it down here. That would be indicators that God is setting you up.  And so you could keep an eye on these things. Let me pause here. Any questions on this? On the signs or indicators that maybe God has graced you to step out, pioneer. And this is not a complete list. These are the things I could think of. There could be other indicators where God is saying, look, I want you to go and start something. I want you to go pioneer church or pioneer Christian ministry. But these are things I felt I could share. Any questions on that? Everyone's okay? Oops. All right. Let's just do one more section before we close out right now. We have a few more minutes. Okay, there's a question from Charles. Shed more light on accidents. So for example, there could be so many different scenarios. But the point I was trying to emphasize there is maybe you, somebody wasn't even thinking about starting something. They weren't even planning. It wasn't something they were considering. They were just going about life as usual. And then God just set up something for them. And they found themselves in a situation where they had to pioneer. They had to do something. So for example, and these are just hypothetical situations. So example, let's say there's a group of people.  It's okay if it's going to go to a community for two weeks and come back. So this group goes, they're going to serve a community for two weeks, maybe provide them food or provide them certain things. They go there for two weeks, they're serving. And after they're serving in that community, maybe five or 10 people get saved. And then these five or 10 people say, hey, we don't have a church to go to. Would one of you be willing to come and nurture us in the faith? Now in that group, let's say in the group of five people who went to serve this community, none of them were thinking about pioneering. None of them were thinking about going and being a church planter. But they just wanted to go and help this community for two weeks and come back. But in the process, people got saved. And they're requesting, saying, can one of you nurture us in the faith? And so this group of five people, they say, hey, you know, anybody feel called to take this up? So they pray and maybe somebody in the group says, hey, I'm willing to do it. I just feel I should do it. It's very strong in my heart. I need to do it. And so that person prays. And then that person says, OK, I'm going to step into it. Sorry. So this is just a scenario where none of the five people in the group were thinking of planting a church or being pioneers. But things were just orchestrated when this was presented and God stirred the heart of one of them to say, you do it. So the other four would return wherever they came from. This first person steps in and takes up the responsibility of pioneering a local church for that people. He starts off with these five people who have given their lives to Christ and their lives to Christ. And then from there, you know, a local church starts. So just one example, there's just so many different ways God could work and basically set things up for somebody to accidentally pioneer a church. But it's not an accident for God, of course. I hope that helps, Charles. Abraham's question. What are indicators? Because the ministry in Vietnam just started like that. I was getting bigger than we thought. Are there signs to prove that it is from God? Yeah. So Abraham, you see the scripture says, unless the Lord builds the house, this is Psalm 127 verse 1, unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. So it says, unless God is building it, our efforts are in vain. But you can also look at it in a different way. When God starts building the house, then it becomes necessary for laborers to start laboring with God. So from what you're describing Abraham, it seems like God has started the building the house. I mean, you're saying it just started and now it's getting bigger. So God is building. So what must the laborers do? They need to get in and become builders. It's okay, hey, God is moving. Let's get on. Let's jump in. Let's position ourselves. Let's do the work. So without God, we can't build. But when God is building, we better get in there and work with them because we are coworkers with God. So just get in whatever opportunities that they just get in there and build because God is building. He needs us there in the plate to be co-workers. So I would just... Psalm 127 was 1. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 5th. So I would just point you to these scriptures for you to think about and say that, hey, God is building something. We are co-workers with God. So we can't be absconding when God is doing work, right? Yeah, so if it's going to be 3 nights. So think about this, okay? All right. Time is up. Any other questions? Oh, so we have a request. Louie is getting married on Thursday. And a lot of sorrows. So everyone at the house, wonderful. Congratulations, Louie. What's your family's name? Cindy. All right. So we're going to pray for Louie and Cindy. Their wedding is going to happen on Thursday. And in case you're live streaming your wedding, please share the link with all the class so they can connect and watch your wedding online in case you're live streaming it. Or if you have a YouTube video or something, it'll be wonderful to see what the wedding looks like. Anyway, let's take a moment to pray on the floor. Or, yeah, that's good. Let's take a moment to pray for Louie and Cindy before we close. Father, we thank you for this time together. We could share. We could learn. We pray the Holy Spirit continues to speak to every student and each of us, Lord, are leading us in your path. Thank you, Holy Spirit, that you lead us. Father, together today we join our hearts to pray for Louie and Cindy in the name of the Lord Jesus. We speak blessing over them as they're united in marriage this week. Lord, thank you that you stand as a witness to this Holy Union that they enter into, Father. We pray the wisdom of God, the understanding of God upon them that through wisdom, through your understanding, they will build a wonderful marriage, a wonderful home, and together may they be a blessing for the kingdom of God. Together may they extend the kingdom of God. Together may they serve the purposes of God.  Thank you, Father. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you, Father. Thank you, everyone. God bless you. God bless you. Bye now. Thank you, guys. See you soon. Bye now.


