I'd like to greet everyone a good day, and I'd like to thank the International Rice Research Institute for inviting me as one of the reactors on the Rice Straw Philippine project. I would like to thank IRI for taking into consideration the Sagi Saka app which aims to increase the income of small older farmers and encouraging them to pursue entrepreneurship and enterprise development as a means of moving out of subsistence farming. This pandemic has proven the resilience of Philippine agriculture and the importance of food security especially during the crisis. When Filipinos flock to grocery stores and supermarkets in the urban centers and they're trusted the wet markets to stock up before the start of the lockdown, last March one of the greatest concerns in anxiety is that where to get our food. That's why it costs such an outrage when there were pictures on social media showing vegetables being thrown away because farmers could not access the markets. A lot of people want their food especially fresh and nutritious but due to quarantine restrictions they have limited means of accessing them. The response of some Filipinos in turn was to do urban gardening. Growing one's own food has become popular in the past six months and there have been a big clamor for seeds. Suddenly food farming access to health food and the ability to be able to secure our food became front and center. Local government units are also have also responded to the challenge of providing food aid for their constituents through direct purchasing of agricultural products from farmers and agriculture cooperatives. That's the spirit of Sagepsata. It was hitting two birds with one stone. The LGUs were able to access sources of rice vegetables and other products immediately and farmers were able to access the markets and earn despite the pandemic cutting them away from most of their markets. In fact the DA reported that for the first time in history over 400 local governments were able to purchase some six billion worth of agri and fishery products directly from farmers and farmers cooperatives and associations. The LGUs also purchased rice in winning with better prices. Usually middlemen would purchase rice at 13 to 17 pesos per kilo during the pandemic but the LGUs priced it as much as 19 pesos increasing the income of farmers during the pandemic. Imagine if we even had if we were able to add even more value to rice farming for example through the utilization of wastage from harvests such as rice straws. We load this effort. This is money being burned for lack of a better term and thrown away unless we are able to have the technology to use it. If farmers could pursue farm enterprise focusing on value-adding, multi-cropping, why not? Through the prompt response of LGUs in the DA we were able to ensure that farmers would have continued incomes despite the pandemic. I am told that an additional gross of 250,000 to 750,000 from growing mushrooms for example using rice straws would be a big help in lifting our farmers from poverty. A March 2020 article from the NOMPEN post says that the Mekong Delta rice farmers are earning as much as 63 pesos per kilo of rice straw. That's even bigger, more expensive than rice itself or the cost per kilo is even higher than the rice itself. Their income averages from 1400 to 1900 pesos from rice straws per hectare. Farmers also cultivate rice straw mushrooms and earn as much as 63,000 to 83,000 pesos per 1000 square meters per month of mushroom crop. Remember that even palla in the Philippines is only worth 17 to 19 pesos per kilo. Most don't even make use of rice straws and just resort to burning what would have been 63 pesos per kilo additional income. If Vietnam can do it or Cambodia we certainly can too. We have to make the most agriculture in the sense that nothing of value should go to waste. Burning of rice straws has always been a prevalent scene in the Philippine countryside. It is a distinctive smell that you can sniff kilometers away. But it is time to learn these practices by burn rice straws when you could have when you can profit from it. We support IRI and the D encouraging sustainable straw management in the Philippines and ensuring that our farmers are provided with even more options for increased incomes. Our office is open to any legislative measure that should support this in depth and you have our full commitment that we will pursue this Senate floor. Again congratulations and thank you for this invitation. May we have more income for our rice farmers for our agriculture sector by utilizing what today is waste and turn it into added income for our farmers. Thank you very much.


Anyway, we're in Matthew chapter five. We're gonna be looking today at verses 43 through 48. And so let's read those verses together as we continue our series here in Matthew. And we've arrived at the portion of scripture that has been classically referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. And so we've been going through the Sermon on the Mount now through several studies. So we've arrived at verse 43 and I'll begin reading at verse 43 here in Matthew chapter five. I'll read up to verse 48 and we'll look at this particular portion of scripture. Now scripture that Jesus commands us to love our enemies.  But I say to you, love your enemies.   Pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. That you may be sons of your father in heaven. For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good. Sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so?  I say let's not even look at this passage. Let's do something else. So what are we doing now? We're studying a portion of scripture referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. And I was reading in preparation for this particular message today and I found something that I'm gonna use as a quote to introduce our subject today where somebody wrote the most famous sermon in the history of mankind was an exegetical outline of the Old Testament law and 10 commandments. What was provided in Matthew was not a word for word account of Jesus's sermon, but an outline from which you can see how he was working his way through Mosaic law. So what you have here in chapters five, six, and seven are not the complete sermon. Sometimes we think that it is. We think this is all that Jesus said concerning this topping and these things. But the fact is you can read chapters five, six, and seven within four or five minutes. You can read right through that. So nobody would argue that Jesus had all these people seated there as he taught and he only spoke for five minutes. So what we have is an outline. We have an outline of the Lord Jesus Christ speaking concerning certain things that his hearers would be familiar with. And what Jesus is speaking about concerns the interpretation that the religious leaders of his day had given to scripture and the most paramount, the ones who were best known at that time for their interpretations were those who were referred to as Pharisees. And as I've mentioned to you, because you read your Bible and if you read your New Testament, you will see the name Pharisee. As I've mentioned to you, there were three basic groups of people at that time that Jesus dealt with and you'll see them repeatedly in scripture. You see the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and on occasion you'll see another group called the Herodians. So the Pharisees would be what we today would refer to as the most conservative of all of the theologians of his day. Sadducees could be referred to in today's contemporary form of communication as being those who were more inclined towards liberalism and then the Herodians were really more a group of people who were politically inclined. The ones who had the great influence were the Pharisees. And the Pharisees, though they were small in number, had tremendous influence and they had their teachings that had been disseminated amongst the people and the people had heard the things that Pharisees said and so Jesus is speaking concerning that which has influenced the people in their theological understanding. He's speaking, in other words, concerning the conservativism that had led to Phariseic, what we call legalism, where it's what I do or don't do that matters, not the motives of my heart or the attitude, but rather my physical activities and all.  