Well, thank you for joining us today and welcome to our our panel discussion We're going to look at the topic of what hill should we die on and Particularly, how do we prepare for the potential coming persecution? As was it mentioned my name is Paul shirk I will be the moderator and then we have our panelists here with us which were introduced by our brother We it's our desire that God would be glorified in this discussion And that you would be encouraged and challenged to leave here and to continue to reflect on What we intend to present? I'm not sure what comes to your mind when you think of the idea of preparing for persecution Perhaps you're of the mindset That we should let it all to the sovereignty of God and That in God's timing and in God's way he will bring it when he sees fit and He will give grace as needed at that time and so in the meantime there is nothing for us to do or Perhaps you might look at it a little differently Perhaps you will Look at scripture and try to figure out where we are and God's prophetic timetable and Try to predict what is coming next for the church and how you can specifically prepare for that These are all different things that I have heard Growing up. I don't know what you may have heard But we'd like to look at something a little more sure tonight We want to look at what do the scriptures say about discerning and preparing for persecution Let's seek their guidance first and foremost We also want to look at it from the aspect of non biblical examples It's one thing to read scripture to read those examples But we might ask the question. What would that look like in more modern times? And so I've asked the panelists to Think about non biblical examples Where biblical principles were employed We also want to identify some current and imminent issues that are before us Where we should be engaging now and Making sure that we are not compromising but we are Learning to be overcomers as you hear these presentations You could ask yourself these questions Do I embrace a full scriptural approach to persecution? Do I equally emphasize the importance of these aspects that we're going to cover tonight? That is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ My obedience to the scriptures That God is sovereign over my situation But yet I need to recognize the importance of maintaining sound doctrine and How can I do all of this being prayerful and joyful as I think about coming persecution? So we would ask that you would engage with us on these biblical concepts You may continue to send your questions to us on the website chat line And we're going to address as many as we can Go to the kfw web page and click on this event And it will take you to a web page with the message box where you can submit your questions We will also have some time at the end where we will look at these additional questions that are being submitted in real time and We may also if we have time take some questions from the floor at the end So for those that you are present you can also be thinking about what your questions may be So we thank you for participating in this way The overarching theme as we go through these four different aspects is How are we? Preparing ourselves to be overcomers to face adversity and potentially persecution We're going to begin with Brother Barry Grant. He comes to us from Hicksville, Ohio Where he attends Allen County Christian Fellowship along with his wife Julia and five children his focus will be on the importance of having and sharing a personal testimony in Revelation chapter 12 There's the account there of Satan being cast out of heaven and he's making war with the righteous seed But it says they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and By the word of their testimony So let's give Barry our attention now as he speaks to us of the power of a testimony From a blood-bought child of God Thank you, brother. Is it a coincidence that in revelations chapter 12 the verse that he just mentioned? That the word of their testimony and overcoming by that word is in the same verses They love not their lives unto the death. I Believe that our testimony links us to Spiritual warfare the kingdom of darkness does not like it when we testify of the power of God And I also believe that there's a lack of testifying amongst us So why is it? Why is there a lack of testifying amongst us? Could it be that because we do love our lives and we are not ready to die That we have stopped testifying of what God is doing We understand the power of testimony and that it is the means to overcoming Maybe we have stopped testifying because in reality God is not working in our lives Or maybe it is because we believe that testifying of what God is doing in our lives is pride So we begin we begin to only talk about our failures Thinking that that is humility and that leads to a defeated church Could it be that we have signed a peace deal with the world? We know that this was the case Through our Bibles through the New Testament they tried to silence the disciples They told them we'll let you go But you have to be quiet and we know how they responded They could not but speak of the things which they had seen and heard The enemy has been trying to silence the church ever since it began We know the story of Zwingli trying to silence the early Anabaptist We'll let you go you can go back to your families, but you have to be quiet Quit talking about what's going on The truth is if God is working in our lives The people around us will know it. It's a powerful thing that we cannot but speak of Now speaking of pride and testimony I like to share a testimony with you really quickly and I would like you to see how you feel about what I share with you How does it make you feel? I was walking home one day From a neighbor's house there in Haiti and I saw a man approaching me. I'd never seen him before and I knew most people in that village So I looked at him peculiarly and that's what I noticed that he had a gun in his hand He was walking very quickly in my direction. I Knew that there had been people threatening my life. I Knew that people wanted to kill me And as he approached me I remember a peace coming over me that I cannot explain And as he pointed that gun at me I figured it was my last days But I did not think about my military training of how to dearm and actually put him in subjection in a matter of seconds I never thought of that all I thought about was God is bigger than this and I didn't control those thinking I didn't have a whole lot of time to think about what I would think about But after this man stared at me with that gun for a moment looking very frustrated He jerked the gun down and walked away And that's the end of that story And I testified today of the power of God that that did in my life encouraging me that in the face of death God can be there to give us peace And to give us comfort And we testify to that to other people It will encourage other people to make a stand for jesus christ and then testify themselves what god is doing in their life So god bless you Thank you, brother barry I'm going to pose a question to you This comes from Sort of my background in dealing with apologetics When you go to share some people a testimony with some people some people who come from a skeptical background will say well It's very nice that you have a story a nice story to tell about yourself and maybe you're your uh Your your parents taught you to think this way or maybe your church Teaches you to think this way. So yes, it's nice that you have this story barry But that's not really good evidence as to why I should believe The story that you're telling and why I should make that a part of my life. How would you respond to that? Yes, I think it's very important that we actually do have a testimony because that testimony is that proof When I can look at somebody that has that skepticism about whether god is real or just my story I can tell him about who I used to be And what god has done in my life And it's exciting to do that And usually that gets them to think It's real something did happen in his life and we can't deny that And that usually motivates people to accept the fact that it does seem like god did do something So just the proof of being freed from addiction Smoking for 15 years two packs a day Never smoking again alcoholic going to alcohol classes for Decades AA classes could never be freed got converted and never drank again You can tell those people listen god wants to do it in your life He wanted to do it in mine and it worked god is able and just our testimony Can shatter this doubt thing of it's just something you're talking about Thank you. Is uh one of you others Panelists care to respond Brother Barry Whenever they Ask you Do you have any suggestions as to how we can intrigue people to ask us questions about our lives? Yeah, it's a good question I think we can start off by denying the fact that we believe like the world believes And going along with the world system I just it just pops into my head right now talking with the FBI through that kidnapping thing the first the first time We talked to them. These are professionals from the FBI.  We know christians.  We went to church for years But what are you talking about? This isn't normal And it gives us an opportunity So when we live the the life of jesus and we're excited about it people come and ask you questions And it's a blessing So uh barry could you uh Could you elaborate a little bit more though on how Sharing a testimony prepares you for Times of persecution Yes Because when we testify the devil wants us to believe that god's not involved in what's going on in our lives It's just karma. It's just what happened. Oh, I got lucky. Hey, that's interesting that happened But when we testify that it was god it also increases our faith and it makes us believe more and our faith is increased And when all that happens We are excited And persecution is welcomed But when we're hesitant was it god was it not We don't testify and then when when a real challenge comes up We question whether god will be there for us when he's been trying to show us all along I'm here for you. I'm here for you and this world wants to silently reject that god is at work So barry when you're in the process of uh sharing your testimony Your values will start to project through and people will start to try to analyze you and try to put you into a box And in our world that's probably going to end up in a political box on the left or the right side depending on what the subject is And depending what you're saying So if if someone leads the conversation Sort of down that road of what do you think is the answer for our our country and the times that we're in and we're in these difficult times and And uh christians are being persecuted. They're being uh pushed out And what and so where do you stand in all of that and how would you Respond if someone takes that twist on the conversation? Yeah, that's interesting out first thing I would say is trump is not the answer It seems like It seems like we think that the the country should be like the church And and that's not reality Um, so I point people to the kingdom of god to jesus and how it's separate from all of these things And it's it's more than likely separate from what you think christianity is And point them to something so much higher and you can open your bibles And read them the sermon on the mound read them the words of jesus and it's amazing how people can actually believe And going which way in these politics and all of these world issues And in reality it's all in the same boat when you expose the high standard of god It makes all of those things look pretty Pretty lame and and it proves That it doesn't matter which way this thing's go this thing goes without god It's not going to