Welcome back to ThinkTech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Global Connections. We are joined by Richard Wurzheimer, who's a businessman on Bishop Street, and who will join us today to talk about Israel, and talk about what happened in Israel last Friday over the weekend, and what is happening now and what is happening in the future. Welcome to the show, Richard. Thanks, Jay. Thanks for having me. One thing that strikes me. After following this for, what, three, four days already, is that we're in another place. You know how outrageous things take on their own reality and take on kind of their own normalcy? People get used to the outrage, and they change the way they do. They're not so outraged by day 405. They start looking at it maybe in a different way. I mean, I noticed, for example, that some of the media is doing two sides to them, and they bring in people who are saying, well, you know, this is the fault of the Israelis. It's all the fault of the Israelis. I love when they do that. That makes me feel really good all over, all over, because it's such a crock. But what happened here deserves to be examined on an historical level. And maybe that's phase two of the reaction. Phase one, anger, retribution, what have you, let's do a siege on Gaza, let's get even. But phase two is, how does this change the world? Which one would you like to talk about? I think probably phase two is probably the more important one right now is what happens. Why this happened. I mean, there's obviously strategic, historical reasons behind it that are also obviously very relevant. I guess the really more important thing for now is where does it go? What are we looking at? What should and what can Israel do? What are the wider implications? Does it escalate? Which everybody's asking. I think nobody really knows because that's really the big risk right now. The other sort of existential questions of why and what does it mean for Israel? What does it mean for the Palestinians? What does it mean for peace in the Middle East? And what everybody's asking, what's the solution? I think it's an intractable problem and that the answer to that has been elusive. So your two questions, I'd say, so what happens now? I mean, that's what everybody's worried about and that's what we should be because if this thing goes, it can get much more complicated and much uglier and lead to something much more substantial, which should have implications for the whole world. Yeah, well, you know, there are other players getting involved. You know, at first, I think the Biden administration was reluctant to, you know, put the blame, but put the involvement on Iran. But more and more is coming out and more will come out to indicate that Iran was supplying weapons and money and the like, not only to, you know, Hamas but Hezbollah. So what we have, you know, I think is, as you said, an intractable problem. We haven't had real peace in the Middle East since Israel independence, really. And then there were a few years and the next time you looked, there was war. Next time you looked, there were these brutal attacks, these inhumane attacks and Israel responded. And as held the line all this time, really, has enforced a peace of sorts. But now that's really not clear anymore. It's not clear that Israel can enforce a peace because it's not just that it can, whether it can recover from the embarrassment of, you know, an intelligence failure, but whether other countries, other hostile powers are going to take advantage going forward so that Israel can never rest again. That this is a possibility that will repeat itself somehow. Yeah, it's very troublesome. I mean, so the first thing, look, there are many. Angles to this number one is that clearly the policy that the Israeli government has followed for the last, you know, since Netanyahu and his the Likud and his coalition have led. Is now been shown that it's it was. A failure on many, many levels. And we've seen this over the many years, you know, depending upon what your, you know, what your views are as a as a on the politics in Israel. But it's clear that, you know, from my view is that it was fairly corrupt and very incompetent, and that's what led to this happening. Not just in terms of security and intelligence breach, but that or lapse. But that the policy was heading in the wrong direction. And I'm not saying that there was an easy and obvious solution.  The sense it's not that was peace. J. I would say that was stability and it was a false sense of security. And because of all these things, I think that's what's that's where we are today. And it look, you know, we get the hyperboles are justified. In terms of what happened, right?  And what we've seen is obviously a massive atrocity of proto genocide. And when you're talking about, you know, Israel and the Jewish people, that's, you know, those are those things are the most tantamount sensitive things that we have given the history, particularly the recent history in the Holocaust, but just when you go back over thousands of years. So, but particularly in terms of the Holocaust and the founding of Israel.  I don't care what your views are in terms of the Palestinians. It's a very complicated subject. We know it is everybody says that, but this is there's right and wrong. And this is an atrocity. It's it's, you know, what happened is just disgraceful.   I mean, that's that's I don't care.   