Amen. It's your place there in Revelation chapter 20. That's what we're going to be starting out this morning. So this morning's sermon is not going to be, I always call, I call the really simple sermons. A lot of times I have sermons on Sunday mornings that are talking about current events and things like that. And they're kind of simple and more fun type sermons. This is not going to be one of those, I call those gummy bear sermons. This is going to be more of a deep dive into the Bible this morning. See if we can get you woken up on Sunday morning. So Revelation chapter 20, we've kind of studied this in the last few weeks. It's talking about the millennial reign of Christ. It's talking about things like the first resurrection of which we are all part of. We are all going to be part of the first resurrection, meaning we're going to get to rule and reign with Jesus in the millennial reign of Christ. And then after the millennial reign of Christ, we have the battle of Gog and Magog. And then of course we have the great white throne judgment, which is we're going to start out this morning. If you look down at Revelation chapter 20, we see here, and it says in verse number 12, it says, I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those things that were written in the books according to their work. So here we see in Revelation chapter 20, verse number 12, we see there's some books, and then we see a book. So that's the two things you need to kind of separate in that verse. There's books, and then there's a book. The title of the sermon this morning is a very important doctrine in the Bible. We're going to go through the Bible and study it. But the title of the sermon this morning is the book of life. And what is the book of life? What is it not? Who's in the book of life? Who's names are in it? But what is it? We see in Revelation chapter 20, it's a very important book because we see that there's books. Now that's the Bible, the books of the law, is what those books are. And then the book is the book of life. And if you look at verse number 15, we use this, verse number 14 and 15, we use these verses out soul winning. We see a reference again to that book. So basically the way the great white throne judgment works, if you look at the end of Revelation chapter 20, it says, whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.  And anybody that is not found in the book of life, which is anybody who's not saved, so basically anybody who's not saved, and I'll get into that, is going to be, anybody that's not in the book of life is going to be thrown in to the lake of fire. But before they're thrown into the lake of fire, they're going to be judged out of the books. So basically the people that are not saved in Revelation chapter 20, in the great white throne judgment, they're destined for the lake of fire if they're not saved and they're not in the book of life, but they're going to be judged by the books, meaning they'll be judged by their works. They'll be judged by the books of the law, all right? Look at Philippians chapter 4, turn to Philippians chapter 4. So we're going to look at the book of life this morning, we're going to look at what the book of life means. It's mentioned many times throughout the Bible, but this is such an important doctrine because it speaks to the gospel, it speaks to salvation, it speaks against many false doctrines in the Bible. So turn your Bible to Philippians chapter 4, Philippians chapter 4, and let's study the book of life this morning. Let's look at the book of life, what it's all about. Because look, the book of life today is used to sow a lot of confusion out there as well, but we're just going to look at what the Bible says and you'll see how it fits perfectly in with the simplicity of the gospel. Look at Philippians chapter 4. So we have this book of life. The Bible talks about it all over in the Old Testament, the New Testament. We have this book of life. Who's in the book of life? Look at Philippians chapter 4, Philippians chapter 4, look at verse number 1. The Bible says, Therefore my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. I beseech Udias and beseech Sintichi that they be of the same mind in the Lord. Look at verse number 3. And I entreat thee also, true yoke fellow, help those women which labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also and with my other fellow labors whose names are in the book of life. So here we see that Paul is writing to the church in Philippi and he's talking to people that are saved. He's talking to the saved. So here we see that the saved are in the book of life. Now turn to Revelation chapter 3. So we see that he's talking about several saved people, fellow labors in the gospel that are in the book of life. And you're going to keep your place in Revelation because we're going to keep going back to Revelation throughout the entire sermon. So look at Revelation chapter 3 and look at verse number 1. So Revelation chapter 2 and Revelation chapter 3 are talking about, these are the letters that Jesus is, you know, he's writing, he's having John write to the churches. So we look at the seven churches and Revelation chapter 3, we're looking at the church of Sardis in verse number 1 the Bible says, and the angel unto the angel of the church of Sardis write the angel meaning the pastor or the messenger of that church. These things say that have the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know thy works that thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how that has received and heard and hold fast and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come unto thee as a thief and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments and they shall walk with me in white for they are worthy. Look at verse number 5, he that over cometh, now over cometh in Revelation and other parts of the Bible especially in Revelation is just talking about those that are saved, okay? He that over cometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life. But I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. So here the Bible is saying we see in Philippians chapter 4 that the book of life has the names of the saved in it and then we see in Revelation chapter 3 here that God won't blot out the saved out of the book of life. Which by the way, turn to Exodus chapter 32, you're going to keep your place in Revelation. We see that names can, it implies that names can be blotted out or removed from the book of life. So we see that there's the saved in the book of life and we see that the saved will not be removed from the book of life. But this implies in Revelation chapter 3 that God says I won't blot out the saved but that implies that somebody could be blotted out from the book of life. And the Bible backs this up. Look at Exodus chapter 32. So in Exodus chapter 32, in Exodus chapter 32 you're keeping your place in Revelation which is kind of easy because it's the last book of the Bible. But in Exodus chapter 32 we're dealing with the situation where the Israelites have worshiped, they built the golden calfs and Moses came down from the mountain and they're worshiping these idols and God is mad, alright, in Exodus chapter 32. Look at verse number 32 of Exodus chapter 32. Verse number 32. Now look, this shows like what a great advocate for the people Moses was. Because Moses, you know, God would, his wrath was just like he was angry at the people and Moses would always just try to intervene and try to calm God down and just be like, you know, go easy on them Lord and he would just, he was a great advocate for the people. Look at verse 32 and you see this here. Yet now if thou will forgive their sin and if not, blot me I pray thee out of the book which thou hast written. Moses is saying take me, Moses is saying blot me out Lord. You know, don't, you know, come down on these people so hard but look at what the Lord says to Moses. So the Lord is not going to blot Moses out of the book of life because Moses is saved and God is not going to blot out the saved out of the book of life. We've already seen that. Look at verse 33. And the Lord said unto Moses, whosoever has sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Now what the Bible is saying here is not saying anybody who's sinned is going to get removed from the book of life, it's saying God is specifically saying these people that worship the golden calf, they're going to be blotted out. And then as we see God just, he basically goes in and he kills the people that worship the golden calf in the following chapters but God basically says he's taking them out, he's blotting them out of the book of life. Turn to Revelation chapter 13. Turn to Revelation chapter 13. So we see that in the book of life, we see so far that the saved are in the book of life and the saved will not be removed from the book of life. We see that, God says no, no, no, I'm not going to take out your name Moses but I'm going to blot out