go in the right direction So does some of the rest of you have any experiences along this line that you would share? question I have a question a little bit unrelated. Is it okay? So Every personality is different and we've probably got some apostle paul's or apostle peters among us We've also got maybe a barnabas or or a timothy People who are a little more shy reserved more inward focus So and they have a testimony. They want to share it. What are some first steps? For those personalities to be able to share their testimony Well, I really appreciate those people The apostle paul prayed for boldness three times Was it could it be that the apostle paul wasn't a bold man before? Could it be that he was shy? I think that the power of god and the excitement of the kingdom and his work on this earth Can call shy people to come out and testify for god And they can do it in a way that really shocks people because this person doesn't talk Much at all and now all of a sudden he's bubbling over With testimony with positive things and in that quiet slow manner is just as powerful I believe So are you suggesting barry That if by nature I tend to be a quiet or a timid person By the grace of god When I get asked a question about my faith I could potentially light up And become someone that they have not seen before Yeah, I've seen some pretty quiet people light up about deer hunting Any other questions from the panelists? Okay, we will then go to our next panelist zack johnson He currently lives in east boston with his wife crystal and sun life Where he fellowships with the followers of the way and he serves as president of satler college He was born and raised in keto ecuador and has a passion for Christianity peacemaking in the international realm And will be presenting on the importance of obedience in the life of an overcomer In revelation chapter 3 verse 10 we are told that god will keep those who keep his word God will keep those who keep his word and he will keep them from the hour of temptation which is going to try the whole earth As zack speaks about the relationship between divine preservation And obedience to the scriptures We would invite you to think about that Have I ever do I live my life in obedience? Understanding that my obedience has a direct relationship to how god responds to me at times In in either protection or divine intervention According to the scriptures, there is a relationship. Let's give our attention to zack Thank you. Thank you, berry When you think about the question of obedience and how it relates to the world It becomes a problem If you frame the world about your happiness when we Survey the general state of what many of the people around us are pursuing maybe even ourselves I could say that many of us want to be happy And when you lay put the layer of obedience upon The threats of happiness The the bible becomes a tricky document I'll use the word document To to argue over with someone who doesn't want to be obedient. However If this world is Not about our happiness and more about our holiness Then obedience becomes our lifeline The very thing that will connect us to our father when the end comes So What is the life about is this world about our happiness? Or is it a crucible to our holiness? That is a question that everyone has to answer for themselves at some point in time And not only does it become a A lifeline for us to save us, but It is the key to a redeemed life That gives us access to something called I call it tightest to grace If you ever hear the word grace and you're looking for a definition Paul defines grace as Something that will give you the power to obey and the power to become a people Zealous for good works. So not only will it save us. It will propel us in this life amazing Then I read the the beatitudes earlier today the last the last beatitude that I read. I hope everyone remembers it persecution Blessed are those who are persecuted for theirs is the kingdom of heaven This is something that we can be expecting Something that obedience will bring but really When you think about it, I once I once tried to eat a a container of peanut butter in front of my college students. It's really hard. I uh, I don't necessarily recommend it, but my point was that if you're constantly inhaling spiritual things Constantly coming to events like this constantly going to church constantly Listening to sermons and yet you don't test your faith In the world and become a friend of sinners You're gonna become a little flabby if you just keep digesting the peanut butter So persecution becomes sort of a steroid of physical fitness so to speak And why did the martyrs of old glory and persecution if persecution is glorious? Why do we play for deliverance? What has changed between us and the christians of old? It's an interesting question And if we do face persecution We must know that god does not bless everything that he allows In romans 13 We have a man named paul describing an emperor named nero who he calls his minister And yet nero would be the very one who would cut off paul's head God does not bless everything he allows But nonetheless, did paul did god keep paul? I I can almost guarantee it In the grand scheme of things Some of us will have different outcomes. I shared the story of Jim and elizabeth elliott today Jim was speared to death his wife elizabeth was left on this earth To raise a family and to become an evangelist We might they might have had the exact same life with different outcomes We don't know what our end will be yet. It doesn't diminish the importance of obedience So are there current issues that sort of compromise on our Our call to obedience, I would say absolutely. Yes, we are in danger everywhere And I would say one of the greatest threats to the church is This allure of the enemy to say did god really say this With separation to the world With things like lands family jobs the american dream Materialism all these things that you want to compromise with obedience So I'll leave it there and open it to questions here Well, thank you zack One of the questions that was handed in What happens if you've stressed the importance of obedience? And if you were sharing that with someone else and and trying to illustrate to them the importance of obedience and and that relationship for preparedness to persecution For persecution What if someone says but In everything that in my background that I've heard and from the bible training that I've received A strong emphasis on obedience leads to legalism How would you respond to that because you're making obedience A very important aspect of the christian faith My favorite passage to point to is I don't have it memorized this one where Jesus is interacting with the Pharisees And the Pharisees have required They they have leveled Another standard upon the jewish people that they have to wash their hands before Eating I think this is right correct me if i'm wrong one of the panelists here So the strict manner of thinking is we get to we get to redefine legalism in that conversation Legalism is asking something of someone that was not required by god And when you look at the scriptures you can say brother This is our king who has asked this of you. This is not legalism. This is the way The way that jesus gave us creates order it creates freedom and it creates the opportunity for transformation So I would say If I am calling you to be obedient to something that you can't find here in the scriptures shame on me But if you can find it right there, you cannot call it legalism you you can simply call it the way But if I were to push back a little bit on that and say well, isn't our relationship with jesus christ the most important thing And so putting this emphasis on obedience Would it not lead us to become more performance oriented or more works oriented? And would we not tend to look at people and measure them on the basis of the actions that we see in their life Rather than maybe the relationship that they have with jesus christ. How would you respond to that? I'm just probing into that question a little more Yeah, I'll I'll say some things but I'd be interested to hear about the panels David Burso has a great message about the the levels of obedience That when we become obedient to christ We we don't start with an an immense relationship that you actually Obedience is a journey and it starts with not understanding the complete reasons behind it But as you grow and your levels once I believe I can't say I've attained it You realize that christ asked these things of you because he loves you and he cares about you more Then you possibly could imagine that he's giving these things for you I I have to think about my mother and my parents in this analogy that When I was young there were there were moments where My mom would just beg me not to do something and I would look at her be like you really want to harm me When I grew up and I think about my relationship with my mom She was the person who loved me most on the planet And that's how I think we need to be thinking about These terms of obedience as opposed to something that will hinder our relationship rather than something that is born out of pure love Okay, anyone else care to respond? This is a very prevalent issue that we face So I'm going to do a follow-up question And uh, Zach you will get the opportunity to answer it Or you can pick one of the panelists because they're they're not volunteering to help you So Explain a little bit more About how obedience works in a love relationship with jesus christ Jesus in the in the end of the sermon on the mount. He says Many will come to me And I will say to them. I never knew you away from me you workers of lawlessness or in other terms There's a greek word called antinomian jesus is saying Those who don't know me are antinomian or lacking obedience in a certain sense later on in Later on in john It's it's striking the last comments that jesus has to his disciples if you love me. What does he say? Somebody fill in the blanks If you love me keep my commandments And so the relationship between obedience and love Is an interesting one that I I think is between a parent and a child and god has really revealed himself as our father giving us a set of transformational teachings that lead to Lead to a life of love. I we can't understand all of them in depth, but I I know that jesus leaves us with this blatant blatant Teaching about loving him through following his teachings So if I was to summarize some of your comments, would it be fair to say That if I truly love god I ought to have a high value on obedience because it's my roadmap to love I think jesus actually says that in john 15 He states it the other way. He says if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love And I think what the logic is there is as we obey him We see how good he is As we respond to him We see his goodness in a way that we wouldn't see it if we would not have actually acted upon what he told us And then he follows up That statement At the end of It's right after that statement. He says these things have I spoken unto you That my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full so obedience leads to love obedience leads to joy It's not wooden legalism Now as I as I walk up and down this line and I look at these people in front of me I'm noticing that they're all white Caucasian And that they're probably coming from swiss and german background or at least that's their mentality And so their context for obedience perhaps it's wrapped up in a singular culture that i'm seeing represented here And so if someone was to ask the question, what does obedience look like in another Ethnicity or another culture of the world and how that might be applied? Would it look any different or how would you respond to that? Zach you may go or you