We are Matthew chapter 27. We're going to be looking today at verses 1 through 26 as we continue our verse by verse study in the Gospel of Matthew. Now here's the thing about Matthew 27 is I normally would have actually taught this in two different segments. I'd have taken you into verses 1 through 10 and then the next time I'd have taken you from verse 11 into verse 26. That's what I've done in the past but today I want to actually not so much speed up, but I want to cover more more ground. I began teaching Matthew in 2014. So I'm going to kind of speed it up at this at this point here or else. I'll be taking you until Jesus returns. And so what we have here as we look at these verses is really would have been two different studies and you're going to see that because in the first study that we look at verses 1 through 10 I'm going to be sharing with you concerning that portion but emphasizing the doctrine of repentance. You're going to see that in the life of a man by the name of Judas and is spoken of as Judas as one who was remorseful. And I'm going to share with you the difference between feeling regret and biblical repentance because feeling regret is something everybody can feel. But repentance is something entirely different. You'll see that. Then we're going to move on into verses 11 through 26 with Jesus standing before Pontius Pilate. And so in fact what you're going to see is two different Bible studies entirely with just a segue from verse 10 into verse 11 and a basic introduction. You'll see that in a moment, but I'm preparing you for that because in fact, they're going to be two different style studies combined into a single one beginning at verse one. Matthew chapter 27. When morning came, all the chief priests and elders of the people plotted against Jesus to put them to death. And when they had bound him, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor. Then Judas's betrayers seeing that he had been condemned was remorseful and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. They said, what is that to us? You see to it. Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went out and hanged himself. But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said it's not lawful to put them into the treasury because they are the price of blood and they consulted together and bought with them the potters field to bury strangers in. Therefore, that field has been called the field of blood to the state. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet saying, and they took the 30 pieces of silver, the value of him who was priced whom they of the children of Israel priced and gave them for the potters field as the Lord directed me. So Jesus as we know has been before first Annas who was the former high priest and Annas had questioned Jesus concerning his disciples as well as his doctrine because what he was trying to do was formulate a capital charge against Jesus Christ. But because he was trying to entrap him, Jesus as he was before him remained silent. He was unable to move Jesus to self-incrimination so he sent him to his son-in-law who was the reigning high priest at that time, a man by the name of Caiaphas. And Caiaphas asked, actually made a demand of him. He said to him in verse 63, tell us if you are the Christ, the son of God. And so he had said that in Matthew 26, 63. He had said, you tell us. And so what he was wanting to do and when Jesus gave the answer was he was wanting to formulate a charge against Jesus Christ and he formulated that charge. He made it a formal charge and it was blasphemy. Now as Jesus was being interrogated, his disciple Peter was also being interrogated. And as this was happening, we saw how that the apostle Peter folded. He succumbed to the pressure and he had denied the Lord Jesus Christ. Even as Jesus had said, he denied Jesus three times. And as we were looking at this last time, after his third denial, Jesus turned and Jesus looked at him and that made him remember what Jesus had said. It broke him and last time we were looking at the passage together even as it says in verse 75, he went out and he wept bitterly. And so mourning has now come according to verse 1 here in chapter 27. And all the chief priests and the elders of the people are plotting against Jesus in order that they might put him to death. And when they had bound him, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate who was the governor. And so at dawn they have reconvened the Sanhedrin because they're trying what is called a capital offense and rabbinic law stated that such trials needed to be conducted during the day. They actually had two charges that they had formulated. One of the charges related to Jesus Christ claiming to be the Son of God, which would have been a religious charge. But in order for Jesus to be executed, it had to go beyond having a religious charge. They needed to have a secular or a civil charge. So what was motivating them, even as you study your scriptures, you'll see this, is that they see him as guilty of blasphemy. But in order to get the Roman government to put him to death, they need to have a charge that would cause the government to move and therefore they formulated a charge and the charge was sedition. Now the word sedition is speaking of conduct or language that incites rebellion against the government. In Luke 23 verses 1 and 2 it says, the whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate and they began to accuse him saying, we have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ a king. And so the charges that will get Jesus executed are not the religious charges, they will be the civil charges. And that's why they're bringing Jesus before the governor punches Pilate. Now as all of this is taking place, notice verse 3, Judas, his betrayer, seeing that he has been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priest and elder saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. And they said, what is that to us? You see to it. Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went out and hanged himself. But the chief priest took the silver pieces and said, it's not lawful to put them in the treasury because of the price of blood. That's when they consulted together and they bought the Pottersfield, the very strangers in which fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah, the prophet that was recorded in Zechariah chapter 11 verse 12. So at this point, Matthew desires to focus his attention on Judas. It may have been that Judas was present during the interrogation as well as during the condemnation. And as he sees this, something goes on in his heart, something happens within him. He's watching as Jesus is taken away and the impact may have done something. And so immediately he has a wave of anguish and regret. And that prompts him to do something. Verse 3, it prompts him to be remorseful and he brings back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priest and he says, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. So we're going to be looking at this for just a moment. This is something I want to share with you as it relates to the remorse of Judas. And I want to develop that with you as we look at this passage together. Notice with me that it says in verse 4 that Judas said, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. Let me develop this with you. Judas is not experiencing repentance. Judas is experiencing regret. He's experiencing remorse. He's acknowledging that he has sinned. But to simply acknowledge that you have sinned and to feel badly about it does not save you. Repentance and remorse, repentance and regret are not the same thing. And I want to develop that because I think it's necessary. The Apostle Paul, when he was writing to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 10 said this. He said, Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret. But worldly sorrow brings death. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret. Worldly sorrow brings death. Regret. Regret is a general sense of sorrow, but normally is associated with someone getting caught for doing something and feeling badly about that. So what we have here is a good example of one who regrets what he's done, somebody who is sorry, somebody who's distressed, but somebody who is not repentant. When you look at the word repentance in Scripture, the word repent means a change of mind or a change of purpose, a reversal, reformation, turning away from sin, a sincere and thorough changing of the mind and disposition in regard to sin. Repentance is not simply feeling badly about doing something. There are a lot of people who feel bad about what they've done. They feel bad that they stole that car. They feel bad that they got drunk and abused somebody. They feel bad for the things that they've done, but a lot of times they're feeling bad because they got caught. They're feeling bad because they hurt somebody they care about, but they're not repenting. They're simply remorseful. They're simply feeling bad about it. Jails and prisons are filled with people who are remorseful, people who are doing time for the things that they've done and wish that they hadn't done but that doesn't mean that they've changed. It doesn't mean that anything has changed at all because repentance is a change of mind, especially concerning sin and especially concerning a relationship that they have with God. When somebody really repents, there's a change of mind that is taking place in their heart. The word repent in the Greek language is the word metonoeia. Metonoeia means a change of mind and it carries with it a deeper connotation than simply feeling bad. Again, a lot of us feel bad because we got caught.  What did I do? They had here. I've gone through that so have you. I've done things that made me feel bad about doing it. I wish I wouldn't have done that, but in fact, I never changed. I mean, I got arrested three times for being drunk in public and all. I know what I'm talking about where I awaken the next day and I'm saying, how'd I get here? Man, I feel terrible until the next time and then I felt terrible until the next time and it was never just regret. The regret never changed my life. As a kid, I wouldn't be good to girlfriends and I felt bad about it because they did the right thing. They broke up with me because I was a jerk and so I felt, man, I feel bad about this until the next girl. No, I'm going to change. I'm turning over a new leaf until the next girl and that's the way it worked. It just was never a repentance. It was never a sorrow of heart that led to a change of mind. It was never a sense that I sinned against God and man. It was more a matter of man. I blew it or man. I got caught or a man. I wish it wouldn't have. And that's how people are. That's Judas. He's remorseful but not repentant. I have betrayed innocent blood. It's not the same thing as saying, I have betrayed the Son of God. I feel bad about what I did and some of us in this room perhaps even right now feel bad about things you've done but have never really repented. You just simply feel bad about it. You hurt somebody. You got caught but you're not repentant. He felt sorry. He was distressed but he didn't repent because repentance isn't simply feeling badly about doing something. When you look at repentance, there are different things that comprise repentance if you will. There's the intellectual. Repentance is a change of view regarding your own self. When you're truly repenting, you're changing your view. Therefore sin is recognized as sin, not just a mistake or poor judgment. Because sometimes people will excuse their behavior because they'll say, well you know, it's the way I was raised. You know, I had to learn some things as a young married man because I was raised in a certain environment and certain behaviors were okay. You know, my mom was very outspoken and I learned as a boy that I could be an outspoken person and I was. I got in a lot of trouble for it over the years. I was just outspoken. I didn't think that I was being mean. I thought I was being real and so this is what I really feel. You want to know what I really feel? Yeah, then here it is and I would say it but I thought you asked. You must want to know then I'm hurting people's feelings. So I marry Marie and Marie's from a different background. She's from a quiet background and so my family, I mean you could come to the table sometimes while we're eating thinking we're fighting and we were just visiting whereas Marie's got a quieter background and see I had to learn and so in my mind it was, you know, she just needs to deal with it.   Then I'd hurt her feelings and I'd think get a backbone. This is life and she cry and we're newly married and I honest to goodness I would be so like what's wrong with you? I would even ask her. Listen, what's wrong with you? You hurt my feelings. Okay, but really what's wrong with you? I didn't get the Holy Spirit began to convict me as a young married man. Not like I'm perfect now forgive me if I give that impression. I am. I just don't want to admit it. It took me a long time to realize that what I was doing was hurtful. Thus it was sinful. I had to learn, but it wasn't just saying oh, I feel bad. It was that I came to realize it's sinful for me to be speaking in this way to somebody I love. It's wrong. You have to have a change of mind regarding the way that you're acting the things that you're saying and how you're impacting people. It's intellectual. It's something that is admitted to without an explanation or an excuse. Like I've been before the judge more than once and on one occasion I remember standing before the judge. It was a traffic violation and he said how do you plead and I said guilty with an explanation. Some of you have said that yourself. Guilty with an explanation because I was told that you could do that as a plea which was a way of saying yes, I broke the law, but let me tell you why I did it. Guilty with an explanation. You can't do that with the Lord. You can say I'm guilty with an explanation. He says bang, guilty. Let's not even talk about it because when you really repent there's no I just need to explain to you. It's the way I was raised. We all talk that way. I have to explain to you. It's my culture. I have to explain to you. It's my financial situation. I have to explain to you this is what I did because they didn't have enough education. You don't do that with the Lord. When you really repent it's just God I am guilty. I am so guilty. King David had a relationship we all know of with a woman by the name of Bathsheba. David was there in the time when kings went out to war. He was standing there and he's looking from his castle, his palace. He's looking down the hill and as he looks down the hill right directly below there is a beautiful woman. Her name is Bathsheba and she's bathing and he's looking at this amazingly beautiful woman and the lust begins to rise in his heart and after all he is the king. He can have anybody he wants in the kingdom and I want her. So he says go and tell Bathsheba that I want to see her and when he speaks and says that to his messenger the messenger says you realize of course that this is Uriah. They hit Ty. It's his wife. So he's warned. He says bring her to me and we all know the story. She comes and then she says listen I've made my offerings and all she's speaking to him and what she's telling him is she's saying I'm fertile. I can become pregnant if you proceed to do what I know you're planning on doing. That's what she's saying to him but he doesn't care. He doesn't care. He sleeps with her. She sends word to him I'm pregnant. Now what is he going to do? So we all know the story how he got Uriah and brought him off the line. They were out there doing battle and all but he brings them in and he has a conversation.  But Uriah won't go home. He's too noble to do that. He refuses to go. Comes back in another time.  Be with your wife because he's wanting Uriah to think that the child that is born is going to be his and he'll get away with it. But Uriah is more noble than David and once again he refuses to go. And finally he realizes well I'm going to have to do something and that's when he sends Uriah out. He gives an order to the general says to the general you make sure that he's in the heat of the battle then you withdraw the troops and that's what happens. Uriah is there being a loyal soldier fighting for his king. They withdraw from him.  Word comes back to David. He takes a little while pretending to mourn. Marries her but he doesn't get away from him. He doesn't get away with it. The Bible tells us that he he wrote concerning what he went through in Psalm 51. He said this in verses 3 and 4. He said I know my transgressions. My sin is ever before me. In other words when I wake up in the morning I think of what I did. When I go through the day I can't get away from it and even at night when I'm putting my head on a pillow I remember what I've done. My sin is ever before me.  