Well, tonight we're in chapter 2 of Zephaniah. And so I'll begin reading at verse 1 in Zephaniah chapter 2. I'll read to verse 3. I'll give you an introduction and remind you of some of the things that we've seen that has led up to this particular portion of Scripture. And so we'll begin here in Zephaniah at chapter 2 with verse 1, reading to verse 3. Gather yourselves together, yes, gather together, oh undesirable nation.  Seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth, who have upheld His justice. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. Now in our introduction I mentioned to you that Israel, as a nation, had a long history of idolatry. By the time of the writing of the book of Zephaniah, God was judging the nation it was called Judah at that time. In Zephaniah, as we know, as I was sharing with you last time, Zephaniah was a prophet who prophesied during the time of the boy king Josiah. And so the dates of this book are 640 to 612 or so BC. I shared also with you that his father's name was Ammon. He was the son of a man by the name of King Manasseh. And when you read in your Old Testament, you discover that Manasseh was an extremely evil king, as was his son Ammon.  And so when Ammon was assassinated, his son Josiah became king. And Josiah, when he became king, was 8 years old. Now Judah had as a nation practiced idolatry, and God had said that he was going to bring judgment upon them. But he also had said that he would spare King Josiah from seeing the judgment. But the judgment of God is certain. In 2 Kings 22 verses 16 and 17, we read, Behold, I will bring calamity on this place and on its inhabitants. All the words of the book which the king of Judah has read, because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands. Therefore my wrath shall be aroused against this place and shall not be quenched. And so judgment is coming, and it will take place in the near future. We know that Judah suffered under Babylon, but the picture that we have of judgment is not simply of the judgment that will be in their day. But as I've been mentioning to you, by using the term the day of the Lord, it was speaking of the future judgment that would take place upon all the earth. Now Judah is going to suffer under Babylon, but this judgment that we're looking at is greater than local judgment. It's a picture of worldwide judgment that is to come. Again, it's the day of the Lord. Remember in chapter 1 in verses 2 and 3 how it says there, I will utterly consume all things from the face of the land, says the Lord. I will consume man and beast. I will consume the birds of the heavens, the fish of the sea, and the stumbling blocks along the wicked.  So he's not speaking just of a judgment that is coming on Judah alone, but this is also foretelling the judgment that God is going to bring on the entire face of the earth. And so what we have here in chapter 2 is a picture of God who is judging the world. Now as he begins to speak in verses 1 through 3, this is being actually directed towards Judah. And so when he says in verse 1 of chapter 2, gather yourselves together, yes, gather together, oh undesirable nation, the Lord is speaking concerning Judah. And what he begins with here is a call to repentance. See, he tells them to come together. He says gather together, gather yourselves together. He tells them come together as a people. And when he says gather together or come together, this is a picture of what would be called a religious assembly. And he's saying as a group of people assemble together in what would be a religious center so that you might cry out for mercy. You see, if you humble yourself before the Lord, perhaps he will turn away from bringing judgment. Another Old Testament prophet by the name of Habakkuk says in chapter 3 verse 2, oh Lord, I have heard your speech and was afraid, oh Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years make it known. And then he says something that is very memorable in wrath. He says in wrath, remember mercy. And so this is a cry like that.  Seek the Lord all you meek of the earth who have upheld his justice. Seek righteousness, seek humility. Be that you will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. So he's saying assemble together, cry out to God and ask for mercy. Now notice what he calls them. In verse 1 he calls them an undesirable nation. Now that's an interesting way to speak to them. It's not that he doesn't love them, but here it is, it's what they're doing has made them repugnant to him. What they have done has made them undesirable. It's not that God doesn't love them. God does have a love, of course, for the nation. But what they're doing has made God upset with them to the fact that they've become repulsive to him. You see, their sin of idolatry has produced a callous heart. And they're so calloused in their sin that they're insensitive to how deeply offensive their idolatry actually is. There are people who are in sin so deeply and it's so real to them and it's so much what they are and it's what they say others have to accept them for being that they fail to realize how deeply repulsive their behavior, their sin actually is.  But the way they are is repulsive. The way they are causes you to have disgust in your heart because of what they're doing and how they're doing the things that they do. These people have been into idolatry and God is simply saying to them, you are undesirable. Your sin has made you offensive to me. In the book of Isaiah chapter 47 verses 9 through 11, it says, these two things shall come to you in a moment, in one day, the loss of children and widowhood. They shall come upon you in their fullness because of the multitude of your sorceries for the great abundance of your enchantments. For you have trusted in your wickedness. You have said, no one sees me. Your wisdom and your knowledge have warped you. You've said in your heart, I am. There's no one else besides me.  You shall not know where it arises. Trouble shall fall upon you. You will not be able to put it off. And desolation shall come upon you suddenly which you shall not know. And so you're saying within yourself, nothing's going to happen. There's no problem. But the problem is your wisdom and knowledge have warped you. There's no one else besides me. The sin. The sin that they're dealing with is habitual and they're dead to shame and they have no sense of decency. Dead to shame. No sense of decency. You know, when we have parades that are intended to glorify sins, you'll see all the apparent festivity of that parade and all. But you don't see what's really going on during that parade. There are things that take place during what are called the gay pride parades that are so profane and offensive that they could not be put on television for you to see. I have happened to see some of the video that has been taken at some of these parades and I won't even repeat what I've seen. But it's very offensive and it's very filthy. And yet, you'll never know that because the way it's presented will never give to you any insight into that. That's what happens with sin. It becomes so normal that your heart becomes very callous and ultimately you'll say there's nothing wrong with me and you create certain arguments to justify it and all of that is simply going to keep you in the bondage to it and that's why the Lord would say your wisdom and knowledge warped you. There has always been sin and an intellectual who will defend it. And that's what we have here. The Lord is speaking to this nation.  You have no sense of decency. Again, our society that we live in has sin and is shameless in it. We have accepted sin as normal and even preferable and again we have intellectuals who defend it as a right. We encourage people to live a moral and righteous life but when we do we are painted as hypocrites and we are painted as fanatics. And when we stand up and say that way a way that pleases the Lord what happens is our voices are ridiculed, our intelligence is questioned and sin is normalized. In Isaiah in chapter 5 verses 20 through 23 it says, Woe to those who call evil good and good evil who put darkness for light and light for darkness who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. Woe to those who are heroes that drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks will acquit the guilty for a bribe but deny justice to the innocent. And so those days that were during the time of Isaiah later on in the day of Zephaniah are sins that we find ourselves still dealing with today. And so he says in verse 2 before the decree is issued before the day passes like chaff before the Lord's fierce anger comes upon you seek the Lord. In 2nd Chronicles in chapter 7 verse 14 God said it like this. He said, If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. You see Zephaniah has a sense of urgency in his words. He's saying do this before it's too late. Do this before judgment comes upon you. Now this kind of urgency has a tendency of being ignored. You can say that today. You can say to people you need to turn from your wicked ways. You need to turn to the Lord. God will forgive you. He is abundant in mercy. He's quick to pardon. And people don't want to hear it. They don't want to listen to the thing that you have to say. That kind of urgency is actually ridiculed and mocked and very often simply ignored even as it was all the way back when we begin to read our Bibles in the days of Noah. When you read concerning Noah Genesis, the Bible tells us that Noah was about 480 years old when God told him to build the ark. You see that in Genesis chapter 6 verse 3 and he was 600 when it flooded. That's chapter 7 verse 6. And so for 120 years this man was building an ark and preaching to the people that God's judgment was coming. Can you imagine? I mean we don't have a grasp of that because when we start using numbers like 480 years old when it began and 600 when the flood came we say, oh come on please. I mean you've seen this guy was 600 years old and all. And so people begin to argue about the age of Noah etc. But the bottom line is is during that day because Earth was under better conditions people had longevity. They were closer to Adam and Eve in terms of when they were born and all they lived longer and over time their span was reduced to like the Psalmist says if they by strength can live up to 70 or 80 years. And that became a sign that you were growing old eventually. But at the beginning they