And it's, you know, that on that level, we all feel very emotional. I mean, my daughter wasn't working on a living on a kibbutz last year and was at a one of these concerts in the Negev near Gaza the exact time last year. And so you feel it personally, you know. So there's that visceral reaction. But I think to your point about what do you focus on now? And the question is, so what do we do? What happens? You know, what what should Israel do? Can I get back to you on that, Richard? You know, before the show began, I was watching NBC and I see and it made my heart it made my heart feel good that the Israeli the young men in the Israeli army and women marching down a road toward Gaza with their guns, looking very alert and looking very determined and not looking afraid, looking like they got a job to do. And I say to myself, they're going to do a job. But I don't know if that really solves the problem. And there'll be there'll be more provocation. There'll be more. There'll be more outrageous things happening here. So the question is, where does it go? Yeah, right. And that's that's what I've been trying to. And I don't think nobody knows. I mean, Israel is going to have to respond. They have to defend themselves. What type of response? You know, the problem is that the current government has left. Many I'm not Israeli, I'm an American citizen, Jewish, but we I have many Israeli friends and many of them are out of the country because of the current government. They've left many years ago. They're just the direction the country was heading with being more and more extreme in their in their handling of the Palestinian issue has just led to this. And so they they, you know, the the response by that that same government is let's hopefully that they do it the right way because there is a right way and a wrong way to do to execute something. Obviously needs to defend themselves. They need to respond. They're going to have to but hopefully the the unity government will include more rational and intelligent people incompetent so that the response does not basically escalate and further inflame and actually hopes at some way solves the problem. They're never going to solve it completely. I'm not saying that, but you have to to, you know, Israel has and that happened in nineteen seventy three with the Yom Kippur war with Golda Meir, the same thing. They were complacent and the Syria and Egypt invaded and they, you know, we thought it was the end of Israel. But the government. Shortly thereafter was Golda Meir was forced out in disgrace and the new government basically rose to the occasion. So I think they're going to rise to the occasion.  And so the question is, does it open up a multi front war and what does that look like? Because once that happens, Jay, then you're talking about Iran and because ultimately that's what that's who's behind this, whether directly or indirectly. And the United States will have to will has made it very clear that they will step in and that they'll have to, one would hope. Um, so and that would be horrific. I just that's that's how World War Start, you know. Uh, so the the the question it's and it's really hard. I mean, if I if you told me that I was in charge and I had to come up with a plan, I would want to exact, uh, some type of, you know, of a payment, if you will, or a punishment, but it has to be commensurate and it has to be in a way.  The trying to take out Hamas leadership and that's going to be boots on the ground and it's going to involve a lot of casualties on both sides. And then who knows, you know, that's that's going to take a long time. It's going to be very complicated. Well, yeah, and if you take if you take out the existing leadership, then others will take those jobs.  I mean, it's so deep. It's and it's so it's so determined. I mean, it's not it's not just Gaza. It's not just the Palestinians. It's other countries, but I think Israel has made some progress in developing geopolitical, you know, foreign relations with some of these guys. This is very disruptive to that process right now.  And it's it's a strange thing that on the one hand, that was true. And on the other hand, this attack galvanizes the country. And now it's, you know, pretty much galvanized and it will fight hard. But ultimately, I don't think it's a question. I mean, if you and I got in a room with the leaders here, the Israeli leaders, we wouldn't necessarily look for vengeance. We would try to cut off the head of the snake. We would try to just dismember the snake so that it didn't do this again.  You don't let anything in there and after a while it turns in your favor because the people you're sieging, you know, can't do very much. And I think that really is part of it. I know we should feel bad that, you know, people got hurt in the Israeli bombing and and the hospitals don't have power or medicine or anything. But that I'm sorry, I can't be all that sympathetic about that. I think the name of the game is to do a siege until you can find the head of the snake and then deal with it there. In order to get some kind of assurance, this isn't going to happen again and again and again, because it was a mistake. The Israelis shouldn't have given it up in the in the first place. In my view, they should have retained some kind of control. They returned no control. All they had was, you know, a barricade around it and at the sea, the seaside of it. That's not enough. Two million people can get into all kinds of nefarious planning if they are led to their own devices. And somehow they can get five thousand rockets and missiles, you know, into Gaza, and you don't even know about it. How did that happen? But the point is that the Israelis have to do something to prevent this from happening again, because if it happens, just as you say, it happens in one place. If it happens out of Gaza, it could happen out of multiple fronts, and then it's really bad. So you have to stop it where it appears. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's look, it's a I don't disagree.  It's it's I think it's gotten harder over the years. They haven't been in, you know, they were there in 2014, you know, with the small invasion, but they left in 2005. And yeah, how much took over in 2007? And effectively, you know, this whole land for peace thing, obviously, it's not it's not worked. You know, it's hard to negotiate with somebody when their position is I want to push you into the sea. There's not much wiggle room. So and I, you know, and let me be clear, I this is a complicated historical issue. So I I have, you know, I've got friends who are Palestinian and, you know, it's not it's not completely one sided. And I'm not by any way, it was any way since, you know, justifying what happened, obviously. But I think you just have to recognize that. And, you know, Gaza has been blockaded for many years now by Egypt and Israel. And I guess, you know, so the question is, how do you make it more effective? You got two million plus people in in a you know, in the land that's I think it's the size of twice the size of Washington, D.C. or I think the size of Omaha, Nebraska that got read somewhere. So it's a small piece, you know, it's there's not a lot of land. It's and you're right, I don't have sympathy. Israel has to do what they have to do. It's just the way it is, you know, indirectly or directly. I mean, that the people in Gaza don't support, how do I say this? They they would rather not have Hamas. I mean, they have delivered nothing to them. And if you read the the, you know, the the statements over the last, you know, number of years, they would love to get rid of them and have a proper, you know, leadership. And hopefully that's what Israel can do is by, you know, by by force, make those changes. I'm, you know, I think militarily, your advantage is always on the defense. And Israel has not been there for so long that it's going to be if it was tough before, it's going to be much tougher. They've had years and years to prepare and dig in and have tunnels, you know, internally, it's going to be very, very hard. I mean, you see what's happening with Ukraine and Russia. Defense is much easier than offense. Offenses can be very tricky, depending upon who you're going against. And Israel is formidable. I mean, they definitely have a lot of the tools and the resources and organization. So we'll see. I don't think, but it's not going to be easy. But, you know, and then you see, you know, we can all dream about them replacing Hamas in some way with a more reasonable group. But, you know, these these are it's I think the first thing is they have to they have to teach. They have to they have to take action to defend themselves to your point, to not let it happen again. And everybody, the problems we talk about these things that we want to happen, like we want to find a solution. But how it what are the specifics? How does it actually work in practice? And that's what, you know, I'm not privy to what the Israelis are are preparing, but whatever they do, it's going to have to be so forceful and it's going to be hard and long slog at the same time in a way that potentially does not risk having Hezbollah and Syria, which which lob some missiles into Israel today. You know, the the West Bank and anybody else basically potentially come out there. Or the I was reading the the Houthis in Yemen, we're talking about potentially joining forces.   I mean, so when Israel usually historically and as a up until very recently, even in this campaign, they would call they would do something called knocking on the roof before they would actually bomb and and and they would let people know we're going to bomb, so you should probably leave. They're not knocking on the roof now so much. And the reason is they're not knocking on the 4,000, 5,000 missiles. There's knocking knocking on the roof. So they have to respond to that. I mean, I just want to be clear, you know, that that's unfortunately. And I've, you know, for the ordinary people, I have great sympathy for the ordinary people that are sitting in Gaza because I don't, you know, this is, you know, they're just for a lot of people. They're not, you know, they're they're they're almost along, you know, hijacked along for the ride, so to speak. It's true. They have their hostages themselves. And among them live the Hamas and Hamas is is going to stay embedded within them and hide behind them and, you know, have their command center run to the hospital and do all those things that make the Israelis look like monsters. And they've been doing that for years. So I think we have to get by that. You know, the reality is a lot of people will die to resolve phase one of this. And it's really awful. But phase two is, I think, much broader. We've got to somehow get by the notion of a multi front war. I don't know how Israel is going to do that. But I'm sure they're thinking about it just as you and I are. Well, yeah, if I can interrupt, I mean, if just be clear, if it's a multi front war, then we have an escalation. And I'm not saying it's going to happen. I mean, you can see as Bala has been very careful. They haven't they haven't run into the fray with, you know, they have 10,000 plus missiles of precision guided bombs. They're a much more formal, formidable fighting force with a lot of experience. That would Jay, that would I mean, that would trigger it would make it obviously extremely difficult for Israel to fight