the names of the people that worshiped the golden calf. So we see the saved are in there and they won't be removed. This kind of backs up eternal security in the Bible. Once you're saved, you're always saved. So look, remember, you're going to see, this is why the book of life doctrine is so important is because you'll see that it just backs up and it fits perfectly with the true gospel. And that's what I'm going to prove to you this morning. Go to Revelation chapter 13. Revelation chapter 13, look at verse number seven. Revelation chapter 13, verse number seven. So we're talking about, in Revelation chapter 13, we're talking about the Antichrist, the Antichrist, who's now made this, he's made this one world government, he's made this one world power. And he's, you know, he's basically going to turn against the saints, the saints being those who are saved, those who have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and are saved. And in verse number seven, we see this, you know, the abomination of desolation where he's going to set up this image in the temple and he's going to require people to take this mark in their right hand or in their forehead, but the saved aren't going to do it. You know, the Bible says that people who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are not going to take the mark of the beast. Look at verse number seven of Revelation chapter 13. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, this is the Antichrist, and to overcome them. That just means like he's going to win, like he's going to be killing them. He's going to be, you know, having a physical war with the saints and it's not going to go well for the saints. They're going to be physically killed in this time. And power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations, meaning this is where people come up with the one world government right here is because he had power over the whole world, all nations, all tongues, all kindreds. That's being just every nation in the world. He has power. Verse number eight, and all the dwell upon the earth shall worship him. Everybody whose names what? Whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. So now that, here's what you need to understand. There's not two, there's not different books of life because people will go out there, oh, that's the book of the life of the Lamb. That's the Lamb's book of life and all this confusion. No, there's one book of life. It's talking about the book of life, meaning it belongs to the Lamb. Who is the Lamb? Jesus Christ, God. It's talking about this is God's book of life. So the last phrase of verse number eight there of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world is talking about Jesus Christ. Meaning, what do you mean Jesus was slain from the foundation of the world? It means that Jesus was not created. Jesus is the creator of the world. The word of God always existed. Jesus was just the word become flesh. He was just manifest in the flesh 2,000 years ago. But it was always the plan for Jesus Christ to come to this earth and to redeem mankind. That was always the plan. When? From the foundation of the world. God had the plan the whole time. So God didn't just come up with this 2,000 years ago and be like, oh, man, we gotta do something. No, the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world, meaning that was always the plan. You have to understand that God is eternal. God is eternal and he's eternal in both directions. He's eternal that way forever in the future and he's eternal in the past. That's hard for me to wrap my head around. Well, God, his ways are higher than our ways. So he's eternal in both directions. So in Revelation chapter 13, we see that people's names, there are certain people's names that are not in the book of life. And these people in Revelation chapter 13 are people that are still alive. Now, this also matches up with doctrine that you're not gonna hear everywhere today, but this is the doctrine that you could become reprobate, that you could become rejected by the Lord while you're still breathing. You're not gonna hear that in a lot of churches today, but that's what the Bible says. That's what the Bible says in Romans 1, many other places in the Bible, that's what the book of life teaches in Revelation chapter 13, that there could be people that are still alive that are removed from the book of life. Now you say, well, maybe they could be added back in. Well, we'll study that, study that in. Turn to Revelation chapter 14. You say, why aren't these people? It says these people that whose names they're gonna worship the beast, whose names are not in the book of life. You say, well, why aren't they in the book of life? Why are these people's names in the book of life? Look at Revelation chapter 14, and look at verse number nine. We're getting deep this morning. I'm sorry to do that to you, but we're gonna study the Bible this morning on Sunday morning. Look at verse number nine of Revelation chapter 14. The Bible says in the third angel followed them saying with a loud voice, if any man worshiped the beast and his image, this is talking about the abomination of desolation, the image of the beast that was put in the temple, and if any man worshiped the beast and his image and received his mark in his forehead or in his right hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. Verse 11, and the smoke of their torment ascended up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night who worshiped the beast and his image, and whosoever received the mark of his name. No saved person will receive the mark and worship his image. That's what the Bible tells us. Thus we can conclude those who are not saved, those who take the mark, they are blotted out of the book of life at that point. All right, this is talking about eternal damnation for these people, and these people are not saved. In Revelation chapter 14.  So he's gonna take all the saints, all the saved people up in the rapture, then he's gonna seal 144,000 and send them to the earth to witness to people during the wrath of God. So if you combine what I'm teaching you about the book of life with the fact that God's gonna send these people to the earth, to witness to these people, it means not everyone's gonna be reprobate, rejected on the earth, meaning there's gonna be a lot of unsaved people that don't take the mark of the beast. There's gonna be just a lot of people that just like, no, I'm not doing that. I mean, I know Matthew 24,24 says, if it would be possible, there's gonna be false Christ that arise, then if it would be possible, even the elect would be, but it's not possible, the elect won't be confused by the antichrist. But there's also, that's just talking about how convincing the antichrist is going to be. But there's gonna be a lot of people that don't take the mark of the beast that are just not saved and they just don't wanna do that. Which is those are the people that are gonna have a chance to still be saved. Turn to Revelation chapter 17. That's just kind of a side note. Let's go back to the book of life. So we see that the saved are in the book of life and we see that people are able, people are blotted out of the book of life. Look at Revelation chapter 17. Revelation chapter 17. Look at verse number six. Revelation chapter 17. Look at verse number six. The Bible says, and I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration and the angel said unto me, wherefore did thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carryeth her, which has seven heads and 10 horns, and the beast that thou sawest was and is not.  And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder whose names, they will dwell on the earth will wonder who, which people, whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world. That's not saying, that's not talking about the names. It's talking about the book of life was written again. The book of life is from the foundation of the world. Meaning that's where it came from. Meaning the book of life, it wasn't written a thousand years ago. It wasn't written at this time. The book of life was written from the foundation of the world. Turn to Revelation chapter 20. Turn to Revelation chapter 20. So you see the book of life was written from the beginning. The book of life was eternal from the foundation of the world. Look at Revelation chapter 20, Revelation chapter 20, look at verse number 14. The Bible says, and I kind of already read this to you but let's read it again, it says, In death and hell were cast into the lake of fire, this is the second death, and whosoever was not what? Was not written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. If you are not in the book of life, if you are not in the book of life after your physical death, you are going to end up in the lake of fire. That's what the Bible is saying here, look at Revelation chapter 21.  