may point someone else out I'm gonna choose the elder on the panel John deep I'll respond after him though. Well different cultures have different makeups Some cultures are very emotional And so their response is going to look different And I think that's one of the challenges we have when we have a trans cultural situation to learn to appreciate Each other's way of responding to christ I'm just gonna follow up and say that If you find yourself in a homogenous group of people and that your surroundings are not Homogenous and that You might live in an environment where you are surrounded with people who look exactly like you come from the same ethnic background That there might be something wrong and that There's actually work to do in order to think about answering this question of Is the statement that you said true? Brother brother and if it is Is it are you okay with it? And if you're not then what will you be willing to do? To change it Anyone else care to respond? Yeah, I think obedience is obedience and disobedience is disobedience no matter where you're from How things are lived out may be different But we're all called to obey no matter what and we all have the same bibles So I think it could look more similar than what we want to think Even though they don't have all the history That we would have or all the reading materials or all of that God still calls them to the same obedience and also gives them the desire to obey So would it be fair to summarize this way We might look across the world and see different applications But it should be to the same guiding principle and for the same reasons And obedience should still be flowing out of a loving relationship with jesus christ So now taking this in another little twist zack We know that there are Other people who do not obey everything that we obey or that we feel needs to be obeyed or They may say they obey it, but they just simply understand it differently. Therefore their obedience looks different You've used the example of You know some folks in your family and your family history And their understanding of obedience would have been different and think about it from the aspect of a Of a young person who's looking at What we're presenting as an understanding of obedience and then there may be other voices in the world that Would have a little different understanding of obedience and this and this person is trying to understand How do I know when i'm being obedient or disobedient? Just by looking at examples of different lives and how do I navigate through that and understand whether My obedience Is I'll just well put it where they would typically put it. How do I know that it's sufficient? It's enough That's a it's a big question One of the One of the things that I would say there is that I don't want anybody that's young to have a blind obedience forever that When we talk when I talk about obedience It's not necessarily just Looking at a list and saying i'm just going to do this for the rest of my life without understanding why and I would I would say to that person Embark on a journey to understand the whys behind the obedience principles that you hold most yearly maybe start with your most The most important one to you And then after you've studied that teach it to somebody else That One of the one of the principles I think about not being a blind Obeyer is the ability to walk through it and be able to explain your obedience levels to somebody else and in that process You end up understanding the sufficiency and When you're trying to teach somebody else to be obedient You you become very aware that You're broken too If this person only knew how how how broken you were They would even think you were not as sufficient. And so what I would say is start with Start with some of the things that you are questioning and dig into them and try to explain them to someone after you And then after you do that a few times the question of sufficiency Becomes one of these things called the fallacy of the beard. Have you ever heard this? Where you can say hey, do I have a beard and someone could say hey How many whiskers do do I need to have a beard and you get that that's an impossible question to answer an obedience no longer becomes About sufficiency, but it becomes one of these things about whether you're you're pursuing it or you're not pursuing it And you're not setting a minimum bar to attain, but rather that it's a light a complete lifestyle. It's a hard it's a hard question So again, if I was to try to make a bit of a summary here if my focus on obedience is Is focused on a list and I want to see if I've done enough and my list I compare with other people's lists My perspective on obedience is not what it should be my focus should not be on Just have I done enough? but How how do I express my love for my lord through obeying all that he asked me to do Is that a fair assessment? Yeah, it's a fair way to put it any other thoughts other panelists Can I can I add something? I They said we could be a little controversial here. So I'll get I'll open the floor for a tiny bit of debate here as well. Maybe not debate, but It's it's also striking that when I think about what's required of god and and before the the throne That obedience comes to mind, but intellectual ascent to doctrine does not And sometimes I think we can confuse those two in different ways And that when we look upon people who don't have The exact same set of doctrines to open questions in the scriptures There's a danger of confusing that with obedience when it truly Requires openness among the brotherhood I'll just leave it there. I hope that makes sense So we have a couple a couple minutes left and Again, I'm I'm paraphrasing a number of these questions and I'm grouping them together to try to get Concepts out there and I'm trying to dovetail it into the conversation So I'm taking some moderate or liberties here But I am trying to Check the questions as they come in and try to keep them in a context here So we have this strong emphasis on obedience And we've we've identified how we can have the right perspective on that But now as the world becomes more ungodly Our obedience to christ is going to continue to come into more conflict with obedience to the state How do we express that? Where where that conflict comes into play? How do we express that to Other believers so that we're not creating a spirit of rebellion and how we express it to the state So that we're not we do not appear as if we're acting in defiance Well, I think our attitude In all of our responses should be one of meekness Even if we have to disobey Uh, I don't think there's ever a place for us to express Resistance and rebellion of spirit and so Even if we have to disobey I think we should Go out of our way to demonstrate a meekness and a respect So if I could Summarize Some of the things that I think are being said I want to sort of say I'm in a different way And ask if this is a fair statement That when we when our obedience to our lord Comes in conflict with obedience to another power If that is all done in the spirit of submission to our lord It cannot represent rebellion against another authority. Is that a fair assessment any other comments? I think legalism is whenever Our response is to something Outside of christ so that he can't speak into our lives You know, you have this list you might have gotten it from your parents You might have gotten it from the church. They may even be good gospel practices But you never see anything beyond that list. Jesus cannot speak into your life If he tried to ask you to do something that was on that list that was not on that list You would never hear him And so I think legalism is when we are committed to a code of ethics And it is not connected with christ. We are not connected with christ. He's not speaking to us We're not hearing what he's saying to us outside of that list Okay, this is obviously generated some questions. So very good discussion. We're going to have to move on to our next Panelist which will be ken miller from stewart straff virginia We're going to look for him on guidance and overcoming deception The scriptures are full of warnings against deception in the last days and and even doctrines of demons The truth of sound doctrine stands in opposition to deception And ken is going to speak to us about detecting and overcoming deception Well, I'd hope to discuss three things One the tragedy of deception Secondly types of deception and then thirdly How we can overcome deception in an age of deception Something happened about six weeks ago I was with my wife for a little marriage retreat in the mountains And in the morning I needed to go to work So we were at a place at a cabin south of where I live So I get in the car in the morning at about 5 30 it was still dark And I drive out to us route 11 And I head north and I'm going to go to I 81 And on to hersenberg where I work So I get in the car and it starts to rain And now I'm driving up us route 11 and it starts to rain quite a bit harder And I am dealing with an eye situation Two implants this summer and at that time I had the one implant in my right eye And I was getting adjusted to it and the vision in that I wasn't completely 2020 and the left eye was legally blind without any kind of eye care So I was there driving up us route 11 and the rain intensifies and now I'm looking for the exit ramp And I find the ramp onto I 81 And now I'm driving up 81 north and the rain intensifies And now I'm I'm really getting Slightly alarmed because I can hardly see the rain the road the rain is just coming down in torrents and I can Barely see the white line on the side of the road And I'm looking for the lights of a truck ahead of me to keep me on the road And water is starting to accumulate on the road and I'm I'm scared of hydroplaning But I'm also kind of scared to pull off the road So I keep going about 40 or 45 miles an hour up 81 north toward Harrisonburg And finally I see the some exit lights up ahead. I kind of lost track of time I was concentrating so hard and I think to myself This is probably either mint spring or the stanton exit on up ahead And I had a sense of relief because I'm going to drive out of this eventually I know and I came up to the exit and I looked at the sign and it said Ray fiend And it was so startling and so disorienting ray fiend is south not north And it was so shocking to me that I drove past the exit that couldn't be ray fiend But then it dawned on me it was And I realized what had happened. I had in the darkness in the rain with my visual impairment I had taken the wrong ramp And I'm heading south when all the while I thought I was heading north I thought I was on the right road But I was heading in the completely opposite direction And the shock of that incident caused me to think about the unspeakable tragedy on that great day When people who are convinced that they are on the right road Will discover that they have been deceiving themselves And we're well familiar with that passage in matthew chapter 7 Brother zack already quoted part of it many will say to me in that day Lord lord, have we not prophesied in thy name and have we not in thy name cast out in devils And in thy name done many wonderful works And then those those awesome and terrifying words I will profess unto them I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity The tragedy of deception is that Deception kind of scrambles a person's internal guidance system So that he's deceived without the ability to know That he is deceived The reality has itself been the difference that his mechanism I should say His mechanism for detecting the difference between truth and reality has itself been compromised through deception so deception and Knowing about it is and a very important question types of deception