a multi front war to front war. But it would, more importantly, you would probably trigger an attack in some way, shape or form on Iran and, you know, or it would basically signal Iran's involvement. And Israel might react that way or the United States might have to as a reason why the U.S. has said. Has Bala do not move Iran? Make sure has because they listen, right? That's they're saying these guys move that. Right now, the thing I'm most concerned about is that. Well, remember, too, Israel has a number of nuclear weapons. And if it gets to be that desperate, you know, I mean, I worry about the survival of the state of Israel. I'm always worried about that, always worried about it. And when when we get closer to that, we get the desperation. We get the desperation. We pull out all the stops. Yeah, I think I don't make, you know, who knows with this stuff. But I think in my lifetime and our lifetime, I don't think we'll see that, but there is that risk. It's it's increasing. Look, Iran is 18 months away from having the bomb.  And Israel has enough nuclear weapons to level the entire Middle East, probably. And including themselves, including themselves. So your point, so you're you're on the phone with my brother yesterday. We had the same exact conversation. We worry about the because of what you just mentioned. It could get like I'm not suggesting it has to. Let's hope that, you know, look, up until a couple of days ago, Saudi Arabia was about to sign an accord with with peace. Recognize the state of Israel. I mean, who would have expected that? So, you know, I think you have to. You have to expect you have to have the you have to have your expectations at a realistic level in terms of solutions and what happens next. On the other hand, you have to have hope. You have to have hope, Jay, that somehow we'll figure it our way through this stuff, because as horrible as all this is and as as dismal and depressing, you know, as as what's happened and what will probably be a very long conflict and bloody.  It's like with the Israeli government, you know, hopefully now we'll get a better government in Israel that will do better things that will lead to better solutions with its partners in or the people, the Palestinians. Well, that should come soon. I mean, they should be they should be talking about that.   That was not a good idea. I'm sure that when you look at the the scenes of all those Israelis arguing among themselves, you say, gee, this is a fragile state surrounded by hostile countries. What you do this and you're asking for it. And indeed, they need a better policy and dealing with the Palestinians on dealing with that hatred. I'm not saying that hatred is anything other than hatred. That's what it is. But when you have people who who would like to push you into the sea and destroy your state, you have to take certain really smart steps and I'm not saying they should capitulate in any way, but they've got to be really smart. They've got to be smarter than they have been under Netanyahu, who hasn't been smart. No, it hasn't been smart. Look, it will change the unity government now, which is they're trying to form, which will bring the opposition. And but, you know, I think that, like, I know I'm a realist. So I'm not saying that the, you know, I have the solutions. But I and but I do know that in terms of realist, that we've tried, you know, Ehud Barak tried to do land for peace, even Sharon, before he died, unfortunately, because he was somebody who could, who was tough, but realized towards the end of his life that you have to figure out a way to get along with these people. We have to come up with a solution. Easiest said than done. But the point is the way that Netanyahu and these extremists on the Israeli side, the ultra religious, I mean, these people were out of touch with reality and they basically, you know, they weakened Israel, right?  And those policies are wrong and we need a better policy. But right now we need to defend ourselves. So everybody's pulling together. That's the key, not until that happens. Then once things look like they calm down and it doesn't escalate, then we can have those discussions. Absolutely. But it will escalate at first. And that's what I worry about. I see this as an inflection point for Israel, for the survival of Israel. They're at war among people who have no no scruples at all, no morality at all. And gee whiz, I mean, that's that's not a nice war. That's a war in which a lot of people die. And and they and here Israel, it's a bunch of middle class people living in middle class homes on middle class streets. It could be anywhere in the United States, those streets and living middle class lives. You know, let's let's let's go to a dance. My daughter was there last year. I get it. You know, she was living there and she was thinking about, you know, staying longer and just it's a wonderful place. I mean, what they've done with that country is phenomenal. But when you see scenes of, you know, there was one picture, graphic picture of a girl that was raped, you could tell. I mean, this is. You know, you're dealing with, you know, this is this is not a partner or somebody you can actually negotiate with. Unfortunately, there's one language that those type of people understand and that's that's, you know, I hit you once. I'm going to hit you. You hit me once. I'm going to hit you 10 times harder. Yes. So Israel has to get on top. I know the picture you're talking about, it's seared into my brain. Yes, and all of our brains and and it stands as a symbol for the world. And I and I we have to get on top first and then we can