So, we know that light travels slower when it moves through materials. The reason it does that is that it's interacting with those materials. And just to spoil things a little bit, light's actually an electromagnetic wave, and the reason it does that is that molecules are made of little charges that can oscillate, and so that when the wave comes through, it interacts with those oscillators. And it made me no surprise that the frequency that the light's oscillating at, and the oscillation of the molecules, matter. So when the light has a particular frequency, it's going to interact with certain molecules more than others. And the practical upshot of that is that light actually travels at different speeds for different colors. So different frequencies, different colors of the light, when they go through a material, often travel at slightly different speeds. So all these lenses are actually only going to have a particular focus for a particular color. Let's zoom in on a certain part of a lens. So if we just have a wedge of glass, say like this, that's called a prism. And if we shine light on a prism, we can see how the different colors of light split up. So if I have green light coming in at an angle, we know that at this interface, it's going to bend in because light's traveling slower in the glass. And then when it gets to this angle, it's going to bend out. And so my light is traveling through like that. However, supposing I have blue light, it's going to come in. And supposing it doesn't bend quite as much. So the change in speed isn't quite as dramatic. And it's going to diverge a little bit, spread out. And the angle's not going to change quite as much here either. And so it's going to spread like that. And so on for red, supposing red bends a little bit extra. Then what we get is we have things that are initially going in all parallel. But then the different colors spread out. And the different frequencies fan out. And what we've got here is a rainbow. And this is exactly how Newton found that white light was made up of different colors. He had a prism. He had sunlight coming through. And you can see the beautiful rainbow made. And this is exactly how actual rainbows are made. Except instead of glass, the prism is made of water. So it's water droplets. Actually, the production of rainbows in water droplets is a little bit more complicated because you often have multiple times when the light actually bounces around inside the water droplet. And the reason it does that is something called total internal reflection. Supposing you have a surface of a water droplet like this. And if we look at the normal vector, then if a light ray comes in really close to that normal vector, then it's not going to bend very much. This is going to bend a little bit. And if we have this is the water on the inside. And this is the air on the outside, out here. And we know that the light ray is going to speed up. And so if it speeds up, it's going to bend away a little bit. And we know how to work out the change in those angles. So the sign of the incident angle divided by the sign of the refracted angle is just the ratio of the speeds. So if the speed of light is V1 inside the water and a larger V2 outside in the air, then the ratio of the signs of the two angles is just the ratio of the two speeds. This is Snell's law. And you'll note that if we come in a little bit blunter like that, then we'll refract out that way and so on. And if we look at this, there comes a special angle at which if we were to come in at that angle, then we'd actually try and refract right along the boundary. So that's where we try and make the sign of the refracted angle equal to 1.  So if our incident angle is any larger than that, something strange has got to happen. What happens is if you come into an angle that can't refract, then it just reflects.  In that case, you get all reflection. And so what happens in water droplets is you often have a lot of these events where you get complete reflection, and this is called total internal reflection. And this is actually a way of making a very high-efficiency mirror. So some kinds of mirrors are actually based on using total internal reflection.


Good morning. If we could have any one person who's online pray with us, we have a Lia online. Lia, could you open with a word of prayer and then we will begin our class. Lia, okay, maybe Lia has not logged in. Then in that case, okay, Jefina, if you could please do that for us. No. Okay, very sorry, but Pastor John Paul, if you could pray for us. Jefina, we want to thank you for this time. Thank you for bringing us together in your presence. Always ask for your presence to lead us as we are going to continue to learn from your word. Speak to us, Lord, help us to understand your word. Help us to pay attention and also to remember the things that you are teaching us today. God, we praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. So last week, we focused on the teachings of Jesus. The final instructions are the most probably important things that he regarded and would be useful for the disciples in the coming days after his resurrection. So these are the things which he imparts to them. So we looked at chapters 14, 15, 16 last week. So now we are kind of moving into the ending, the final chapters of this gospel. Today, we will look at chapters 17 to 19 because this is basically where we see the intercessory prayer of Jesus and then his arrest and crucifixion. So these would be the passages that we will be covering today. Let's get started with a few thoughts on the intercessory prayer that Jesus does for us. Because if you see this passage, in this passage, he does not only pray for his disciples and the followers who were there with him at that time. He also prays for all believers, even the ones who would come in the future, who would be part of his flock. So let's look at the prayer that he prays for us. It begins with an interesting statement and then it moves into the other prayer points that Jesus wanted to bring before the Father. So if we could have someone read out for us, John chapter 17 and verses 1, 2 and 3, please go ahead. John 17, 1 to 3. He spoke these words, lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father the hour has come, glorify your son, that your son also may glorify you. As you have given him authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him. And this is eternal life that they may know you. They only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, have glorified you on. So in verse 1, Jesus begins by saying, the hour has come. Up to now on many occasions in the Gospel of John, we see that the hour has not yet come. And so on many occasions Jesus escapes from the crowds which wish to harm him, which wish to stone him because the hour had not come. And but here finally we see that the hour has indeed come. So obviously the hour is referring to the time of crucifixion when he will finally accomplish the purpose for which he has come to this earth. So he says now that the hour has come, glorify your son is the prayer with which Jesus begins. And then he goes on to say, why am I asking the father to glorify me so that the son may glorify the father in return. So this actually is not a selfish prayer of self-promotion. Rather this is a prayer in which the son is saying, father glorify me because my purpose is this to glorify you in turn. And this reveals to us the heart of Jesus, the heart which he always had to honour the father, to obey the father, to submit to the father as and when required. So in all things we see a selflessness in all of his actions. And now even in his prayer we see the same thing reflected where the focus is not on himself, the focus is more on pleasing the father, fulfilling the father's will. Now when we go to the Lord in prayer like Jesus taught us, he taught us to pray for our needs. He said we must ask the father and say give us today our daily bread. So we do pray for our needs but the attitude with which we approach him, that is expressed in the first portion of the prayer which Jesus taught us, where we are saying, let your father come and let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So in those wordings the attitude with which we need to come to the Lord in prayer is reflected. So we do come to him and ask for our needs but we ask in line with his will so that his will is done in our lives, in our homes, in the same way that it is done in heaven. So even here Jesus is practising what he has taught the disciples. So when he is praying, he places the father first and he says, yes in this hour which has finally come I need to be glorified, I need to defeat sin and death but I am doing all of this so that your purposes may be glorified. And so I am not saying that we should not be free and open with the Lord when we go to him in prayer. He wants us to be completely frank, completely open with him because this is our heavenly Father that we are going to. But even as we kneel down in prayer in his presence, it's just him and us, there's nobody else listening. We are not praying in public to be heard. This is just between us and him. At that time when we are presenting our requests, maybe it would be good for us to just take a look at our prayer. How do we pray? What are our priorities when we pray? Are they all prayer points which are about our needs and us wanting to be promoted in different areas of life? Us gaining things which we require for our everyday life. So is it all that or something in our prayers does it also reflect a love for God, a desire to fulfill his purposes, to see him honored and glorified? So I am not saying that when we pray we should condemn ourselves and look at ourselves and look down on what we are praying. But just maybe, just to know our heart, maybe the next time when we go to the Lord in prayer, just take a look at our prayer list and then ask ourselves what kind of a list is this? What priorities is it reflecting? Because when we are praying it shows what is there in the most being. In Jesus' case when he was praying what is there at the core of his being to honor the Father? When we are praying what is at the core of our very being? What are our deepest ambitions and desires? Is it only for self promotion or to have our needs met? Or is also there a desire there to honor God, to let his will be done in our lives, to see him being glorified in our homes, in our families. So just to take a few minutes to reflect on our prayer would help us just to kind of get an idea of what actually lies at the core of our being. What are our deepest desires? So here we see that Jesus was focused on glorifying the Father. So maybe we should imitate him in our own prayer life, where we begin by honoring the Father, where we desire that his name should be hallowed, where we would genuinely like to see his will being done not just in heaven but even in our homes and in our decisions and in our everyday walk. And then we move into the other requests because once we have our priorities right, it really doesn't matter what we are going to be asking for with regard to our needs because we will ask with the right attitude. The right attitude has already been established. We have decided that he should be hallowed. We have decided that his will should be done. So all the prayer needs that we are now going to be placing before him, it's going to flow out of that attitude of reverence for our Lord and Saviour. So this kind of helps us to show the attitude with which we should approach the Lord in prayer. Now the next two verses reveal something very interesting about eternal life. Here Jesus says, you have granted me the authority over all people to grant eternal life to those who come to the Father. And then in verse 3, this is what Jesus says about eternal life. He's giving a definition here about eternal life.  