It's that kind of attitude that I am better than the average person and that really found its way out and was worked out in the attitude and the teachings doctrine of the Pharisees during the time of Christ. So Jesus has been dealing with that and as we've been looking at the Sermon on the Mount, we've recently looked at various topics that the Pharisees had been teaching on. So they had taught on the subject of murder and they had taught on the subject of adultery. They had spoken about divorce and taking oaths and retaliation. So these are things that the Lord Jesus is addressing and that's why he says, you have heard it said. In other words, you have been taught this. This doctrine has permeated and you know what is being said concerning these things and these interpretations are originating through the traditional teachings of those who are referred to as the separated ones or the Pharisees. So Jesus is establishing what would be called a contrast and he has been contrasting the Pharisees' self-righteousness with true righteousness. You see, if there's anything lacking in legalistic self-righteousness, there's one thing that would be omitted in legalistic self-righteousness that Jesus is now about to address and that thing that would be missing in legalism, that thing that would be missing in legalistic self-righteousness is the quality of love, especially the love of God. So his teaching is would-be disciples about what the true mark of a genuine believer in God is and that's what he's been doing as he's been going through this. He's speaking now concerning the love of God. That is the mark of a believer. You know, I've attended schools and played on sports teams. I've been in the military. I've been in a workers' union and all of those organizations had one thing in common. Loving one another was not required. You don't have to love one another to be in a union. You don't have to love one another to be in the police force or to be a firefighter. You don't have to love one another to be in the military. You don't have to love one another to be on an athletic team. You don't need to love one another. It's not required. I mean, when you're going to become, we'll say somebody who's involved in firefighting or law enforcement and all, you don't write down some contract where you say, I will love my fellow firefighters. If you're in a fraternity or a sorority or whatever, you don't have to sign a document that says, I will love the people who are involved in my fraternity sorority. I'm gonna love my fellow union workers. You really don't have to do that. That isn't something that's necessary for you to be part of that organization. It just isn't. It's not required. But to be a Christian requires love. It requires love. It's something that God expects and even commands us and says that it's the earmark of one who really follows him. We're completely different. It's the one institution, the church, that as a primary requirement for involvement, it has the requirement, a command even, to love one another. And we're not commanded to simply love those whom we get along with. We love one another. It's so important that Jesus made it clear that love is the birthmark of one of his followers. Now here we go. I always share this. Some of you have heard me say this, but I learned lessons through experiences that helped to get a grasp of so that's what you mean in your word, God. And so Jesus said, a new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you, by this, by this, shall all men know you are my disciples if you have love one for another. By this, shall all men know. You mean it's not the amount of prayers? You mean it's not the amount of giving? You mean it's not the amount of fasting? No, he said, by this, you shall be known if you have love one for another. Love is the birthmark of the believer. So my mother and I are having a conversation when I'm a little boy and I'm telling her I don't belong to the family because my family, if you saw me in the midst of my family, my blood relatives, you would wonder who that kid is amongst all those other people because I was the, what we used to say, we used to call it the fly in milk. I stood out because all of my relatives, all of my relatives, except for a couple aunts, they were blondes with blue eyes, but all of them, black hair, dark complexion, and then me. And so I felt that I wasn't part of the family because I didn't look like anybody in my family, and so there were times when I was four or five years old that I would cry and I'd tell my mom, I don't belong to you.  You see, I had red hair and real light complexion and I have blue, green eyes and my brother, little chocolate bar.  Who's the little boy that your baby's sitting? So I got that in my head. I must not belong to this woman. She found me and I would tell her that. This is a true story. I'm not making this up for you, but it's real.  I'm just a little boy. You found me on the street corner. You must have seen me outside of a liquor store.  My mom would sit there and she'd patiently listen to me as I went on and on and on about that. Because I really believed it. I mean, I got that point where I thought, no, I do not belong in this family. I mean, everybody looks entirely different than me. All of my cousins, all of my uncles, not one of them looks like me, not my complexion. There's something different about me and my mom would sit there patiently and then she'd say, you're my baby. And I'd say, no, I'm not. And she'd say, yes, you are. And we'd have an argument. And then she always did the same thing. She'd say, look, and she would lift up her blouse and she had a birthmark right here and she'd show it to me. And then she'd say, lift up your shirt and I would lift up my shirt and I have a birthmark right here. And she'd say, you see that mark on you? That's the mark that I have on me. So I had the mark of the beast from a very early age. But, and so that would soothe me. You know, that would, I'd say, and she'd say, you have my mark. You belong to me. You have my birthmark. Well, my daughter, Corinne, is born. And I'm there in the room when Marie gives birth to Corinne and after they fainted and woke me, after I fainted and they woke me up, they brought the baby to me and I still remember that as they brought this beautiful little girl and handed her to me.  I said, all right, she is mine. No, I thought. And Marie's not gonna be happy about that. Just kidding. Okay, so she gives birth to Josiah and I go and I hold my grandson for the first time. And she said, look at his chest daddy. I unwrapped my grandson right here in the same place is a birthmark, a birthmark, a birthmark, a birthmark. Birthmark, the mark of the believer. You have one.  I'm talking about something else right now. Love, by this shall all men know. By this, not the amount of time I stand on street corners and pray, not the ostentatious way that I can take money out of my pocket and drop it into some kind of a copy box. Not the way that I walk around fasting and people know that this is a very spiritual, religious man because he does those three things which are earmarks of a religious person during the time of Christ. No, by this shall all men know. You belong to me if you have love one or another. Why? Well, because love reveals your heavenly parentage for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Because God loved us, we as his children are to love one another. And so love is the mark, it's a demonstrable mark of the believer. In 1 John 4, verses seven and eight, dear friends, let us continue to love one another for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is born of God and knows God but anyone who does not love does not know God for God is love, an essential quality of God. John gave us three distinguishable attributes of God. He said God is spirit, God is light, God is love. Those are defining attributes of God that John gives to us in the Gospel of John as well as 1 John. He who loves not knows not God, he says. Why? For God is love.  How can a man love the invisible God, God whom he has not seen and hate his brother whom he has seen? So love is the mark of the believer. It is the distinguishable attribute, it is the birthmark that Jesus Christ gave to the church. There was a lawyer by the name of Tertullian. He lived between 100, 165 AD. And Tertullian was an apologist who subscribed to the view that the best defense is a good offense. His treatises to the Gentiles and apology directly attacked pagan beliefs and practice as superstitious and immoral and argued that the Christian life as taught in scripture and practiced in the church was morally superior. He imagined pagans looking at Christians and saying, behold, how they love one another. For pagans hate one another.  