be more what do you want to call it, rational, more, more thoughtful about how to deal with the reform of the government, the reform of the the policies and what have you. But right now, what we're dealing with is that picture. Yeah, agree. Yeah. Yeah, we will. I think we will. I think it's going to take, unfortunately, that the new cycle only lasts, you know, before people get fatigued and, you know, inert with what's going on. So, you know, this is not going to solve itself. No, but that's the last part of my discussion with you, Richard. And that is is the new cycle fatigue. You know, I mean, if you looked at the the response of the American people, the American government to the Ukraine invasion on day one, was it February 24th, 22, and and then you compare it to now. Everybody is tired already. And I think that that's a risk that we have. We, all of us have, especially Israel, that people outside of Israel would get tired of hearing about it. They, you know, you get even tired of hearing about atrocities. And then the new cycle gives you something else to focus on before you know it. That's Israel. That's their problem, not our problem. And I really worry about that because that may well happen. Here we are only three, four days into this privacy and maybe we're already going there.   And the the risk is that or the the the mistake is that it does affect you. These things that maybe not directly, maybe not right this second, but these things have a way of boomeranging. I mean, where particularly if they escalate, this is, you know, this. So I think it's naive and short-sighted. But I understand how the new cycle works. And it's unfortunate. I don't have an answer, Jay, to tell you, you know, how to how we can change that. But I think that's, you know, that's just the sad fact is that it's if it doesn't bother people, they don't feel it, that they're going to forget about it's not going to be front of mind. But this is not going away. And this is a global problem. Is my to a large extent, it's less so economically because of oil and the less dependence on the Middle East. So there is there is that element, but it's still strategic to the point where this could very well. This is the kind of flashpoint that starts a world war. Yeah.  You know, when when when Putin first invaded Ukraine, everybody said, and they still say this is a threat to the liberal world order after World War Two. And we know we can't have nations attacking their neighbors. We can't have that. We need to have a liberal world order, a civilized global society. And it's clear now that we don't. And that people don't stand up enough, you know, to prevent that. And you worry about Taiwan and, you know, you worry about neighbors, attacking neighbors. Well, here's yet another example. They could have lived in peace. There was nothing actually requiring them to make this attack. Nothing is unprovoked. And so you wonder about the what they call it, the Ukraine effect, the loss of the liberal world order where it is something. And it seems to be spreading like a virus. That's true. The definitely, you know, it's kind of taking it someplace else. There is definitely a the global order geopolitical change for sure is happening. And you're seeing it with extremism and acts like this around the globe.  It's like it's the same thing with Ukraine. It is a war of attrition. That's what it is. This will be a war of attrition, too. I mean, there's no we're so used to this news cycle of give me the solution within this this frame. And the truth is, you know, people need to read more because reading takes time.  It just doesn't work that way. This is going to take a long time to play out. And I don't know, you know, I don't know what it's going to go up. I know what the possibilities are. And that's true with Ukraine. It's the same thing. I talked to, you know, to my friends who, you know, in the military about what's happening in the UK. You can't have that we want. We desperately want a quick solution. But that's like that's that's Hollywood. It's not reality. And I think we have to, you know, switch our brains or, you know, to be able to cope with that and expect that. I think that's the problem. And that's how bad decisions are made. Because, you know, you have unrealistic expectations. You know, it's the razzle-dazzle. I've been listening to some of the presentations on the news of some of these reporters. I mean, they mean well, but it's Hollywood. They, you know, and now just the way that they talk, it makes you feel like it's a movie. It's not real. And that's unfortunate. But, you know, the thing is it may go away for a little while and you may not hear it, but these things, they're still there. Yeah, that's it. All wars cast a long shadow. Even in the day of Fort Sumter, the Union thought that it was going to be over and, you know, overnight. And we're still fighting the Civil War. It casts a long shadow over history.  I'm going to go bang my head on the wall now. We haven't actually solved it, but we certainly have explored some of it. Come pretty close. Come pretty close. Thank you for that. And I hope you don't mind, but in a few weeks time when history plays itself out a little more, maybe we can circle back. I'd love to. You know, I'm not an expert. These are just my views. I'm just, you know, I only hope for the best, obviously, you know, but. I'm in the same place, except I really care. Really, I know you do too. Thanks so much for Richard Worth. I'm our businessman on Bishop Street with a global view. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jane. Good talking to you. The same.