And when he says that they know you is referring to the Rayoon God, that they should know God the Father. They should also know Jesus Christ. So he says eternal life is this. Eternal life is not a ticket to heaven. Eternal life is not to gain access to all the Abrahamic blessings. All that is part of our eternal life. But eternal life as such is actually knowing God, knowing Jesus Christ. Because what happens is, you know, some people, they get the wrong idea about what the Salvation Prayer is all about. They think that they are saying the Salvation Prayer so that they can now gain access to the blessings. They can gain access to this free ticket to heaven. They can gain access to all the privileges which come along, all the perks that come along with being a follower of Jesus. But no, that's not what the Salvation Prayer is about. The Salvation Prayer is basically where you're coming and saying, I have now discovered you.  Now I know what you've done for me, and I want to know you. So that actually is eternal life where God is not just a means to an end. Where you're approaching God to acquire many other good things which you're hoping to have. No, that is not Salvation. Salvation is just knowing him and having a relationship with him. Now, this in fact was a revelation for me when I first learned it because for most of my Christian life, I had always been kind of focused on John 1010 and I misunderstood John 1010. You know, we all are very familiar with John 1010.  And of course, Jesus, when he was referring to the thief, he was also talking about the Pharisees who were false leaders, false shepherds.  But I have come. So he says, I am the true shepherd. And he says, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. So for me, Salvation always meant that, oh, okay, in Christ, I'm going to have an abundant life. It never occurred to me that I was treating God as the means to an end. The end being me getting the blessings, me having that abundant life, me having that peace and joy, which I know I can enjoy in him. It never occurred to me that I'm making God the means to an end, that he himself is not the end itself. It never occurred to me that I was doing that for many years. And when it first came to my mind that my attitude was wrong about Salvation, about eternal life, it was quite a shock. I realized that I was treating God in the same way the world treats Santa Claus. Because you see, nobody really cares about that plump man in a red suit with that funny looking white beard. Nobody goes to him for himself. Nobody cares about him. They go to him for the gifts that he's going to be bearing. So he's just the means to an end. But this God of Gods is no Santa. He is the gift. He is the prize.  And so this is such an important statement. Maybe we should include this when we are sharing the Gospel message so that people don't come to Jesus just for blessings. And they just think that Jesus is some kind of a Santa Claus. Maybe we should teach them that this is eternal life, that we get to know God, that we get to know Jesus Christ, whom he has sent because then our focus is correct. And we start off our Christian walk knowing that we are beginning a relationship with him. He is not someone that we are cultivating a relationship with just to get things out of him. No, he himself is the end towards which we are moving. And so we have entered into this relationship with him to know him. And on a day-to-day basis, we will choose to sanctify ourselves because we value this relationship. We want to hold on to him. We do not want to lose him. So it becomes a walk of sanctification where every day we start setting ourselves apart more and more so that we can have a greater and greater intimacy with this Jesus with whom we have entered into a relationship. So it kind of helps us to get our priorities right when we understand this important concept. Now, moving on to some other things, maybe if we could have someone read out for us, John chapter 17 verses 11, maybe just 11 and 12. Yeah, if someone could read out for us, John 17, 11 and 12 please. If all of you could have your Bibles with you when you come for the class and if you could open your Bibles to the passages that we are covering, that would make it easy for you to just quickly unmute and read the verses that I'm requesting. So John chapter 17, if someone could read out for us verses 11 and 12 please. Anybody online who can read out John 17, 11 and 12? John 17, 11 and 12. When now I'm no longer in the world, but these are in the world and I come to you. Holy Father keep through your name those whom you have given me and that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you gave me I have kept and none of them is lost except the son of Padishon that the scripture might be fulfilled. Yes, thank you. So here the first prayer request that Jesus is placing before the Father is that the Father would keep these disciples who have come to the Lord and who have accepted the son whom he has sent. So Jesus says the first prayer request is this Father protect them, keep them how by the power of your name is what it says in verse 11. So we are today being kept by the power of the name of Jesus. On our own we would not be able to stay in this relationship with the almighty one. You know this eternal life that we have entered into of knowing him, having a relationship with him. We would never be able to succeed in this relationship because he is divine. He is perfect. He is holy. We on the other hand are still work in progress. There are still so many things defects that need to be overcome, that need to be straightened out. So it would never be possible for us to have a relationship with this almighty one if it were not for this power of the name of Jesus that is keeping us in him. So basically the reason that we are all able to continue in our walk with the Lord is only because of the power of the name of Jesus. He is the one who keeps us. So the prayer which Jesus prayed that day before the father for his disciples and for all the followers who would come in the future generations, that prayer is being answered even today. You and I are benefiting from that intercessory prayer which Jesus prayed on that day because that day he did not pray just for the immediate followers of that time. He also included us in that prayer. And so we are all being kept by the power of the name of Jesus. And Jude 1.24 says something very lovely regarding this. So if someone could turn in their Bibles to the end of the Bible to Jude which has only one chapter. So Jude 1.24 if someone could read out verse 24. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Yes, it's talking about Jesus here who is going to present us before the father with exceeding joy because he is able to keep us from stumbling. The power in the name of Jesus will help us. It will enable us. It will equip us to stay in him and not to backslide and go away back into the world. So he will enable us and help us to keep from stumbling so that one day we will be presented before the father without fault is what it says over here. So this verse has been of great comfort to me in my Christian walk because there are times when I fall spiritually when I fall, when I have sinned against the Lord and I feel so deeply ashamed and I say I should have known better after all these years of having taught the Bible, of having known him. How could I have been so foolish and so selfish just to commit that sinful deed and when I'm feeling really bad, I'm reminded of this verse and I say, no, no, because Satan comes to you and says at such points of time, he says, see, you will never change. You will always be like this. You will always be the one who will disappoint the Lord. And so when those thoughts come into the mind, then the scripture helps me because I tell myself, no, I have a God and Savior who is able to keep me from stumbling. Yes, it is true that right now I have fallen, but I am repenting and I am ashamed of what I have done and now the Lord will help me so that I will not go back to the foolish wrong decision that I took and next time, if the same temptation comes my way, I will be able to succeed. Why? Because the power of the name of Jesus is able to keep me from stumbling. Even as I look to him and depend upon him, he will enable me to live in victory and one day I too will be presented before the Father without fault, without blemish and that's such an assurance for us believers to have. So what Satan tries to do is he tries to discourage us and make us think that we are one hopeless case. We, maybe all the others will succeed, but we, I in particular will never make it. That's what Satan comes to us and says when we have fallen. He makes us feel guilty, he makes us feel ashamed and he makes us feel that we will never be able to overcome certain areas in life where we tend to always stumble. So the promise is this, the truth is this, that we have a Savior who is indeed able to keep us from stumbling. So rather than listen to the lies of the evil one, rather than listen to the discouraging false things that Satan is telling us, we need to rely on scriptures like this, like Jude 1.24, like this John 17 verse 11 where we are told that the Lord can keep us. In fact, when verse 12, John 17 verse 12, Jesus says, none has been lost except the one doomed to destruction. So Judas made his decision right in the beginning. He was there basically for the money that he could steal. He never really wanted to be part of a follower of Jesus, but all the others who came to Jesus because they were so joyful to have discovered the Messiah, they all came for Jesus' sake, for the sake of the Messiah and so he kept them safe. Jesus says, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me and now I am going out of this world and so you, O Lord, you the Father, continue to keep them through the name which you have given me is what Jesus says. So the first request that Jesus places before the Father is that we should be kept safe. We should be protected that one day we will be presented before the Father without fault. The second request which Jesus places before the Father is that we should be sanctified on a daily basis. Now that would be verses 17 to 19. Maybe we can read up to verse 21. If someone could read out for us chapter 17 verses 17 to 21 please. Just sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into