lived a lot longer and so he preached and he preached the righteousness and he did so for 120 years in a place and in time where there was no rain. And so you can imagine what it would have been like for him as he was working on this ark and it was a huge boat. I mean it's 450 feet long. It was 75 feet wide and it was 45 feet high. That's a huge ship. And his neighbors undoubtedly would question him as to what he was doing and why he was doing that. And he was sharing with them concerning the fact that God was bringing judgment. And the Bible makes it very clear that this is a man that nobody listened to because ultimately 1 Peter 3 verse 20 tells us there were eight people who were saved in a world that was filled and very populated. Only eight people listened to him as he warned them. He said the warning of coming judgment is something you see from the beginning all the way in the time of Noah and even in the time of Christ when Jesus began to prepare us for it. It's interesting how when Jesus was speaking concerning a coming judgment he used Noah as an example. In Matthew 24 verses 37 through 18 Jesus said as the days of Noah were so also will be, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and did not know until the flood came and took them all away so also will be the coming of the Son of Man be. And so the bottom line Jesus is simply saying that people will continue living life as is even though there will be warnings and even though there will be people saying even as Zephaniah is saying here with urgency get right with God. And what's going to happen is they will be ignored. And we even to this day when we share with people you need to get right with the Lord. Sometimes if not often we the church are ignored also. So there's an urgency here. There's an urgency he says verse 2 again before the decree was issued before the day passes like chaff.  Before the day of the Lord's anger comes upon you. He said seek the Lord. All you meek of the earth who have upheld His justice. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. And so seek the Lord. Now the short term called obviously to those of Judah that there would be a godly remnant in the sea of unrighteousness. And he's saying to them seek righteousness. When he says seek righteousness this is simply another way of saying guard the way that you live. When he says seek humility he's saying resist being lifted up with pride and arrogance. Humble yourself. Humbly seek righteousness. Humbly seek humility. Because humbly seeking righteousness and humility is the outward emblem of one who seek in the Lord. When you look at your Bible and you see the man named Paul we call the apostle Paul. If there was anybody who ever had the ability to boast about accomplishments it would have been the apostle Paul. There's never been another man in history that made the kinds of missionary journeys and had the kind of impact that he had during his life. And Paul could have been somebody who boasted of all the things that he was able to accomplish. He traveled the world that he knew of that day to proclaim the message of the gospel. As a matter of fact he said he made it his aim to take the name of Jesus Christ and to proclaim it where nobody had ever heard it. And so that's what he did with all of his strength to the day that he ultimately lost his head there through martyrdom. And when Paul would speak concerning his accomplishments he never boasted in the things that he had accomplished. The only thing that you see him ever boasting is his infirmity or his weakness. What he did is he humbly understood who he is and how God was working through him. He said in 1 Corinthians 9 16, when I preach the gospel I cannot boast for I am compelled to preach. Then he went on to say, one to me if I don't preach the gospel in Psalm 34 verse 2 the Bible says my soul shall make its boast in the Lord the humble shall hear of it and be glad. So humbly seeking righteousness and humbly seeking the humility is an outward emblem of a person who is seeking the Lord. And that's why he says in verse 3 seek the Lord all you meek of the earth who have appalled his justice seek righteousness. So in verse 3 it may be that you will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. Well, when he says it may be that you'll be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. First, when the immediate judgment comes some of those who are in Judah will be spared. We read the Bible and we look at history. We know that the king of Babylon came Nebuchadnezzar and as he had three he took people with him captive but he left some of the inhabitants of the land behind. And so some of those who were left behind and were not taken into captive very well could have been those that are being referred to here. But there is also a second application which would be the future judgment called the tribulation. Now notice how it says again in verse 3 seek the Lord all you meek of the earth who have upheld his justice seek righteousness, seek humility it may be that you'll be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. You know, when you when you consider what the Scriptures say concerning this period called the tribulation and you begin to look in Revelation chapter 6 through 19 and you see the various judgments that come and you see that they escalate as the judgments come and begin to read Old Testament you'll see that when the judgments happen during the tribulation that Israel is devastated in the Old Testament book of Zechariah chapter 13 verses 8 and 9 we read in the whole land declares the Lord two thirds will be struck down and perish yet one third will be left in it this third I will bring into the fire I will refine them like silver test them like gold they will call on my name and I will answer them I will say they are my people they will say the Lord is our God and so during the time when Nebuchadnezzar came in which was shortly after the writing of Zephaniah there were people who were left behind in the land and undoubtedly they could be the ones that are being referred to when it says it may be that you'll be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger look at the tribulation period because this has its fulfillment in that the day of the Lord Zechariah makes it very clear that a third of the people do make it through that fire so he's been speaking in verses 1 through 3 to the southern kingdom called Judah but now in verses 4 following he speaks to the world in verses 4 verses 4 through 7 he says Gaza shall be forsaken Ashkelon desolate they shall drive out Ashdod at Noonday and Ekron shall be uprooted woe to the inhabitants of the sea coast the nation of the Carithites the word of the Lord is against you Canaan land of the Philistines I will destroy you so there shall be no inhabitant the sea coast shall be pastures with shelters for shepherds and folds for flocks the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah they shall feed their flocks there in the houses of Ashkelon they shall lie down at evening for the Lord their God will intervene for them and return their captives and so he begins to speak here concerning the judgment of the world and he says he's not only going to judge Israel he's also going to judge all mankind what you're going to notice when he begins to bring judgments is it's going to be like judgment against the Philistines here in these verses that would represent the west but you're going to see that he's going to bring judgment against Moab and Amon which represents the east then you're going to see that he's going to be bringing judgment against Ethiopia representing the south and then he's going to judge Assyria which represents the north and so it's speaking concerning judgment that is going to take place throughout the world he's not just judging in other words the nation of Israel he's going to bring judgment to the world now when he begins here in verse 4 and speaks concerning these cities if you look at verse 4 and 5 and all but in that passage that I just read Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod Ekron in verse 4 those were all major cities of a region called Philistia it's where the Philistines lived at the time of the writing there was a fifth city by the name of Gath they had actually five major cities and they the place called Gath was under the control of Judah at that time and so they didn't have any power and all now when you read about the Philistines we use the term Philistine to this day you probably don't use it but there are those who do on occasion they used to use it more frequently than now because now people aren't as biblically literate as they used to be if they wanted to say somebody was a real heathen they'd say he's a Philistine that's what they'd say that guy's a real Philistine is how they said it and it was a way of speaking about them as being just a real sinful person who are these Philistines because you read about them in the Bible you see them all the way in the book of Genesis being spoken of in what is called the table of nations and you see them several times heavy role for a long time in the nation of Israel who were these Philistines while the word Philistine literally is migrant or immigrant that's what the word means and when you look in history the Philistines were an aggressive warmongering people who occupied part of southwest Israel between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River it is thought that the Philistines originated in Capthor which is the Hebrew name for the island of Crete and speaks of the whole what is called the Aegean region because of their maritime history the Philistines are often associated with the sea people the Old Testament indicates that the Philistines worshiped three gods they worshiped Astorit, Be'alzebub and a god by the name of Dagon now when you read your Bible you see those names Be'alzebub and Astorot Astorot is also called the starting fertility goddesses but Dagon is an interesting god because Dagon was portrayed as a half man and half fish and the reason that he was half man and half fish is stated is because the Philistines were a seafaring people who applied their trade on the oceans and thus they would worship a deity that represented both land and sea and this is an interesting story that takes place in 1 Samuel chapter 5 how the Philistines had captured the Ark of God and they put it in their temple it's called the Temple of Dagon and what they had done is