That's what the Bible is teaching here, look at verse number 21. But look, we see that the saved are in there. We see that the saved are in there and that God will not remove the saved from the book of life. Look at Revelation chapter 21, look at verse 22. Revelation 21 and look at verse number 22. The Bible says, and I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. In the city, let's talk about the new Jerusalem, had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it, and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it. So it's saying that the nations, it's talking about nations of them which are saved. So the people that are saved are going to be in the new Jerusalem, and the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there, and they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. Now look at verse number 27. And there shall in no wise enter into anything that defileeth, neither whatsoever that work at the abomination, or makeeth a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. So here we see again that the people that are written in the book of life are going to be saved, they're going to be in heaven, they're going to be part of that first resurrection, they're going to be ruling in reign, reigning with Jesus Christ, they're going to end up in the new Jerusalem here, equating the saved to those being in the book of life. Go one chapter over to Revelation chapter 22. Revelation chapter 22. Revelation chapter 22, look at verse number 18. Revelation chapter 22, look at verse number 18. For I testify unto every man, this is how God ends the Bible by the way. So how do you end a book like the Bible? This is how God ends the Bible. Look at the verse number 18. This will explain to you by the way, if you're not sure why we're King James only, this will explain to you these few verses right here. Look at verse number 18. For I testify unto you every man that here at the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any, now underline these two words, if you write in your Bible, underline these two words in your Bible. If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and from the things which are written in this book. This book meaning the Bible. So God is literally saying here, anybody that he covers both things, he said anybody that adds to my word and anybody that takes away from my word, they're done. He's like, I'm taking away their part out of the book of life. How many times have I read you a verse this morning where God added someone to the book of life? Zero. The book of life was written from the foundation of the world. We see that the saved are in the book of life, we know that. The saved will never be removed. The saved will never be removed from the book of life. But then we see here in Revelation chapter 22, it says any man. It says if any man shall take away from my, if any man shall take away the words from the Bible that I have said, I will take away his part from the book of life. What does that tell you? Every man's name starts in the book of life. That's what this tells you. Every single person who has ever lived on the earth or ever will live on the earth is in the book of life. He starts there. But there's certain things that you can do where God will take away your name out of the book of life while your heart is still beating on this earth. And this is exactly what Romans 1 teaches. Because what does Romans 1 teach when God gave them over to a reprobate mind? God gave them up, the Bible says. What did they do? What did they do before that? They turned on God. They hated God. And more specifically in Romans 1 before he gave them up and gave them over to a rejected mind and a reprobate mind to do all those unnatural things. And we see all the things like homosexuality and all these vile things that we see today. God says God gave them over to that. Why? Because they changed the truth of God into a lie. It's exactly what Revelation chapter 22 says. Every man starts in the book of life. Every person's name is in the book of life and God only has an eraser. That's how it works, folks, and it's crystal clear in the Bible. This is the irony, by the way, about false Bible versions. This is the irony about the 100 and some different Bible versions that you see out there today is that, you know, the people that wrote those Bibles aren't even saved, the Bible says. The people that went and deleted dozens of verses from the Bible, the people that went and changed doctrines in the Bible, they're not even saved. Their names aren't even in the book of life. So we see in Philippians chapter 4, we see that they're saved are in the book of life. We see that names can be only, we see names blotted out. We see that in Revelation chapter 13. We see that in Exodus chapter 32. We see that in Revelation chapter 22.  Well, what if a saved person takes the mark of the beast, you know? Well, the Bible tells you that's not gonna happen. What if a saved person writes their own Bible version? You know, what if a saved person like Thomas Jefferson writes their own Bible version and takes all the miracles of Jesus? Thomas Jefferson wasn't saved. I don't know what to tell you. If somebody goes and does the... Any saved person in this church gonna go start writing their own Bible version? I mean, give me a break. It's not gonna happen, folks. But people will ask those things, right? But look, Revelation chapter 17 clearly teaches that some people that are still living don't have their names in the book of life. This matches the reprobate doctrine. If your name is not in there after the first death, you're going to hell. That's it. And the Bible says in Revelation chapter 21 that the people in the book of life are clearly those that are them which are saved, it points out. In Revelation chapter 22, it says any man can have his name removed. This tells you that everyone starts in the book of life. And you know, look, here's the reality of it. Most people are not rejected by God. Most people who just die in unbelief are at that point going to have their names removed from the book of life. That's the mechanics of how that works, all right? But it's possible. Turn to Psalm 69, let's look at a couple more verses. It's possible to have your name removed from the book of life before you're dead, physically. You're not gonna hear that from a lot of churches today, but look, we're preaching the whole Bible here. We're just gonna tell you how it is. The Bible is our boss at Holdfast Baptist Church. Look at Psalm 69, look at verse number 28. Look at Psalm 69, verse number 28. Let's just look at some other random verses in the Bible and see if this matches up with what we've learned. Look at Psalm 69, verse 28. The Bible says, let them be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written written with the righteous. What does that teach you right there? This is David talking about people that hate the Lord, people that have turned on the Lord, and David's just like, Lord, blot them out of the book of the living. This shows you that the patriarchs of the Old Testament knew how this worked as well. God's like, David's just like, the Psalmist just like, blot them out of the book of life. And why, and not be written with why? Who's gonna end up in the book of life, the saved? We'll end up there, all right? Look at Daniel, chapter 12. Daniel, chapter 12. Look at verse number one. Daniel, chapter 12. Look at verse number one. And the Bible says in Daniel 12, verse one, and at that time, Michael shall stand up, the great prince, which standeth for the children of thy people. And this is talking about, this is a great verse talking about the, against the pre-trib rapture here, that the rapture is gonna be after the tribulation, after the greatest tribulation, as Matthew chapter 24 says, and also Daniel chapter 21, it says, and there shall be a time of trouble. What kind of trouble? There's been a lot of trouble for Christians throughout history, and it says the time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time. Meaning, it's talking about the great tribulation here, saying that that time of trouble will be so troublesome that there will be, it will be the worst time in history to that point. And that matches exactly Matthew 24, where it says, you know, there shall be great tribulations, such as not was since the beginning of the world to this time. Meaning, I mean, and if you look at like the martyrs throughout history and how terrible it has been for Christians, you know, by the Romans persecuting the Christians, the Catholics persecuting the Christians, and the horrible things that were done, I mean, I've got that book called The Martyr's Mirror, it's literally that thick.  