I don't want to spend much time on the what we could call the external deceptions that we know are out there for anybody Who is watching or watching society degenerate or maybe studying at the university The the culture is pressing in on us with Philosophies that are confused about morals and gender issues and those types of things And we are going to stand on that hill and we won't compromise there But I'd like to talk about The deception that may be internal to the church And one of one of those deceptions has to do with what jesus said is the deceitfulness of riches and That one continues to concern me The the prosperity that we live in I was talking to a brother in the back This afternoon a brother who spent three years in prison in ukraine in the soviet era for his faith And he told me he said that being in prison there Compared to living in america. He said was a piece of cake The prosperity that we live in here Has a numbing effect and jesus said that riches have the potential and the capacity to deceive And then we go to the book of revelation in revelation chapter three and there we have the laodicean church And sadly there Jesus is about to spew that church out of his mouth and he said He said they think he said those people Think that they were rich And increased with goods and they think that they have need of nothing But in reality they were wretched miserable poor blind and naked There was this huge disconnect between who they thought they were and who they actually were They thought they were on the right road when in fact they were headed the wrong way What caused that disconnect brothers and sisters i fear that it was their wealth and prosperity And it seems whenever that we have Prosperity plenty of wealth in the physical realm Somehow it dulls us in the spiritual realm and we begin to feel comfortable and prosperous in the spiritual realm When in fact we may not be and the opposite may be the case So a couple lessons from my ride that morning. It was dark We must acquaint ourselves Again and again with the teachings of christ and make it a regular practice to read through the new testament to bathe our minds In the light my vision was impaired Secondly we need to be able to see the things that are not seen the eternal realities in order to avoid deception Thirdly i was alone if my wife had been alone She would have noticed that i got on the wrong road and we need to continue meeting together and living together In christian community under our lord jesus if we wish to avoid the deception of the day So we'll open it up for questions Thank you ken So what would you say to someone who is going to college? And uh, they know that they're They need to go there with the attitude of being willing to learn because that's why they're going there It could be for any number of reasons a trade that they're pursuing And so, uh, there has to be that attitude of openness and willingness to learn Yet at the same time knowing that those Professors whom they're going to learn from May also attack their faith and try to deceive them What would you say to someone who is going to college who's going to be in that atmosphere of I need to learn from this person, but I also need to be guarded when i'm around this person and Ultimately so that i'm not living in fear as to whether i'm deceived or not. How do I know if i'm deceived or not deceived? Well, I would suggest first of all we could work on that testimony Um before we head off to school into such an environment by the way I think that's a Valid and a wise question and a perceptive question because we all know the statistics So many young people have left home and have lost the faith in these secular places So maybe maybe as as the saying goes the the best the best defense is a good offense So maybe we could be prepared to go on the offense If if there isn't a testimony burning in the heart get on there and secondly We had um, we had the brother zach just speak on obedience. So With a testimony and a life of willing obedience That would be a great great way to launch into The the atmosphere of a of a university An obedience that is born out of a love relationship I I kept thinking about a passage from from War and peace of all places here this evening Tolstoy and he writes in there about um, I think it's the The austrian emperor who Is doing the troop review and pierre the main character in the book He is so odd By that emperor and so full of admiration for him and he gets to Be the last Horse in the line of cavalry that marches past the emperor's reviewing stand And he hears the emperor comment. Well, what great form And right there he would have died for the emperor. He had so much Respect and even love For his emperor and if we can go into The the world with that kind of love and admiration for our king And a testimony will radiate out of that about thirdly. I would say Stay rooted and grounded in community if it was my son or daughter and they were young I would say the ground rule is of course no boarding at a university Whatever university you choose it should be near a place where you can stay with a godly family and stay anchored in a godly environment And thirdly find a mentor That has maybe walked the path ahead of you and has Emerged with a faith that's stronger from the university and maybe was that fourth or fifth I know that places like faith builders have Special retreats for students who are going off to college There's four or five little points that I I would think of But I never went to college so Some other brothers here probably have other insights on that question. Yeah any comments from the other panelists I think the first step into wrong thinking is wrong living And and you're susceptible to a false philosophy if you're looking for a way to dissipate Jesus And so I think our best defense Against wrong thinking of all sorts is to do what we know is that Jesus wants us to do without compromise So I could summarize in just brief bullet points Have a testimony And share it because that's sort of sort of staking your grounds at the outset And setting your benchmark commit to living a life of obedience which is going to separate you from From the the false philosophy you're going to be exposed to Be in community so that you're in communication Does anyone have a any other comments specifically relative to maybe your relationship with the lord so that you're not Living in fear. How do you how do you have that personal assurance that I am not deceived? But I know I'm not deceived Anyone want to comment on that that's still at the very sort of the heart of that question Well, brother ken alluded to this There was one more thing I would have said and that is be sure you're plugged into a good local congregation And have the wise counsel of all the brethren in that Congregation and be very open with them if things get said that don't sound right Counsel with your brethren and get their input as to what you're to think of what what that professor is teaching I'm just gonna put a little nudge here What about the spirit of truth? Any comments on the spirit of truth That is spoken of in the scriptures You will guide you into all truth And we have the witness within ourselves Just some just some thoughts any any comments on the holy spirit and how that would relate to personal assurance Well, I think of this story of this Lady who was just converted and she was on a witnessing Trip somewhere. They were actually going door to door. I think in those days and a leader of the group noticed that this young woman who was obviously Filled with the joy of the lord and the spirit He was sort of disturbed when he noticed that She went up to the door of a man who was known to be abusive of christians and but she went and talked to him and She came away with a report that she had a sweet experience with him I'm not sure if he came to the lord or not, but how did you do that? And it was her testimony It was her her own fate what was inside of her That allowed her to witness to this man in a very gracious and A very winning sort of way Okay, well, thank you for your thoughts there. We're going to move then to our next section which is Going to be led by our final panelist john d martin Comes to us from shippensburg. He tells me that he needs no introduction. So i'm not going to introduce him any further But he will speak on overcoming with prayer and praise As he shares have you ever thought about Prayer and praise as a coupled weapon for spiritual warfare Have you considered joining these two together to overcome the enemy? John is going to walk us through some scriptures and examples to illustrate how prayer and praise May be used to overcome Well, I start with our lord himself I don't think we realize What his frame of mind was when he was facing the cross mark 14 verse 33 says And he taketh with him peter and james and john and began to be sore amaze If you study those terms it means stricken with terror and horror About the same frame of mind you would have if you were going to be crucified And to be very heavy That terminology means to be desperately depressed When I first studied that out. I thought I never thought of jesus in that way I never thought that he would be terrified and horrified and deeply depressed And so how did he face it? Let's take him as as an example We all know that he prayed in the garden But we are told that before they went there They sang a hymn now What to him did they sing well, they probably sang the great halal the great egyptian halal which would have included Psalm 113 through Psalm 118 it would have been a long passage and also And in that halal is Psalm 136 which is the psalm that says his mercy endureth forever So one of the things that he used to face this horrible temptation He had was to sing those psalms and if you look at them, they talk about god's mercy They talk about his long suffering. They talk about his faithfulness They're just all kinds of things in there about god That jesus used to reinforce himself And so here we have an example of our lord himself who faced this horrible situation of the cross terrified horrified deeply depressed and he used his song as one of his weapons and also prayer And after that was all over he walked out with perfect poise and faced that horrendous Ordeal with his tremendous preparation The bible says that god dwells in the praises of his people Psalm 22 verse 3 The bible also says in nehemiah The joy of the lord is your strength now you can express joy in ways other than song but song is probably the best way So here we have two passages one of them says that the joy of the lord gives you strength And the other one says that when you sing when you praise God's presence actually is there in your song So I think that helps us understand the tremendous power of song And so We're often asked what would you non-resistant people do if somebody attacked your family? And I think all of us would say we would pray I wonder how many of us would sing I'd like to just put that in your mind Uh, whatever we face in the days ahead. I want that to rise to a high level of consciousness that one of your best weapons Along with prayer is singing The story is told. Well, it's not just a story We were visited some years ago. This is in one of david berseuse books He knew these people too dco on olivia olivia was from this country dco was from argentina And they had served with operation mobilization all their lives and they were here in this country in georgia atlanta and a motel room and there had been several murders in the city And everybody was told to beware of visitors keep their doors locked You know this Be careful Oh, they did not hear the warning and they left their motel door open Because they were expecting friends and they wanted to be possible and have their door open