So repentance has an intellectual component. It's not excused away. It's not explained away. True repentance is when you say it is against you that I have sinned and done this thing. A second thing about it is it's a decision of the will. It's something that comes from within. It's volitional. There's a voluntary inward turning of your heart toward God. A voluntary turning. It comes from within. You have determined what I've done is wrong. I repent and I'm turning to God. That's why Jesus in Matthew 4.17 would preach and say repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This is a decision you make. Repent because the kingdom is coming. And then third it can have an emotional aspect. Genuine sorrow and grief can't, over sin can occur. Not always. There are times when you simply will say I'm a sinner. I'm in need of God's grace and you enter into the kingdom and there doesn't seem to be any evidence of grief or sorrow over what you've done. You simply walk into the kingdom like C.S. Lewis did. C.S. Lewis in British intellectual claims that he climbed into a taxi cab as a deist or a theist and he exited the same cab as a Christian. In the same drive from being picked up and dropped off, he said somewhere in between being picked up and dropped off, I committed my heart to Jesus Christ. And he wrote his autobiography of his testimony and he called it surprised by joy because he wasn't expecting that at all, the joy that comes through salvation. And so there may be a certain emotion that you experience over it. Genuine sorrow over sin and real grief can occur. Again in Psalm 51 verses 7 through 9, David said, cleanse me with hyssop. I will be clean. Wash me. I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. In verse 17 of Psalm 51 he said, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. O God, you will not despise. Jesus speaks of a parable of a public and in a self-righteous man as they were praying. And he speaks of this public man, public and a tax collector in Luke 18, 13 who simply said, God have mercy on me. I'm a sinner. And so there can be a sense of grief. There can be a sense of sorrow. And then what do you do? Well, one, you confess.  We confess our sin. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So you confess your sin. And the second thing is you forsake that sin. Proverbs 28, 13 says, he who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. So you confess, you forsake, and then you turn to God in faith. Isaiah 55, 7, let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him to our God, for he will freely pardon. You confess, you forsake, and you turn to God. Those are the elements of repentance and the result will be joy, which is the fruit of righteousness. Romans 4 verse 8 says, blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. Blessed means, oh, how happy is the man. So the sorrow of the world results in death because it doesn't lead to forgiveness. When you're only remorseful or regretting, there's no joy, there's no restoration, and there's no reconciliation with God. Again in verse 4, Judas only saw that he betrayed an innocent man and he regretted doing so. And that's what's prompting him here. So when he says in verse 4, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood, they said, what is that to us? You see to it. They had no more concern for Judas than they had just shown for Jesus. As long as they got what they wanted, Judas no longer mattered to them. They used him for their own profit. His response rather in verse 5 is he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple. He went out and he hanged himself. Judas committed suicide. Suicide. Let me share a little bit about that, but not that much. He went out and hanged himself. I was around 27 years old. It's hard to believe five years have passed. At 27 years old, I was right in that area when I did my first funeral. The first funeral that I ever officiated was a funeral for a man who was a pedophile. That was my very first funeral. The people in attendance at that funeral were the outcasts of the world. When I grew up, there was a phrase that used to be used. It wasn't a common phrase then, but I recognize it because it was still a phrase that was used. It was a phrase that was used to speak of prostitutes. They used to be referred to in the old days as ladies in red. I don't know how many of you have ever even heard that term. Some of you have. I look out there. I see some white hair. They're called ladies in red. My mom used that phrase when I grew up. They're ladies in red. I didn't know what she meant by that. Eventually, as I grew older, she said, well, that's a word that used to be used in the older days. It's referring to the women who are prostitutes because they would wear bright red dresses and they'd put on bright red lipstick. My mom explained why they called them that. They were in red light districts. Yes, they do have red light districts. I was in Amsterdam and I accidentally, and this is the truth, accidentally found a hotel. I was going on $10 a day and I found a $10 place to stay. You can imagine a surprise. I was when I walked out with my friend. At night, we walked out. My friend Nick and I were walking through Amsterdam and all the lights, there were red lights throughout the whole place. I said, what place is this? This is the red light district. I mean, there really is a phrase red light. There really are ladies in red and all of that. Now I forget what I was going to tell you, but it was really interesting. So I did this funeral and as I was doing the funeral, there were women with dyed dyed dyed white platinum hair, bright red lipstick wearing red dresses. And the others were, they were gamblers and you just name it. That was my very first funeral with these women in red and these gamblers for a pedophile. My second funeral that I did within the year after that was for a suicide. I used to be a chaplain coach for the softball team in the church that I was the assistant in and I still remember at one of our practices talking to a fella who said this to me. He said, you know how you love your wife? Because even at that point, I guess I must have made it obvious that Marie means something to me.  I said, yeah, I'll never forget this conversation. He looks at me and he says, that's how I love mine. His wife had gotten a job. His wife had an affair. She had an affair with one of her co-workers. The second funeral I did was for this man who hanged himself in his garage.  That's how I love mine. She went out on him. He killed himself. I did his funeral. Been around suicide. Paul said, the sorrow of the world produces death. Remember with me that the apostle Peter also denied the Lord. Godly sorrow produces repentance. It draws you back to the Lord, but the sorrow of the world produces death. You have a man, the apostle Peter, who said three times, I don't know him. And yet when Jesus gave him that look, his heart was broken. He went out, wept bitterly, was restored to relationship. Judas, I have betrayed an innocent man. He went out and he hanged himself. My mother went through illnesses from the time she was 24 years old. My mom has spent the majority of her life in pain and one former another from epilepsy to lupus rheumatoid arthritis.   She couldn't get out of her bed for the last year of her life. This is a woman who knew pain in a way that others don't. They didn't know pain. When I hurt myself, I realized I don't know pain like my mom did.  And when she was going through her last season prior to going to be with Jesus, mama, and I were talking on one occasion and my mama said to me, is suicide acceptable to God? And I knew where she was going with that one.  She wanted permission. She wanted me to say, God is gracious. God is good. God forgives every sin, mama. I knew where she was going with that. And I said, I wouldn't take the chance of something like that. Well, why not? Well, suicide is sin. It's been said every human being is made in the image of God and belongs to him. No one has the right to murder anyone else, including himself. Suicide is self-murder and rebellion against God's sovereign right over life and death. It is an act of sin and unbelief. It violates the sixth commandment, you shall not murder, Exodus 2013. We have in the King James, thou shalt not kill, but the word kill in the original language, Hebrew, thou shalt not murder, which speaks of intentional assassination, slaying, or what we call murder. I am not one who will ever stand up in this pulpit or in private counsel and conversation, ever encourage anybody to that direction. I have no idea of the pain that some people go through and I don't want to be glib about this and I'm just making a quick comment. This isn't a thorough statement. It's just a quick comment on the fact that Judas betrayed an innocent man, went out and hanged himself, and that's what happens when you have the sorrow of this age.  