Hello, I'm Didier Stavens, a senior handler with the Sense Internet Storm Center, and in this video I want to show you how we can parse and analyze JSON data to track Bitcoin transactions, for example. So this week, Johannes received a new type of extortion email of a sexual nature, and here is his diary, he wrote about it. This is the email that he received, and of course there was a ransom to be paid with Bitcoin, and here you have a Bitcoin address. So at the Storm Center, we wanted to monitor the different Bitcoin addresses that we had obtained, and I'm going to show you a method here, how to do this. So let's go back to my diary. So Rick figured out that Blockchain has an API and that with this URL here, you can get the status of different Bitcoin addresses. So let me take this, and let's go to Terminal, we have typed the command Curl to retrieve the data. So this is the URL, and let's go back to Johannes' diary entry, because there are in the comments some Bitcoin addresses, and we can retrieve data for those addresses. Let me copy this, like this, enter, and now I have JSON data here with the information for the address. So you can see here addresses, and then the address here, and final balance zero. So for this address, there have been no changes. And what we want, we want to be able to monitor several addresses and be warned, be informed when transactions occur for those addresses. So the API that we use here can query more than one address. So let's try for a second one. So let's take this address. So what we have to do is just make a sequence of the different addresses that we want to query. Now, the separator is the Pi character, but of course here in the shell, this has a special meaning. So we have to encode this with its hexadecimal value, and that is 7C, and then I can paste here the second Bitcoin address. Okay, and here you can see we already get much more data. So there is probably transactions for that second address. But of course, that's not very readable. What we want to do here is extract out of that JSON data just the address and the final balance for each address. And that's what I'm going to show you here. So I'm going to use a tool, JQ, to analyze and parse JSON data. So let me parse, sorry, let me pipe the JSON data that we retrieve directly into JQ like this. And then you already get a pretty print of the JSON data. It's already much more readable. So here you can see we start with a dictionary. Inside that dictionary, there is an entry called addresses with the two addresses that we requested and the final balance for those two addresses. So that's essentially information that we want to extract. And that's what we are going to do with JQ. So the Q in JQ stands for query. You can query the JSON data. And what we are going to do here, we have to escape this. We are going to select the entry in the dictionary with the name addresses like this, you see. And now we have an array, those quotes here, square brackets, that's an array. And inside the array, we have two dictionaries with the data. So we want to operate on the fields inside those dictionaries. So what we have to do now is to iterate over the array to have the individual elements of the array, the dictionaries here. And that can be done with the following operator. So we pipe, and this is a pipe in the JSON query language. It's not a pipe in our shell here, but it's a pipe for the JSON query. And we want to iterate over the different elements in the array, and you do this like this. With this command here, now you can see the square brackets are gone. So this is no longer an array, this output here is two dictionaries. And now, just like we did with addresses, we can here now select address. So like this. And here now you see you have the two addresses. The other information we want is the final balance like this here. And now you can see also we have the final address, final balance for each address. But what we want actually is that this to be on one line. So what we are going to do is turn this into an array. So those two fields that we retrieve, we will put them inside an array like this, the JSON array. And now you see we have the two values inside an array. And once we have this, we can convert this to a CSV file with the following operator at CSV. Because that takes an array, arrays as input, and converts them into CSV lines, like this here. You can see the two. Now you can see here that the quotes are escaped, because this is outputted, like JSON data would be outputted. But we can ask JQ not to do this with option R, Rau, so that we get Rau data like this. And then we have our address and the amount. Now the amount here, that's not the amount of bitcoins here in the JSON data, the amounts are expressed in Satoshi. And that is 100 million of a bitcoin. So if we want to see it in bitcoins, we have to divide this by 100 million, like this. So for this address, there is roughly 0.29 bitcoins that have been deposited in this address. Now you can see also we have here the progress indicator from Curl. We can also get rid of that by directing Curl to be silent with option S, like this. So now with this simple one liner, we extract just the information that we want, the address