so the friends could just walk in Well in walked in these in walked these two murderers And they ordered them to the floor and dco did that and their pattern had been then they would Shoot their victims in the head while they were on the floor dco, uh, olivia did not do that She was sitting on the edge of her motel bed And she stood up and she walked toward them singing a gospel song And they turned and they left Now it won't always end that way. We're in a battle. They're going to be casualties We need to accept that there's all they're always casualties in a battle But these are weapons that we can use of course. We all know that paul and sylas Sang and prayed in that prison. I am convinced That if they had only prayed the result would have been different But they combined these two these two powerful resources Singing I think sometimes we think singing is just an emotional uplift. It's not that it's inviting god's very presence It's giving us the supernatural strength that god can give that he has ordained to happen when we sing And of course, we all know the story in second chronicles 20 where the Son of asaf one of his descendants Advised and he was a singer by the way He prophesied you people won't need to fight in this battle And the next morning uh jahashaf has said that we're going to obey the lord's prophets And so they marched out into battle singing and of course they did not fight in that battle so I think we need to begin to think of song as a resource. It is a tremendous resource It always has been all through history. The great revivals were always accompanied by singing And this wasn't just to psych people up. It was actually something god loves singing. He's he's the person who Authored it and when he hears his song, he's especially attracted there where that song is being sung So let's use singing as a resource So thank you john for for those thoughts Um You You've probably all heard the question before How do I give a testimony if I don't have an amazing testimony to share? I don't have a great story to tell And i'm going to take that that uh that thought and put it within the context of Of uh your comments on singing Because I think we're we're probably more in tune with the need for prayer But maybe less in tune for using singing as a weapon But following in that same vein of someone feels inadequate to share a testimony because I don't feel like I have a good story So what do you say to the person who feels like they don't have a good singing voice? It just does not come naturally for them, but here this is a weapon that god has given to us What words of encouragement would you have for them? I'm not sure it's the aesthetics. It's going to convince people I had a prisoner call me from a state prison the other day and he said I want to sing you a song And from an aesthetic standpoint, it was a pretty bad song But I was just so blessed god spoke to me through that song and so I don't think we're looking at aesthetics We're looking at the spirit behind that song We had a brother who visited our congregation Often and he sang horribly off tune. I mean it was terribly off tune One evening they sat him beside me and he told people after he'd never sit beside me again because I got him off the tune But I don't think there was anybody in any of the congregations where he visited that would not have told you that it was inspiring To see the zeal and the spirit with which he sang his off tune songs So if we were to take your admonition and sort of rephrase it here a little bit for encouragement for someone who feels that singing is a bit of a struggle that operatic singing Is uh, not what is going to leave the testimony It's the joy that's coming from the inside that makes the difference and uh And I think there's uh, there's there's really a cross reference there Relative to struggling with I don't have a great testimony to tell and struggling with I don't have a great singing voice Any more thoughts from some of the other panelists here on Maybe even a testimony of how you've heard or known of god using singing There's a very interesting Account in the martyr's mirror. I did not give it, but I'll give it now In 1556 the new king of the netherlands visited king philip And he was captivated by the song of a 14 year old by the name of juice justin And he demanded that he go with him back to spain to be his singer But in the morning they found that jews had run away and he hid for six weeks to keep that from happening Four years later. He was 18 years old and he was captured as an anabaptist And foreign quizitors tried to dissuade this 18 year old juice They threatened him with torture and jews said you can kill me But you have no power over my soul god has and he is the one I fear to disobey They said if you do not Recant we will take a hot rod and we will take it from your knee down through your shins down through your leg into your ankle And he said I will not recant so that was done to both legs and finally he was dragged back to prison And there he wrote out his testimony amazing testimony for an 18 year old boy on five sheets of paper and also composed to him When they led him to the stake He was tied to a stake inside a hut of straw And as they led him into that hut He sang his song that he had composed in prison. Oh lord dowered forever in my thoughts And he kept singing until the flames had collapsed the hut A brother in the crowd remarked king phillip wanted jews to sing for him But jews has sung today for a greater king beautiful story Any other comments from the panelists? I was just gonna add that there's a there's a story in a book called the insanity of god by nick rick Nick ripkin And I don't I won't tell the story perfectly But there is a story of an inmate who's saying the same song every day Until the day that he was executed on the day that he was executed his inmates saying the song for him as he was led and I often when I first Came into the communities here. I was so intimidated by the number of songs all of you know by heart because you've been singing It's very intimidating. But even I would just say this having one song to to drift to yourself your heart song is something that I Really picked up from that story is a song that somebody knows you by And that when they hear it they think of you and that you're singing that on a really regular basis So right when uh when that moment does come that your instinct is prayer and maybe even that one song So it's it's a habit not uh, not something you have to think about in the moment Thank you. Any other comments? Okay, I'm going to move to uh, some more Questions that I'd save for the end because there are more of a general question About persecution and I think it uh, it would sort of equally apply to all the panelists And I save them to the end because we sort of got an overview and now we can and look at this subject of persecution Maybe in a little in a broader way Um So let's respond to this question and I'm going to paraphrase it Basically, is it healthy for a person? To spend time imagining or trying to figure out how persecution is likely to come And specifically how they should prepare for that persecution Maybe it leads almost to the point of a bit of stress in their life because they wonder They wonder if they're really prepared enough for what might be coming or what they might face So i'm opening that up to the panel And maybe Just to keep it moving I'm just going to start with ken and let's just go down the line here and everyone just give a bullet point thought maybe on that I would say that I would I would quote jesus. He said he that is faithful in that which is least Is faithful also in that which is great And so We can all probably think of one area in which we've been a little bit convicted in recently And where we should be more obedient Take that little thing and work on it. Maybe for me It's staying within the speed limit going up i 81 and I think I can be a little more faithful in that and little acts of faithfulness put together Add up to big ones My remarks are along the same line I showed you the cross and how we're tested All day every day making decisions And if we have learned to make hard decisions And have learned to take up our cross and let the flesh suffering those decisions They will make us stronger and stronger. I don't think judas failed That miserably all of a sudden the bible says he had the bag and had what that which was within I think he was pilfering all along Training himself to be a thief And so I think if we train ourselves to face difficult situations and pay the price in suffering of our flesh That will prepare us for the large test Yeah, I would be thinking all in the same lines And this whole thing I don't know what I would do I almost think that we can lay that to rest because if we have god working in our lives each day Then can't we trust that he would also be working in our lives when we're suffering persecution And actually be confident in that and say I do know what I would do because god says he'll never leave nor forsake me So I'll do what god wants me to do In that time Y'all just I'll just say that There might be a tiny benefit of developing fortitude and testing yourself in some of those scenarios and preparation and reading some books about other people, but I'll just I agree that jesus says don't worry about tomorrow for today has enough troubles of its own and other people have said it Well too that mark twain said I've had a lot of worries in my life Most of which never happened When you if you imagine it the infinite number of ways that you can be persecuted I probably you'll probably come down to a finger load in your lifetime. So They won't happen and then another way of thinking of it is You suffer more in your imagination than in reality. And so The benefits of worrying I think don't Don't outweigh the con so it's not necessarily a great thing to do And then if I might add a thought We just covered four aspects of preparing for persecution So if we would implement these four areas of our life Sharing our testimony Being obedient Being joyful and prayerful Adhering to the truth That is preparing for persecution That that's preparing for persecution in god's way Now it's often been said that It seems like persecution Is what it takes for the church to give proper priority to Core doctrines or core truths And to let the periphery be the periphery So the question is Being that we're not in a time of persecution What can we do for the church That that would create that same Unifying effect Being able to properly prioritize our core values And maybe being less rigid on some of the things that That there may be differences among us Again, let's just go starting with Ken Let's go down the line and just give some just a few bullets Can I be last? I'll be next to last Zach, I think it looks like it got It got sent your way Thank you, brother Can you restate the question one time? Yeah, essentially the question is saying It seems like persecution is what unites us And helps to establish priorities And establish periphery So lacking persecution now How could we reap that benefit Of learning how to unite around core values And letting periphery be periphery And I guess it'd be another way of saying We'd be better prepared for persecution Because we've already established the right priorities The assumptions on the question are hard I think it's a good question My challenge to the question itself is Is there anything in the scriptures that is periphery It's a hard thought process to say I'll take this part of scriptures But in times of persecution This part doesn't really matter And when I look at the title of this What hill should we die on today It seems like the answer to that Is I'll die on any hill in obedience To Christ's teachings and the