Love is the distinguishing attribute of somebody who knows God. So Jesus gives the sixth and the last illustration intended to correct the teachings of Pharisees. Again, the Pharisees were guilty of self-righteousness and Jesus is revealing true righteousness. And the most obvious and basic difference would be the concept of love. Now, when you look at the Pharisees, you can see the absence of love in their teachings. In Matthew 23, verse four, Jesus speaking of Pharisees said, they bind heavy burdens hard to bear, lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. In Matthew 23, 14, he said to them, you devour widow's houses and for a pretense make long prayers. So they didn't know how to love. A great example is found when the woman who was caught in adultery was brought to Jesus. And they said to him, Rabbi, we have caught this woman in adultery in the very act is how they said it. And they said to Jesus, Moses in the law said, such should be stoned, but what do you say? And so you get to see how the Pharisees looked at human beings in the way they treated this woman who was caught in the very act of a very, very immoral thing. You see, they knew that he would act in mercy and they knew that he would react with love. And so they're actually using a person in sin as a snare to catch him. They wanted a theological debate with Jesus. They wanted to argue technicalities in the law of Moses with the Lord. Somebody wrote, Jesus was not concerned with winning an academic dispute about an interpretation of Mosaic law, but his goal is to save a soul and reveal that salvation is only found in God's love. This is why he came down to the earth and this is why he was to die on a cross. And this is why the father was to raise him on the third day. And so as they brought this woman to Jesus and Jesus began to deal with them, ultimately the accusers did not charge her. And neither did Jesus. And he revealed to us how love acts. Now before we get the idea that committing adultery is something that he just closes his eyes to, we need to remember that this passage clearly teaches that Christian forgiveness is not synonymous with mere tolerance but implies something more demanding. It does not mean overlooking evil or even worse denying it. God teaches us to distinguish the evil act which must be condemned from the person who has committed it to whom he offers the possibility of changing. While man tends to identify the sinner with his sin, closing every escape, our heavenly father instead has sent his son into the world to offer everyone a way of salvation. That kind of behavior towards us, that kind of activity reveals God's love. It shows us the love that God had for sinners during the time of Christ and it reminds us that he still has that kind of love for us. The Bible tells us there's none righteous, no not one. The Bible reminds us that is appointed unto men to die but once and after that the judgment. The Bible says that we are born altogether in sin and that the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. We read Romans 5.8 which very clearly says God demonstrated his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners or still sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus Christ came to seek us out. Luke 19 verse 10 says the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. And so that's demonstrated in the activity of God towards us. Yes, I'm a sinner indeed I am.  Cleanses me of all my sin and he makes me brand new. That comes through faith in Christ and as a result of that there's gonna be an evidence that I've come to know the love of God and that's gonna be the love that I have within me for other people. So as we look at this passage here in Matthew chapter 5 and we look at verse 43, again notice how Jesus says you have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. So Jesus begins by saying you have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor. Now that was a popular teaching many had heard it, many had embraced it, many acted upon it, but it was wrong, it was a wrong teaching.  Now how did they justify such a way of living while calling themselves people of faith? Well as is common today, that comes by misunderstanding as well as misinterpreting what the Bible has to say. On the one hand in the Old Testament God commands us followers to hate evil. Now it says in Psalm 9710, you who love the Lord hate evil. It also gives us insight that there would be a sense that you would have towards those who are committing evil in an unrepentant fashion where the psalmist makes a very powerful statement in Psalm 139, verses 21 and 22, when the psalmist said, do I not hate them, oh Lord, who hate you, do I not loathe those who rise up against you?  The word hate means dislike, dislike that has been purged, dislike that has been purged of personal malice.   But Jesus softened this feeling in regards to people by bringing them under a higher law. The law he brings believers to is called the law of love, a law of love for people.  We don't wanna do them malicious evil, we don't wanna do them harm, we do treat them properly.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. So somebody says, of course I'm gonna feed and give them something to drink. I'll just give them food with poison and poison the water, makes sense to me. But no, he says no, overcome evil with good. Now remember this, during the time of Christ, some rabbis were teaching love for neighbors and hatred for enemies. What they were doing is they were reducing the command to love to what would be humanly attainable. It's always easier to love those who love you, isn't it? I mean, if they love you, they become your friends. If they really love you, you might even marry them. If they love you, then it's easy to love them in return. It's always easier to love those who love us. And so on the one hand, love your neighbor.  What they did there is they added their own interpretation.   But is that God's heart? Here's a question for you, is it? The answer is no, that's not his heart. Ezekiel 3311, as surely as I live, says the sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live, turn, turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel.  So the Bible makes it very clear that God's desire is for all to turn from their sin and be saved. The Lord is not slack, as some men count slackness, but as long suffering to us were not willing that any should perish, but that all, but that all should come to repentance. But there are people who hear the message of the gospel, perhaps were even raised with that message in the home. Their mom and dad believed it. Their grandmother believed it. And they were raised in a home that was built on the foundation of the gospel. They went to church as children. They heard the message, but their hearts were never turned to the Lord. They preferred their own way of life. Jesus in John 3.20 speaks of it this way. He says they hate the light because they want to sin in darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they'll be punished. People like to sin and they sin in darkness. That's the whole point. They don't come to the light for it to be exposed. They don't want their real life to be seen. And when you share with them, when you share the gospel, when you tell them, listen, God has a work he could do. He can forgive you of your sins. He can cleanse you. And that person will say, well, that's good for you. And I'm glad that you've embraced that. And I have no problem with that on a personal level. If you want to be a Christian, that's fine. But just please stop shoving it down my throat. I don't need to hear that. I'm fine the way that I am. They love the darkness. They don't like their sins being exposed. Well, Jesus is saying this, your rabbis have taught you to love those whom you prefer. How did they do that? How did that happen? Well, they began with the Old Testament law, a law that related to loving your neighbor. It's found in Leviticus 19, verse 18 in the Old Testament. It says, you shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people. But you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. And so that's what Jesus is speaking of when he says, you shall love your neighbor. That's found in the Old Testament law, Leviticus 19, verse 18. So here's the question, how can I get out of that, loving everybody? Who is my neighbor? Who am I being commanded to love? How can I actually love everyone? There's got to be somebody that I can hate. So they interpreted the word neighbor to mean your Jewish neighbors. The rabbis interpreted the word neighbor to apply only to fellow Jews. So that meant that all non-Jews, the Gentiles, could be natural enemies. And so there's a rabbi who wrote, if a Jew sees a Gentile fall into the sea, let him by no means lift him out, for it is written, you shall not rise up against the blood of your neighbor. But this is not your neighbor. So seeing that Gentiles were their enemies, it made perfect sense to hate them. You know, it's natural for us to look for loopholes so that we can do what we're most inclined to do. It's natural to do that. We like people of our own race. We legitimize hatred for those of another. We love even simple things like our own sports team. And then we'll beat up somebody who roots for a different team. We love our family, even to the point of siding with them when they're wrong. Because that old saying, blood is thicker than water. We love people of our own religious faith. And we can actually hate people of a different faith. So Jesus is not teaching us to have good feelings towards our enemies. He is teaching us to desire to do good to those who hate us instead of hating them in return. That is difficult. That is, isn't it? That is difficult. There's no doubt about it. Romans chapter 12 verses 17 and 18 says it like this. Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. In 1 Thessalonians 5.15, the apostle Paul said, see that no one renders evil for evil to anyone. But always pursue what is good, both for yourselves and for all. And so we're actually called to a higher standard. Incidentally, one that we without God's help could never, ever attain to. And so on the one hand, it says, love your neighbor. On the other hand, they said, this is their teaching. Hate your enemy. But that would be their judgment because they're adding to the scripture their interpretation. God didn't command this. In Leviticus 19 verse 34, it says, the stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you. You shall love him as yourself. For you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. The stranger who dwells amongst you, you're to love. This command to love your neighbor is repeated nine times in scripture. And it reveals God's standard for human relationships. I think one of the portions that gives us great insight is Romans 13 verses 8 through 10, where Paul said, oh, no one anything except to love one another. For he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, you shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not covet. And if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And he goes on to say, love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Love. Love is revealed in action. And an activity of love has been a standard from the beginning. You know, it's easy to talk about love, isn't it? It's easy to write about it. When I was a hippie, that's all that we ever really spoke about. Love, love, love. That was a real big thing. As a hippie, love each other. And we would use that. We'd call each other brother and sister and all of that. But in reality, it was all superficial. It was all just on the emotional level. It was not real because many of my friends, including myself, we like to speak about love, but we weren't loving to one another. Especially, some of you will understand this illustration, especially for those of us who abused alcohol and drugs. When you abuse alcohol and drugs, you get high and you can begin to tell her, oh man, I love you, bro, man, you're my number one partner and this and that, man. And then he walks out of the room and he's got something there that you want. Man, you just put it in your pocket. And you still are. I did that more than one time. You know, yeah, I love you, man. Oh, I'd love to have that more. They walk out, bang, it's in my pocket. Man, where'd that go? I don't know. My dad used to say it sprouted legs and walked away. I don't know. So the love that I grew up as a hippie, the love that I grew up with, that definition, was really speaking of emotion. It was speaking about feelings for the moment. I love you right now, man. We're having a great time. We're doing some cool things or listening to a great band. We're high on whatever and yeah, man, I love you. But when I was no longer higher, I was not in that environment and it came down to it. I was gonna take care of myself long before I was gonna take care of anybody else because you have to look out for number one because if you don't, nobody else will. And that's how I thought and that's how I defined love and that's how a lot of people do. The kind of love that God has for us was exhibited through the giving of his son, Jesus Christ. And so Jesus is saying your rabbis have taught you to love those whom you prefer. That's what you call a selective love and it caters to human carnality but genuine love runs much deeper because God's kind of love has an element of empathy and compassion for others.   So that reveals that God's kind of love can be demonstrated in at least three basic ways and I want you to notice all of them are proactive and positive which reveals the decision that we've made to love.   What do you mean bless those who curse you? Speak well of those who wish you evil. Resist the temptation to retaliate. Let's speed it up to 2015.  You know, Facebook could be, I use it every day. I use it often. I post things, scriptures, various things, songs that God has used to touch my heart. I use it as a ministry tool. Sometimes there are people who go on Facebook who also use it as a way to get even with somebody and they say evil things about things or they just spout their opinions about various things in it and it can get kind of just wrong. The attitude is wrong. So and so did me harm and you need, and they go off on those kinds of things and I usually hide and sometimes when it's bad I delete. I lose friends every once in a while too. But that's the bottom line. We have to learn to bless those who curse us. We need to resist the temptation to rip people apart. Now here's something, for you many people think that if somebody has said something about you and if you don't respond to the personal attacks, they will think that you must be guilty. Now I learned a long time ago and this is something that perhaps some can learn today. You can defend your own honor or you can trust God and others to do that on your behalf. You don't have to always be explaining yourself so that people understand your heart and your motives. My pastor Chuck said this to us one time. I've never forgotten this Chuck Smith. He said, he said, I can either defend myself or I can ask God to be my defense. He said, now I haven't always won every battle I've gone into but God has never lost a battle he's gone into. He said, so the choice I've made is to go with the one who's undefeated. I don't have to, you don't have to stand up and defend yourself and I'll be honest with you. You may not know this and perhaps you do but maybe you don't that there are many people in my life when I give the word of God who are actually looking to see me fail so they can say see, you're no better than us. And the fact is I know I'm no better. I've never stood up saying that I am, even though I am. No, I've never done that. Anytime I think I'm good, all I need to do is talk to my wife and she'll bring me down to earth. That's the way it is.  She knows me. So don't think highly of yourself. Just allow God to work in you. Be very careful that you don't feel that you have to get even just because somebody has said something about you. Leave it alone. 