That's how bad the great tribulation will be, and that is gonna be when the anti-Christ is hunting the Christians. That is gonna be when the anti-Christ is, you know, coming after those that didn't take the mark in their right hand or their forehead, like the rest of verse one. And it says, and that time thy people shall be delivered, talking about the rapture there, every one that shall be found, what? Written in the book, meaning the saved. So God's gonna come and get the saved. Look at verse, well, don't turn to Matthew 24, I just kind of quoted it for you. But look, here's the conclusion, folks. Here's the conclusion. The book is written from the foundation of the world. That means it was already written. That's written as I speak to you now. All God uses on this book is an eraser, all right? And we know that from what I've read you, I said the saved, they can't be removed. That matches perfectly with the doctrine of eternal security that the Bible teaches throughout. And also, the unsaved, they can be removed. The unsaved can be removed. But look, this doesn't fit with Calvinism. This idea, this is why this doctrine is so important that we study this, because it doesn't fit with this idea that God chose some people to be saved and he chose some people to be damned from the beginning of the foundations of the world. And that's what Calvinism teaches. Calvinism, this idea of predestined salvation is it goes against the Bible in so many different places, especially with this doctrine of the book of life. Because look, think about it this way. If Calvinism was correct and God literally created some people to be damned and some people to be saved, why would anyone have to be removed? I mean, was there a mistake in the book? Did God make a mistake or what's going on? It doesn't fit at all. It would just be correct. It would just be correct. There would be no blotting required. If Calvinism was true, turn to 1 Timothy chapter two. You certainly could not believe in eternal security and believe in Calvinism at the same time. Turn to 1 Timothy chapter two and I'll explain to you why. Turn to 1 Timothy chapter two. And by the way, when Calvinists talk about the perseverance of the saints, they are not talking about eternal security. What they're saying is, oh, see, if I'm a Calvinist, if I'm a Calvinist and I believe that I've believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and I'm saved because I've trusted in Jesus but I was chosen from the beginning of the world, the Calvinists will teach that you can never really know if you're saved because if I stop going to church and I stop doing the things that God wants me to do in my life, then the saints will persevere, see? The saints will never stop doing those works and never stop doing those things. That is not what the Bible teaches. But then I'll start, I'll just, the Calvinists would say, oh, I was just never saved in the first place because he got backslidden and he fell out of church and he started falling into the same sins that he used to do, so he was never the chosen is what the Calvinists will say. But look, it's possible for a Christian to get backslidden. It is possible for a Christian to get saved and then just not do the works that God wants him to do in their life. Happens all the time. Should Christians do that? No, but they do it all the time. But guess what? Your salvation has nothing to do with your works. Nothing, not even 1%. So look at 1 Timothy chapter two in verse number one. Let's read this and let's see if it matches this idea that everyone's name starts in the book of life. Look at 1 Timothy chapter two, look at verse number one. I exhort thee therefore that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all that are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our savior. So we see this kind of this reference to all men, all that are in authority. But look at this, talking about God our savior, semi-colon. God our savior wants what? It says who, that's God our savior that we're talking about, the who will have all men to be saved. You know what that means when it says God our savior will have all men to be saved? That doesn't mean that God is gonna force everyone to be saved. What that means is that God's will is that all men would be saved. This is the brass tax of it folks. The book was written from the foundation of the world in every man's name in there and it's God's will that all of those men would believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Will that happen? No, it will not happen. But that's not God's will. That's the will of the men that were blotted out of the book of life. God doesn't want people to go change his word. God doesn't want people to change the truth of God into a lie. God doesn't want people who are not saved to just go and just defy him and just turn against him and hate him. God doesn't want that. It's God's will that all men would be saved. Will that happen? No, but all have a chance. All have a chance and that chance all start with two things in Romans chapter one and Romans chapter two. All start and we're gonna talk in detail about this tonight on science and the Bible but all start with the creation. We can all see it. We can all see it. I don't care where you were born. I don't care if you were born in South America, Australia, Russia, the United States. All can look around and see the creation and what we're gonna talk about in detail tonight. All can look around and look you have to close your eyes to miss it. All can look around and see the order of things that were put here. You have to deny the order. You have to deny the order of the creation in order to not see God. You have to close your eyes to it. And then in Romans two 15 it says he wrote the law in everyone's heart. This is how people, some tribe in the Amazon jungle or whatever they just know that murder's wrong. They just know that certain things are wrong. Why? Because God wrote the law in every man's heart. That's why. And then he wants them to see that law in their heart and he wants them to seek the Lord. And they'll find the Lord. He promises that in Matthew chapter seven. Look at John 3 16 again. So all men, God's will that all men to be saved. That's why John 3 16 says whosoever. It says whosoever. Look if Calvinism was true he couldn't say that. You couldn't say whosoever. He'd be so whosoever believeth in him should not perish as long as they were chosen. It's not what it says. It says whosoever should believeth in him shall not perish. I mean that's just, that's it. If you trust a hundred percent in Jesus Christ and not yourself, not some other God, not some false belief, if you repent meaning you turn from that false belief to only trusting in Jesus, the Bible says you're saved and that's it. And that's what God wants. That's the will of God. Romans one, Revelation chapter 13, Revelation chapter 24.  If predestination meant that God only chose certain people from the foundation of the world, it would not be necessary to remove anyone. Look folks, I mean, God has in this sense that God wrote everyone in the book of life. God has chosen everyone in that sense. It's just that not everyone will realize their destiny that God wants for them. That's what the Bible is teaching here. Not every, and look, and here's another thing. You know, the total depravity of the tulip doctrine. Not everyone's a reprobate either. I mean, some people are just not, the vast majority of people are just not saved. You know, they're not rejected by God. One more comment on predestination. Turn to second Corinthians chapter 11. And this goes along, this is kind of a measuring stick. I'll give you this as we close for any false doctrine. All right, turn to second Corinthians chapter 11. Turn to second Corinthians chapter 11. Second Corinthians chapter 11. Predestined, the word predestined, it just means to make firm or to, you know, to determine beforehand. Which doesn't that match the book of life as we're learning it this morning? It's just, it was determined that all names are in it. It was determined that all names are in it. Now there's this popular website out there. There's this popular website out there, and this, I'm gonna kinda try to steer you away from Bible commentary. I know that most people don't read Bible commentary in this church, but I wanna show you that just the danger of Bible commentary. This is popular website out there called Got Questions.  