teachings of his apostles And that is at the core And beyond those would be somewhat of the periphery But at the same time Just because we're not facing persecution Does not mean we're not in war today And every time you have communion We're told to examine ourselves And we're told to beg for mercy For when we fall short And so I think that I'll leave it there That it's the teachings of Christ And the teachings of his apostles Which are essential Other things are on the periphery Yet in essence we are always at war And so the question of what can we let go of When we're not in persecution is a hard one to me I'm going to say not much But I'll leave it there Yeah, I would push back a little bit That we're not in a time of persecution But maybe a time of sleeping But besides that I think if we as bodies come together And take things seriously And maybe shift our focus from the things of life And to pulling together as a body And loving each other in a way that provokes the world To want what we have We're going to be a unit that's ready for anything And we'll be excited when it comes We'll go to the next question here In relation to deception Understanding that historically A lot of the persecution that believers have faced Has been at the hands of other organized religion Including even Christianity How do we discern whether we are in I'm putting it in my own words Whether we are in truth Or whether we are in error Understanding that much of the error Has come through Christianity But trying to... I think that's the intent of the question Well, I spoke to that in my message That's because people have left Christ As the primary focus And have used the scripture With philosophical manipulation And logical arrangement of ideas And have not continued to reference Jesus I don't think we can go wrong With constant focus on what Jesus actually said I think once we start to manipulate scriptures And come to conclusions That actually contradict what he said Then it's when we go down the wrong road And that's what most of Christendom has done Any other thoughts? I think there's value in studying Interpretation and application Of those faithful believers throughout history Who have been known to follow Christ And put him at the center I like that comment I tell people I like to test things By what I call the historic Christian faith If nobody in all of history said what I'm hearing Then it's wrong I once, when I was leaving the Air Force I had a friend invite me to dinner And they invited me to... They asked me if I spoke in tongues And I proceeded to tell them No, I don't speak in tongues In the way that they do They said, we're going to teach you tonight And they prayed out loud And they said, say something And I rambled something in Spanish Because I was very nervous And they said, look, you did it And then they proceeded to say Hey, why are you leaving this If we speak in tongues And you're not in the spirit How is that? Isn't what we have truth And I think... I'll affirm that it's the key teams of Christ But I've once heard David Berseau say Most Americans know more about... Most Christians know about the history of their country Than they do about the history of Christianity That cuts me I was like, that's true I've studied more world history Than I have church history And so the... The call to everyone is to devote ourselves To church history And to the study of the face Because church history is the spade work Of biblical interpretation And it's the spade work of knowing What is true and what is not Not saying that the spirit can't lead us But we have to test the spirit Against what is written in scriptures In our early... Our early witness So what could we say to someone Who's not a reader? In other words, they will not read Large volumes of material Maybe they read their Bible faithfully every day How could we give some practical Guidance for someone who may be Okay with hearing history being Shared from other people, but it's not their thing Who made the comment about deer hunting? Who was it?  People get excited to speak about What their passions are If you don't like reading Then go hang out around someone who does And sit at their feet And listen to what they've been reading That's one way is to surround yourself With people who are passionate And turn your heart into the treasures So that you treasure these important things More than you treasure these other hobbies That might not be beneficial There's a lot of other resources If you don't like reading today as well The world of technology Is making many things available to us So I'm going to extract something That I think I heard Ken say And I think I heard John say And I'm going to say it a little differently And I'll give you an opportunity to comment on it Because I think we need to be... We need to take the question seriously Because it's how do we know When there's all these forms of Christianity out there How do we get that personal guidance and help? The statement was made about following the example of Christ The statement was also made about Following the scriptures or obeying the scriptures Sometimes people focus more On trying to understand the scriptures Than on trying to obey the scriptures We're told that obedience opens up our understanding Secondly, in the interpretation of scriptures One of the best guides to accurately interpreting the scriptures Is looking at the lives and the examples Of Jesus and the apostles And so the scripture helps us To become its own interpreter in that way Any thoughts on that summary? Would you restate your question? Well, the original question was With all the brands of Christianity And Christianity being involved in deception Christianity being involved in persecution Again, it's like how do we know that we're not being deceived? And so you've responded to that I was trying to direct it a little bit more Towards the person who is looking to With their average devotional time Getting that assurance each morning That I'm in the Word of God and my heart is true And I'm not going into error And I was suggesting that one of the ways Of understanding that our Bible interpretation Is accurate as if our interpretation Would match the example that Christ has given I think that is the way it is I quoted the Anabaptist You were not here I don't think this morning They said no interpretation of scripture Is the right interpretation If it contradicts anything Jesus ever said or did So Jesus is the hermeneutic finally Of our understanding Yeah, and we have the unity of the Spirit Plus the Word of God in each other There's a lot of safety You know, in multiple counselors But if we're all coming together And we have the unity of the Spirit We have the Word of God and all that lines up And you think about all these people That are going off on these things That aren't biblical They can't have all that lined up, it seems It seems very strange that they come To the conclusion they do And if we stray away from the unity Of the brotherhood, speaking into our lives And the Word of God We're gonna fall into that same situation You use the unity of the Spirit Brother Barry and first John 5 Speaks of the witness of the Spirit He that believeth on the Son of God And the witness in himself So with a careful study of the Word of God The inner witness of the Spirit And brothers around us who are also seeking To love the Lord Jesus However, in all of that We'll probably follow truth imperfectly And all of us should probably humble ourselves And admit that we're probably not Seeing the Scriptures perfectly In every way understanding all the doctrines correctly Or even living obediently as we should So ultimately it comes back I think now this may sound a little bit Protestant But it comes out of the martyr's mirror So here's a young lady Who was in prison She had lost her husband Due to martyrdom They had been married seven months And had a child which gives you A bit of a sketchy background Of their lives Before they were believers And they were put in prison The husband had now given his life And the girl, I think her name was She was so cheerful When they interrogated her before her death And they said, hey, you've lived this way How can you know you're right with God and all that And her response was Well, in the areas that I fall short in I trust Jesus to make up the difference In essence, that was her answer As though we can find a lot of comfort In our brotherhoods that are falling short We trust our Savior for our final salvation As imperfect as we are Your thoughts lead me to Another quote from Balthazar Hubmaier He said, I am a man, I may err But a heretic I cannot be Because I constantly seek instruction From the Word of God It's that openness to hear and obey Never leads us in the wrong way I'll give one final question here And just respond in brief Because we're at our closing time But at what point does man-made Or church-made traditions obstruct Obedience to Christ? Well, definitely where man-made Instructions run counter to the Word of God Which has happened And in that case, there's repentance needed Any other thoughts? If the traditions are hindering People from being baptized and obeying Everything that Jesus taught I would say that's an obstruction To Christ and his teachings So if I was to summarize the statements That have been made to be more or less Along the line of there can be Some practices or traditions That might be an expression Or an application of the commandments But when they are in direct conflict With the commandments, that becomes problematic Okay, thank you panelists for the call I wonder, this is maybe a little Not quite in the program But it comes back to a question that Zach raised. He talked about The idea of every person Possibly having kind of a life song That goes back to again and again And would it be okay if on a personal note We close out this panel Maybe all the panelists who would wish to Could give one or two of the hymns They return to again and again? Start telling. Do you want to start? Well, since I raised the issue, I guess So one of mine is Jesus, Thy blood And righteousness We bless Thy name, O Lord For Thine is the kingdom It is well with my soul Unto thee, O Lord Well, in Christ the solid rock I stand Okay, what have you thought about? What have you learned this evening? How real and how vital is your Relationship with Jesus Christ? That's the foundation for a testimony Are we connected to the life-giving Vine and are we abiding there? We all want God to keep us When we need Him most But are we Bible keepers? Christ keeps those who keeps His word Who keep His word That promise was given to The church of Philadelphia The city of brotherly love Or the church of brotherly love And we should strive for that warmth among us But let's also add Bible keeping Because that is really That's a fervency check in our relationship With the Lord We ought to see that love and obedience Are not at odds with one another If you love me, keep my commandments We should also ask ourselves the question Do we value sound doctrine? Do we have truth checks in place? Do we test everything we hear In the full balance of scriptures? If we are not, we are susceptible To error and deception Error can creep in Wherever sound doctrine is devalued Or where relationships become more important than truth We need truth and we need fervent relationships But true relationships are truth-based You are my friends if you do whatever I command you Finally, we are both joyful and prayerful Prayer is essential to the connection to the vine It is communion with God And His truth lies at the heart of our relationship And that relationship should be in us A well of water springing up If it springs up, it means it's always fresh And fresh water is what gives a testimony Not only should it be springing up within us But it should be flowing out of us Flowing out of us with joy With joy you will draw waters out of the well of salvation He that believes on me as the Scripture has said Out of His innermost being will flow rivers of living water This can be our testimony in the times of persecution The question is Will we do these things now That we can to prepare for persecution Thank you for your time and attention