they brought the Ark of God and placed it before Dagon in order that they might show that their god Dagon had defeated the Jewish god that was represented by the Ark because again remember idolatry the idolaters would carve out figures of the god that they worship but the children of Israel had received the command that they are to have no graven images and so what they had was the Ark of the Covenant where God had said to the nation I will meet with you there and that will be where my presence is but you have no idols there were no images and all and so when the Philistines had captured the Ark of the Covenant they took the Ark of the Covenant the Temple of Dagon now during that time they had the god of the lands and so different places had different gods that they would actually worship and so if I represented one country against Israel Israel's god would be who they fought for but I would be fighting for my god and if I was victorious in my battle I would be saying my god gave me victory over your god and so as an emblem of that they took the Ark of the Covenant which they believed demonstrated that the god Dagon had defeated the god of Israel and they put the Ark of the Covenant and the temple in front of Dagon so they came in the next day and Dagon this Vish God statue was on its face before the Ark of the Covenant and so they are kind of reeked over it and they say wow and they lift him back up and they don't know how that happened and the next day they come in again this time Dagon's head and hands are cut off and so they say we've messed with the wrong god and they take the god they take the Ark of the Covenant they say we have greatly offended the god of Israel we've got to get this god out of here because god broke out upon them and they began to have tumors and which many commentators say were hemorrhoids and so they were in great discomfort and they wanted to get this Ark out and so they got two milk cows and got a cart put the Ark of the Covenant on the cart and the milk cows left and as they left they walked right into the region of the Israelites the Israelites had the Ark return to them slaughtered the cows as an offering to the Lord and that's an interesting story that you see in 1 Samuel chapter 5 now these ballistines were pagans and so the Lord God is speaking about judgment against them and that's why in verse 4 he says which is a city a major city they shall drive out Ashtad the third city and Ekran shall be uprooted now when it says they shall drive out Ashtad at noonday that may not be significant to you when you first read it but during that time they actually would take siestas from noon to two because of the heat so what he's actually saying here your destruction is going to come and take you when you're not prepared for it it's going to come sudden and unexpectedly and so he's pointing out that the Lord is going to bring judgment in a moment that they're not expecting and so he says Ekran shall be uprooted verse 5 woe to the inhabitants of the sea coast the nation of the kerathites the word kerathites is also in reference to the phallistines the word of the Lord is against you I will destroy you so there shall be no inhabitant the sea coast shall be pastures with shelters for shepherds folds for flocks the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah they shall feed their flocks there and the houses of Ashkelon they shall lie down at evening for the Lord the God will intervene for them and return their captives and so he's making it very clear that they are going to be judged and ultimately he's saying to them they will cease to exist it's interesting when you note these ancient people phallistines being the first one there are no phallistines anymore other than using it as an image for somebody who's a pagan they all were destroyed even as the Lord said and ultimately what happened it says in verse 6 the sea coast will be pastures with shelters and so they were displaced and the area remained uninhabited for almost 1900 years when it says in verse 7 the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah there would be Jewish settlers in that area who were feeding their flocks now that occurred a while back but this is another picture of what will ultimately take place in the future at the end of the tribulation or the day of the Lord Israel will once again inhabit that area in peace that is the place that is referred to today as the Gaza Strip and so that is a place that one day will be a place of peace where Israel once again is lodging now in verse 8 I have heard the reproach of Moab the violings of the people of Ammon with which they have reproached my people and made arrogant threats against their borders therefore as I live says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel surely Moab shall be like Sodom the people of Ammon like Amorah overrun with weeds and salt pits and a perpetual desolation the residue of my people shall plunder them and the remnant of my people shall possess them this they shall have for their pride because they have reproached and made arrogant threats against the people of the Lord of hosts the Lord will be awesome to them for he will reduce to nothing all the gods of the earth people shall worship him each one from his place indeed all the shores of the nation so this is a judgment against the east pictured as Moab and Ammon Moab and Ammon are in what is the southern Jordan this is across the Jordan river this land that is being spoken of now notice how he says in verse 8 I have heard the reproach of Moab and the revilings of the people of Ammon these people are being judged because they reviled they reproached they made arrogant threats against the Jews when you look in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel 25 verses 2 and 3 it says son of man against the Ammonites prophesy against them say to the Ammonites hear the word of the Lord God thus says the Lord God because you said against my sanctuary when it was profaned and against the land of Israel when it was desolate against the house of Judah when they went into captivity set your face against them because I'm going to judge them because of how they treated my people he says in Ezekiel 25 verse 11 now this particular prophecy has been fulfilled in the past when the Jews returned from captivity now when it says in verse 10 this they shall have for their pride because they have reproached and made arrogant threats their their threats and statements and arrogance was taken personally by God he's dealing with them because when these people were mocking God's children God took it personally you remember the story of Saul of Tarsus how he was breathing out threatening against those who were followers of Christ and how that he had gotten authority letters of authority so that he could go to Damascus should he encounter any who were Christians he had the authority to put him in chains bring him back to Jerusalem to try him as heretics so that they might be executed and as he was on the road to Damascus you see it in the book of Acts chapter 9 as he was on the road to Damascus there was a sudden bright light in the sky he was blinded he fell off the beast that he was riding and a voice spoke to him and said Saul Saul why do you persecute me and Saul said who is it Lord that I'm persecuting and then the response was I am Jesus what's interesting is when you look at it he was breathing out threatening for those who were followers of Christ but Jesus took it personally Jesus took the persecution against his children in a personal way that's why he said you are persecuting me it's hard to kick against the prods why are you resisting and why are you persecuting me but I'm not persecuting you I'm taking these heathens these infidels these heretics and I'm trying them for their blasphemy he says no when you are persecuting them you are persecuting me it's the same attitude that God has here when he's speaking to Aminan and to Moab Jeremiah 48-42 says Moab will be destroyed as a nation because she defied the Lord now in verse 11 the Lord will be awesome to them for he will reduce to nothing all the gods of the earth people shall worship him each one from his place indeed all the shores of the nation I've said this before every knee shall bow every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father that's the message of the gospel one of the things that that people today who don't know the claims of Christ and like to simply put Jesus' teachings on the same level in the same plane as other religious leaders in the past one of the problems they have is the fact that Jesus Christ did not declare himself to be equal to any other Jesus never said I'm one of many he never said that I'm one for just the Jews he never said I'm just one at this time this period of history for this particular Mediterranean location but in a few hundred years after me there'll be another who rises up and this person will bring some truth for the Arab nations he never said anything like that when Jesus Christ is here on the face of the earth he made it very clear to us they were to take this truth called the gospel he said and to proclaim it throughout the entire world and to make disciples he said teach them to observe all things that I have commanded you and I am with you always even until the end of the age and so from that point on in Jerusalem in the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon those hundred and twenty who were there in that upper room and they spilled out of that room and they began to speak with unlearned languages the mighty works of God and caused people to gather around and to see the nations a variety of nations 16, 17 nations are listed there in Acts chapter 2 they came and began to mock them all these people are filled with new wine the apostle Peter who is filled with the Holy Spirit stands up and says men of Israel we are not drunken as you should suppose it's too early in the morning the bars aren't even open yet but this is that which was spoken of by Joel the prophet who said in the last days I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and he began to speak concerning that event that God had promised in the Old Testament called the baptism of the Holy Spirit the work that God had prophesied in the Old that Jesus spoke about in the New if you ever want to read concerning the longest that Jesus ever speaks concerning the Holy Spirit all you need to do is read John 14, 15, 16 and into chapter 