I could never encourage you to do something like that, no matter what the situation may be. Judas is a great example of somebody who had the sorrow of this age, the sorrow of the world. The fact is, in Christ we have life and he is the giver of life and we need to trust him in all things. Judas did not and the result was that he went out, the scripture says, and hanged himself. As this took place, verse six, the chief priest took the silver pieces and said, it's not lawful to put them into the treasury, they're the price of blood that consulted together and bought with them the potter's field to bury strangers. In the potter's field, it was a place where they would go to get clay for clay pots. It was also a place that they would discard those that were broken. And it became a phrase that is used for the burial. You would bury strangers in the potter's field. The strangers could be visitors to Jerusalem who were not citizens there and had no place to be buried and thus were placed there. They also could be Gentile converts that were buried there. Finally, they could be strangers who were actually pagans who died in the city of Jerusalem. And because they were unclean, they would be placed in a potter's field. They were buried in a place that was bought by unclean money. The fact is, this fulfilled according to verse nine, the prophecy of Jeremiah that you see in scripture. Now in verse 11, this is the second message. Jesus stood before the governor. The governor asked him, saying, are you the king of the Jews? Jesus said to him, it is as you say. And while he was being accused by the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing. And Pilate said to him, do you not hear how many things they testify against you? But he answered him not one word. So the governor marveled greatly. So it's early Friday morning. It's around five. Jesus is before Pontius Pilate. John tells us that it was early morning and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness, the Jews would not enter into the palace. So because they wouldn't go to him, Pilate went out to them. John 18, 29 through 31 says, Pilate came out to them and asked, what charges are you bringing against this man? If you were not a criminal, they replied, we would not have handed him over to you. Pilate said, take him yourselves, judge him by your own law. But we have no right to execute anyone the Jews objected. So he's saying, what are your formal, what are your legal charges against Christ? That demands my attention. Again, remember earlier, they had determined that they would put him to death because of blasphemy, but they had put together the charge of sedition. So they said, we have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ the king. Obviously, this was false because Pilate would have heard that and would have already charged him. As this is taking place, so in verse 11, the governor asked him, saying, are you the king of the Jews? So he begins to speak to him and Jesus said, it's as you say. Now once again in John, John records in verses 34 through 38 in John 18, Jesus answered him, are you speaking for yourself about this or did others tell you this concerning me? Pilate answered, am I a Jew? Your own nation and chief priest had delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here. Pilate therefore said to him, are you a king then? Jesus answered, you say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born and for this cause I've come into the world that I should bear witness to the truth. Listen, everyone who is of the truth, here's my voice. Pilate said to him, what is truth? When he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, said to them, I find no fault in him. Jesus said, everyone who is of the truth, here's my voice. See, my kingdom is not of this world. It is by truth alone that I influence the minds and govern my subjects. I'm not trying to to produce an army of righteous warriors who are going to physically bring in my kingdom. My kingdom is modeled after the kingdoms of this age. I influence hearts. I transform lives. We're not battling with swords other than the sword of the spirit. And if a person is one of my followers, they hear me when I speak truth. And Pilate says, what is truth? Pilate was a career politician. He'd been in other places. He heard other versions of truth. I've heard many philosophies over a lifetime of government service. So what truth do you think you're bringing to me now? Listen, I have no interest in dialoguing with you. I don't want any part of this. This isn't something I need. You see, Pilate had already gotten in trouble on more than one occasion for the way he was governing there in Israel. He didn't need any more grief. So he doesn't want a conversation. He wants to get this done. He wants it over with. He's refusing responsibility about making a decision concerning the Lord. So he's saying, well, you know, I find no fault in this man at all. There's no legal charge that can be rendered against him. Well, as this is taking place, it already states in verse 12 of chapter 27 that Jesus was answering nothing. Pilate had found nothing of which to accuse him, but they wouldn't let him go. He continues answering nothing. So what more can he say? Pilate knows he's not guilty. So he says in verses 13 and 14, do you hear how many things they testified against you? But he answered not a word. In other words, he didn't defend himself. This caused according to verse 14, the governor to marvel greatly. The word marvel means to be holding him in admiration.  These are serious charges. Jesus could be put to death, but he's not resisting. He's not offering a defense for himself. That's unlike all others, Pilate has ever seen, because the natural response in such a situation is to proclaim your own innocence. Like it says in Proverbs 21 verse 2, every way of a man is right in his own eyes. We will proclaim our own innocence. It's a natural thing. Skin for skin, all that a man has you'll give for his life. And Jesus is standing before Pontius Pilate. A ruler is capable of proclaiming a death penalty. He even said to Jesus, he said, don't you know that I have authority to put you to death? And Jesus said, you have no authority unless it's granted to you. You have no authority over me. And Pilate had no ability to respond to such a man. And he's watching this man whom he knows is innocent. It's so obvious. And this one who is innocent is not even offering a defense. Now, 700 plus years before Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 53 verse 7 said concerning Messiah, he was oppressed. He was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth. He's brought as a lamb to the slaughter.  Now he's trying to find a way, Pontius Pilate is trying to find a way to release Jesus. It says in verse 15, at the feast the governor was accustomed to releasing to the multitude one prisoner whom they wished. So they had a system that they would release somebody. He would release the one that they asked for. Well, at that time they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. Therefore, when they had gathered together, Pilate said to them, whom do you want me to release to you Barabbas or Jesus who's called Christ? He knew they had handed him over because of envy. The word Barabbas, the name Barabbas literally means son of a father. He was a violent revolutionary. Mark 15 says a man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. So the question is asked, who do you want me to release to you Barabbas or Jesus? Again, he knows that Jesus was delivered up because of envy. The word envy means displeasure. It's the displeasure that is aroused when someone has what you do not want them to have. And Pilate knew power and the whole that authority could have on a person. He saw through the pretended religious zeal and he saw exactly what their motive was. Now as this is all taking place, notice verse 19. He's sitting in the judgment seat. His wife sent to him saying, I have nothing to do with that just man. I've suffered many things today in a dream because of him. That's the little pressure. Don't condemn Jesus. Don't get involved in this. Now, by the way, nobody knows the source of the dream. Some say it could have been prompted by her conscience, but it's not known. It's just a warning. As this is taking place, verse 20, the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitudes that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said to them, which of the two do you want me to release to you? They said, Barabbas, Pilate said to them, what then shall I do with Jesus who's called Christ? They all said to him, let him be