From San Francisco, extracting the signal from the noise, it's theCUBE, covering VMworld 2015. Brought to you by VMware and its ecosystem sponsors. And now your host, John Furrier. Okay, welcome back everyone. We are here live in San Francisco for theCUBE and the director set. I'm John Furrier and this is our flagship program, theCUBE, where we go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise. We're excited here, day three, we're wrapping up. Sashi Kiran is the senior director for data center and cloud for Cisco. Great to see you, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you, John. So we've been having a conversation on CrowdChat over this week, kind of a sub theme, if you will, kind of a back channel, but on the hashtag at VMworld around policy based programmable networks. This is kind of like the topic that no one's talking about, but everyone's talking about.  But there's a lot of stuff that's DevOps oriented in the Ops side as networks. SDN is a big part of that.  Jim McHugh from Cisco is on talking about the leadership in blades, UCS. So you guys are actually doing some damage quietly out there, getting the leadership position on servers. But I got to ask you, SDN networks, that's your wheelhouse. Where are we with this scene here at VMworld, SDN? We talked about ACI. People want programmable networks. What's your take on this and what is Cisco's approach? Yeah, so first of all, thanks for setting the CrowdChat up. It was very interesting to participate, see some of the conversation threats that were going. And me and my team really enjoyed that. For us, what we're seeing here is really networks being a pretty central theme amongst customers. And more importantly, how it contributes to the rest of infrastructure. As these conversations morph into what's happening with cloud, what's happening with DevOps, it's really about making it a lot more agile, consumable. And that's where I guess the notion of infrastructure as code comes in. So from a Cisco perspective, about three, four years back, we said, look, there are going to be multiple approaches to SDN. Let's not just caught up with what the definition is because no one single person's definition is unique there. Let's try to map it to different use cases, deployment models. And in many ways, our SDN strategy has also gone down that path where we have said, look, there are customers that are going to be natively leveraging the programmability within the network infrastructure. So how do you make that a lot more open, a lot more programmable? And then there are others that are using the overlay controller approach and we have solutions there as well. And then we have solutions like ACI, which really brings together the whole infrastructure components, including the policy-based controller in a fairly integrated manner and makes it a lot more consumable and easy to roll out automation at scale. So eventually we don't get down the path of just one approach to SDN. We look at these multiple flavors and then map those accordingly. Agility and resilience is a really big part of the network conversation. And this is kind of where it seems to be going. There's no one-size-fits-all. That's right. You know, beauty's in the eye of the beholder, depending upon how people engineer their network. So that's kind of been one standard conversation we've been having, because it confuses me, wait a minute, I want to just point at something and say that's the reference architecture. There could be some reference architectures there, but ultimately it's all engineers. So I've got to ask you, could you define what ACI is for folks out there? Because we had some folks in the crowd chat who were kind of getting aware of it, looking at NSX, ACI. What is ACI? Describe quickly for the folks that aren't really familiar with it. There's obviously an acronym from Cisco, but explain what it is, the concept, the benefits, and the approach, and what's the religion behind ACI? Is there a certain approach? Is there a, you know, obviously Cisco, you have your own religion on networking. We know that, but what is ACI? So ACI, you know, stands for application-centric infrastructure. So fundamentally, if you peel the onion, it's really about making the networks much more open, programmable, and application-centric. Traditionally, if you take the clock back a few years ago, we've had these black holes exist between infrastructure and applications. The applications have largely assumed infinite network bandwidth, and the networks have been agnostic to the applications that run on them. You mentioned two things about resiliency and agility. Networks have always been fairly resilient, robust, but what's the need of the day today is how do you make them fast, agile, and more responsive to the needs of applications? So that's where ACI comes in, because at the heart of it, it adopts a policy-driven approach where you have a controller, which allows different subject matter experts within an organization to define policies in terms of how the infrastructure components need to behave, and it's aligned with the needs of the applications that run on top. And so by bringing this in a centralized way, providing a single plane of glass, if you will, and at the same time, really making the networks much more secure, open, you're able to automate things at scale. And that is what's contributing to agility today, because everybody's around ruthless automation. Automate what you can, and then just scale things out. And that's where ACI is a solution that's a fundamental SD in architecture, if you will. So how do customers manage it? I want you to tie into this approach, because the first thing I would do as a customer, we'd be like, whoa, man, new thing from Cisco. So the first thing I think about is rip and replace. Is it a rip and replace? Is it incremental? Is there migration tools? How does customers manage the process of looking at this? Because application-centric, great positioning, got to give you props for that. That's what everyone wants. They want applications to be in charge and push down policy to the network and have the network be responsive versus the other way around. The world's flipped upside down. So how does a customer get there? So it's actually an elegant new operational model. And it also looks at, if somebody's using networks in a traditional three-tier architecture, it allows you to bring the new switches in and adhere to that architecture. They're going down the path of a spine leaf, don't want to go down the path of bringing a controller in or going down the path of ACI. It allows them to do that. But at the same time, ACI and the controller can be brought in as a software add-on, assuming you have the underlying switching infrastructure in place. And it also goes beyond just the Cisco solution because today no single company is an island. And the more we can open it up and embrace some of the open ecosystem that's around, that's when it becomes much more of a powerful value proposition for customers. And we have about 36 ecosystem partners that have subscribed to the ACI model and it's growing. And it allows them to come under the same policy model and from a customer perspective, it's really the heterogeneity of the infrastructure that's now coming under the same policy-driven umbrella. So these are things that are resonating quite well across different segments of customers. Today we have close to a thousand customers that are running it in ACI mode. And it's obviously growing across different verticals. And we'll see. It's a year since it became generally available and I expect more traction and more production use cases to come out in the near future. Can you share numbers of deployments of ACI? Is it large? Is it early adopter mode? Are people fully producing product? We have people across all different stages of deployment externally. We've had several customers step up and share their success stories. For example, Semantec for example, we've had Pulse and we've had several of our service providers, Sun Guard. Many of them have really come back and said, hey, this is what resonates with me. There are some that really like the automation capability, others that like the way that you can roll out patches even rolling out patches from where upgrades is a big task. It's manually driven in the previous era. And a lot of that gets taken off and if you look at today's IT scenario, everybody has flat budget, flat resources but you're expected to move fast. And so that's where things like ACI come and help compress the time to application if you will. And it's not just standing up an application but looking at the day one, day two operations and being able to troubleshoot it which is where the value at. I love this conversation because we've had a couple of crowd chats with Google Cloud guys on Cloud Native. VMware has done a crowd chat on Cloud Native. You guys will probably end up doing one on Cloud Native but Cloud Native came up in our crowd chat with respect to ACI. Photon announcement was this week. That seems to tie together. How do you guys fit into all that Cloud Native, Photon and just general industry trends around the area? Yeah, so the whole notion of the Cloud Native is to be able to be agile and to fail safe and to develop applications that are native to the Cloud. At the same time, the dichotomies we recognize, IT organizations are sort of in this dual mode where they have to preserve what's working. A lot of the traditional applications which Gartner calls as mode one is still going to be around for the next five to seven years even as these new mode two applications, the Cloud Native applications come about. So it's a balancing act where you're flying a ship while bringing in these new applications at the same time. The Cloud Native applications to a large extent are controlled in many cases by the line of business. And so this architecture needs to be fundamentally flexible enough to support both the traditional as was the Cloud Native. Look at the container models. Look at OpenStack, DevOps, Affinity. So ACI sort of is onboarding a lot of these things and mapping into those capabilities. So we were talking on Monday with the crowd on the VMworld hashtag. And Jeremy Oakley I think is with Cisco, he made an interesting comment. I'm going to read it to you. I want to get a conversation around that. He said, seeing lots of interest in containers but the reality is not everyone is just going to completely switch to them. A hybrid application profile with VMs and containers is going to be the norm and people will learn what's best for the customers that they serve. What does he mean by that? Is he saying hybrid applications is the norm or containers are going to be the norm? Vice versa, what do you think? What is he saying in that comment? My interpretation is that there is going to be this dichotomy that's going to exist. Nothing's going to shift overnight. Things aren't a sprint here. It's going to be a marathon. People have invested in the networks, infrastructures, data centers. And a lot of our customers are figuring out how do they go down the path of building the private cloud or which applications do they put into a public cloud environment? And can they get their hybrid presence where they have this consistency? Security is a big deal. Manageability, visibility across this hybrid footprint. And so that's the two