17 and he gives a very thorough teaching of the work of the comforter who is to come and so Jesus says you need to tarry Jerusalem until you receive power from on high and the 120 are there waiting in prayer in anticipation and the day of Pentecost fully arrives and they are baptized in the power of the Holy Spirit they flood out of that room and they who had been afraid of the Jewish authorities they who had hidden in fear because of the Jewish authorities they were afraid that they would be incarcerated and put to death even as their master had are now baptized in the Holy Spirit they come out of that room and they are now going to take this message called the gospel to Jerusalem Judea, Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth and that's what Jesus said he said you shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth you see so the Christian faith is not a faith that is selected because while we're in the United States and there are a lot of people who profess to be Christians lots of churches in cities every city has a multitude of churches and all and we're a Christian nation and all it isn't just an American religion it isn't just a religion that was intended for Jerusalem, Jesus said take it to the whole world and that's what's been going on for 2,000 years and he intends us to take this out and he intends us to speak it why? because it's at the name of Jesus Christ that salvation is granted it's because every knee will bow and the tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord that includes every knee that includes Mohammed that includes Buddha that includes Sigmund Freud he's probably going to say you're a figment of my imagination but it's very serious Christianity and your Christian faith once you understand it and once you realize the claims it transforms your life it transforms you the way that you think the things that are important the way you view people the way you see eternity the way you make your plans the way you raise your children the way you live in your society the way you work on your job it transforms everything about you everything is transformed because of Jesus Christ that is an extremely important thing to understand and God is blessed the Lord and God is saying people shall worship him each one from his place all the shores of the nation it's going to be all united worshiping and praising God I can hardly wait for that I can hardly wait for that when every voice is singing to the Lord when everybody's heart is filled with love and gratitude and thankfulness I'm looking forward to that I am I'm looking forward to that so much and that's what has motivated me for all these years that's what transformed me from some hippie punk doper to somebody who who cares to somebody who is learning to love for somebody who who wants my children to know Christ somebody who wants my grandchildren to know Jesus Christ somebody who wanted my dad to know Jesus Christ even though my dad would get upset at me for telling him that he was a sinner and needed Christ for my mom to know Jesus it's because I believed it and I still do more now than then we need the Lord because one day we're going to be together and I promise you it'll be so cool and I hope we're together somewhere in heaven and we can say hey you made it you know the bible says Psalm 66 verse 4 everything on earth will worship you you will sing your praises shouting your name in glorious songs in Revelation 15 verse 4 who shall not fear you oh lord and glorify your name for you alone are holy for all nations shall come and worship before you for your judgments have been manifested the day is going to come and even as he says the Lord will be awesome to them he will reduce to nothing all the gods are there there'll be no false gods there'll be no idolatry and people will worship him each one from his place indeed all the shores of the nations now he speaks judgment against Ethiopia which represents the south and it's very simple here verse 12 you Ethiopians also you shall be slain by my sword end of story that's basically it Ethiopia represents the south Ethiopia is on the continent of Africa and this is again just revealing for us that the judgment is worldwide it is massive when you look at Ezekiel in chapter 30 verses 4 and 5 it says there a sword will come against Egypt and those who are slaughtered will cover the ground their wealth will be carried away and their foundations destroyed the land of Ethiopia will be ravished Ethiopia, Libya Lydia and Arabia with all their other allies will be destroyed in that war so he speaks concerning judgment against the south and finally judgment against the north against Assyria he will stretch out his hand verse 13 against the north destroy Assyria and make Niva a desolation as dry as the wilderness shall lie down in her midst every beast of the nation both the pelican and the bittern shall lodge on the capitals of her pillars their voice shall sing in the windows desolation shall be at the threshold for he will lay bare the cedar work this is the rejoicing city that dwelt securely that set in her heart I admit there's none besides me how how has she become a desolation a place for beasts to lie down everyone who passes by her shall hiss and shake his fist judgment against the north Assyria Assyria is modern Iraq Assyria when you read of the nation's history Assyria was a very powerful nation and Assyria was also a nation known for its cruelty the city's capital or the nation's capital was Nineveh when you read the book of Jonah you discover that this particular city had no less than 120,000 inhabitants the city was a place that the Jews had come to not only fear but the Jews had come to hate Nineveh when you read some of the things that are historically preserved for us you see how evil that that place really was it was one by the name of Sennacherib who ruled from 705 to 681 BC and this this one said speaking of prisoners I cut their throats like lambs I cut off their precious lives as one cuts a string like the many waters of a storm I made the contents of their gullets and entrails run down upon the wide earth their hands I cut off Asher Bonapal from 669-626 he ruled during that time describe the treatment of a captured leader this is what he said he said I pierced his chin with my keen hand dagger through his jaw I passed a rope put a dog chain upon him made him occupy a kennel he later boasted of hanging Egyptian corpses on stakes and stripped off their skins and covered the city walls with them cruelty no wonder the prophet Nahum 663 to 612 wrote concerning Nineba in Nahum 3 verse 1 he said woe to the city of blood full of lies full of plunder never without victims in chapter 3 verse 19 you can heal your wound your injury is fatal everyone who hears the news about you claps his hand at your fall for who has not felt your endless cruelty when you look at a map Nineva ancient Ninevas ruins are across from Mosul it's located on the east bank of the Tigris Nineva actually was sacked by the Medes and Persians in 612 BC and what you have here in this picture is a picture of complete ruin and destruction this was a city that was filled with pride and arrogance like he says in verse 15 a rejoicing city that dwelt securely said in her heart I admit there's none beside me I've been up in that area I only spent a couple days up there we have some vets in our church they spent a lot more time there than I ever did but I have been up there and I have seen the desolation to this day that continues to exist how dry it is, how hot it is how barren it is and the Lord was saying that's going to be the way that landscape is going to be it at one time had been a city that was filled with a party in a rejoicing city it was filled with a sense of false security it was a sense of arrogance where it says in verse 13 I admit there's none beside me it's a city that at one time thought that it was the end all the be all of everything it was a city that was filled with pride it was filled with arrogance it was a city that was also filled with cruelty but God said it will be brought to ruin Isaiah 10 verse 12 says and therefore it shall come to pass when the Lord has performed all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem that he will say I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the glory of his haughty looks and again the ruins of Nineveh exist to this day the area is dry and in many ways is desolate it says that it says in verse 15 second part there how has she become a desolation a place for beasts to light down and the past is by her shall hiss and shake as it is so God brought judgment in the past that judgment is still something we can see to this day because there's judgment that's still resting on certain regions that are even spoken of here but here's something for us as we conclude this chapter God brought judgment on nations in the past but God's word says he will yet judge them in the future we're living in a day and I'll close with this one last encouragement, exhortation word whatever as I'm watching our world I keep telling myself something and maybe some in this room may benefit from this I keep telling myself something it's always darkest in the dawn I believe that the United States are going through a very dark time right now but I haven't given up yet I don't intend to give up on the hope that people can come to know Jesus Christ I'm not overly concerned about the ungodliness of our society to the degree that it bothers me constantly I am more concerned about is the ungodliness in the bride of Christ that the church has fallen asleep at the switch that we have slowly but surely been sucked into this age that we're living in and that many who at one time had been on fire for Christ have gotten caught up with the cares of this world have begun to become choked and non-productive so my prayer is for the church for the church to wake up to actually smell the coffee to actually be aware of the commission is yet to be fulfilled and to actually begin to love the Lord with more commitment than ever before and to love our neighbor and to be active in our serving and sharing and our ministering and our living we can't expect the newspaper to preach the gospel we can't expect the news to want to present Christians in a positive light you can't expect that and shouldn't be surprised when we're presented as being the cause of all the evil I was reading something by an ACLU lawyer representing the LGBT