99.9% of the time it's just not worth it. It really isn't. I've been speaking to my granddaughter and one of my granddaughters, and I said to her just this week, I was talking to her and she was having a little bit of a situation in all as babies do and we continue having them until we die. She was having a little bit of a situation and I said to her this, I said there's gonna be one question that you've gotta learn to answer for yourself. One question that if you learn this answer, you'll be okay. So she looks at me and what is the question I found of wisdom and I said to her, was it worth it? Was it worth it? That's a question I asked myself. If I retaliate, if I respond, was it worth it? And I have to tell you, most of the time it's not. Most of the time it's not. It is not worth it. The repercussions, the hurt, the anger, the various results of defending myself, it wasn't worth it. So you'll learn that. If you learn that, ask yourself that when somebody's bothering you, when you're in the midst of having one of those conversations with your husband or wife that the volume seems to be going up a little bit, ask yourself, is it worth it? Where we're going right now, is it worth taking that trip? Or shouldn't I learn to bite my tongue, leave it alone, allow God to work, settle the emotions, and then we'll work it through later?  I do my best to be open with you and as my kids were growing up, my kids sometimes would just not be doing what they should be doing and frankly, it's because of their mother. But anyway, her nature in them. No, it's just human nature and sometimes people think, oh, pastors, kids, they're perfect kids. No, pastors, kids have human natures too. And they make decisions that are not good. And a long time ago, a long time ago, I learned the lesson, sometimes you need to bite your tongue. I actually got into the physical activity on time. So when one of my kids was wrong about something and I didn't like where they were going in that conversation, and I would literally, this is the truth before the Lord, I would literally on purpose, I would bite my tongue physically, not because I get great pleasure in biting my own tongue. But it was a physical way to remind myself it is not worth it, leave it alone right now. You'll have opportunity later on to clarify this. And I literally would do this. I would bite my tongue because it is not worth it. Learn that, ask yourself the question, was it worth it? Was it, to be right, was it worth it? To get even, was it worth it? 99.9% of the time you're gonna say it really wasn't, paid a huge price or something that didn't last. So we need to learn to bless those who curse us. Proverbs 26, verse four, do not answer a fool according to his folly lest you also be like him. Instead of giving in to anger, learn to pray, learn to pray that God might move in their lives because in reality, they are most miserable. Now Jesus is a great example of this in 1 Peter chapter two verses 21 through 23, the apostle writes to this you were called because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin. No deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate. When he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.   Instead of seeking ways to harm your enemy, find a way to do good. So Jesus is in the garden. Judas has brought a detachment of officers to arrest him. The apostle Peter reacts the way he seems to often in scripture draws his sword and lops off a portion of the ear of a man by the name of Malchus. And Jesus reaches over and heals Malchus' ear. That is a great example of what he's speaking about.  Pray for those, he says, who use you and persecute you. Especially pray that the Lord might open their eyes to see Jesus and his salvation. Again, Jesus is the example. In Luke 23, verse 34, Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Why would I do that? Well, he says to us in verse 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. And he goes on to tell us, he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good, sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same. And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  Why should I do this? Well, that I might reflect that I indeed am a son of my Father. God shows impartial love. So should his children. Sunshine and rain are mentioned here. Those are showered upon all mankind. Even the good and the evil receive rain. Rain is a symbol of grace in scripture. He speaks concerning the tax collectors. They were the ones who collected taxes for the Romans and they were hated by their fellow Jews. They often abused the system. They lined their own pockets by exploiting their fellow countrymen. So Jesus said even tax collectors love those who love them. So what virtue is there in that? Loving those who would harm you is a greater kind of love. How can I do that? Isn't that what we're really wanting to know? How can I learn to love those who have treated me in this way? How can I have a love without malice towards people in general? And then every day I get up in the morning, I go to work. I go to the store. I go to the gas station. Every day in general, how can I, I have family members who sometimes are unkind. How can I love them? How does this work? You see Jesus is closing the door in self-righteousness by the way. He's making it very clear that you aren't, I am, we are not going to make it in our own works by virtue of our own goodness. That's why he closes in verse 48 by saying you shall be perfect just as your father in heaven is perfect.  Can you reach that? The answer is no. So that means you need some help, right? How do you do that? So my daughter, Corinne, I'll speak of her once again, was a month old or so, and I was holding her. And you may not know this about me, but I love my kids. And I was holding my baby, my first born little, little girl in my arms. I was having one of those moments, a daddy-daughter moment. And this new thing in me, this father's love for a baby, was a brand new thing. Obviously, I'd never had a child before. This was my first baby, you know? I'm just overwhelmed by it. I'm amazed that I could feel these deep feelings for this little thing there. This little, little girl. My girl.  Of course, she didn't listen then, even as she doesn't listen now. And as I was speaking to her, I was saying, baby, I love you. Daddy loves you with all of my heart.  And I just, I was allowing myself to feel intense and deep love when my sister-in-law walked in to the room. And I still remember as I was gazing in the face of my daughter that I lifted up my eyes and I gave to Rose my sister-in-law the same look that I was giving to Corinne. Now, from the time I'd been saved, and let me personally illustrate this, there was one thing I wasn't good at, and that was love. My upbringing is similar to many in that my mom was ill from the time I was four or five years old. And as a result of her illnesses and the medications and the frustration that my mom started going through, they took away her driver's license when she was 26 years old. She couldn't drive because she had epilepsy. Began going through some serious health issues from the time she was 26 that she got frustrated. And when my mom started getting frustrated, her anger started coming out of her. And so there were occasions where my mom could be very abusive.  And my mom could be physically abusive. I still remember her throwing me on the ground and kicking me in the ribs and things. My mom could be very abusive when she was very angry and on occasion, she went ballistic and so the kids suffered through that. So I didn't know what love was when I grew up. I just didn't know I had a mother who said I love you but a mother who could get angry and physically hurt you. So now I'm 20 years old and I'm invited to go to a church. And I walk into this place called Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa.  And I experienced something there. I'd never experienced before. I'm in a church but I'm feeling something different and I don't know at that time what it is. And then later on I realized after getting saved what I was experiencing is what I'd been wanting and it was the love. It was God's love in the presence of God's people. I had never experienced that in my life. So now I know how to pray and I start saying God. And I still remember I was in the military. I was stationed at Fort Bragg. I used to run every day, three miles a day, through a forest. And I was walking by myself and I was praying. I did this five days out of the week. I would do this particular routine and I would pray. And my prayer, I can tell you it word for word. Father, teach me to love. Father, teach me to love. That was my prayer. I don't know how, I don't know what it means. So I would ask God, teach me to love. I have been praying that since I was 20 years old. That one prayer, I pray it all the time. I still do. Father, teach me to love. I don't know how. I don't know how. Teach me. And I've been praying that. That's what I want. I wanna be a man who loves. That is a mark of a Christian.  