things that I was saying. You need to really be in a position to juggle because you are trying to satisfy these two stakeholders, the traditional IT organization as well as the lines of business that are working with their wallets as well. So NSX has been getting traction. It's almost just rolling thunder. And it's pretty impressive. They've got their milestones kicking up and they've got more customers. That's what they're saying, showing the numbers, revenues up. What is that about? Is that real deployments? You have comments on NSX because NSX and ACI are kind of jockeying together in the same space here. How do customers make sense of this? I mean, is there a competition? Is it frenemies, as Carl Aschenbach would say? I mean, there's a lot of frenemies here in the ecosystem. So how do customers make sense of this? So NSX is certainly one approach to SDN predicated on network virtualization. As far as we're concerned, NSX still requires an underlying infrastructure to run its software. And we're seeing many instances where customers that are exploring NSX are also coming back and saying, hey, can I bring the Cisco infrastructure underneath? And as far as ACI is concerned, we really look at NSX as being yet another application that runs on it. If there are VMware customers that want to choose NSX, then the best infrastructure that it can run on is ACI. And so in that sense, we're sort of agnostic and we can probably make NSX run better, if you will. So one of the top conversations we had on Monday was a comment that I made on Twitter. It said, I said, Bill Fathers spoke about the challenge with networking for deploying applications in private, hybrid, and public cloud. How are you at Cisco facilitating deploying applications in hybrid clouds? No, I didn't say unified because you guys had that word unified in your UCS system. But no, in hybrid clouds in general. How are you guys facilitating deployments in hybrid cloud? Yeah, what I liked about the keynote here at VMworld was they did talk about the unified hybrid cloud vision. And in many ways, it's similar to what Cisco has been articulating over the last several years. The unified data center has always been predicated on unification with convergence. But even in the context of cloud, we've adopted the strategy of the intercloud, which is a cloud of clouds. And it really shouldn't matter whether it's your public, private, or hybrid environment, can you bring the degree of consistency, visibility, security, manageability. Fundamentally, that's the value proposition of what intercloud is. And what VMware was talking about yesterday is very similar to what we have articulated and where we are further along the last couple of years. So they're following on your narrative around interclouds. I think it's kind of seen with that. The vision certainly seems to be aligned with what we have stated. And obviously, different vendors offer different kinds of solutions. I guess we've got a couple of minutes left. I want to get your personal perspective.   Dave Vellante and I were talking with Lou Tucker and Stu on theCUBE recently. Lou Tucker, obviously famous engineer, technologist with Cisco now. Formerly a son, great inventor. He's an involved Nopistak. We're talking about interclouds. And we were just kind of riffing on the concept of internet working really made Cisco. I mean, routing obviously made Cisco, but internet working connecting subnets together became a really big growth of the Ethernet boom. Are we on the same cusp of that kind of new revolution? Is interclouding a mega trend? Do you see that?  Just kind of someone who's in the trenches. You know about policy-based, it's all networking stuff, right? Is interclouding going to be a big thing? It is certainly aspirational and it's something that we're viewing in the same way as the original evolution of the internet. And in reality, it's a very complex thing to achieve because it isn't just between any one vendor or within the same hypervisor stack. Intercloud really becomes very powerful proposition when it's sort of this multi-vendor, multi-hypervisor, any cloud, public, private, managed, any service provider, any device. So it's some ways to go, whether it's for Cisco or whether it's for VMware or anybody else. But I think it's the right aspirational vision for leaders in the industry like Cisco and VMware to aim for. And what resonated with me is it means that we're talking is the same set of customers who are providing all of us the same feedback. And it's going to be a really- Customers are in charge, ultimately. They define everything. But you guys have to bring something to the table and the tooling and the standardization is key. I mean, if you have standards, then you can have different approaches on how people engineer that. So is that the bottleneck, is standards? Is it more saluting the flag of some sort of standard? I mean, you don't have to have standard proprietary stacks. You could have just open standards. There will be a combination of all of these. There'll be standardized building blocks. There'll be open source building blocks. There'll be community-led efforts. And there will be proprietary innovations. And eventually, the system has to be malleable enough to recognize these different contributions and reconcile that. That's probably when it's the most impactful. Yeah, I mean, I was talking with George Gilbert, our big data analyst earlier today. And we're quoting some Paul Moritz quotes from many, many years ago. And talking about the PC revolution and networking is like, no one really cares what's inside an Intel processor because it just works. So there's an abstraction layer and a hardening of proprietary. You could be proprietary at some level, but do people really give a crap? I mean, if it works, it works well. I'm a developer and I don't really want to get involved in the nuances of what's underneath. That's a good thing. If this thing is on top of it. Absolutely. So open interfaces are a really big thing on that account because many developers want the interfaces to be open. And if you can innovate on the hardware or the silicon underneath and still make it open, it's more goodness for them. Okay, final question. What's your take on VMworld this year? Obviously, some are saying, oh, not a lot of content, some are saying, we're seeing a vision from VMware. They're executing it, but clearly Pat Gelsinger laid out a long-term vision wearables brought in all the top trends that we're watching kind of laid out. Hey, don't think myopically quarter to quarter. Think holistically. It's a revolution, globalization. Is that fantasy? Is it VMware trying to cover up that there's no big game-changing announcement? Or is it really just a transitional market factor right now? I think it's a bit of both. Personally, looking at it outside, and I view VMware as at an inflection point, they are evolving as a company to get into different paths, if you will. And so it's at this time that you need to lay out the longer-term visions, which aren't product-centric. The hypervisor is certainly becoming a commodity, if you will. VMware is also getting exposed to containers, open stack, all of which are bringing in different selection criteria within customer environments. So it's important for VMware to be able to really stitch together these and convey a longer-term vision. And I actually thought Pat and team did a really good job. I was thrilled to see some of the audiences here, almost 25,000 or so. It was a huge amount of interest, and I wish them the very best. Yeah, we love VMware. We do a great job, and there's a lot of opportunities for those guys. Final question for you, final, final question. What's it like at Cisco right now? John Chambers, legend in the industry, finally stepping down, but he's going to be vice chairman, which means he's active. He'll still be kind of hanging around. Great, he's great with customers. But also, Cisco just really was transitional as a company because they're such a big player as part of the internet, obviously Ethernet, and obviously today, all the innovations at Cisco. But the company seems to need a new image. That's kind of my external perspective. Big install base, huge technologist there. What's it like in Cisco? What can you share to the folks watching on what's it like there? Is there a new refresh going on with the mindset? Is it a new vibe? What's the mojo? Is it the same old Cisco with the twist? What's going on? Yeah, John's the executive chairman right now, and Chuck's taken very firm charge at the helm. And personally, both as an insider of Cisco, as well as somebody who's looked at the company from outside before I joined it. There's a lot of change that's happening, and it's interesting to see change happen in a big company environment. There's certainly new talent and leadership at the top. We've had a new CTO command. We've had new chief of staff command and new CMO. And some of these changes will take time to see what the impact is, but Chuck has brought in a sense of urgency in. And in reality, I think Cisco traditionally has its strength with the networking space, but we've made tremendous strides with compute, big data, and all of these things. And what is happening right now is how we tie these elements together, the whole IoT conversation, analytics, cloud, big data. End to end. End to end, right? So, eventually. I mean, the edge of the network, the edge of the network, which is the term you guys used to use all the time, used to be a device, now it's wearables. Yeah, exactly. And so we don't have this notion of the data center being the central location with perimeter security. Data center is where your data and applications are, and they're everywhere. So that's the whole new world we're all trying to adapt to very quickly and it's going to be interesting. I think it's exciting to watch. I think it's going to be not a pivot, but a transformation for Cisco because the edge of the network is now consumer. And it's going to be fun to see how you guys do that. And it's always been fun to watch Cisco debate itself into moving up the stack, because your bread and butters, down in the lower part of the stack, networking. Cisco systems has been integrating different components and even as it moves up the stack, I think the differentiation you'll see from Cisco is how it integrates with what's at the bottom as well. Shashi, final, final, final question. Is hybrid cloud a reality? I mean, is it an outcome? Is it a product? You've got public, we've got private, you've got on-prem data centers. I mean, is hybrid cloud actually anything other than cloud? Hybrid is really giving customers choice of where they want to place their application workload, how they want to optimize the delivery. And it's very fast becoming a reality. I would say a majority of customers are very keen to adopt a hybrid approach. And they want to have control of certain applications, workloads, but they also want to put something else and leverage the ubiquity of the public cloud. And they want choice. And what we're seeing is they don't want to be stuck up with a workload that's put in a public cloud and not have the option of bringing it back. And at the same time, not balloon up the IT organization so it becomes a bottleneck for application rollout. Shashi, thanks so much for coming on, sharing your insight. And I want to thank you and your team for really engaging CrowdChat on Monday and yesterday. A lot of good content. Go to CrowdChat.net and just search for Cisco. You'll see the transcripts from those thought leaders on CrowdChat. And again, great, great chat. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. Really appreciate our director set. We'll be back with more here in Moscone in San Francisco after the short break. Thank you, John.