and the bitcoin final balance for that address. Now of course, if we want to monitor this, we want to know if there are changes and just executing that command again and again, we have to compare it with previous versions. And that's why I have a tool, it's called what is new. So what we are going to do is pipe all this output in my tool, what is new. And what is new requires at least one argument. And that's the name of the database, the database that what is new is going to use to tell us what changes have been present in our output. So I'm going to call this sextortion like this. And then you get this output, if you run it the first time, you get this here. And if we look here, a pickle file what is new, sextortion has been created. And if we run the command again, like this, then we get no output. That's because the output is exactly the same. So every line has already been seen by what is new when it's stored in the database. So there is no new output. It's only when there is a change, a new line, a different line that what is new will print it. And I'm going to simulate a change by adding a new address. So let's go back to the diary inventory because here we have a third address like this. So and I'm going to add this to our query. So %7C and the address like this. And then you get one output that's for the new address. And you can also see here that we have almost 0.44 bitcoins in that address.  So this is how you can, with some simple tools that you can run on different operating systems, monitor for JSON data like a Bitcoin balance of addresses.


Fiber continues to be singled out as a nutrient of public health concern. There is a fiber gap in America. These are the minimum recommended daily intakes of fiber for men and women at different age groups. This is how much we're actually getting. We're only getting about half the minimum considered a public health concern for all Americans.  The only place fiber is found, though a nominal 0.1 is thrown in for the meat category in case someone eats a corn dog or nibbles on the garnish. If even half of the adult population ate 3 more grams a day, like a quarter cup of beans or a bowl of oatmeal, we could save billions in medical costs, and that's just for constipation. The consumption of plant foods, the consumption of fiber-containing foods, reduce risk for diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, and obesity as well. The first to make this link between fiber intake and killer disease was probably Dr. Hugh Trowell many decades ago. He spent 30 years practicing in Africa and suspected it was their high consumption of corn, millet, sweet potatoes, greens, and beans that protected them from chronic disease. This kind of got twisted into the so-called fiber hypothesis, but he didn't think it was the fiber itself, but the high-fiber foods that were so protective. There are hundreds of different things in whole grains besides fiber that may have beneficial effects. For example, yes, the fiber in oatmeal can lower our blood cholesterol level, so let's get stuck in our arteries, but there are anti-inflammatory and antioxidant phytonutrients in oats that can help prevent atherosclerotic buildup and then help maintain arterial function. Visionaries like Trowell were not entrapped by the reductionist simple-minded focus on dietary fiber and insisted that the whole plant foods should receive the emphasis. Fiber intake was just kind of a marker for plant food intake. Those with highest fiber intake, the lowest cholesterol, were those who ate exclusively plant-based diets. Risk factors like cholesterol are one thing, but can these individual foods actually affect the progression of heart disease? We didn't know until this study was published. Hundreds of older women were subjected to coronary angiograms, where you can inject dye into the coronary arteries of the heart to see how wide open they are. They got an angiogram at the beginning of the study, then one a few years later, all while analyzing their diets. This is what they found. The arteries of women eating less than a serving whole grains a day significantly narrowed, whereas the arteries of women who ate just a single serving or more also significantly narrowed, but they narrowed less. These were all women with heart disease eating the standard American diet, so their arteries were progressively clogging shut. Heart disease is the number one killer of American women, but there was significantly less clogging in the women eating more whole grains, and significantly less progression of their atherosclerosis. In fact, almost as much slowing of their disease as one might get to taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. Statins can also slow the rate at which our arteries close. But do we want to just slow the rate at which we die from heart disease, or not die from heart disease at all? A whole food plant-based diet has been shown to reverse the progression of heart disease opening our arteries back up. Whole grains like the drugs can help counter the artery clogging effects of the rest of the diet, and having oatmeal with bacon and eggs is better than just eating bacon and eggs, but better, perhaps, to stop eating an artery clogging diet altogether.