crucified. The governor said, why? What evil has he done? They cried out all the more saying, let him be crucified. It's nice and quiet in here, but can you imagine how it was before Pontius Pilate? How loud that crowd was becoming. The yelling amongst them, crucify him, crucify him. Pilate's surprised. What do you want me to do with Jesus who's called Christ? Jesus is innocent, but Pilate is afraid to fight for his release. Verse 22 simply says they cry, let him be crucified. They're demanding nothing less than the death of Christ. But again, he tries to reason why. What evil has he done? This one is completely innocent, but he can't prevail. And what does he do? Verse 24, he saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult or a riot was rising. He took water and washed his hands before the multitude saying, I'm innocent of the blood of this just person. You see to it. And all the people answered and said, his blood be on us and on our children. He released Barabbas to them when he scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. I want nothing to do with this. The washing of hands is symbolic. In Psalm 26 verse six, it simply says, I wash my hands in innocence. In the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy 21 verses six and seven, there is a hand washing ritual that is provided when judges are unable to render justice. So it's symbolic of wanting to distance myself from this. So he says, I wash my hands of this just person, this innocent person, you deal with it. Their response is blood be on us and on our children. We are responsible. We are willing to be responsible for what he's done. And he delivered him to be scourged and crucified. Scourging has been called the living death. Again, it is something that I'll go into some detail with you next time we're together about this, but it was something that was a torture that was beyond torture. Whole chunks of skin and flesh would be removed. The scourging would not only hit the chest, but it would hit the chest, the back, the legs, the thighs, and even the face. There were times when the prisoner's eyes were actually torn out of their sockets. They were mutilated and disfigured. It was a cataclysm. It was a catanine tails and had leather straps embedded within the straps were broken pieces of ceramic pottery or sharpened stones. It was handled by one who was referred to as a lictor, and he knew how to torture. And that's what he's doing here. He's trying to provoke some sympathy from these people. We'll see that next time we're together where Jesus is scourged and humiliated, and he says, behold the man. He's trying to elicit some human sympathy, but it's not working. Jesus is delivered. We're now entering in to the most sober portions of our New Testament. Portions that deal with the torture and death of our Savior. These are portions that I become much more sober-minded as I'm teaching, because these are the things that in my early days of walking with Christ, when I began to embrace what Jesus did for me, it changed the entire direction of my life. When I got saved, and I'll close with a real brief story, when I got saved, I was just freshly saved. It was, for some reason, there was a movie called Ben Her. The original book has a longer title that speaks concerning the Messiah of Israel, because it was really written with the Christian theme, Ben Her, made into a movie. And I happened to see that movie as a brand new Christian, brand new Christian. Brand new Christian. And I was 20 years old. I still remember it. My father and mother's den, the family watching Ben Her. And there was a certain portion in that movie when Ben Her encounters the Christ. And you know, I know you won't believe this. I started to cry. I never cry, but I did then. I've been crying for a long time. And I saw a portrayal of what Jesus did for me. And it was one of the things that the Lord used in my life, slowly, to turn the direction of my life. And to not take the things of God lightly. I believe that many people have a light touch on the grace of God, because a lot of people love their sin more than they love their Lord. And they've taken the word grace and extended it as permission over living an ungodly, callous, unholy life, because Jesus loves me the way I am.  He hates it. He hates my sin. Why? Because it destroyed me. And he loves me. And he hates what sin does to his people. When we continue living in sin, it's like kissing the tip of the spear that pierced the side of your Savior. He died to set you free, not so that we could live live, just running through life, drinking all we want, sleeping around all we want, doing what we want, and going to heaven. He died to set you free from the bondage that you're in because of that sin. Thank you, Jesus. That's Christianity. That's Christianity. Never make Jesus a co-conspirator in your carnality. He died to release you from it. Am I perfect? Sure. No, am I perfect? Of course not. But do I want to be a better man for Christ's sake? Absolutely. Why? Because he demands that of me? No, because he loves me. And I love him. That's why. That's why. It's that simple. It's that simple. We will look more closely at this as we go through the following pages of our scriptures.


be dominated by one group or be totally biased. For example, Wikipedia in Japan, Wikipedia in Croatia is dominated by a single political group. Then I went on to have an awesome conversation about how we collect and use big data, affects the genders differently. And then over Glass of Wine I had a conversation about managers and their political beliefs and how that can affect how they treat their teams. And all of those conversations are gonna stick with me. They're gonna change the way I think, they're gonna change the way I act in the future. And we can only have those here. So I'm so excited to be here.  It's to like start those conversations. So I'm hoping that the ideas that I give you today, you'll go on and have a conversation over lunch, you'll have a conversation tonight over Glass of Wine, and we'll all learn a little bit more. We'll all go home thinking a little bit differently and we'll create awesome open source programs offices so that we can all create work better together. So that's my goal. So more and more people have been asking about open source programs offices lately. I've talked to large retailers, I've talked to banks around the world, I've talked to automotive companies, and they're all asking about open source and about open source programs offices. And my first thought was like, wow, didn't we solve this like 15 years ago? Like, haven't I spent my career doing this? Like, didn't we do a good enough job? Did we not give them the tools so that they could just start one? Like, there's still all these questions and still people thinking about it. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, well, maybe there's more to it. Actually, I wanna take a minute. I'll go back a slide, but I don't know how to do it with my little fancy clicker. I want each one of you to think about an open source programs office. It can be the one that you work with, it can be your ideal dream open source programs office. It can be what you imagine an Ospo to be if you're here to learn about Ospo's, but take a minute and think about your open source programs office and like, what does it do? Where does it live in your organization? Who's a part of it? Okay, now that you have it in your mind, I'm gonna ask you questions about it later. So as I was thinking about all these Ospo's and like, are we really like reinventing the wheel every year, like, or have we not learned anything? I thought maybe creating an open source programs office is like riding a bike. So when you learn how to ride a bike, some of it is about bike technology. And bike technology has definitely evolved over the last 100 years. So you know, when they first started, you got these big metal or wood wheels, they didn't transfer the power between the person and the wheels very efficiently. There were no handbrakes, there were no training wheels. So all of these are things that we've evolved over time that make biking easier or better. But everyone still has to learn how to ride a bike.  