this world, I also have sent them into the world and for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth. I do not pray for these alone but also for those who will believe in me through their word that they all may be one as you, those who are in me and I in you that they also may be one in us that the world may believe that you sent me. Yeah, in these verses we see certain very specific facts mentioned regarding sanctification. First we get to know that sanctification happens through the word. The word corrects us. The word of God teaches us how we should be ourselves in what way we should walk on a daily basis. The choices we should make. It's the word of God which instructs us regarding these truths on how life should be lived. So even as we choose to walk in those truths we start getting more and more sanctified, more and more set apart. We start becoming more like him. Our walk is with him rather than with the world. So we are getting set apart. We're getting more to be with him in a relationship with him rather than being in a relationship with the world. So that's a process which happens through this word of truth which teaches us how to walk and it also enables us to walk. The second thing that we get to know about sanctification is that the sanctification is being done so that we can go out into the world and serve the purposes of God. So all of us as believers want to serve the Lord in some way but when we are not getting sanctified on a daily basis the service that we are offering the Lord tends to be very corrupted and stained with selfish motives, with sin and it's not really what the kind of fruit that the Lord wants us to bear. So sanctification is very important. The way we serve is influenced by to what extent we are sanctified. So a person who is allowing themselves to be sanctified by the word on a daily basis, they will be able to offer a service that is pure, something that will be a pleasing aroma to the Lord. Even as all of us are sitting over here attending this class, you are attending this class as students and this is the service that you are offering to the Lord. You have chosen to sit over here in this class to learn from the word, to equip yourselves. So if you are sitting over here with a sanctified heart on a daily basis, not just hearing the truth but also practicing it, also living it out in your choices, then that service that you are offering to the Lord as a student is a sanctified and pure service. In the same way me, the teacher, if I am just teaching over here as a teaching exercise but I am not really experiencing sanctification on a daily basis, however nice my teaching may sound, it's unclean in the Lord's eyes if there is no sanctification going on in my life. So what I offer to the Lord will be pure only if sanctification is happening inside of me, inside of us, whether we are students or whether we are the teacher, what are we offering to the Lord? Is this a sanctified service that is being offered or is it just something that's coming out of our own self-centeredness, out of our sinfulness? So sanctification does matter. It either leads to a pure and holy service unto the Lord or it leads to a service that we are offering God which is corrupted, which is not good enough. So Jesus says in verse 19, the reason I sanctified myself to the extent of going to the cross, I did that so that day too may be truly sanctified. So now in Jesus by His power, by the finished work of the cross, we too can lead sanctified lives. So Jesus says to the Father, keep them, protect them, but not let the evil one deceive them into thinking that oh, they will never make it and also keep them from harm and danger. So He's asking for that and second He says, Lord, continue to sanctify them so that they can really enjoy this eternal life to know you, draw closer to you, have a more and more intimate relationship with you and out of that their service will flow out and it will be a pure and holy service unto you and that will be like a pleasing aroma unto the Lord. So part of that sanctification, the last fact that we see regarding sanctification is unity. So He says, may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me before that He says that all of them may be one Father just as you are in me and I am in you. So we would have to overcome our different cultural backgrounds, our different perspectives and world views and in spite of all our differences we should be willing to be united because sometimes, that's basically why we ended up with so many denominations because one group of believers feel that they are superior to another group of believers and that leads to division. On the other hand, in spite of us having different perspectives in spite of us having different cultural backgrounds we should have that unity in the spirit which is what Jesus wanted which is what Jesus prayed for so there will always be differences because we are believers from all over the world we are going to have different world views, different perspectives but in spite of those differences are we willing to come together and be united in spirit because sanctification includes even that the more we are set apart the more it is easier for us to unite with others but the more selfish we are the less we have become sanctified we find it difficult to lay aside those things our own perspectives and choose to love others even though they hold a different perspective so all of these things matter and so Jesus asked the Lord that we would be sanctified in this manner just another one point even as he prays for those who will come in the future ages because in verse 22 the Lord says I have given them the glory that you gave me that they may be one as we are and then he goes on to talk about okay verse 21 onwards he starts praying for all the believers who will come even in the future and then in verse 22 this is what he says he says I have given them the glory that you gave me that they may be one as we are one so the Lord has imparted his glory to us in the sense all of us are going to be confirmed into the image of the sun nobody is going to be more in the image of the sun than somebody else when we all get to heaven we all are equally going to be confirmed to the image of the sun so it's not like any one person is going to be less glorified less in the image of the sun and some people are going to be more glorified more in the image of the sun rewards will differ because that will depend on the sacrifices we made for the Lord on the earth the sincere hard work that we put in the priorities that we had the motives that we had even as we served him reward will depend on that so rewards will differ but when it comes to our status who we are all of us would be equally glorified in the sense all of us are equally in the image of the sun glory doesn't depend on reward reward is a separating glorification is a separating glorification is us being made into the image of the sun sinful human beings who are worth nothing are now going to literally be made into the image of the sun to be like him I mean that's like a that's the ultimate glorification that a person could receive so rewards is a separate matter that's a different thing that is not glorification glorification is us being made into the image of the sun and this is the assurance that we are given that all of us will be are being given the same glory and so we don't have to be jealous of one another we all are equally valuable all of us have been equally chosen and appointed to go forth and bear fruit fruit that will have eternal results so we don't need to be jealous of one another we all have equally received his glory so therefore we should be one even as the father and son are one we too should be united in the same sense so here we see that there is really no need for any jealousy or competitiveness because we have all been given the same privilege equal privilege has been given to all of us so yes those are just some of the main thoughts that we could draw from the intercessory prayer of Jesus let's move quickly into John chapter 18 so in John chapter 18 the focus is mainly on the arrest of Jesus and he's tried in front of some of the Jewish leaders so these details are given in John chapter 18 and then John chapter 19 we will be dealing with his death and crucifixion so John chapter 18 let's look at the arrest which takes place so if we could have someone read out for us the first six verses we will look at a few details so we have moved into John chapter 18 if someone can read out for us the first six verses please when Jesus had spoken his words he went back to this inside where there was a garden which he acted inside the center and Judas betrayed him also needed this but Jesus often went there to this inside this then Judas having received an attachment of troops and officers who received police invasions came there with the ambulance towards the entrance and they were all involved in this that would come upon them then forward and said to them don't buy your seat they answered Jesus of Nazareth Jesus said to them I am here and Judas will be taken also should be with them and now when he said to them I am here they drew back the church um yeah so here in this passage we see that the people who have come to arrest Jesus are carrying torches lanterns and weapons so we realize that this is taking place in the night time which means that these people are that these people have come here to make the arrest or believe that they are doing something crooked they are not willing to do this boldly in the light of day they feel that they need to cover this thing which they are doing because they realize that what they are doing is not right not just not correct and so the very time of night which we know which they choose to do this deed shows that they are aware that what they are doing is wrong they are not doing this in their innocence no they very well know that what they are doing is crooked and they know that if the public could see what they are doing the public would not approve of it and so they are now doing it in a concealed manner so which is basically why Judas is being paid because Judas will know the movements of um Judas will know the movements of Jesus they probably would have told him let us know when he is going to be in some place away from the crowd all by himself and not with many people around him to defend him because at that time it will be easy for us to capture him so they probably would have asked him to you know let them know so now Judas comes to the garden because he knows that right now Jesus is just going to be there with the disciples no one else is going to be around public is not going to be watching so Judas the betrayer comes over there with a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests so we realize from this that these soldiers belong to the chief priests and the Pharisees so this is basically referring to the temple guard you know the temple always had a a set of a team of troops which would take turns in guarding the temple because the temple was inlaid with gold so right from Solomon's time