community who said that they believed that the recent massacre at that particular homosexual nightclub in Orlando is really the result of 200 bills that have been presented in the Congress of Florida that were sponsored by conservatives you can read that as by Christians and this lawyer was saying that the real cause of the hatred is coming from believers that the real cause of this rejection and that kind of behavior in terms of gunning people down is the fault of Christians and I have that as a quote I'm going to be sharing it not in here but in a church service I'm doing someplace else but I was mentioning to you the other day that the church has been presented and is being presented as a hate filled organization listen at the beginning of the history of the church I would have asked a Roman in the first century a Roman citizen if you'd have said to the Roman citizen can you tell me what a Christian is the Romans were saying things like behold how they love one another now some of the some of the charges that had been lodged against Christians were that we were idolaters because we only worship one God they were saying that we were religious because we call each other brother and sister and still marry them and that we were haters of mankind because we didn't yield to the persuasions of the day and actually spoke against its evil we were looked at as being bad citizens because we wouldn't burn a pinch of incense in front of the statue of the Caesar we were regarded as being enemies of the state but if you'd have asked somebody what is a Christian the first thing they would have said is they would have said they are people who love one another which is interesting because today if you ask a non-Christian if you ask a non-believer a non-Christian if you said what is a Christian they'd say a Christian is somebody who hates a Christian is somebody who judges somebody who doesn't do certain things and it's interesting how at one time we were known as people who did something we loved we were known as that we were known as people who loved and now we're looked at as people who hate and we have to be careful that we don't march to the to the drum of anger all the time always mad about something where you can say what's he mad about today in the name of Jesus because there's a lot of believers who are just mad all the time I'm sick of this and I'm sick of that we expect unbelievers to be acting like Christians why would I expect that why would I expect them to show me courtesy at a store why would I expect them to wait in line why would I expect them to do those things why would I expect them to do that so we have to be careful that we don't get caught up being mad at everybody all the time because you can waste an entire life always being angry is there a time for anger yes there's a righteous anger that we should have we should be angry over the mass murder of children we should be angry over a variety of things just but that anger ought to provoke us to righteousness to do that which is right before the Lord and to love people and share the truth and be encouraging to them to withstand the sin but to show grace and mercy and love to the sinner is that easy no no not at all you know sometimes we still have pastor I do pray I do pray I was driving the other day and somebody cut me off and kill him no that's not the kind of prayer I'm talking about love one another love God with all your heart this world needs a witness but remember what the world does to good witnesses the world crucifies them don't forget that either but is it worth telling people the truth absolutely it's the truth that sets people free it's the love of Jesus that these people need they already condemn themselves I don't have to list all their sins sometimes you have to mention them because the scripture does they know they're not good they know they're not right they know they need help and what we do is we try and point them to the one who can make them well Jesus Savior great physician healer of our soul lover of us because ultimately amen because ultimately ultimately people shall worship you and it's my desire for as many people as possible to do that


Jameson brother, how are you doing man? Not bad keeping busy. Yeah, especially now. It's like this like mini bull markets back That's always good for business when you're in the business of security, of course security is always a good business Which is the reason why you and I are talking today Because there's two things number one I've been noticing lately that a lot of people have been getting fished and specifically getting fish from social engineering and having Their login or so-called security feature as a text message And I know you've had personal experience and you wrote an excellent medium post about this going through what happened to you and And what you took in order to make sure that your privacy stays intact and Obviously privacy means security and safety for for your well-being however What I want to talk about today is what are things That people have to look out for and what are things that people can do today? Like what are some small simple security measures? Obviously not bulletproof, but it can greatly help them out And keeping their their safety Well, it depends on how much do you want to focus on the crypto side of things versus just cyber security in general I think we can do it like a little bit both. I think you know since You know, we're both in a crypto space I think a lot of people like I mentioned earlier having issues are getting fishing on exchanges or they're getting Manipulated or people are doing social engineering with their cell phone providers So we can touch base on that and I think it's a great overlap into This general security. It's you know, your web browsing history or Gmail Chrome, etc Yeah, I mean, it's all kind of related basically the advent of these crypto assets have Exposed flaws in these systems that have been there all along but there was never quite the same level of incentive for people to exploit them and And so, you know, we're especially we're seeing these Issues with the various mobile phone providers at least in the United States Where it's very easy for someone to take over your account with very little information Apparently, this is not a big issue at least in Europe because they have More strict lockdown on your mobile accounts for whatever reason And so If people are familiar can you kind of just briefly describe how people are Porting or getting other people's access to their cell phone Basically the issue seems to be that We are, you know, very customer service oriented in the United States and the Customer service agents at all these telephone companies are more than happy to help people Move their phone numbers around, you know, transition between different providers and as a result they they make it very easy for an attacker to do the same thing But of course pose as a user give a little bit of personal information which in many cases can be easily found online and then they Transport the number over to the attacker's phone and now the attacker can basically Assume the mobile phone identity of that person and that becomes an issue if you're using your mobile phone as a Two-factor authentication for various online services. It's actually it's even worse than that Because many services use your mobile phone for account recovery So basically the the attacker may not even have your username and password or or much other Information on you, but if they can get your phone number, there's usually several services They can go around to including your email service in many cases and they can say hey I am I am you but I forgot my my login information But I can do it an account recovery because I have my my phone here, right? And so the the service will then send a link or some other information to that phone number The attacker can then take over your email and other accounts and then little by little work their way through your entire online life and and try to get as much information as much valuable Assets out of you as possible And so basically one I just want kind of recap so once they have your phone They'll go to your whatever Gmail say I've lost my stuff and most people have their phones as like their backup and I guess they send a code to the phone which they use to access your Gmail And I'm pretty sure then they can do the same process for a crypto exchange where they can go to the crypto exchange They say hey, I forgot my password, but now they have access to your email and your phone. Yep Yeah, and and really The best way to to figure out if you're susceptible to this is to just try it yourself Log out of your email account log out of your your exchange accounts And then go through their processes of account recovery and see, you know What would it actually take for a random attacker to get into your account? And so what are kind of some simple strategies people can do today? To kind of mitigate. What's with the security flaws? Well, the most important thing is to not have phone based account recovery enabled on any services specifically talking about text-based recovery Correct anything that is is sending information to a phone number. Okay It's also a generally good idea not to do two-factor authentication Via SMS, you know sending those rotating codes basically If you're gonna do stuff with your phone, then you should be using what's called Time-based one-time passwords, which is like Google Authenticator, which is just an app that's running on your phone And it's not actually tied to your phone number that way, you know Someone can take over your phone number, but they don't actually have the private information That's inside of that app that creates those rolling codes Mm-hmm Other than that, you know, like I said if you're if you're not in America You might not have to worry about the phone porting option But the two things that you can do to really try to secure your mobile phone The first would be to not have a phone number that's actually tied to your name This can be a little tricky But basically if you can go buy SIM cards, you know anonymously and then use That SIM as your phone number, you know, then it's not tied to your name There's there's if the phone company doesn't know that you are this SIM card user Then there's no way for an attacker to call the phone company and say hey I need to change the you know SIM For this phone number tied to this