See, so I pray that. I pray that. So I'm looking at my daughter and I look at my sister-in-law and the Lord speaks to my heart and says you've been asking me to teach you to love. If you look at me the way you're looking at your daughter, you will look at others the way you're looking at your sister-in-law. Look to me first. When you look to me, you'll learn to love others. I've been asking God for that for many, many years. Teach me to love. Why? Because Jesus said by this shall all men know you are my disciples. If you love one another. That's Christianity in its essence. But God, I can't. That's why he says I sent my son. I demonstrated my love toward you in that while you were still my enemy, a sinner, Jesus died for you. When you look at him on the cross and he prays, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. That's the full extent of his love.    So you mean love is sacrificial? Yes, and you mean that love is serving? Yes. I died on a cross and I washed feet. You wanna be great in the kingdom of heaven? Be the servant of all. Die to yourself. Stop trying to get even with people who hurt you, learn to bless them, pray for them and seek before them. The way that I did for my mom and my mama got saved and my mama served the Lord and changed to her dying day because God's grace took a mama who didn't know what love was and taught her this is love. And my mama, she would cry, her last year of life before she went home to be with Jesus, my mama would tell me this. She'd say to me, I still remember her little voice as she spoke. She'd say to me and she said it before she died. She said, David, thank you for bringing Jesus to our home. Thank you because Jesus changed her life from somebody who had an abusive heart to someone who prayed for me constantly. Her life changed because God's grace does that. God forgives sin and God transforms and you can be born again and have the love of God to love others even as Jesus loved you.


Hello and welcome to the track polyglot and memory. My name is Jana Richter. I'm heading a product management team in Waldo for the SAP Cloud Platform and I would like to take the next 10 minutes to give you at least my interpretation of this quite diverse track called polyglot and memory applications and yeah what you can understand out of that before we then kick off the agenda with the detailed sessions. So what is polyglot in memory? Let me start with polyglot probably the closest interpretation that of course you can have of this title is speaking multiple languages like like a polyglot person who travels the world and can locally speak the languages that are needed in their according regions. So of course multi-language support for a platform as a service offering is pretty key in order to enable developers to use the language that first of all they speak and secondly that's used the current use case that they would like to implement. However what we've seen within enterprise applications of course that there's different needs around the languages that should be supported. So at least a lot of SAP customers ask for enterprise support meaning if they choose a certain language in order to develop their enterprise applications they expect to be able to closely work with SAP in order to fix problems get response for questions and if there is issues that we can resolve those and bring those back into the platform and as you could imagine that of course is something you can't do for 50 or 60 languages and runtimes that's always a limited but still growing set of languages that we can support on this level. Nevertheless of course there's a need from the community and from the developers to be open for some more languages and of course using cloud foundry we can use the community build packs offered by cloud foundry in order to ensure this openness or if you even have some more needs not yet fulfilled by the cloud foundry community and build packs you have the option to bring your own build packs. Well but language of course is one of the things being polyglot but if you travel the world and have applications developed in different languages of course you don't want them to be isolated but be able to connect to the rest of the world so to be able to integrate and connect to other applications out there and of course having properly defined interfaces and APIs to have the applications working together is one of the means. However what we see quite frequently is of course that many of our customers still have a huge on-premise footprint and that will probably remain for the next decade that a lot of core systems that you would like to connect to your cloud applications are on-premise and enabling a connectivity and means to hook up those systems in a secure manner and allowing connections between the cloud applications of course is key. So within SAP we have developed a technology called SAP cloud connector that enables you to have an agent on-premise that hooks them up to your cloud applications and to your accounts and cloud connectivity of course is similarly important because many applications that you do develop are actually extending or connecting to other cloud applications that you would like to seamlessly hook up with and have single sign-on similar theming and so on enabled and integration can of course be more than that so process integration plays an important role as well if you have certain applications that actually are web services or any other APIs that require a certain level of mediation and translation in between and data integration could be quite a need as well if you say you want to develop more analytics focused applications that first of all should gather some data from different sources bring them together and join them and then create some analytics centric applications on top so the different levels of integration of course are key as a capability of a platform as a service in order to enable to be truly global and polyglot and lastly of course usually as a developer and as an enterprise you're not just picky about the language that you want to develop the application in but where this is running so we see with a lot of customers and partners that they do of course have trusted vendors in terms of infrastructure as a service and in many cases there is a need to bring the applications that you develop close to where the rest of your applications and solutions reside so really implementing a truly multi-cloud deployment of Cloud Foundry and of a platform as a service environment is very important as well to be available on AWS Azure Google Cloud Platform and of course in our case in SAP data centers so that allows you then to not only choose the language of choice but to choose the environment and the region of choice as well where then the applications should reside and connect to the rest of the world okay so far at least for my interpretation of polyglot so what's in memory then well usually developing is not just about picking a certain language and developing the application but you need some supporting services around that classically of course in cloud foundry the backing services that in many cases are a database where you would like to store the relevant data that is important for your application of course in a database and technology of choice be it MongoDB Postgre and so on or it could be other backing services that allow you to have a caching mechanism enabled the specialty that we add with the in-memory aspect is that we offer SAP HANA as a backing service and database within a cloud platform as well and within the cloud foundry environment so SAP HANA really gives you the ability to process data in memory and to persist it in memory and to have large data sets that you can then work real-time on be it on the one inside for application logic or of course for analytics cases to enable your business to get instant insights and SAP HANA is more than just a database it provides some advanced data processing means as well that