there was always a temple guard the temple had to be guarded so the different gates leading into the temple area would always have soldiers posted over there so right from that time you had a detachment of soldiers who would be looking after the temple taking turns so some of those soldiers are being used over here to make this particular arrest and they have come along with weapons because not only have they brought torches and lanterns but it says over there in verse 3 that they have also brought weapons and when they come over there they are coming with Judas so they obviously know that they have come to the right place they have come to Jesus so Jesus rather mockingly he says who is it you want he knows very well why they have come what they have come for he also knows why Judas has brought them so it's more of a kind of mocking statement where he says who is it you want and they say Jesus of Nazareth and then in our English translation they add the word he but he literally just says I am and then we see what happens over here because John records that very specifically when Jesus claims who he is and declares that he is the I am they draw back and fall to the ground I mean they literally fall down on the ground because he is expressing his divinity and they can't stand in front of who he is so this actually very clearly emphasises the fact that it was not a helpless Jesus who got trapped in a corner and then got taken away no this is the I am standing there in all of his authority and power and volunteering to be arrested this is not a helpless Jesus who got caught up in a conspiracy so it is so important to recognise this the people who have come with their weapons to arrest him and the chief priests and the Pharisees who have come to supervise the whole thing they all fall down to the ground they can't stand in front of the divine I am and then they get up wipe themselves and then they go ahead and make the arrest because the I am is allowing himself to be arrested so we see the almighty God in all of his power in all of his majesty choosing to humble himself and do this for sinful mankind I mean amazing such ultimate divine power combined with such deep compassion and such amazing humility I mean that is the kind of God that we are trying to imitate so sanctification is something that we will never be able to do on our own we go to him and say lord it is only going to take place if you will enable me because this is the kind of God that we are trying to become like so we are trying to become more and more set apart so that we are more like him rather than like the world so here he declares who he is that he is the I am and they cannot even withstand it they fall to the ground and then they get up and make their arrest so we see this fact so then in verse 8 yeah maybe we can have we can read out verses 8 to 11 yeah we still have 5 minutes so yeah if someone could read out for us verses 8 to 11 please so therefore we see the same which is those then so so so so so Jesus said to be so so yeah thank you so what had Peter said earlier lord I am willing to lay down my life for you and the man is actually willing to you know show an action that he meant it so he is now getting ready to lay down his life because he is no trained warrior but still he has a sword with him you know they probably use this because they travel from place to place out in the wilderness and you know at that time they don't have anything they need to protect themselves against robbers against gangsters so in those days people always had a short dagger or a sword or something you know when they are travelling so Peter had a sword because the you know Peter and the disciples and Jesus would travel from village to village on foot and so out in the wilderness if there is any danger they should be able to protect themselves so that is the reason why this Peter has a sword with him right now so he draws his sword and he cuts off the high priest's servants right here so this is him you know acting on the promise he made getting ready to lay down his life for his master but Jesus has come into the world with a very different purpose and so earlier in the prayer he had said I have not lost even one of the ones whom you have given me except of course the you know the son of perdition who had already made his choice so now the same thing is repeated over here in verse 9 where it says so in verse 8 Jesus says let these men go you know you have come to arrest me go ahead arrest me but allow these others to go and John records and says Jesus said these words so that what has spoken would be fulfilled I have not lost one of those you gave me so Jesus does not want any of them to be accidentally wounded or killed in the altercation which will follow you know if they resort to violence and so Jesus commands Peter and says put your sword away this cup which the father is giving me I will drink of it now this would not have made sense to Peter Jesus has been telling them over the last few weeks that yes he is going to be you know leaving so um Jesus has been telling them about this but they have not quite caught what Jesus is saying and so now Peter and the other disciples must have been very puzzled they were willing to go into fight mode to fight for their master to somehow you know protect him help him but the master is saying I want to drink from this cup so no no violence I am willing to go I am willing to go with the and they do not understand this and so at this point in their shock in their bewilderment they all run away except of course we see two disciples who are not able to run away so they kind of stealthily follow at a distance behind him to see what is going to happen next where they are going to take him um we see over here that Jesus um is so protective towards his disciples and he says let these men go you have come for me you arrest me but do not harm them in any way alright so let's hold on to that thought and then we will go for a break um so when we come back we will continue from verse 12 onwards thank you


Welcome to Vacation Runtles Are the Future. I'm your host, Erica Muller. And this week, we're gonna be talking about everyone's favorite topic, which is regulatory and compliance with short-term rentals. I know we talk about this on every episode and we kind of ask each guest what they think, but today's guest, this is her job. This is what she does all day every day. She's head of compliance and at Avalara, excuse me, and they do tax and compliance for short-term rentals nationwide. So I'm very excited to have her on today. Welcome to the show, Pamela. Thank you for having me, Erica. Yeah, it's my pleasure. So, you know, there's a lot of things happening right now in Hawaii with short-term rental regulations and compliance issues. And before we dig into that, because I mean everybody kind of knows about the ban that happened in October and the changes to things, but how did we get here? Like that's my big question today is like everything was going great at one point. I'm not gonna say it was, you know, one point in the, you know, not too long ago, but at some point everything was going great. Everyone was minding their business and owners were allowed to use their home however they saw fit. What is going on and what happened? Because we literally went from people being able to use their property as a short-term rental to now it's almost like if you're not a big hotel chain, you're pretty much out. So how did we get to this place? You know, that's a hard question to really answer. I think it really varies by what's happened in every jurisdiction. You know, one of the things is during the pandemic, short-term rentals really saw an increase in kind of their usage and that's continued as even outside of the pandemic, people started to realize the benefits of living or of working with a short-term rental in terms of being able to work from anywhere, being able to control your environment. So there's been a real uptick and the use and the utilization of short-term rentals. If you look at some of the bigger platforms like Airbnb and Verbo, their demand far outweighs the supply. And so I think, you know, there's been a lot more of that happening. And then again, you know, people were home so they saw things a little bit more.  And then, you know, and then there's just been a lot of news about short-term rentals. And I think it's caused some people to kind of think about it and they view it from the standpoint of their neighborhood and not necessarily the broader picture of the impact of short-term rentals, you know, on a positive side as well. Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like a lot of it might be monkey see, monkey do. Okay, so like one market starts getting really strict with regulatory stuff like Nashville, for example. And then everyone is paying attention to what's going on there. And then everybody's sitting back and questioning, well, maybe we need to look at things here in our market. And then that's kind of like a snowball effect. And I've seen just like, you know, every other month it's something new somewhere else. I know in Arizona right now they're working on things, changing things around. But staying on the topic of Hawaii, like can you tell me a little bit about your experience working with compliance and regulations in that market? So there's, you know, there's a lot of short-term rentals in Hawaii and compliance has been one of the big factors there. And really when, like again, some of the platforms looked at compliance as far as permitting and everything else, there was a lot of short-term rentals in Hawaii that hadn't been permitted appropriately. And so that's been a big push for compliance is to get those short-term rentals permitted so that they are, you know, good citizens. They're doing what they're supposed to be doing. They're collecting the taxes that are supposed to be collecting, et cetera. And so it's really critical that all the hosts are very compliant with not only the permitting regulations but then the reporting regulations that come after that. Because that's what makes them kind of part of the economic community and the community as a whole instead of kind of being under, you know, underground in that scenario. Gotcha. So you mentioned the tax part of it and tax compliance and I really feel like a lot of this comes down to making sure they're tracking the money that's coming in from this. So they're getting their piece of the taxes and I understand that. And that's definitely fair and needed. Okay, so we create compliance around that to make sure everything is being regulated and everyone's paying their taxes but completely like outright banning things I think is a bit extreme. But on the tax side, now tell me about how taxes are working right now with short-term rentals on, you know, all the islands in Hawaii. Is it different from island to island? You know, is it more or less like the same all across the board? What can investors that are looking at this market expect when it comes to taxes in this market versus other markets they may be looking in? Yeah, and it varies widely. So