person's name. So There's that and then there is just trying to find Mobile phone companies that don't have these gaping holes where they're getting socially engineered all the time The only one at least That's available to americans that i'm aware of that has not had these attacks would be a google fi And that's because it's basically a google voice number and they don't have you know stores They don't even really have a whole lot in the way of customer service for you to be able to port a phone number It basically has a very hard requirement on every google fi account that you have to know the pin That you put in when you set up the account in order to be able to transfer the number over so there's there's no Means of socially engineering your way through that process And then would you recommend for example your social media profiles and everything you're using online to use Obviously if you can get this uh, you know separated burner phone, let's call it But to implement a 2fa within a google auth system as opposed to sms Almost anything is better than sms the the best thing about of course a lot of services don't support it The best thing is to have hardware based authentication. So, uh, u2f The ube keys Even actually trezor and ledger devices support u2f So you can you can use those as well as two factor authentication But uh, if if the service you're using doesn't support that and really it's it's usually only the extremely popular services Or the extremely sensitive services like crypto exchanges Then you'd probably end up having to go with uh, something like the more More popular totp standard, which is what google authenticator does And beyond that, you know beyond just getting a burner phone and doing 2fa, which is a massive upgrade than existing systems and security Do you have any recommendations when it comes to like vpns and browsers like what are things people can do to protect their privacy? online Yeah, just from a really high level of you day to day internet use I recommend installing a number of browser extensions like ublock origin and privacy badger And https everywhere that will Uh, you know help lock down your browser usage and help keep you more secure and help keep you from leaking too much data um Also, you want to use a password manager Something like one password or last pass. I mean there's a number of different password managers out there And almost you know, they all have pros and cons But almost anything is going to be better than using your brain If you're using your brain, you're going to be reusing the same password all over the place And it's basically guaranteed that over a long enough period of time your your passwords are going to get leaked You're going to be putting a password into some service that has terrible Practices on their back end and they're going to get hacked and your password is going to get leaked at some point so you can at least minimize the damage of of The fallout when that does happen because every time this happens and some Major provider gets all of its usernames and passwords compromised Then these dumps of of databases start being passed around on the dark web And inevitably what we would see when we're running security services is um We see all these bots start hitting our login endpoints on you know popular web based services And they're just going through a list alphabetically of all of these usernames and passwords that got leaked and trying to see if any any of them got reused and and so It's it's Basically an inevitability and if you want to protect yourself from it then you can ensure that If your password does get leaked then it's not going to result in people being able to get into your other Accounts as well as the one that actually got compromised Do you have any recommendations when it comes to stuff like proton mail?  Um You're going to be giving up some Usability as a result. I mean, uh, this is something I was just talking about recently Is you know google as as terrible as it is because it's sucking up all our data and and uh compromising our privacy It is extremely user-friendly and it's great how like all the services integrate with one another, you know, like you get an email with A calendar Invite that's like embedded in it and it automatically shows up on your calendar as soon as you accept it and And you know integrates with their mapping system all this other stuff. Um, and proton mail on the other hand you know much more secure and Theoretically they don't even have access to your data because it's all getting encrypted On the back end and only decrypted when you're accessing it But um, you know, even like the search function inside of proton mail is not very good And so it's even hard to like navigate through some of your old emails and figure out what was going on So like for me, I I tend Not to use proton mail for everything But I just use it for the the more sensitive thing is that I would care more about if they got leaked And what's your recommendations for like vpns? For what again vpns Ah, yes, there is um There's no like one size fits all vpn um Because there's so many different factors that are involved. Uh, if I can remember uh, I haven't linked off of The epic post that I made but there's this website Uh, I think it's called that that one privacy site dot net And if you go on there, they have this epic vpn comparison And I think it's got you know, probably 100 plus you know, it looks like 180 different vpns on it And it shows you this breakdown of like all the different types of threat vectors that you might want to care about And long story short, there's there's no like one single vpn that is Perfect with regard to all of these different privacy and security considerations. So, you know, it depends a lot on like what Uh jurisdiction you're in What jurisdiction you would prefer the vpn company to be in and like who you think They may be sharing data with how trustworthy they may be with regard to logging, you know, what type of Of payments do they accept and you know, how private are those and so Uh, I I generally I don't go around and tell people. Hey, you should use this one vpn because there are just so many considerations If anything you probably want to have multiple vpns available Um Actually, I I have tried out, you know proton mail actually has proton vpn now and uh, that seems to work pretty well Nice, what's your take on uh oprah and I've been hearing a lot of people talking about it And I know they have a built-in vpn as well Yeah, the the browser. Yeah. Yeah You know, I actually haven't used it in a number of years. So I'm not as is up to date on what they're doing I have noticed that um I think brave browser started having A tour option as well Yeah, because I use brave on a number of computers and and that Is a pretty user-friendly way, I guess to to get on the tour just opening up a special tab in the brave browser Mm-hmm And so when you were Yeah, actually on that topic What do you like about the brave browser? Is it the ui ux is the simplicity like what would you say it stood out to you when You first used it Just how fast it was because it has this native ad blocking built into it Um, I was also using it early on because they were integrating like automatic bitcoin payments to to various entities that signed up And I thought that I was a novel idea of yeah, sure, you know, I'm I'm interested in blocking ads, but I would be interested in you know making automatic micro payments to certain providers um to try to offset the fact that I'm Trying to protect my privacy by blocking all these ads I know they have their own token, but be pretty cool if they had the option of like I can switch their token into Into satoshis instantaneously Yeah, well, I mean it started out as bitcoin and then they went with their own token and then I actually saw um Just in the past few days an announcement that sounds like they are going to be adding support for a number of different cryptocurrency So not sure how that's going to relate to their token if it really will be something where you can just swap out Uh, whatever your favorite, uh cryptocurrency is Hmm interesting. So besides what you mentioned with getting a burner phone To a fe with google auth or even better if you can use a hardware device such as a A ub or even a trezor and a ledger And uh vpns. Is there anything else people should be looking at? well, the one thing that I tried to get by on the post that I made was that um If you're going with the vpn route you need to make sure that you're using your vpn all the time Otherwise you're going to be leaking data some of the time And when I started out with vpns and I was just using them like configured on each computer it um It became a pain because I would like sometimes forget to turn on the vpn or like I would restart I can relate and so Ultimately what I did was some experiments where I uh, I tried setting the vpn actually at my router level So that everything that was going through my home network would be on the vpn And that worked pretty well But it also became a bit of a pain because then sometimes the vpn would screw up And the vpn connection would drop and I wouldn't know Um, I would notice, you know days or weeks later that I wasn't getting the same amount of like Are you human, you know pop up questions and other types of? um Of like blocking that some services do uh for vpns because of the abuse that they see through them And so then I realized well I need to go even Further down the configuration hole and I need to change my router so that it blocks all traffic if the vpn client screws up Uh, and then after doing that for a while I started realizing how often the vpn was screwing up at least, you know Like every few weeks I had to go like yet another step and figure out how to set up multiple vpn clients That would like automatically fail over and so like it became a bit of a chore to set up And I imagine that you know people who don't have a lot of networking knowledge would give up on it pretty easily No, I don't think so. I you know, that's why I'm a firm believer in What are like small steps like Getting to a fade at google aught. That's a small step. You can do that within one minute, right? Uh Getting a vpn. That's a small step. You can log in and you know choose one or two vpn providers Even like other stuff like talking for privacy is uh, you know, a lot of people use more and more messaging apps is you know For me, I personally