And I don't recommend that you take the latest fanciest e-bike and learn how to ride, perhaps like stick with the training wheels. So I think Ospo's have evolved in the same way. So I think Ospo's, here's what I was gonna have you imagine your Ospo, keep it in mind. So Ospo's have evolved in two ways too. They've evolved with the technology, so how an open source program's office, like what tools are available to it, and each individual Ospo also has to learn how to ride their bike. So think about your Ospo, shout out, what does your Ospo do? Like why does it exist? What does it do day to day? For your organization or for you? Empowers developers, empowers faculty, makes things easier, defines strategy, brings people together from across the whole organization. Tries not to cry and try to form policies. Maybe we can learn from each other in that one. All right, so Ospo's do all these things. And as an industry, we are evolving our open source program's offices. So we have tools now that like, we're trying to define policies, you can actually go out and look at several other policies. We have, used to be the first thing you did was look and see what software you're using. We now have software that will automatically detect that for you. So as an industry, we are evolving, we are learning lots more. And I'm gonna tell you about a handful of things that I've thought of that we've evolved as an industry. But I really would encourage you at lunch, you know, during other presentations, think about the things that we have evolved and think about ways that we could continue to evolve to make it easier for these new people. So one of the ways I think we've evolved is our thinking on licensing. When open source software first came out, how many people were around in the year like 2000, 2005-ish, all we talked about was licensing. And everybody was an expert in licenses. I took a copyright class at my local law school and I knew all about licensing. Thankfully, like we have a much better understanding of licensing. Now we have a lot of shared knowledge and information about it. We have organizations like the OSI, the open software initiative that help define what is a standard open source license. So we've come a long ways. So people getting started in open source now don't all have to go to take a legal class at their law school or pretend to be an attorney. Detection is another area that I think we've really evolved in. When we first started with open source software, I was at Hewlett Packard and we wrote a tool that's now been open sources phasology to actually detect open source software because it was very manual.  So how we find what we're using has evolved a lot. Another way that we've evolved is like understanding project mechanics. I think when open source first started, each project was a little different. Nobody really had an idea of figuring out like is this thing real? Who works on it? Now we have like standard places to put the source code. You can use GitHub or GitLab. We understand what a contributor is, a maintainer is. You can go and look and see if the issues are active. We have the whole chaos project which is helping define metrics. So we have a much better understanding of what it means to be a project and how to evaluate it and how to interact with it. We have much more advanced funding and support for open source software projects. So there's foundations like the Linux Foundation which puts on events like this. The Apache Foundation which helps with all those projects. There's, I know Microsoft supports dozens of open source foundations and open source projects. There's also additional efforts that are just coming out now just evolving in the industry of how do we support that individual open source software project maintainer? So for example, we've joined the FOS Fund effort. So every month Microsoft gives $10,000 to a project that our employees pick and we give that through GitHub sponsors or an open source foundation to an individual. I think that's still, that's still growing. Like we're still learning as an industry how do we support individuals who are working on open source software? And so those were just a handful. A handful of ways that our industry has evolved. So I don't, I'd love to hear like just two or three from you all and then I want you to continue that conversation later. What's another way that we've evolved as an industry? So if someone was gonna start an OSPO today, what do they have today that they wouldn't have had 15 years ago? They have more people to talk to. So there's a community like this. There's a whole conference around open source programs offices. A lot more training. So there's free training online. There's training you can take at universities. A lot more training. One more, more understanding of best practices. And lots of talks here like, you know, I went to talk yesterday where Goldman Sachs talked about how they just started their OSPO in the past year. Like so a lot more places than people you can learn from. So individually I think creating an open source programs office is also like riding a bike.  And your organization is probably not identical to any others. Your culture is a little different. What your attorneys are comfortable with is a little different. How your software developers work and their environment is a little different. Why does it stop working? So I think one of the first things that individual OSPs have to do, no matter what tools they have available, they have to know what they're using. They have to know what open source software am I already ingesting and what things might have my developers open source. And that's the very first step that they need to do. And I think it's often the step that they do to prove that you actually really need an OSPO. You really need an open source programs office. At Microsoft, we are using 60,000 different open source software components across the company. And if you count each individual use, because each one is used in more than one place, it's like nine and a half million instances of open source software usage that we are tracking. So if there's a security vulnerability, we can immediately notify that team. So the first step is what are you using? The second step people get to is like, they immediately decide that everybody has to ask for permission for everything, right? Like, oh my gosh, there's this open source stuff, we don't know what we're doing, do not use it unless you talk to me and talk to the attorney and like let's make sure we know what we're doing. Eventually that evolves over time to a spot where you set guidelines and policies.  So I think another major way, each individual OSPO has to get to that point on their own, like and figure out what the policies are for their organization and what they're comfortable with. And then I think OSPOs grow to where they're helping and encouraging their employees to contribute more. So like at Microsoft, we created a mapping your open source career checklist that people can look through and decide, figure out how to add open source to their plans and how to talk to their manager about using open source. We have a series of workshops about contributing to open sources of Microsoft employee, what does that mean? What does that look like? Are you allowed to do it? Absolutely. We have like, how do you grow your community? How do you enforce a code of conduct? Because having a code of conduct is good, kind of easy to write one, lot scarier to actually have to enforce it or do something about it. And then companies start doing outreach.  You start sharing the project that you're working on and the project that you did open source and hoping that others come and contribute. Because as we heard from Selena, like if you don't have a community, it's not really open source until like others are also participating in it. And so open source programs offices evolve over time. They start by using open source, then they eventually get to contributing back to those projects, which is much harder than you think. There's like a huge, what's the syndrome where you think you're not good enough? Imposter syndrome, yes, there's a huge imposter syndrome. And then it gets to creating new open source and open sourcing things. And I found the more the company is a software company, the more comfortable they are with that last phase. The less they're in the technology software industry, the harder that last phase is. So that is what I wanted to inspire you with today. Because I think creating an open source programs office is just like riding a bike, right? So I encourage you to go out for the rest of the OSPO con and talk to people about what it means to create an OSPO, what it means to run one. How are we evolving? How are we sharing this knowledge? And how are we making all of these new companies? Because we really are seeing a lot more new companies that aren't in the software industry start to create OSPOs. How are we helping them? So thanks for joining me. And please go learn lots and start great conversations because that's why we're all here.