yes, it varies by, you know, can vary by state, by city, by county. It really depends on what in each individual taxing authority has decided to do. So you can see that, you know, if you're in a specific city and county and state, you might have a different tax rate, you know, so you might have a different tax rate on Maui than you do on, you know, Oahu or on Kauai or any of those types of things. You really need to make sure you know what the local taxing jurisdictions have asked to do as far as the tax rates are concerned because it can vary, again, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. What is the most like wild expensive tax you've seen in any state or county or city? Like what's the most outrageous one you've seen so far? Let's see, that's a tough one. And I can't say that any of them are necessarily outrageous. I know there's, you know, there's one right now that's got a 15% rate, which is a pretty high rate. There's another jurisdiction within that they are charging a flat fee of $1,000 a year from a permitting standpoint. But on the flip side, they've earmarked that $1,000 specifically to address a problem that they thought short-term rentals were contributing to that being affordable housing. So they've earmarked that $1,000 to go to solve the affordable housing crisis in their community. So it's a balanced approach actually to say, hey, we're gonna charge this flat rate, but we're gonna earmark it to try and solve the problem that we think we have. I actually, I love that. That's the first I've heard of anyone actually doing something about the problem that they claim short-term rentals are causing is, you know, the more short-term rentals you have, the less affordable housing, the less people will rent out for long-term stuff. Okay, fair point. But like, what are you doing about it, right? Instead of just complaining about it, it sounds like they're actually doing something. So can we dig into that a little bit? Cause I really like that. And I kind of feel like if, you know, if there's a local ordinance or, you know, municipalities are serious about solving this problem that taking an action like that might be a better option than just outright banning short-term rentals because now you're generating cashflow and revenue into solving something that, you know, it would have been a problem regardless, right? So how are they, when they're earmarking that money, like what are they doing with it? How are they solving the problem with it? Then they're starting to look at where they can either build or invest in kind of some, some more affordable housing for the workers that need to come in. It's a resort community, just like a lot of short-term rentals. And so they need to figure out how they can house the people who the grocery clerks that are working there or the retail clerks. And so they're taking that money and really kind of developing some more affordable housing or setting aside some apartment complexes or whatever to say, hey, this is affordable housing. And it's actually working quite well for them cause they're still getting all the tourist dollars that come in. So, you know, these people who work at the grocery stores, they're depending upon the tourists coming in and buying groceries or that they work at the local salon or any of those, they're depending on the tourist dollars coming in. And so now they've balanced both. They still have the tourist dollars coming in from the short-term rentals, but they've now actually developed a plan to provide affordable housing to the workers that have to come in to do this. That's amazing. And do you think this is a model that people are watching right now that might be implemented in other markets as well? Or is this something that you feel like is maybe just unique to this market?  Well, I think all the communities watch all the communities to see what's happening and to see what's gonna work and what's not gonna work. So, you know, I think there are watching it, you know, whether or not they'll jump on it, I think is really gonna depend on how they look at their own community. But I do think, you know, they are looking at it, they're watching it and seeing what really works. And, you know, and that's really the key to this whole thing is communities really need to take a balanced approach and say, what is the problem we're trying to solve and does the solution that we're thinking about actually solve that problem? You know, affordable housing is a great one from the standpoint of, you know, if you take some of these short-term rentals off the short-term rental market, are they really eligible for a long-term rental? Are they within the financial capability of somebody who's working at the local grocery store or the local salon or the local retail outlet? A lot of them are not because they're bigger, more expensive houses sometimes to accommodate the families that are coming in. So they really aren't, even as a long-term rental, they're not affordable for those same people. So, you know, it's really making sure that they're taking a balanced approach and looking at what are the problems that we need to solve and what's the best way to go about solving them? Yeah, I absolutely agree. I mean, there's a lot of people that, you know, their mortgage is too high anyway to even do a long-term rental. So even the rent they could bring in, they might break even and that's not why they bought the house. They bought the house to generate cash flow. So what'll happen is you're just gonna get a flood of houses being put on the market and dumped and sold. And that's not good for the real estate market either. And coming back to the thing you said too about how the local community depends on those tourists coming into the market, that's a really important point that I think people forget when they're trying to just shut down short-term rentals is they bring a lot of money back into the community. And that money is what keeps people employed. It keeps jobs in the tourism industry and the surrounding industry. So like I just don't understand who's sitting back thinking that this is a great idea to just ban short-term rentals and shut it down. To me that just sounds like an outrageous concept because if you have a good model in your market and something's working and there's a small problem, address the problem but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, right? And it sounds like that's exactly what you're talking about right now. So what are some other like unique ideas or concepts that you've heard of that people are using to approach this whole short-term rental compliance standpoint to where they're not just banning them but there's other ideas on the table? Like what are some of those things looking like? Yeah, so some of the other things that I've seen is again really looking at, okay so neighbors are concerned about party houses or those types of things. So they've put in some really clear regulations around noise levels, around trash, around parking around the number of occupants and they're requiring that that be monitored. And the thing is with technology these days you can monitor that, you know you can use Google Home for example to keep an eye on what's happening outside your house so that the property owner can look and say oh there's too many cars parked out there I need to get a hold of whoever's renting this for this week and tell them they've got to get rid of some of the cars or you know, hey the trash is piling up I need to get somebody to go deal with this or Google if you have it in the house we'll even monitor the noise level and we'll alert you to say hey the noise level is getting out of hand or whatever. So there's a lot of regulations that are happening around that to imply for the good neighbor standpoint so that it's like these short-term renters do remain good neighbors with the local community and they're not disruptive, et cetera. So I've seen some of those regulations coming into play too that say, okay you're permitting it but there's some very clear regulations as to what you can and cannot do. You have a three bedroom house the maximum number of people you can have in that house is six so you can't have somebody who's coming in and throwing people on the couches and the floors and everything else and so now you have 10 people in a small house. So it's a lot of things like that that we're seeing is some of those regulations. So who's tracking all that, right? Like, because there's a lot of cheaters out there, right? There's a lot of people that are gonna try to press the boundary and like, you know get around the rules and that's just, that's in every industry everything that people do. I'm not a proponent of that. I'm one of those buy the books, just follow the rules and do what you're supposed to do and generate your income and mind your business, right? And just follow the rules but there's a lot of people who are like, oh, you know, I can just, you know sneak somebody in the back door or whatever like how are they keeping track if people are really following that or not? And is it part of the problem that like when they do roll out these kind of compliance rules that people try not to follow them? Is that an issue?  They're good players. They wanna follow the regulations, et cetera. You know, from an enforcement standpoint it's really dependent upon the neighborhood to say, hey, if you see something that's not happening, you know, report it but that's why it's also critical for the property owners of the short-term rentals to really connect with their neighbors to give their neighbors potentially an avenue to contact them directly if they think something's going wrong rather than always going to the local agencies to say, hey, something's happening here. So it's, you know, it's a combination of things getting to know your neighbors even if you're not a full-time resident there giving them an avenue to reach out to you if they see a problem and then building that relationship to help maintain that good neighbor status. Nice, yeah, I agree with all that. So let's talk a little bit about the nuts and bolts of how taxes and work on this because a lot of people don't understand how it breaks down.  How do you kind of explain to people about the way short-term rental taxes work because it's different than people that don't own long-term rentals? It's a very different concept. Yes, and again, that also varies basically from jurisdiction to jurisdiction in some cases anything over 30 days is classified as a long-term rental. So there's not a tax implication in terms of a transactional tax. And in some cases that's a 90-day window that anything that's rented less than 90 days is still responsible for that nightly tax. So it's really critical that people know what the rules and regulations are within their specific jurisdiction. And that's where we come into play if you, we provide the information that says here's what the rates are, it's 15% for this, it's 3% for this, 2% for this types of things. We provide that information. And our system will help calculate what those taxes are based on the number of nights of the stay, et cetera. So that's a critical factor is to understand what that is and also know when that tax is due to the jurisdiction. Because if you file late or you don't file on time, not only is there penalties and interest to get assessed, but you can put your permit at risk. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm really glad that you guys are out there. I've followed your company for a long time. And you are one of the most helpful companies out there when it comes to people just like needing direction on this because it's like easy to buy the house, right? Well, it's not easy, but it's easier to find a good real estate agent to help you get the house, understand the numbers, find the property manager, but really there's nobody out there that I know of except for you guys really, that really will sit down and explain this all to you and break it down. And you guys have been doing this for 10 years or longer, right? Yes, we've been doing this for a long time. Yeah. Over 10 years, yeah. Yeah, so you remember kind of like, I don't know if you guys started before Airbnb was in the scene, but I got into short-term rentals in 2008 and it was like the wild west. And nobody knew anything about who to pay taxes to, what taxes were due, what are these even for? It was a total nightmare.  What is the customer journey like for somebody that they acquired a short-term rental and they own it now, they just closed on it? Like what does that journey look like from how they find you and then how you guys help them? It's really quite simple. They can just find us if they go out to Avalara.com, they can just find us. And then they can sign up online. They will ask for some information in terms of property address, those types of things they sign up online. And then just every month, they all they have to do is report their revenue to us in terms of what their revenue was the last month. We'll calculate out what portion of that was tax and then we'll prepare the return. We'll tell them the liability that they're due and we can pull the funds from their account and submit that all to the jurisdiction. It's all happens timely. And they don't have to worry about it. That's amazing. Yeah, that's a really great service to people can leverage. So what is the wildest thing that you know? And I know I asked you before about a different question that was wild but I love this word wild because there's just so much stuff happening every day out there. But what's the wildest thing you're seeing right now anywhere in the US that with regulations, like in terms of coming out of nowhere, trying to ban things, like when I say wild, I'm talking about like Nashville level wild or Honolulu level wild where things just get like shut down. Right? Are we seeing that anywhere else right now? Or was Honolulu kind of the last one to do that? No, we're seeing it in other places and there's everything from the increased regulations regarding permit. So there's a community in California that now to get a short-term license permit, you have to actually have a home inspection. And then from the home inspection, if there's anything not up to code, you have to bring your house up to current code before you can do it as a short-term rental. Not anything you'd have to do if you were selling it or just living there but you have to do it for a short-term rental. That's pretty extreme because some of these houses could have been built 30 years ago and things are not going to be up to code. So that's one extreme. On the flip side, we've seen like San Diego just recently put a cap on the short-term rental permits that they're going to have and they decreased it by almost 60% from the number that they already have. Oh wow. So all of a sudden you're going to have somewhere around 12,000 short-term rental owners that are no longer going to be able to use a house as a short-term rental. Period. That's crazy. That is definitely wild. So what is their contingency plan to handle? Like what do they expect is going to happen to all these people? This is a lot of people, this is how they make their living, right? This is their full-time job is to rent out properties on Airbnb and they actually have a whole revenue stream from that. It is like their single revenue stream. And when you do something like that, you're putting all these people out of business. This is how they feed their family. So is there any kind of a contingency plan as like what happens to these people? Do they have a timeline that they can phase out or they just like, boom, you're done? No, it's pretty much a boom, you're done. They're going to have, there's a date when this is going into effect and basically who's going to get this permit is going to be a bit of a lottery system. They are going to basically, prefer people who have been in compliance and who don't have complaints against them, those types of things. But again, other than that, it's really going to be a lottery system. So you won't know if you get it or not. And then from that point on, somebody's going to have to drop off for somebody else to come on. Wow. So it's going to be an interesting piece. And to your point earlier, does this mean that there's houses going for sale on the market because they can't afford to keep this house anymore? That's still to be seen, but that is definitely a potential outcome of this is that people who love visiting San Diego, for example, and that's why they bought the short-term rental there is because they want to go down there for three months out of the year, whatever, now can't. So they're going to sell their house. It's going to put a lot of houses on the market. And then the money that they bring in when they do come stay for the three months is now not going to be there anymore because they're not going to come in anymore. So, yeah, it's a really interesting, it's a really interesting dynamic. And that's where I really encourage people to take a holistic view of what is happening because banning things or shortening them has some economic impacts that most people don't really think through a review to determine what's just going to happen because even if they are compliant and they're paying taxes, now your tax revenue that's going into your city is less, but the city still has to pay for the roads. They still have to pay for the police force and the fire department and all of those things. So now somebody's got to make up that shortfall in revenue that the city is going to have, which means it's going to turn around and fall on the long-term residents to make up that shortfall. So yes, they may have decreased the number of short-term rentals, but they may also end up increasing their own tax base. Wow, that blows my mind that somebody actually thought that was a good idea, that I'm not trying to be mean, well, maybe I am, but like that was a terrible decision. I mean, terrible on so many levels. And so this was in San Diego. Is that where Oceanside is in that whole area? I believe so, yes. Okay, yeah, cause that's a really hot short-term rental market right now that a lot of people are investing in. So there's a lottery system. People are going to find out, like, if they're lucky or not, like Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory basically, I got the golden ticket and if you don't have the golden ticket, you're gone. And that's going to have terrible economic impact, an impact, like you said. But like, what do we, let's talk about the real estate market, what that is going to do to the real estate market. When you have a flood of houses hitting the market all around the same time, I mean, that's how prices just tank. You know, in the current economic environment that we're in, that's like the last thing you want to be doing is like pushing the boundaries on that any more than we're currently at. And so like adding fuel to the fire, we're going to be watching San Diego now that you told me this to see kind of how this plays out because I hope, and I hope other people are watching if this does not play out well and I don't think it will. I hope they kind of see that and don't replicate that in their market. And this hopefully will encourage people to find a better solution than to just like shut things down. Because I just don't, like you said, I don't think that's the answer. So are there any other markets that are doing anything that crazy or is that kind of the most insane one of the week? I would say that's probably one of the crazier ones. I've seen, you know, the more extreme ones that I've seen lately. You know, there are some that are putting in like percentage caps that says within this particular set of blocks or this particular square mile, there can only be, you know, 10 or 20% of the houses can be short term rentals, those types of things. You know, that's a little tougher as well, but you know, that is one of the things that we're seeing that's happening across some of the jurisdictions that still allows people to kind of have short term rentals in the area is just, they're trying to not have them all concentrated in one spot and they change it because they may want some of them concentrated in one spot. So then they'll increase the percentage in that area, but decrease it in other areas to encourage kind of the short term rentals to be more consolidated. So it really varies based on the jurisdiction, how they want to approach this. Interesting. And one thing from an investment standpoint, because you know that's that earlier, that's what we do is the investment side of it is we have to look for markets where, you know, investors wanting to get into this market, we have to look for markets where if there is a situation where these permits are very coveted and you know, you happen to have one that it can be transferred to the new owner because a lot of times when they go to sell that permit is done, like the new owner cannot renew it and they won't give it to them. And this person has years of value put into this home. They built an actual business, right? And what happens is they can't sell it for what it's worth. And when you're selling a business that has a higher profit and a higher margin and you know, price tag, then when you're just selling a regular house because we look at these as commercial investments to sell, not just residential. And so, you know, part of the business model that a lot of people are looking at with short-term rentals is I'm going to come in, I'm going to get it profitable, I'm going to make this a great short-term rental and then I'm going to sell it at a cap rate valuation. And you can't do that unless there's a good cash flow number. And that all goes out the door completely if you can't sell the short-term rental permit with it. So they're also indirectly kind of, you know, screwing over the owners that currently have one and are putting all this time and energy into building it up into a really great income-producing business from ever being able to sell it to an investor, they're basically just stuck with whatever the residential market looks like at that point, right? So I feel like that's also something that people need to be aware of when they're investing in a certain market. We only have about a minute and a half left. So I just wanted to give you like a minute to talk about, you know, how people can, I know that the link is on here, you know, people can find you, go to the website. But like, who do you serve best? Who's your ideal client? And what do you want them to know about you in your company? We do everything from single short-term rental owners where they just own a property at, you know, a house in some place that they love to go. So I love to go skiing in Breckenridge. I own a short-term rental in Breckenridge so I can go there for a couple of months during the sea season, but the rest of the time it's a short-term rental to property managers who have thousands of houses. So, you know, the short-term rental market is really what we know. We do that sort of thing. We help out with the licensing and the permitting piece of it all the way through again to the tax collection compliance. So it's, and it is critical for people to stay in compliance because, you know, that really is what sets them up for success long-term. Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. Well, Pamela, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show today and you were in a wealth of knowledge. I learned a lot from you and I love learning. So thank you so much for that and for everybody listening. If you want to reach out to Pamela, just go to Avalara.com, A-V-A-L-A-R-A for those of you that are listening and not watching, A-V-A-L-A-R-A.com. And you guys can get set up with them over there, awesome team. I love what they do for you guys and then you'll make sure you stay in compliance the whole time. Thank you so much, Pamela, and I hope to have you back in the future on the show. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. 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Gwtodd, mae'n cael mhwael ar y tafn. Merhid, mae'r gweithio am y gallu ddweud eich gwasanaeth gweithio. First of all, I shall lie once again to thank your hands, Gwciiln, Fyddair o wonderful and magnificent hospitality. The Search For Truth is, of course, very gratifying, but to search for truth in the Carrier Princess Otar Felly, y ffordd hyn sylwedd y mae'n gweithio'r wrth gwrth. Rwy'n meddwl i'r bobl a dweud o gael sylweddau, ac wedi 음ydau ein byddfer hynny am hyn, mae'n meddwl i'r bobl gennym isgol yng Ngheirion, ynddun nhw'n edrych yn yma, ac mae hynny i'r bobl. Bydd y Prifysg twfynu gwneud yno i fod yn ei godieth i gael ychydigol yn unosu'n any vehicle, including in private cars. The justification for this proposal was, as follows, it's generally thought on the basis of epidemiological evidence that children brought up with parents who smoke are more likely to develop chest infections, chest additions such as bronchiolitis and to suffer from severe exacerbations of asthma if they suffer from asthma. Asthmatic children of smoking parents have to go to hospital more often and stay longer than asthmatic children of non-smoking parents. The risk of children suffering from other conditions such as Nibogir disease is 35% greater if parents smoke than if they don't and parents who smoke more than double the risk of a child suffering from bacteria and meningitis. So it seems obvious or intuitively obvious that smoking in a small and confined space such as a car is not likely to be good for children's health and indeed smoking in a car raises articulate contaminants of the air to more than 100 times the recommended levels. Now let me just here interpose a warning for general consumption as it were. When epidemiological evidence or information is relayed to the general public it's often in the following form that consumption of product X say doubles the risk of development of disease Y. The significance of this information for most people however crucially depends upon the absolute not the relative risks. The doubling of a risk of developing a disease that normally occurs one in five million people is not really worth worrying about and a small increase in the relative risk of developing a very common condition can be of significance in absolute numbers and only rarely I think of these things made played to the public in the reporting of epidemiological studies and there sometimes in fact quite often not made in the medical literature themselves these things are not made clear and this one suspects is because scientific research and public advocacy are not nearly as distinct as one might suppose that they are about that they ought to be. Well a couple of absolute figures for the risk of children of smoking by their parents might now be in order it's estimated that in Britain I'm talking about Britain I hope you'll forgive me for using British statistics it's estimated that there are 9500 extra hospital admissions a year because of asthma necessitated by the smoking of parents by parents of asthmatic children that however is one in a thousand children per year if you need to keep all these figures in mind the death it's estimated that 200 cases of bacterial meningitis a year are attributable to smoking by parents and the death rate from this disease is between 5 and 10% even when adequately treated and the permanent neurological damage is 10 to 20% of cases that is to say between 10 and 20 children a year die in between 20 and 40 a year suffer from permanent neurological damage for example deathless because of parental smoking. Now these figures translate to something between one in a million and one in 250,000 children I'm assuming here for the sake of argument that these figures are beyond reproach and that all relevant compounding variables have been controlled for. Now let's examine a few principles it seems to me that a person A is right to breathe smoke-free air in situations where they are obliged to breathe the same air as B trumps these right to smoke and for example prison in which I used to work a doctor attempted rightly in my view to accommodate prisoners who did not smoke in smoke-free cells when they shared cells of course it's there aren't very many non-smaking prisoners because the statistical association between smoking and criminality is very very strong it's much stronger than the connection between poverty and it's much stronger than the criminality and it's much stronger than that the connection with unemployment and it's very nearly as strong as the connection between criminality and tattooing. Well where children are concerned the right to smoke-free air seems even stronger they can't escape the environment into which they are born and parents obviously have a duty of care to their children not to expose them knowingly to risks where there are no benefits accruing to them that is to say the children from those risks but if we examine the particular prohibition with regard to private cars in the first place it doesn't seem that anyone has ever shown that smoking in cars is an independent risk factor for the development of any disease in children it might be and perhaps it is but intuitive likelihood is not the same as evidence much less of certainty so quite a stern prohibition is being proposed on the basis of knowledge that is more mutually complete and it's likely to remain incomplete for very obvious it's intrinsically difficult to disentangle the risk of smoke-breathing cars from smoke-breathing elsewhere including of course in homes and it's obvious that many private cars are driven without transporting children thus a blanket prohibition is proposed to alter the behaviour of only a portion of the population the alternative being a targeted prohibition that would be more onerous possibly and intrusive to enforce than a blanket one it is obvious also that prohibiting smoking in cars could be and would logically be but a first step to the prohibition of smoking in homes or at least in homes where there are young children and we should not disguise from ourselves the possibility that this would bring benefits as measured by admission of children to hospital for acute exacerbations of asthma for example but unfortunately benefits are rarely more broad without costs and some of these costs are tangible and some intangible and many are unforeseen in a letter to the times towards the end of 1939 for example and shortly before his own death the famous surgeon Wilfred Trotter pointed out that the blackout in Britain preparatory to German air bombing raids which so far had not occurred had resulted in an extra 600 fatal accidents on the roads of Britain 600 people died as a result of that that is to say the mere proportion of 600 people nowadays of course we can we can conduct home wars and bombing countries to smithereens with fewer casualties to ourselves that is and so there is progress now I'll pass over the tangible costs of prohibition of smoking in cars from economic ones to agitation in drivers for example causing more accidents it's obvious that a prohibition first in cars and then logically in homes represents an increase in state power or control over the individual the cost of this increase in control of loss of liberty can of course be measured in the same units as the benefits to children's health the chief benefits and harms of the prohibition are probably incremental and therefore people might disagree whether from a so-called rational point of view it is justified or not to prohibit smoking in cars and homes is there more rejoicing in heaven over one hospital admission avoided than over 99 smoking parents were allowed to continue well what's clear from reading the medical journals is that there is never or very rarely any sense of dilemma in them a ban would would produce x amount of health benefit and therefore it should be instituted the question of freedom does not even arise let alone other costs of course to a hammer all things are a male to doctors everyone is the permanent possibility of an illness just as John Stuart no define matter as the permanent possibility of sensation but James Oswell once said the world is not to be made a great hospital and that is what we are recently doing since illness is by definition something that one would wish to avoid anything that helps avoid illness is so fact justified unfortunately health is one of those undoubtedly desiderata that is affected by almost everything that a man does this is so even if one does not take seriously the world health organisation sinister and totalitarian definition of health the definition of health is a state of complete physical mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity this definition was written into the organization's founding constitution and has not been amended since 1948 it's still used and is often posted and i don't think it requires very much reflection to see that on such a definition of health there is scarcely any definition at any extension of tyranny that could not be justified on grounds of public health and of course there is a marked institutional in the tendency for public health authorities to act well in advance of the evidence for example in the two countries in which i live Britain and France there have been