allow you to really use some libraries that give you geospatial functionality predictive functionality and so on one specific approach about this with SAP HANA we even brought a lightweight cloud foundry set on premise so you can use something like HANA Express deploy this locally on your pc develop your applications and at a certain point in time then decide to have this application deployed to cloud foundry and be enabled there and of course large data sets in a growing world are not enough so the space of big data is emerging and is emerging for us as SAP as well our answer to this in many extents is SAP Vora where we really want to leverage an in-memory distributed computing environment in order to really analyze huge data sets behind the scenes good so but it's not only about polyglot and about in memory but in the end it's of course about the application that you want to develop at the end of the day so not a big surprise of course a cloud foundry we encourage our customers and partners and our internal groups to develop microservices and follow the 12-factor design principles in order to really develop nice applications that scale well that isolate well and that can be changed over time in very agile manners because of course one of the main drivers to go to the cloud actually is to be able to agile react on requirements and on changing conditions and to be able to implement those changes very quickly and as just said of course that is true on multiple levels it's on the one hand side the business applications that you create on top that customers partners and SAP creates on top its business services as well so reusable entities that provide business logic down to technical services such as blockchain machine learning internet of things that are developed in a microservices fashion as well to individually grow over time without dependencies on the other services one thing that we see quite frequently in this area is of course a need for UI and mobile first so that's one of the main drivers that we see from customers and partners that of course functionality is important but in many cases people are very picky on the user interface and to be able to quickly generate user interfaces and to test that with your target audience so having tools that allow you to enable rapid prototyping rapid development based on templates is one of the key features of a platform as a service offering to and of course whatever you create should be suitable and cater multiple devices that are out there so not just laptops but of course mobile devices at the end of the day to some common needs are on the one hand side whatever you create to create this with a unified look and feel so that for the end users it's not visible that it's multiple microservices living somewhere but it's one unified user experience but still that needs to be flexible to be able to incorporate custom design guidelines and corporate theming and all with the goal to put the user first right so of course as much as we love technology and databases and so on the basic idea is that we want to fulfill the needs of the line of business and the users and to be able to react quickly on those needs and typically to start with co-innovation and design thinking principles before actually deciding then which language and which backing service is supporting this need best so as you've seen hopefully the polyglot in memory of course is giving you a lot of options on how to interpret what we want to talk about and that is of course reflected in the agenda that you see for today and tomorrow and with that I don't want to take you through all the individual sessions but just hope that you have a great time here and enjoy the sessions and the different topics you're going to face


Welcome to ITU Telecom World 2019 from Budapest, Hungary. We're very pleased to be joined in the ITU studio by John Omo, who is the Secretary General of the African Telecommunications Union. John, welcome to the studio. Thank you. Thank you very much for being with us. Now, I'd like to start off by asking you a little bit about the work of the African Telecommunications Union and what are your key priorities at the moment going forward? Well, the African Telecommunications Union is the regional union. You know, ITU is for the world. ATU is for the African region. And our mission, essentially, is to put Africa together in terms of matters ICT, in terms of ICT development. So the key priority that we have in our current strategic plan is connectivity for African countries. One, in terms of broadband infrastructure. And secondly, in terms of skills development for ICT, especially for youth and women. And lastly, content and applications development. So those are the key three priority areas that we tend to concentrate on in terms of developing ICT services and infrastructure for Africa. Now, innovating together, connectivity that matters is the theme here for this year's Telecom World 2019. I just wanted to ask you what makes connectivity meaningful in your world and why is it important? I think connectivity, essentially, making gadgets and infrastructure connect to each other and speak to each other. Without connectivity, really, there's no ICT. And more so for Africa, where you have much of our population still rural-based and so providing broadband infrastructure and indeed, in some cases, basic telephony is still an issue. And so connectivity, both from an application's point of view both and from an infrastructure point of view, is very important, especially in Africa because of the nature of our population. Fairly young population, very inquisitive, very outgoing. And so connectivity really is the thing and innovation for that matter. Do you think it's possible to single out a single technology innovation or strategy that has the greatest potential to accelerate digital development in Africa? Sure. I think the technology that will see people as the most important component of the jig in terms of technological development is the technology that cracks it. But speaking about specific areas of development, I think in Africa the technology that seems to have cracked it is one that has ensured that there's a lot more digital inclusion, one in terms of our businesses and SMEs and secondly, financial inclusion. In most parts of Africa the credit card is still unknown and so, you know, having money in a mobile wallet is something that has cracked and opened opportunities for development in a lot of our African countries. So if you ask me the single most important technology that has led to ICT development, I would resort to that which calls upon us to include our people in the financial system. You know, the M-Pesa, mobile money, mobile wallet, and all that. Now what's the value for you of attending events such as I2 Telecom World? I think the value that this brings, especially from an African perspective, is the value of networking such as we are having here and the opportunity to meet people, get partnerships in areas of our development and also business opportunities for companies that are looking to do business in countries in Africa. So the opportunity to network is the single biggest opportunity that I see here. And what's your message for delegates here at I2 Telecom World and also for our wider audience as well? I think there are indeed the ITU has organized quite a number of interesting topics in various rooms around. And so I would ask delegates to, you know, seek to participate in those discussions and gain insight into some of the opportunities that have been opened in a number of countries by certain companies. So both the private sector, you know, the ITU have very interesting discussions going on and that delegates, you know, visit those meeting rooms, seminar rooms and workshops and see that it's participating in the discussions that are going on in those particular places. And for those who didn't make it here, make sure you were here next time. Sure, sure. And so much of this is being streamed online anyway. So there's an opportunity that technology gives us to participate even from where those who are not here are. Well, from where I am here and where you are now. Thank you very much indeed. My pleasure. And I hope that we will catch up with you again at the substation in the very near future. Sure. Thank you very much. The pleasure is mine. Thank you. Thank you.