I've been using SyncThing for a long time and it's a product that just keeps getting better. SyncThing is a continuous file synchronization program. It synchronizes files between two or more computers and replaces proprietary sync and cloud services with something open, trustworthy and decentralized. Yes, you can self host this, yes this is open source, yes it supports Windows, yes it supports Linux and today we're going to talk about it on FreeNAS. Now in the past I've done some deeper dives into this particular product and I'll leave links to those videos as well. I talk more in-depth about some of the finer details about setting up but we're going to cover the basics of getting it set up on FreeNAS. So I have here the FreeNAS MiniXL Plus all configured and set up and we went over, went to the available plugins and you find SyncThing and oops, there we go. Right here is SyncThing personal cloud and Sync and I installed it. So it is currently set up and installed, well I should just say install. That part's pretty easy. From there we can open up the management and I actually have that open here. So this is default install, nothing's been done. It will ask if you'd like to auto update. I did say yes. So that's the only configuration that's been done. That way we can start with pretty much a base install of SyncThing but as of right now we have no mount points, no data in here. So I want to talk about how to get data in there. So obviously you can click the install button but that's just the beginning of it. You don't have, the configuration can be a little bit tricky because people get mixed up on how some of the permissions work. So we're going to go over here and we're going to start with creating a user and it happens to be, and let me quickly show you how I know this piece of information, I open up a shell right here and we're going to go to CD slash MNT, Tink, IO cage, oops, then Jails, then we have SyncThing and we want it to be in the root of it. And if I do an LSSLA, you see this folder called Sync and this 983, there's no username. That's because Jails have their own usernames within there and if they're not matched at the higher level system in FreeNAS, they won't show up. So obviously root is a valid user but 983 is not and how do I know even what folder to look at? Well if you look at the default folder, it's just slash sync. So now we know what username is going to create for those files. Don't worry, it's not this complicated. It always creates, at least at version 11.2 of FreeNAS here, it's creating user 983 when you create the Jail. I've tried this in several machines. It's always 983. So we're going to hurt accounts, users, I'm going to add a user, give this user a cool name like Sync, easy to remember why we have it. The password is not incredibly important because you're not going to be using it but the user ID is incredibly important because that's exactly what we're using, 983. So now sync, we gave it specifically the user name, sync but user ID 983. Now we're going to save and now the user's created. Why do we do that? So now when we go over here to our pool and our data, so we go to storage, pools, and now we want to add a data set. We'll call this sync thing data. Where the sync thing data goes? All right, put a space there, make it look a little bit professional, cool, save. Now we created the data set but now we got to change the permissions. So now we got the sync thing data right here, where the sync thing data goes. We're going to go to edit permissions, that's why, oh, there we go. We want sync thing to be able to read and write to this directory. So now it is owned and the group policy is the user sync that we created. We'll apply the permissions recursively but there's no data in there so I just do that out of habit so I know everything within that folder, within that data set, I should say now belongs to sync thing and it has read write access to it. Now we can go over here and we're going to go over to the plugins. We're going to stop the plugin here, so stop. You just are supposed to stop the plugins whenever you do mount points and in them. We're going to stop, let it finish, go over to the jail and then add the mount point. Jails, mount points, add a mount point, source, click the folder. It's going to be mount, tank, sync thing data, destination. Now this is where sometimes people get a little confused. We could create another folder and call it sync but for the proper way we're going to put it under here, under mount and we'll add another slash and sync data is what I'll call the, actually we'll call it sync thing data just so we're consistent in naming. Now this is taking the external part and mounting it to the internal IO cage because the root inside of a cage, this is what keeps them from wandering around. If anyone were ever to get into one of your jails, they can't traverse any further back than what was mounted into them, which in this case would be sync thing data. So we go ahead, hit save. All right, that works. And now we're going to go back over to the plugins, installed and we'll go ahead and start it back up. All right, now we created this but there's no data actually in there. So you may be prompted to go over here to sync thing, actually we'll refresh the page now that it started back up. You may be tempted to add this as a folder. Now this depends on whether or not you have data to copy to this folder yet. Currently we just created an empty data share with no data in it and I'll presume your other devices, whether they be Linux or Windows are where the data resides. So for this example, I figured I'd use Windows. I figure a lot of you are Windows users, but like I said, this works exactly the same if you're doing it on a local workstation that's running Linux, you even have options to do this from your phone. So all they did was go through the default install. And once again, we have a basic default install here of sync thing. And there's nothing, we have the default folder here, but we can actually delete that in a second. It doesn't really matter. But I have this folder located under the desktop called business data. This is where all of our important business data is. So how do we get this data synced in there? Yeah, remember we have a blank and empty container waiting for data over on the FreeNAS side, but we have this over here. So we're going to go over and we're going to add a folder. Folder label is data. Same thing. We'll call it business data. Now where is this folder located? It's not here. It's actually going to be, and we can actually just copy paste this in. So copy, there's where the important business data is. We'll get to the sharing in a second. File versioning, if we care about that, when you go through my deeper dive, it has all kinds of different staggered, extended, simple file versioning. That way when you have all the files synchronizing, when there's conflicts, how to handle it, when there's deletes, how to handle it, ignore patterns in advance. So we're just going to leave it at the basic here and save. All right. So now it's scanning and indexing everything that's in that biz data folder. And I'm going to head and get rid of the default folder because we are not going to use this one here. Remove, yep. All right. Now we want to add a remote device. This is where the power of same thing comes in and can be a little bit tricky. So we have the device ID is what it's looking for. So let me go back over here to our, and this is our one running inside of free NAS actions. And we're going to show the device ID couple of ways you can do this. If you're allowing sync thing just to take care of all the networking, you can just copy and paste the device ID in and it will do some discovery when they're on the local network and just find them, which is also really cool that it has ability to do that. So we're going to put in the device ID. So now we have that device name, free NAS, oops, free NAS mini. Excel plus. Now, this is where you have a couple of different options. Let me make this bigger. We're going to click the sharing because we want it to share the biz data. And we won't worry about these other options here. This is where we can set the address. Now, I'm going to go ahead because I know the address of the machine. It happens to be 192.1683.7 here. So rather than use any of the auto discovers, we're going to go ahead and just put in the address instead of dynamic. So you actually type in TCP colon slash slash. Oops, case of the wrong thing. So TCP colon slash slash 192.1683.177 colon 2212322,000 is the port number. So this allows this computer and obviously one of the things that's important is making sure you can even access this. We can open up ping, for example. You want to make sure that these things can talk to each other. I can ping it so I know this computer can get to it. Even though it's on a separate network, by the way, it will traverse networks. It will use UNC path or not UNC, but fully qualified domain names. So if you had a domain set up or an IP address, however you wanted to do this, it will do it and it is sending the data encrypted. So we're going to head and specify specifically this, but it is important that we put this part in here with the device ID and that we have the biz data saved as we want to share this. That way it has something to share. FreeNAS MiniSL disconnected and what it's going to do is you have to wait a minute and it's going to send