widespread publicity campaigns endorsed by the WHO which involves some kind of moral bullying to get people to eat five portions of vegetables and fruit a day this i hasn't to have is not for aesthetic reasons but to improve the health of the population as we know a meal is a medical it's a medical procedure among the justifications offered for the campaign that of course used up a considerable amount of resources derived or perhaps i should say extorted from taxpayers was that eating five portions of fruit and vegetables would reduce the risk of cancer and i will hear pass over the difficult and perhaps impossible question of whether mounting propaganda campaigns actually changes people's behaviour very much let alone in the desired direction well a recent very large study involving more than half a million people in Europe demonstrated that those who ate five portions a day had a reduced risk of developing cancer of between two and three percent not enough to be sure that the effect was caused by the difference in diet after all very few people differ only in the diet that they take and no other characteristics and such a large study couldn't control for that so we don't know whether eating five vegetables a day is good for you or not at least from the point of view of developing cancer however it's unlikely that this will have any effect whatever on the propaganda that is used for two reasons really the first is that it would involve an admission that that they were wrong and secondly the show must go on but really it will also go on because we feel that people who do not eat fruit and vegetables are often stupid and badly educated and have a calling taste diet has long been thought to be the greatest key to health the British physician for example George chain and i'm taking just one example who lived between 1671 and 1748 already recommended exactly what is recommended now that is to say exercise a diet rich in vegetables and moderation in all things and though it must be said that at one point he weighed more than 200 kilos and he personally would not move around un-aided the differences that chain sought to persuade or convince his readers and his patients rather than compel them and in fact he used his own bad example as a good example but we now live in an age when official coercion for our own good when the philosopher king is in firm alliance with the double entry bookkeeper and also in an age when intellectuals such as Richard Dawkins can seriously propagate the idea that to bring up a child in a religious belief is a form of child abuse akin to sexual and physical abuse which he thinks perhaps should be rooted out by a public in position while we that's the world we live in and government shepherds believe they have an infinite responsibility towards their flock and the flock believes it too in large part and there can be of course no responsibility without power anxiety is about the potential for the extension of tyranny over the population in the name of public health are actually quite old the times for example in about 1848 said in a very famous leader that we would prefer to take our chances with cholera than have the government dictate what water we should drink and another very important example of a smallpox vaccination in England and Wales during the 19th century in the first two or three decades of the 20th century probably come as a surprise to you to know that the anti-vaccination movement was one of the strongest and most durable social movements of the 19th century and it published mass circulation journals continuously for 50 or 60 years in response to the British government's attempt in the 1850s to make the vaccination of children compulsory and instituted fines for those parents who did not have their children vaccinated constantly the compulsion vaccination in the United States is still quite quite common the arguments of the vaccinate anti-vaccinators were composed of two main screens i have quite a large collection of anti-vaccination literature the first of these was that vaccination was as a matter of empirical fact either useless or harmful responsible responsible for spreading such diseases as syphilis and even leprosy and also that it was ineffective against smallpox well this is not a strand that i'm interested in here there was a second strand according to which even if compulsory vaccination were effective against smallpox it would still not be justified because it would make the state and not the parents of children the arbiter as to how they the children should be best looked after and that this was the beginning of a slippery slope interestingly this was a movement of this predominantly working class the working class was asking for protection from the state not protection of the state and i'll quote just one dissie from here the flavor of the kind thing that said men of england claim your freedom make a noble stand sweep the unjust war of tyrants from your native land strike the blood of vaccination claim your liberty sound the echo through the nation britans shall be free well in the event a something like a compromise was reached in 1898 according to which parents could opt out of having their children vaccinated if they could persuade a magistrate that they were conscientious objectives to vaccination was the model for conscientious vaccination conscientious objection during the first world war in any case as it happened smallpox declined as a serious health threat in western countries for a variety of reasons only one of the vaccination and the passion they went out of the whole proposition well immunisation against contagious diseases is an interesting case because for most such disease is somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of the population must be immune in order for there to develop what is called herd immunity that is to say the non-immunised that the non-immunised are protected against infection because an epidemic cannot take hold in the population well the success of immunisation campaigns in eradicating or controlling various contagious disease has in my view encouraged the epidemiologists and the public health doctors and governments have a sense and of course the discovery of the damaging effects of smoking also encouraged and they hope to repeat these trials for the common diseases which are currently great significance both in terms of morbidity and economically in western populations diseases such as hypertension coronary artery disease stroke type 2 diabetes osteoporosis and various forms of cancer which seem to be related to lifestyle in most such cases of course causation is rather less clear cut or well established than it was for infectious diseases or even the connection between smoking and various kinds of disease but nevertheless varying degrees measures of varying degrees of coerciveness are proposed to reduce the burdens of these conditions from the contents of food to denial of medical treatment to those whose lifestyle has brought on their own conditions well the locus stand out public health authorities to interfere in the lives of individuals of the general public derives in large part from the fact that while the risks are taken by the individuals the costs of consequent illness when it develops are borne by others in the form of either important insurance or of course in Britain by the state medical system in other words I smoke but you pay for the treatment of my cancer and the hope of many people from Britain I think is that eventually they will have an extremely expensive procedure which will more than pay back the amount of taxes that they have paid but of course it's not possible for everyone to get more out of the system that he has paid nevertheless that is the hope. Now it's again obvious that people who pay the taxation cannot be the administrators or controllers of it and a class of bureaucrats charged with reducing costs or sometimes making profits is charged with the administration and incidentally they are likely to transfer as much as possible of the money raised by taxation or insurance into their own personal funds and this is not a negligible thing a British former minister of health admitted shortly before the election that the increased amount of money spent on our state health system since 1997 had been very largely wasted and these are not small sums the British government deficit is currently running at 250 I get muddled up now a trillion here a trillion soon we'll be talking to your money I think it's 250 250 billion that's it 250 billion dollars without the extra expenditure on the health service it would have been 100 billion so in other words 40% of the deficit is caused not by the expenditure but by the extra expenditure quite comparison with 1997 well epidemiology you can see that in this situation epidemiologists who discover connection statistical or causal between illness and risk factors give the government ammunition with which they are able to interfere in the day to day life of the population which of course is always a very pleasant task for certain kinds of people so freedom to what is really wanted is freedom to indulge in the risky behaviour on the one hand and insistence that someone else pays the cost on the other and this is not likely to be compatible in the long run though in the short run they're likely to it is likely to promote risky behaviour especially as the risky behaviour is generally concentrated in the least economically productive and politically powerful sector of the population so the stage is set for dictatorial interference endless dictatorial interference in fact but this interference in a democratic age must be extended to everyone as because it's likely to be both bullying and ineffectual and the more ineffectual it is the more it must increase now I don't think this problem is going to be solved in the near future it seems to me likely that healthcare will it seems unlikely that healthcare will revert ever to a system in which there's made the third part of payment and therefore I think there's going to be bullying in the name of health for the foreseeable future well ladies and gentlemen I'm going to end with a one last plea epidemiology demonstrates that by far the largest cause of injury in the developed world is that sport in 1991 for example five percent of the british population was injured sufficiently badly to necessitate hospital treatment while indulging in sport and in fact in 1996 the british medical journal reported that there were 19 million sports injuries a year in england and wales more than 19 million sports injuries a year in england and wales that's about one or two per five two sports injuries per five for the population and if you take the population most at risk it's probably at least one a year and possibly two a year so let's have however no nonsense about the health benefits of sport because the question that's the wrong question the right question is whether sports have health benefits that are not available without the risks by some other means so ladies and gentlemen one last plea that is to say that we ban sport and criminalize it