And this Got Questions website, they are Calvinist. Meaning they believe that God has chosen certain people and he has chosen certain people to be damned and chosen certain people to be saved. And I wanna just give you the Got Questions answer on how, you know, we could, how could salvation be by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and also that God chose certain people? How could those two things match? I'm gonna read you the answer from this website. Here's the question that's asked to Got Questions. If God is choosing who is saved, doesn't that undermine our free will to choose and believe in Christ? Here's the answer, all right? First of all, yes it does. That's the real answer, okay? But here's the answer from this website. Somehow in the mystery of God, right away you need to close the book right there, all right? Somehow in the mystery of God, you're turning to 2 Corinthians 11. Somehow in the mystery of God, predestination works hand in hand with a person being drawn by God and believing unto salvation. God predestines who will be saved and we must choose Christ in order to be saved. Look folks, that deletes free will. That deletes free will, right? Any logical person can understand that. Free will is taught throughout the entire Bible. The gospel depends on free will folks. You cannot let go of free will. And then he ends this. He says, all the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. He's basically what he's saying is like, we can't understand it. He's saying we can't understand it. Look folks, there's some things that are hard to understand in the Bible. End times prophecy, the Bible says we look through a glass darkly. Revelation, end times prophecy, a lot of these things, they're kind of hard to understand. Not impossible, but they're kind of hard to understand because God doesn't really want us to know all the answers. He kind of wanted us to see through a glass darkly. Let me tell you something. The gospel is not one of these. The gospel is not hard to understand. That's why we'll go out soul winning and an eight year old will get saved. The gospel is so simple, the Bible says that a child can understand it. Look at verse number three. Second Corinthians chapter 11 in verse number three. The Bible says this. It says, but I fear less by any means. This is Paul writing to this church and he's like, I'm afraid for you. He's like, I'm afraid for you because people are complicating things. People are coming in here and they're like Jordan Peterson. They stand up and they say all this stuff and everyone's like, man that guy's smart. What do you say? I don't know. Because he said nothing. They stand up there and people are experts at this. People are experts.  What do you just teach you? I don't know. I'm not smart enough to understand anything that that guy can say. You know what a good teacher is by the way? A good teacher is something that can make something complicated simple. That's a good teacher. There's a lot of times when I preach I'm in a pretty complicated sermon. I mean this is kind of complicated. And I'm just like God I pray that I can take this complicated subject and just make it clear and just teach it simply from your word. But let me tell you something folks. The gospel is not one of these doctrines. Let's continue reading. I fear lest by any means through the serpent as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety. It's saying look subtlety is always bad. Subtlety is secrecy. Subtlety is trickery. Subtlety is doing things in a not upfront honest way. He's saying so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. You know what simple folks? You know what simple? Here's what simple realizing that we're all sinners and because of our sins we deserve to go to hell. God sent his son to pay the price for our sins. He bear our sins in his own body and all you have to do is believe on or as the Bible defines that in Ephesians chapter one trust on Jesus. 100% or zero. If you trust and put your trust on Jesus in a moment you're saved and you're sealed by the Holy Spirit the Bible says forever. It's eternal life. It's not five year life. It's not two year life. It's not two week life. It's eternal life. The Bible says once you trust and believe on Jesus Christ you're saved and that's it. You know what? That's very simple. You know what's complicated? You gotta come to church here three times a week to go to heaven. You gotta get baptized by me to go to heaven.  You better do all these different things in this order and you better look this way.  That's it. That's all folks. It's very simple. Just remember the Philippian jailer. What did they say to the Philippian jailer? He brought them out and says, sirs what must I do to be saved? And they're like well how much time do you have? They said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's it. That's all. So look when an interpretation of the Bible just contradicts clear simple scripture meaning the simplest thing in the gospel we must reject it. And look it's a huge red flag when somebody tells you something's a paradox. Something can't be understood. I was raised Lutheran it's very very similar. You know how can I be assured of my salvation because the Lutheran believes you can lose your salvation. How can I be assured of my salvation if I can lose my salvation? And the Lutheran answer on their website it's right there for everyone to see is literally it literally says it's a paradox. I'm like look you gotta walk away from that stuff. It's false doctrine. The Bible says that salvation turned over to 1 Corinthians chapter 14 just a couple paragraphs or a couple chapters back in your Bible. 1 Corinthians chapter 14. Look at verse number 33. Well you know how can I be assured of my salvation if I can lose it? Both are true. No wrong. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 in verse number 33. It says for God is not the author of confusion but of peace as in all churches of the saints. Any false teaching will run into problems with the Bible and ultimately problems with logic. And look the main one with the book of life the main thing that you need to understand with the book of life is names are only removed never added and every man starts in there. Certain acts turning on God you know removing you know taking the mark of beast or the beast removing his word all these things. Look those things will get you fat those things will get an unsaved person fast track to becoming a reprobate is what those things will do. And that's what the Bible is teaching and this matches perfectly with everything that we find in the Bible and it preserves the simplicity of Christ. It preserves the simplicity of the Gospel. We just have to remember like you know it's important to know the Bible. It's important to know the Bible so when somebody's teaching a bunch of false doctrine you could say yeah that's wrong. You know but look all you really need to know is the simplicity of the Gospel and you'll see that some a lot of these you know a lot of these doctrines a lot of these false teachings they break the Gospel. You know they turn the Gospel into a paradox we must reject these things. Everybody starts in the book of life. God is his will is that every man would be saved. His will is that every man would believe on his son. It's I don't unfortunately most people are not gonna be saved but that's not God's fault.  And then they can have their name you know forever in the book of life. That's the book of life folks. It's a super important doctrine. It's a little bit complicated but if you make sure that you know you're just reading the Bible and just listening to what the Bible says we can just you know we can see how the Bible just matches perfectly with itself. That's how you know by the way God wrote the Bible. I mean we're reading Old Testament we're reading New Testament. These guys didn't know each other. These 40 different authors they didn't know each other yet every single thing matches the New Testament matches the Old Testament because the Holy Spirit wrote the whole thing. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.


Appalachian Wireless and Samsung have the deal in wireless all January. Samsung Galaxy S9 just a penny. Galaxy S9 plus $99.99. Note 9 just $249.99. That's $200 off normal pricing. While supplies last, two-year agreement requires eStore for details. They had been contacted telling them that their account was delinquent. And if they didn't pay immediately, then we would disconnect. In most cases, they're telling them that they've got 30 minutes to pay immediately, give them a credit card number, go get a money order, go get a debit card from a local convenience store that's not traceable. Those things we don't do and be wary of those calls. They're also doing them with different institutions throughout the area. So I just wanted to take the opportunity to reach out to the customers and make sure that they're doing their due diligence and not succumbing to this type of scam.


Discord is changing how it assigns usernames, meaning that all existing users will have to get a new usernames. This isn't happening today, but it's happening in a rollout situation depending on when you signed up for Discord. If you're an early adopter, you probably get this opportunity first. Yeah, here's the skinny. Your current name will be replaced with an at symbol followed by whatever username you end up choosing. No four digit number added to it. That also means your preferred username may not be available when they finally get around to ask you to change it. So I get it as a decision. I also understand why people are really cheesed off as I will be if I don't get just an argument. Anybody who works at Discord, please be aware. I will be mad and I have a once a week platform.