use Signal there's other ones, you know people like telegram. I don't really use what's up for any Talk, you know security talking, but uh, what's your take on like the messaging apps Well, there's also you know considerations there You definitely want to use one that is end-to-end encrypted so that there's no third party sitting in the middle snooping on everything But even like like you said with like what's happens and encrypted But there are privacy considerations there because you know that facebook is sucking up all of the metadata They may not be able to see what you're actually saying But yeah, they can see what other phone numbers you're talking to and what times you're talking to them and how often You know can extrapolate other things as a result of that and adding it in with other information and interestingly enough i'm I was actually a big fan of signal, but I don't really use it anymore because it still it requires you to expose your phone number And yeah one of the things that i've gotten Into as a result of all this privacy stuff is using proxies for everything So I don't even I don't even hand out my burner phone number anymore I hand out proxy phone numbers that forward to my phone number And the problem with signal is I can't I can't hand out those proxy phone numbers. It just won't work You have to have the actual phone number that the the messages are final like ending up at their final destination So from from that perspective I actually like uh stuff like telegram more because you can just have a username You don't actually have to give someone your phone number or a key base is another good example. Key base is good But their uiux is horrendous Oh my god If they can fix that I would use key base. Yeah But I mean the the ultimate Messaging app unfortunately is not that user friendly. I'm a big fan of a riot and matrix But um these in order to use them Really well, you basically have to be connecting to your own custom identity server and you have to be uh Manually, you know checking public keys as you're adding people to your list Of contacts and and so once again, it's that privacy and convenience trade-off. But um, that's what I think All of the the decent security companies and the space moved away from slack a while ago because it's just wide open And there there's too much risk there and have taken their communications in-house with stuff like riot matrix and uh spider oak is another one that that has Some and encrypted apps, but it's not quite as user friendly in my experience Cool. Um any last words? I think we wrapped everything up pretty good. You know, I want to kind of make a summary is Get your if you're using sms remove that asap used to a fey google auth or a hardware key Ideally if you can get a burner phone a phone and attach your identity get that You know pick certain vpm vpns that you like um, you can use opera you can use brave for the browsers And the proton mail has its pros and cons as you mentioned Um, are we missing anything else? Um, I mean the the main thing is you can You can learn a fair amount If you just do a few hours of research or if you read that that article that I wrote I'll leave a search cut you off. I make sure for everyone listening I'm going to leave that in the show notes and I highly recommend you read that piece because You really go into detail of what happened and the measures that you took Yeah, and the hard thing though is that what we're really talking about here Is a lifestyle change like you have to get into new habits and so What I found is it you know Getting a new habit going can be a pain. It can take you like a few months basically But once you get into that habit then it just becomes second nature Um, you know another thing for example, we didn't even really start to talk about financial privacy, but another simple way to get a lot of your financial privacy back is to just carry cash and not use Cards that are creating more data trails that can get sucked up and analyzed Yeah, hence why my uh I'm interested to see what happens in Libra as I know everything that you do Well, we won't know for at least another year. I think uh people are getting upset prematurely about that Yeah, yeah, I just look at like your actions speak louder than words and we've seen what facebook has been doing and for me it's I understand why they're doing it. I get it. I'm not hating for them on doing it. It's just like I just don't trust them enough. Let me put it that way Well, yeah, and of course, you know facebook has become so huge Uh, once again, like we we mentioned whatsapp. Uh, there's also I guess instagram um, they're they're just uh their their tendrils are reaching out all over the place and and They've become a lot like google in that sense where it's just really hard to avoid them Mm-hmm cool, man. All right, so if people want to find more information Uh guys, please check out the uh, blog posts. It's in the show notes And jameson if they want to follow you and get to know more information about what you're doing What's the best resource? Well, you can find pretty much everything about me on my website, which is lop dot net lopp dot net Awesome. Well, thanks, brother. Always a pleasure and I'll talk to you soon Thanks. Talk to you later


Welcome back to the sales community executive event. I'm here with the host of the event, Randy Seidel-Randy. First of all, thanks for hosting us tonight. I mean, this is an amazing event. Tell us a little more about it. Absolutely, it's awesome. We have probably 40-odd, pretty good kind of who's who of technology executives in the Boston area. For those that I didn't invite or forgot about, I certainly apologize. We had a great, great, you know, fast response, you know, just like with you. And we're featuring Gong, so it's really a get-together of technology executives, but for the all-important kind of sales tech stack now, kind of what's going on and how's it going. Gong's are featured partners as well as some others.  We got Sneak here, Pega, you got Chris Riley from DataRobot, ServiceNow is here, I think Peter Bell is here from, you know, Big Time VC, Dell's here, HPE's here, WECA to the guys from WECA.   I just, amazing, amazing. And then a lot of the sort of interesting companies that I don't know as much, you mentioned Gong, who, they like sort of helped us watch all of them come in, yeah, so it's kind of the sales tech stack back 10 years ago is a big deal. If you had Salesforce, you had LinkedIn, but now there's kind of thousands of all these other tools. Space is starting to consolidate, so they started off in what's called kind of revenue intelligence, so it leverages kind of AI coaching and then also now pushing over to the forecasting side and also engagement side. Do you think a company like that will disrupt sort of the big whales in CRM, for instance, because they can move faster, gen AI comes in and just changes the game? You're probably similar to old days with IBM and EMC back when we were Cub Scouts, you're at IDC, I was at EMC in the 80s, but probably similar thing how EMC came up, but I think it's really kind of finding a swim lane. IBM kind of had to say the server and some other kind of hardware landscape. EMC came on with the storage side, so I think this is similar on that kind of niche sales tech stack that Gong and others are coming and filling that niche. So how do you think, I hear a lot of talk, we're at stage two, right? You hear a lot of talk about how the BDR is dead and then, but the BDR is not dead, is it, it's just going to change. How do you think gen AI will affect just the entire sales process? Yeah, I mean, I think it definitely helps, but then the day I'm old school, but I still think you still need that human interaction, you still need, there's still something to be said for having those relationships, for understanding the value prop, you can leverage AI to kind of do the recap letters, but still when it comes back to kind of pure selling, I think it probably just turbo boost things. So maybe you had the kind of first generation of that was kind of the internet, second generation, maybe it was leveraging LinkedIn, right? So you can do in LinkedIn, you can do LinkedIn in kind of five minutes, probably what it took us five days to do. Now, I think the whole AI is maybe a next generation to that. Yeah, so it compresses the whole cycle, but enterprise sales still belly to belly, right? I am a firm, different people, different thoughts, but I'm still a firm believer and you still got to do the calls or the sales calls and the proposals and yeah, maybe you've got dialers and your productivity rates are going to be up in terms of kind of maybe how many conversations you're going to do, how many proposals you're going to do, but you still got to kind of go through what I'd call those kind of sales basics in order to get the deals done and it's not just getting the deals done, but it's kind of having them know you like you trust you.  And then God forbid if there's any glitches, you got to be there seven by 24 to help them. Yeah, and you post a lot on LinkedIn. I've seen you post, I'm old school. You've got that kind of old school. My field school butt? Yeah, my field school butt, that theme. But I think a lot of those, like you say, it'll be compressed and you'll be able to be more productive, but still, you have a lot of friends. Can't have enough friends in sales, right? So yeah, whether it's peers or customers or partners or anybody, you got to look at your ecosystem and then in the day it's, what have you done to help them, right? Are you genuine? Are you authentic?  Are you coaching them? Are you giving them feedback in a good, helpful way? So your sales community, I mean, you started to win three or four years ago.  And it's through your really hard work, your contacts, your connections, but also your ability to publish content just regularly.   You wrote a book, which was an amazing book, just basically taking best practices from all your friends. Thank you, by the way, for letting me, you know, give you my best practices and it was so fun. You're go-to sales advisor. You can go to saleskweenie.com slash book and see it there and get it there. Oh, there you have it. All right, time for dinner, ready? All right, great, thanks. Thanks so much for having us here. I appreciate it. All right, keep it right there. More from the sales community. The exec event, we'll be right back right after this short break.