All right, so we're going to talk about our menu buttons, which are these four buttons underneath the control knob and the navigation buttons. So first one is home. Home is the button that will always bring you back to your home screen, you got it, which is the screen here. So it's got the name of the preset, this one's edge of Gaga, I wonder what song that's about. The preset number and the genre category that this one is saved under, which is pop. It'll also tell you if it's a favorite or not. So currently not a favorite. If I want to make it a favorite, I just press that control knob and then fave shows up in the corner here and now it's saved to your favorites folder. Next button we have is mix. You press that and that's going to bring you into the area where you can adjust all of your levels for the different inputs. So the first one is guitar. You just use that control knob to adjust your level, higher or lower. Second one is guitar reverb, again, higher or lower. Oxen keys, higher or lower. You got your looper, I think you understand, higher or lower. If you hold down the mix button, you get up into your setup menu. So the first one that will show up is your mic type. So dynamic mic, most microphones I would say are dynamic mics. They're like live stage mics. The MP75 that we have here is a dynamic mic. The next category is condenser. Condensers typically are more of a studio mic, but people definitely use them in a live setting as well. MP75 in the menu, it's because it's so smart. So we have a dynamic MP75. So you're going to actually use the MP75 category as opposed to the dynamic one. Next is the Sennheiser E835 FX. We partnered up with them a number of years ago and got this mic the ability to have mic control in it. So if you have one of those, this is the category, the setting for that. And then we have an MP76 setting, which is kind of the next mic up from this. Same quality of sound, it's just that there's more buttons that you can choose from. So we're going to leave that on MP75, and then the next category is tone style. So we have something called adaptive tone in all of our products, more or less. I think they're in all of them. And basically, we got this sound guy or sound woman and we shrunk them down this big and we jam them into our products.  So that you sound really great. And sync thing has several different tone styles in there. So you can have it off if you don't want it, or normal. And then there's several different styles you can choose from.  So what you want to do is when you get the sync thing is just try them all out and see what works best for you. I have a lower voice, so sometimes it's nice to have a little bit of brightness put on it, because I tend to sing really deep down in my throat. Next up, global pitch correction, I have that at 5%. No shame. If I do a gig for three hours by the end of the night, it's like one o'clock in the morning, and I get a bit tired. I get a little vocal fatigue, so it's nice to have just a little bit of support to help me reach those notes and not be worried about it. So Body Rez is the next one, and that's for the guitars, not for your body, it's for the guitar's body. And basically, a few years ago, we collaborated with TC Electronic, our sister company, and we created this guitar effect that makes your acoustic guitar sound like an acoustic guitar again, which is amazing, because it's something that I personally struggled with. You plug in this beautiful resonance sounding acoustic guitar, and it kind of falls flat and sounds tinny and not like that beautiful, organic sound that it normally has. So we've got several different styles of Body Rez in the sync thing, 10 in fact, so you can try it out with your guitar. Again, like your voice guitars, they all sound different, so you want to try it out and see what works best for you. Next is your loop input. So this is what instrument or which audio source will be looping. So there's vocal, guitar, auxiliary, vocal and guitar, guitar and aux, or everything that you have plugged in. So depending on the song, you might want to change that, but that's all in that menu there. And then your LCD contrast, so you can turn it low, you can turn it up really high, I have it right now at about four. Global key, so for the harmonies to work, you need to tell the sync thing what key the song is in that you're playing. So if for some reason every single song on your set is in the key of C, you can change your global key to C. Same thing with global tempo, that's the next one. If every song that you're playing is at 120 beats per minute, you can adjust that and have a global tempo. Bass extend, who doesn't want more bass, unless you're all about that treble, but you can also extend your bass and have a bigger sound by putting that on or off. And then your guitar tuner, which is fantastic. Here's a little hack. If you always want the guitar tuner to be brought up, say you just played a song and now your guitar is out of tune, you gotta tune it again. You can leave it on that screen when you hit the home button, when you hit mix and hold it down again, it's gonna go straight to the guitar tuner, the last one that you left from the mix setup menu. And then the very last screen just tells you what firmware version you're on, your serial number and the manufactured date of your sync thing. So again, I'm gonna leave it on the guitar tuner and then hit home to go back to the home screen. So the next thing you can do is you can save any preset editing that you've done, or if you've created your own preset, you can save that as well. So that's the store button. So you press that, you can change the title. So say you love the edge of GAGA preset, but you wanna save it too. You wanna use it for a song that you've written called High. Maybe the song's gonna be called High, because that's nice and easy. So you can use the genre button. It's gonna change this bar up to the letter bar, and then you can use the control knob to toggle through the different letters. So I'm gonna say H, navigation button brings it over, and I'm gonna go high, and then these A will just zero by bringing it past the A. And we are almost there. Okay, so now we've got the name of its high, the name of the song is High. It's genre goes back to the store 2, and then this is preset number 11.  So I wanna save this to 235. So I scroll through these numbers, and I'm at 235. I'm gonna change it, store it to 236. And all I have to do is hit the store button again, and that saves it. So now the name of the preset is for my song called High. It's saved in number 236 slot. It's a favorite, and it's from the pop genre. And if those aren't enough, you can go on to voice support and find even more presets and load them into your sing thing. So you hit genre, and you can use the navigation buttons to scroll through the different genres. So we've got pop, and rock, and alternative, and country. And then we've got doubling and reverb. We're gonna go into effects, harmony, hard tune, megaphone. And there's character ones and extreme ones. So I've saved a few that I like. I've put them into my favorite. So I'm just gonna go to my favorites folder here. And hit the genre button, and then that'll take me to the favorite screen. So I'm gonna show you a couple of these. This is Believe by Cher. Do you believe in life after love? So you can see there's some delay on there, echo as we call it. And some hard tuning, and that's that effect that they use in that classic song. And then I have, this is a gorgeous hall tune. So beautiful, beautiful reverb and delay. And this is very what, hey baby, how you doing? And this is a doubling one, hey, hey, hey. It just thickens out that voice and gives it that real pop vocal sound. So there you go, genre is lost to choose from. Definitely play around and see which ones you love and make those your favorites for your sets.