Many of you have been on some other webinars to know a bit about this project, but the monitoring that we're going to be talking about today is all about, is all part of the Mainland Restoration Project. So this is a part of a five-year collaboration that's led by Maine Audubon with the partners I've mentioned already, Main Lakes Lakes Environmental Association and the Penobscot Nation. We are doing this in close coordination with Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, and all of our funding comes from an oil spill settlement that's being handled through the US Fish and Wildlife Service trustees. So just to put the monitoring that we're going to be talking about today into context, this is all overall to see how some of our efforts to increase nesting and breeding success and to decrease mortality in loons is working. And there are four primary ways that we're trying to address issues with nesting and mortality in loons. And one is placing these loon nesting rafts, and those are to help increase loon nesting success, especially for pairs that are struggling to hatch chicks. Monitoring, as I mentioned, is to try to track success of loons in their breeding and also if they're surviving. And outreach and nest protection is to try to both increase nesting success and reduce mortality through outreach and reducing mortality by trying to reduce the amount of lead tackle that we're using on Main Lakes and Ponds. So now to focus in on just the part that's highlighted in green on the monitoring, we have a look, we're focusing this on just all the components of, you know, why monitor, what to monitor and what information to gather, when and how often, what time of year. And then we're going to go into detail about how to conduct loon pair surveys and also observe loons responsibly in a way that we don't create disturbance. So yeah, and then we'll go in the type of detail we'll go into is, you know, when to survey and with the survey methods and some of the resources that are available to you along the way. Oh, I guess I haven't been saying, Ethan, to switch because you've been taking my cues. Thank you. So one of the biggest contributions that you can make to this project is by monitoring the success of a raft, a sign or a breeding pair. We really need your help to track nesting success. Are the rafts and nesting signs helping to hatch more chicks? Are they using the raft or the signs helping? And also to catch raft and sign issues. So sometimes anchor lines might be too short if you have a particularly high flooding year. The raft can be too close to shore potentially where predators can get to it, has the vegetation washed off. So those are two really important things for us to track. And then tracking threats. A big part of this is looking at what is affecting the nesting success and survival of loons on these lakes. So and the threats can change over time. So we might have put out a raft for one reason. Now, perhaps that threat has evolved or been solved. And there might be something else affecting net thing success. So the only way we can know how this program works is through efforts of participants like you. So we really thank you for helping us out with this. And so the what we're tracking, we're really focusing in on one loon pair and their family. And we're trying to gather the information to tell this breeding pair's story. So the main thing, I guess what I'd like to say, yeah. So the survey form will walk you through exactly what we're looking for in terms of monitoring. But we're primarily focusing on pairs that have struggled to hatch chicks or that need some protection from signs to reduce disturbance. So that's our primary focus. But we're also fine if you want to monitor some of the other pairs on lakes where we have rafts and signs so that we can learn more about the full picture of a lake. And then we're also doing some monitoring on lakes where we're considering putting out signs and rafts. That gives us some of the background history before we start doing those types of restoration efforts. So in a nutshell, what we're tracking is raft use. So are they using rafts if we have a raft out there? The number of chicks that are hatched and whether or not they used a raft. Did the chicks survive to at least six weeks of age, which is a time when we figure that's when they're likely to be able to fledge and survive and fly off the lake. And then looking at the number of times they try to nest. And if we can track disturbance and incidence of threats. That is the what. And so yeah, so really what has the monitoring shown us so far and how well we've been doing. So I just wanted to give you a little report on what we found out so far through monitoring efforts. So last year, we did put out 30 new rafts and relaunch 27 that we'd put out in prior years of the project. And from from the rafts themselves, some pairs that chose to use the rafts, we hatched 17 chicks and just note that these are from pairs that sometimes hadn't hatched chicks in years. So most of them have failed for at least three years, sometimes up to 10 or even more years have been failing. And now they with these rafts, they hatched 10 chicks. I mean, 17 chicks and 10 survived to the at least six weeks of age. And most of those fledged off the lake. So yeah, so the rafts have been working really well. In comparison with the pairs that chose to use naturalness and didn't use the rafts, it was it was several times better hatching success than than on than what we saw on what we saw in the rafts versus what we saw from the naturalness. So yeah, they really have been helping. So the efforts are working. We have less information still about how well the signs are helping to reduce disturbance. So that's what we're really hoping to ramp that up this year and get people monitoring some of the signs. So yeah, so the other question we get a lot is about how this is different than the loon count. So you are still monitoring loons, but what's different about this? So I think at least, yeah, I recognize several of you are involved in the loon count, which happens every year, third Saturday of July. And it's a snap, a half hour snapshot of the population. And it is primarily a count, which allows us to estimate the mains population during the breeding season. And it helps us attract long term trends in the population. This is different in that it focuses on nesting success, rather than numbers of loons and chicks. It focuses in on the entire breeding season versus just one snapshot census. And it focuses in on a single pair. Yeah. And so it also helps us to find out which loons might need our help and how well all of our rafts and signs are working. So it just serves not a less or more important purpose than the loon count, but a very different one. So this grant has really been an opportunity for us to track individual, the success of individual pairs, which we've never really been able to do before. So it's an exciting project that we've been engaged in for the last four years. So we are finishing this project next year. So we'll go all through 2025. And then we're hoping to get everyone confident enough to be able to continue on their own if we aren't able to secure additional funding for the project. Oh, great. Okay. So now I will go ahead and that's just like a brief overview of what this is about, why we're doing monitoring, and some of the types of information that we're tracking. And now I'm handing it over to Oscar who will be able to give you a lot more information about how you go about doing this. So thank you. Thank you, Tracy. Yeah, yeah, time to get into the how of how do you actually go out on the water and do these monitoring surveys. A great place to start is that we have a whole list of monitoring instructions up on our website. So that's going to be a gear checklist of what to bring, when to survey and how to do it responsibly, how to actually do it, how to determine chick ages, when to tell if two loons are a mated pair, read loon behaviors, all sorts of great information. It's going to be a repeat of a lot of the information in this webinar today, but I really suggest that you familiarize yourself with that even after watching this before you go out just so you know you have everything down pat. Next slide. First off, we can go over kind of a gear checklist of what should have with you before you go out on the water. Almost all of these surveys you're going to need to get out on the water. You can't really complete them from shore. So you will need some kind of personal water craft, likely something non-motorized like a new or kayak. You're going to need a PFD or a life jacket. A clipboard would be nice so you can jot down some notes. A pair of binoculars is super essential so you can monitor the loons from a distance instead of having to get over top of them. You're going to want a pencil and a survey form. We'll get into how to get those later. And then a loon monitoring reference sheet, which will have some really quick information to help answer any questions you have while out on the water. A good camera with a nice like long telephoto lens is going to be a great asset because you're able to get really snapshot information from a distance that even if you don't understand in the moment, you can pass off to us and help work through it. And then a cell phone with Google Maps to help mark GPS points can be great. Not essential but can be a little bit nicer than kind of guesstimating on a paper map. Next slide. Yeah. And next couple of slides I'm going to go over just how to survey responsibly. It's really important to use caution, especially during the braiding season, because humans can have a really outsized negative impact on nesting success if you get too close to them and you don't observe their boundaries. So knowing how to survey responsibly and knowing what to look for in loons is super important. Next slide. So what that looks like on the nest, we have two picture examples here. On the left we have a relaxed loon pair. They have their head up, they're looking around. They are acting pretty normally. And on the right we have an example of a stressed loon. This loon will have its head down. It'll be ready to dart off into the water at a moment's notice. If you see this back away, you are much too close. The loon can flee the nest at that point and then that leaves eggs super susceptible to predation, which is not a good thing. All right, next