a packet over here to start talking to this. And now you're going to see how we add the remote devices. It just takes a minute. It's going to vary with how long the machine's been up and running for, but within one or two minutes or less, you'll get a prompt on the receiving end because we told that machine to contact this machine and start sending data to it. And this is going to confirm that you wanted to share data with that computer. And here we go. It says device Tom7PC has the ID wants to connect. Add the new device. We would like to add the device. It's confirming it. Awesome. So we're going to go ahead and hit save because we want to found the other, actually it's kind of finishing up with these are these are other devices on my network that it found because it's auto discovering things and we hit save. Now there's going to be another pause. After we done this, the next thing it wants to do is they sync up and now it's going to say, hey, this has data it wants to share with you. Where do you want to put that data? We're going to wait for that to happen. And here we go. Device wants to share this. I want to add a new device. And then here's add the folder. So we're going to turn this add the folder on and where is that path going to go slash MNT. It's actually another one of my free NAS ones. Wanting to send some data over. So here we go mount sync thing data to that folder we created. We have it over here just to show you again. So Mount sync thing data here. And when we look at the mount points, we'll just go over to Jails, show you one more time. Mount points. Here it is. So the root of the syncing cage is root slash. And we started MNT syncing data. And for us, it's tank syncing data. So there we go. We got that. And we just want to go ahead and we'll leave all the file versioning. Like I said, you can dive deeper into that. But this is where you can do some of the synchronizations. But we're going to hit save. That's going to take a second. And here comes the synchronization. So there's about 500 megs of data so far. And it's copying it all over, putting everything in sync. It tells you what items are out of sync at the moment while it transfers them. And I purposely chose something that had just tons and tons of little files in here. And some of the noises you hear or this free NAS doing it sync over here. So it's up to date folder on here. But right here, it's synchronizing and sending all the data back over there. And it's done. 500 megs moved across. Of course, I have a 10 gig connection between my computer and this. So 500 indexing, that was fast. And sending the data was sort of fast. And that's pretty much it. Once again, we have a default folder here we don't need to use. So I'm going to go ahead and remove this folder. And away you go. So that's it for sync thing. Like I said, it's an available plugin in free NAS. It's been in there for a long time. It's well-developed. It's well-supported. And it auto-updates itself to the latest version after you install it inside the jail. And of course, to connect all your other devices, there's a variety of options from even 32-bit links, ARM, which it does include Raspberry Pi's, of course. Dragonfly, BSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS, a wide variety of options. And of course, on Google Play, you can download it as well. So it's a great utility, excellent way to self-hosting you stay in control of all your file synchronization and combine that with the power of free NAS. And away you go. You've got your own drop blocks replacement without having to pay all those monthly fees and you having control of all your data. And thanks. And thank you for making it to the end of the video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you'd like to see more content from the channel, hit the subscribe button and hit the bell icon if you like YouTube to notify you when new videos come out. If you'd like to hire us, head over to laurancesystems.com fill out our contact page and let us know what we can help you with and what projects you'd like us to work together on. If you want to carry on the discussion, head over to forums.laurancesystems.com where we can carry on the discussion about this video, other videos or other tech topics in general, even suggestions for new videos, they're accepted right there on our forums, which are free. Also, if you'd like to help the channel in other ways, head over to our affiliate page. We have a lot of great tech offers for you. And once again, thanks for watching and see you next time.


One of our weirdo family members sent this one in and they only wanted to share their first name for credit. It's titled Something Above Us, written by Norman. When I was around 10 or 11 years old, I went on a road trip with my mother, her close friend, and her daughter. Jenny, the daughter, and I were about the same age. We grew up together and were childhood friends. My mother and her mother were close friends and that's how we met.  I remember one day my mother told me, we're going on a trip with Jenny. And I was pretty excited about the news. The trip was from Cairns to Townsville, which was around a four-hour drive in far North Queensland. We were going to stay the night with some friends of my mother's. I slept for most of the drive and remember being woken up by Jenny. We're here, we're here. I remember looking through the front windscreen of the car from the back seat. I saw a driveway leading to a very modern looking house with large trees to the side and behind it. We got out of the car and made our way inside the house. I didn't know anyone who lived there. I was introduced to a couple who had a daughter around the same age as us and also a baby. That night our parents all went out for dinner. Jenny and I stayed home to watch movies with our new friend and to also babysit the baby. I was getting late and we all decided to go to bed. I was woken up by a terrified Jenny.  She seemed to have lost all composure. There's something above us, she told me. I wasn't fully awake when she told me. I sat up on my bed and wiped my eyes to try and understand what she was really saying. When I gathered myself, I was in shock. What I felt and saw was nothing I have ever experienced in my life. The room I was sleeping in was shaking like a small earthquake but it seemed to be vibrating rather than shaking. We both were too scared to leave the bedroom. We laid on the floor and hid beside the bed away from the window. We could hear a buzzing sound. We could feel the buzzing sound through our bodies. The buzzing came and went in intervals. When the buzzing got louder we saw light outside illuminating the backyard like it was daytime. Jenny and I both saw it and were puzzled. It must have been around 11pm at night. When the buzzing went quiet the light disappeared and it was nighttime again. This happened for quite some time. We had enough. We both ran out of the bedroom to try and find the other girl and the baby. When we opened the door we could see the living room. There was a window next to the front door overlooking the front yard. What we saw was the most frightening thing ever. We were standing right in between our bedroom and the front door window just across from the living room. We noticed that when the buzzing sound got quiet from our bedroom and the blinding light was gone, it actually went from the backyard to the front yard. It was like the front yard was daytime and the backyard was nighttime and it kept on switching back and forth along with the very disabling buzzing sound going through our bodies. We didn't believe our own eyes. We went to the other room where the girl was sleeping in. She was crying and didn't know what was happening. She was worried about the baby in the other room. All three of us went to the baby's room to make sure the baby was safe. We opened the door to the room and couldn't believe our eyes. The baby's cot was swinging back and forth by itself and the baby was crying. We were frozen with fear. Then we all lost time. I woke up in bed. It was the next morning and I couldn't remember the moments after I went into the baby's room. I could still remember the buzzing sound and the blinding light shining over the yard. Jenny and I didn't tell our parents about what happened. We were too shocked and we couldn't describe exactly what happened that night. We went outside to the backyard to see if we could see any changes or any signs of what happened. As we were walking around, we saw the lawn was burnt. It was a black circle and the green grass had turned brown and dry to the touch. We were freaking out. We knew something happened and it wasn't just our imagination or some dream. The house next door was being built and basically was a construction site. It had the walls up but only the framework. After we checked the backyard, we decided to go and have a closer look at the construction site next door. There was a weird feeling coming from this site. We thought maybe there could be some evidence from what happened last night somewhere here in this half-built house. We started walking towards the house and then I stopped. I saw something run from behind a wall to another wall. We ran back to our house as fast as we could. I didn't look back. It looked like a small human, skinny and white, no clothes on. Jenny and I never really talked about this as we got older. I'm 35 now and I will never forget that night that we had something above us.