This is FDA Patient Safety News. In this edition, we'll take a look at a new use for implanted defibrillators in patients who've had heart attacks, the possible relationship between cochlear implants and bacterial meningitis, the recall of certain human allograft tissues, and a case study about an invasive procedure performed on the wrong patient and what can be learned from it. These stories and more on this edition of FDA Patient Safety News. Welcome to the program. For the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, I'm Mark Barnett. And I'm Anita Rainer. Let's start with our new products bulletin board and tell you about some devices FDA recently approved for marketing. You can find information on all FDA-cleared medical products on FDA's website. In a recent talk paper, FDA announced the approval of a new indication for certain already existing implantable defibrillators. These devices made by Guidant Corporation of St. Paul, Minnesota were previously approved for patients who had survived cardiac arrest. In those cases, they're intended to prevent subsequent episodes of serious arrhythmias. These defibrillators are now also approved for patients who've had a heart attack that's caused them to be susceptible to serious arrhythmias in the future. Specifically, in order to be a candidate for these defibrillators, an MI survivor should have an ejection fraction of 30% or less. FDA's approval was based on a large clinical trial in which heart attack patients with compromised heart function were given either standard medical treatment or the defibrillator. The death rate among patients with a defibrillator was 31% lower than in the other patients. It's important to understand that FDA's approval of this expanded use for the Guidant devices does not necessarily mean that it's the only defibrillator that will prevent serious arrhythmias in heart attack patients. Other defibrillator manufacturers may submit clinical data showing the same benefit for their devices, and this can form the basis for expanding their approved indications, too. The FDA is notifying health professionals about a possible association between cochlear implants and bacterial meningitis. Cochlear implants are devices that are permanently positioned in the inner ear of death patients to help improve their hearing. The implants activate auditory nerve fibers, allowing sound signals to be transmitted to the brain. Several dozen cases of meningitis have occurred in patients with cochlear implants and 12 known deaths have occurred. Most of the patients have been children under the age of five, but some adults have also been affected. The time between the implant and the illness has ranged from 24 hours to more than five years. At this point, it's not certain whether the implants themselves are raising the risk of meningitis by serving as a focal point for infection, or whether some predisposing factor may be responsible. For example, some death patients may have congenital abnormalities of the inner ear, which make them more susceptible to meningitis. In other cases, patients might have had otitis media prior to the surgery. Nonetheless, in response to this issue, one manufacturer, Advanced Bionics, has recalled its Clarion model cochlear implants. Here's what the FDA notification recommends to deal with this problem. First, it encourages physicians to consider prophylactic antibiotic treatment prior to implanting these devices. Second, it encourages physicians to promptly diagnose and treat otitis media in patients who already have the implants. And third, it suggests that people who are going to receive cochlear implants, as well as those who already have them, might benefit from vaccinations against the organisms that commonly cause bacterial meningitis. The notification gives some suggested immunization schedules, and you can find it on our website. Here's news about a recent recall. FDA is notifying health professionals about a recall of human allograft tissues processed by Cryolife, Inc. of Kennesaw, Georgia. FDA ordered this recall because Cryolife had not validated procedures to prevent infectious disease contamination during processing. Therefore, it could not ensure that its processed human tissue was free from fungal and bacterial contamination. Tissue processed by Cryolife has been associated with the death of a patient who received a soft tissue implant during reconstructive knee surgery. FDA's recall order describes manufacturing deficiencies that could result in contamination of soft tissues, such as cartilage and tendons. If bacterial or fungal infection were to occur following tissue implantation, the signs and symptoms would usually appear within days to weeks after surgery. If you're caring for a patient who was recently implanted with Cryolife processed tissue, the notification recommends that you carefully monitor the patient for both fungal and bacterial infections. If you have Cryolife processed tissue that's covered by the recall order and you haven't used it yet, FDA recommends that you first quarantine it and then follow disposal instructions from Cryolife. You should consider using processed allografts from other manufacturers or processors. The reason that heart valves aren't included in the recall order is because these devices are essential in treating congenital cardiac lesions in children and there's no satisfactory alternative device. So even though Cryolife's heart valves carry the same potential contamination risk as the company's other allograft tissues, FDA's notification says that the benefit of using the heart valves under these circumstances may outweigh the potential risk. Even though heart valves aren't covered by the recall order, FDA is still concerned that the patients who receive them may be at increased risk of infection. If you're caring for a patient who was recently implanted with a Cryolife allograft heart valve, you should carefully monitor the patient for bacterial and fungal infection. Report all adverse reactions to both FDA and Cryolife. FDA has recently reached an agreement with Cryolife that will allow the company to begin limited distribution of some of its human allograft products provided that the use is medically urgent and that all alternative treatments have been exhausted or are unavailable. Under these circumstances, certain specific conditions must be met in order for the product to be used. Go to our website for more information. Now for the part of the broadcast where we let you know about recent articles on patient safety or medical error. This time we want to tell you about an article in the June 4, 2002 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine by doctors Mark Chasson and Elise Becker. It describes a wrong patient procedure in which a 67-year-old woman admitted for cerebral angiography, mistakenly underwent an invasive cardiac electrophysiology study. Depending on the outcome of that study, this patient could have been subjected to a surgical procedure in which a defibrillator would have been implanted. The woman was brought to the EP lab because her name was similar to the name of the patient who was supposed to get the procedure. Once she was in the lab, the woman actually signed a consent form for the wrong procedure. The article identifies at least 17 distinct errors that led up to this event and it points out that no single one of those 17 errors by itself could have caused the problem. The errors began when a nurse took the patient from her room to the EP lab despite the patient's objections and without a consent form or an order in the chart. After the patient arrived in the EP lab, another nurse failed to verify the patient's identity against the lab schedule. The EP attending physician failed to understand her objections to the procedure An EP fellow ignored the fact that there was no pertinent clinical information in her chart that pertained to the EP study that she was going to receive. He also disregarded the fact that the patient had a fresh groin wound from the cerebral angiogram she had received the day before. Remember, that was the procedure she'd been admitted for. With us today is one of the authors of the article, Dr. Mark Chassan, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Health Policy at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Dr. Chassan, thanks for joining us. In the article, you characterized this incident as an organizational accident and you compared it to the Challenger disaster or Chernobyl. On the face of it, what happened to this patient doesn't really seem to relate to those disasters. What did you mean when you made that connection? We made the connection between this incident that happened to the patient in the hospital and accidents like the Chernobyl disaster and the Challenger explosion, primarily because the pattern of causes in this case is very similar to the pattern that accident experts have uncovered when they've looked at these bigger, more calamitous events. In particular, what we found is a series of very small mistakes that were made, no one of which caused the adverse event, and all of them had to happen in order for this event to have happened to this patient. You pointed out in the article that there are trends in our present healthcare system that you call environmental factors that increase the likelihood that these kinds of errors are going to occur and that these are the kinds of factors that we really can't control in our individual institutions. What are those factors? Well, we thought it was important to point out that there are a number of forces that are acting on all hospitals and on all physicians that have an influence on whether or not this kind of event is likely or not likely to happen. So what we pointed to were things like the increasing subspecialization within medicine, in particular in healthcare in general, that lead specialists to have a rather tunnel vision view of the world and not encouraged to look at the whole patient. We pointed to things like shorter stays in hospitals, the tendency for invasive procedures to be done on a short stay basis, and all of those forces encourage the circumstance that we saw in this case where the nurses didn't know this patient very well, no doctor was really taking control of the entire patient, and the physicians and nurses were looking at just little slices of this patient's care, not really understanding the whole picture. Those are the overall trends in healthcare that we can't control at our own institutions. But what can we do on a personal day-to-day level to sort of mitigate those trends? Communication is clearly an essential part of giving good healthcare, particularly because we have so many different caregivers participating in that care. What we saw in this case, however, was a pattern of very poor communication where nurses didn't communicate with physicians, where physicians at the resident level were communicating incompletely with fellows and with attendings, and what we thought we were seeing, reading between the lines in this case, was a group of caregivers that had gotten habituated to poor communication. So instead of seeing the warning signs that were evident in this case in looking at it in retrospect, what they saw was just a pattern that had been repeated often in their experience. So for example, the nurse who took the patient down to the electrophysiology lab over the patient's objection with no consent in the chart, with no signed order for the procedure, probably said to herself, well, lots of my patients don't really understand the procedures they're supposed to undergo. That's not really unusual. They must have put this case on at the last minute without having a chance to put the order in the chart. And conclusions like that are easier to understand if the caregivers had gotten used to poor communication. One of the most discomforted things about this case is the fact that this patient who spoke English well and whose daughter was a physician signed a consent form for a procedure that she knew she wasn't supposed to get. Why did she do it? And what does it tell us about the value of a consent form in preventing this kind of an error? One of the most disturbing aspects of this case is the consent process. When we looked at the question of why the patient actually signed this consent, we thought that what had happened to her was pretty clear. She was awakened from a sound sleep. She was told first by a nurse, then another nurse, then a doctor, then another nurse, that she was to undergo a procedure that she had no knowledge of, that she objected to, but she was in a very vulnerable position being a patient in a hospital. And I think what happened to her when she finally got to the point of being confronted with this consent form is she was just worn down. And by that time, her objections having been ignored by all of the physicians and nurses in the case, she just capitulated and signed the consent form. Clearly, the consent process, both for the healthcare system and for the patient, should be a major defense mechanism preventing this kind of adverse event. But that only happens if it's done correctly by the healthcare provider, in this case by the physician. And clearly, when he administered the consent process to the patient, he did not inform her about the procedure, he didn't listen carefully to her, and he really did not obtain informed consent from her. Dr. Shassan, thanks very much for being with us. Again, if this discussion wets your appetite, go to the website and read the entire article from the Annals of Internal Medicine. We're going to be summarizing future articles in this series in upcoming broadcasts. That's all for this edition of FDA Patient Safety News. Remember, you can get more information on all the stories you've seen here today by visiting our website. We also urge you to use the website to report problems you've encountered with medical devices. That's how we learn about problems so we can alert others. We'll be back next month with another edition. So watch for us. Until then, for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, I'm Anita Rainer. And I'm Mark Barnett. See you next time.