slide. All right. And on the water, pretty similar in a relaxed position. The loon will have its head up just swimming around. And on the right we have some examples of some stressed behaviors. So in the upper right we have a loon that's riding low, kind of similar to that posture on the nest. That's going to be a stressed out loon. And then this picture of an upright loon that's doing something called a penguin dance. Those two pictures on the right are both territorial behaviors that you might see a loon do if there's another loon invader on its nest. But in this case, a human being would be the invader. Next slide. And then kind of the in-between between that relaxed state and that stress state is concerned. Loons will do something called squaring off their forehead. So that's where they kind of pop all the feathers on their forehead to give it a more like right angle look. This doesn't necessarily mean that you need to turn around and back away, but it's a really good time to start really looking at the loon and paying attention to its behavior. I wouldn't get any closer at this point. Just keep an eye on it. And if it starts doing more of those stressed behaviors, that would be a good time to turn around and give it a little bit more distance. Great. So into the surveys themselves and what your survey area is going to look like, on a small pond here with only one territorial breeding pair, your survey area is going to be the entire pond if it's just the one territory. If you happen to be on a larger lake that can host multiple loon pairs, then you're going to want to kind of narrow down your survey area to just the territory of one pair. In these surveys, we really only want the information for a single pair. And that's going to start by kind of finding the areas where you see that pair hanging out most often. And then you kind of want to expand it to where the furthest reaches where you see them go are. So you can get a better idea of what the limits and borders of their territories are. And if you're on a single lake or a single territory lake, kind of survey method would just be to do a loop around the perimeter of the lake. So you can get in on all the shorelines. If there are any islands on the lake, you want to ring around those two. So you can get a look at all of the shore and any potential nesting spots. If and when you do locate a pair while doing this, you're going to want to watch them with your binoculars from a good distance, long enough that you can make sure that you're not harassing them or disturbing them in any way. And you want to make sure that they're actually a territorial pair and not say competing loons that are fighting for nesting habitat. It's important to look for behavioral clues at this point. And we can get into a little bit more of what those behaviors are later on. And next, we're going to get into kind of breaking it down by time. At this point in the season, lakes are just beginning to melt out. And this kind of period will extend until mid-May. At this point, there isn't going to be any chicks on the water or really any active nesting. This is going to be when loons first show up and try to establish their territory and court one another and form breeding pairs. It's still a really good time to get out on the water, because you can get a better idea if loons from previous years are returning. You can see them test outsides for nest building. But this is kind of a preliminary stage in the monitoring. All right, next slide. The next period is going to be mid-May through about mid-June. This is really the nesting and incubation period. This is, yeah, when most pairs begin laying eggs. So it's a good idea to try and get a view of the nest. I will say loons are very, very sensitive to disturbance at this point. This is when they could theoretically abandon nests and eggs. So it's extra important to keep your distance and make sure you're not getting close. If you can see from a safe distance, if nests have eggs, that's super good information to have. But we'd rather you kind of keep your distance and leave the nest alone than get right up on top of it to get an accurate count of whether or not there's eggs. It might be a little bit tougher to search at this point to find a loon because they might be tucked away in a little cove on the shoreline. But yeah, important time to get out there. Next slide. And then the final period is going to be mid-June through August. So at this point, the loon chicks will have hatched and they're going to be out on the water. They leave the nest right away, so they'll start foraging. This is a really great time to track chick development if you know that there are chicks out on the water. And if you don't see any chicks, don't lose hope. It's still good to monitor any territorial pairs that are there because if they've abandoned a nest, there's a good chance that they can nest again. And if they do, you want to make sure you know where and kind of when that's happening. Yeah, most of the eggs hatch from about mid-June to late July. And if you do see chicks at that point, we really want to monitor them for at least six weeks. So through August or later, that's kind of the generally accepted cutoff for when we think that chicks will survive and fly off on their own at that point. You definitely can keep monitoring and we'd love that, but six weeks is a good amount of time to make sure you're doing all right. And we can get into how to actually track chick age in just a little bit. All right, next slide. So now that you know kind of how to get out on the water, we've got a couple of very useful forms and resources. Maybe the most important one is your late-specific survey form. So these are going to be located on our website under the Lunar Restoration Project in the Monitoring Resources tab. If you don't see your lake there, email us, let us know. We can make one up for you and send it off to you. We did make some changes to the form this year. So if you printed off a couple from last year, we really do recommend that you revisit the website and print off some new ones just so we can get all the information. If we're doing a site visit at any point too, we can also bring you some copies just to make your life a little bit easier. And even if you are generally using the Survey123 app to record your data, it's still really nice to have this paper copy because you can get some information from the paper copy that Survey123 just doesn't handle quite as well. All right, next slide. And then the last resource I'm going to tell you about are these laminated monitoring reference sheets. I consider these kind of like a quick guide to determining chick age and behavior while you're out on the water. So if you have any questions of what it is exactly that you're looking at, this is a nice thing to look down at while you're in the kayak just so you have a better idea of, am I too close to this loon? How old do I think this chick is? They're a really good quick reference guide, and that's also going to be located at that link in the chat. That's just under the Monitoring Resources tab of our Loon Restoration Project site. All right, that's me. I can then pass it off to Autumn. Thank you. Yeah, so when you have your sheet, then you will want to fill it out. So at the top, you'll want to put your name. So Tracy, and then how many observers? So it's just yourself, just put one observer. Then you put the pair name. So we would like it if you could name your pair something that you would keep for as long as that pair is there and using that nest in that area. So for example, here it's an island cove pair and then your phone number and your email address. And then on the form, there should be a smaller map of kind of the full lake area and then kind of a zoomed in area of just the breeding area of that one pair. So make sure you select the map that's right for your breeding pair. And then in the top right corner, that box there, you will use that map to record locations of specific things. Yeah, so we can go to the next slide. So something that we would want to record is if you see a chick until you record it with a sea in the area. And so there are, and then you also would want to record what stage that chick is in. So we can go to next slide to see the different stages. So the first stage is Downey Young. That's the youngest stage. And those are from zero to four weeks old. And in the stage, they're all fluffy and cute. They're pretty small. They have little bills. And this is when you'll see them writing on the backs of their parents. The second stage is small. So that is when they're kind of like in between. They still have some of their chick fuzz on them. And they are growing their feathers in, so they're a little shaggy looking. But in this stage, they're very unique from this Downey stage because they have those big bills they're starting to grow into and some feathers. And that stage, they're from four to about eight weeks. There can be some variation in that stage. And then the last stage is large. And that's kind of when they are semi-full grown. They have all their adult plumage. They are maybe a little bit smaller than an adult. And they tend to be their plumage is like a little gray compared to their parents. And this stage, they are about eight weeks old. So we can go to the next slide. Yeah. So pretty much if you see a chick, so for example, this chick here, you would mark on the map with a C where you saw it. And then this chick is small. And because of the variation in the age of when they are small, so when they have a little bit of fuzz on them and feathers, it's kind of hard to tell if they are six weeks or more. So this one, we wouldn't mark below if it was six weeks or more. But if it was a Downey chick, we would be able to say, no, it's not six weeks or more. And then if it was a large, we would definitely know that it was older than six weeks or more. So we'd say yes. Yeah. Okay. Next slide. So mapping your observations. So when you are on the lake, it's also important to map out potential pairs. And in large numbers, it's also important to map out moment here. I'll describe what it looks like to see a pair. But pretty much, we see two loons together. They're two adults.  And that means that they, that is like they're tolerating one another. So you're like, okay, I think maybe these are a pair. So you put two Ts. But maybe you're not sure. There's one that's kind of far away from the other and you're not really sure if they're a pair. So you could put a question mark by that individual. So you can see on the map there, there's a little question mark. Yeah. Okay. We can go to the next slide. So some behaviors that we can tell. So pretty much a territorial pair is like a pair of loons that are breeding and have a nest together. And some ways to tell is that if they are doing kind of synchronized swimming together. So when you observe them, they'll dip their bills together or they'll dive and synchronize at the same time. Or they'll like raise and lower their heads together. Those are kind of signs of those like courtship behaviors. And then another sign is that if they're just chilling with one another, if they're tolerating each other, if you just see a pair of two loons hanging out near each other, they seem really calm like in this picture. Or they don't have to be next to each other. Maybe they're both feeding in the same area and they seem calm. They aren't showing any of those aggressive behaviors that Oscar showed. Then you can probably assume that they are a territorial pair. Okay. We'll go to the next one. So then when you are out there, so this bottom box here, make sure you check the behaviors that you observe. So you can maybe if you saw a pair and they were pretty calm and they maybe were doing some diving, synchronized diving together, you could check that off in this thing here. And then maybe if you saw another loon come into the scenario and suddenly the pair changes their behavior and they start acting a little stressed and they have their heads up in alert position or maybe they start doing some penguin dances, then you can also check those boxes. Yeah. So we can go to the next slide. So for example, for that scenario, so you have the two Ts on your map that are marking where the territorial loon, the pair is. And then L is where you have another loon that kind of comes onto the scene. And these loons tend to cause some problems because they're trying to, they want to be one of those pair and they might cause some conflict. So you can write an L for that loon. And then in these scenarios, the territorial pair, if they have chicks, they'll take the chicks and maybe stash them somewhere. So you might find a lone chick that you could probably also note in your observations. But it's always best to leave that chick alone because that's their little safety area while the two territorial pair, like the parents go and probably try and defend their territory from this other loon here. Yeah, okay, next slide. And yeah, I think I'm gonna start here. Yeah, so another thing we observe on these sheets is the nesting sites of the loons.  And these are ways of indicating where the nest is and whether it's being used. And so N, if you write an N on the nest, you're writing that you're observing an active natural nest site. So a natural nest site that isn't on a raft. R indicates an active raft being used for nesting. So if you put an R next to a T, we'll know that the raft is being used by that loon. And if you put a U next to the R, we'll know that it's an unused raft. So sometimes loons do nest naturally or they don't nest period. And the raft goes unused, that does happen. And if that's the case, put a U next to the R. And then one other thing that helps us just with the history of these nests is if you put an F down, if you know of a former nesting site. So if you know of a former nesting site, just put an F down where it used to be. And one other thing I'll say on this slide is if you see that one loon is missing during this period of observation, don't worry about it because odds are that the loon is in a nest that you isn't visible to you. Sometimes they're quite secluded. And that means probably that one half of the pair is on the nest and the other loon is circling around. A lot of volunteers will call us panicking saying that one of the territorial pair is missing. I wouldn't worry about it. They're likely on the nest somewhere. And you just can't find the nest yet. So yeah. And in terms of knowing whether the loon is using there after not, it's hard to tell off of just one survey. Obviously there are some obvious signs if the loon is sitting on it or if there are eggs there. But our main advice here is that multiple surveys help for telling whether the loon is actually using there after not. If there's no loon on the ref, look for eggs with binoculars. If you don't see eggs, call it an unused raft for that survey. But don't give up on it yet. Keep watching and be willing to write down that it's an active raft in future surveys if you see signs of use or nesting later. So yeah, just report what you see based on that certain observation day. And in terms of recording nesting activity, we basically want to check boxes on these specific things. So are they building a nest or exploring nest sites? That's a great thing to know. If they are, check it. We'd love to see that. If they're, you can check if they're sitting on the nest or if there's an egg in nest with adult nearby. That's great to know. Number of eggs, don't get too close to the nest to count, but if you can see that from a distance with your binoculars, like Oscar told you to bring, then let us know. Incubating egg more than 30 days, this just wants, this is just us wanting to know if they're still within their normal incubation period. So if you know that and you know that it's more than 30 days, please check that box. You could check whether chicks have hatched, whether eggs are missing in the water or off the nest, whether there are pieces of eggshells in the nest or a broken egg, whether the adult loon left the nest and has abandoned it or whether the loons are nesting in a different location than the last survey. All of this information we'd love to know if you know. So yeah. And in terms of looking for the nest, we don't want people looking too close. Again, never get too close to the nest because that can just mess things up for the loons. But once you've established that territorial pair is present, you can begin looking for a nest. And loons tend to like nesting on islands, floating mats in coves, marsh areas, and in very gradual shorelines. And one thing that ties all of these together is that they're pretty quiet areas. They have a lot of mud and vegetation, which is good for building a nest. Some of these areas have, most likely have deep shorelines without a lot of boulders. So it's an easy entry, easy secluded entry for loons into their nest. A lot of these areas will have vegetation overhead, not too much overhead, but overhead to protect from heat and avian predators. So eagles, I'm sure, plenty of you know about that. And also areas with less development or human intrusion. So yeah, those are just the types of places that loons like to nest. They're also the types of places that humans don't always explore. So you got to get creative going along the shorelines. But again, don't get too close. Yeah, and so on the back of the form, based on popular demand from last year, we've added a lot more room for comments. Right down at the bottom, there are plenty of room for comments. And I'm going to get into what we want to see in those comments in a second. But first off, we just wanted to say those questions on the back are very important. Please answer the following. And one new question we've had this year is how many hours you've spent on the project? Part of what helps us do so well with this grant and this project is knowing that there's tangible evidence of volunteers being very involved in it. And I know you all are very involved in it and you want to brag about it. So please, if you have the opportunity, please list how many hours you spent on the project. And those hours could be attending this webinar. They could be sending us an email. They could be surveying. So please let us know how many hours you spent on the project. Write what date an adult was first seen on the nest. You can write the total number of chicks hatched by the pair so far this season. That's a crucial detail that we really need to see if any have been hatched. And what date was the first chick hatched on and did the chick survive?  Those are great questions to have there. And then we'll move into comments. And but first I'll just say with these forms, please send the completed forms and photos to our main to main Audubon at 20 Gislin Farm Road. We're going to put that address in the chat and you can either send them to us via mail or you can email them to us at loonrestorationatmayinaudubon.org. But we really like to see either the exact hard copy of these forms or a digital picture or scan of these forms because there's so much great information on here and you all are so great at surveying. We really want to see these. And in addition to that, Oscar mentioned Survey123, we just want help by submitting your data online at this survey, which we will talk about in a moment as well. But just to go back to the comments, we really want to see a bunch of different stuff in the comments. We love reading the stories of these loon pairs. So if you could send to us your assessment of whether the nesting was a success or failure, that would be great. And in this section, please leave off how many chicks were had. We want to see that hard data in the questions where it was asked. You can write how many chicks we have, but please make sure you record that in the exact data section for that as well. But here we just want to know the story of nesting that season. So what has happened? You can comment on that. Let us know. The loons nested in this certain spot, but the water levels rose and as a result, the nest flooded. That's great to know because that helps us make a site assessment on it next year. Or you could write the loons ended up nesting naturally instead of artificially. All of these are great things to help us determine whether the site is still being successful or whether it's failing to nest. So please write some good comments about the story of the loon pair. And in addition to that, you can add in the comments if you saw leg bands on the loons. So a lot of the loons in the northeast are banded. And we really want to see, we want to know if the loons you're seeing are banded because that just shows a good work on behalf of all the organizations that do banding. And it also helps us tell the geographic story of where loons are going and how they're migrating. So look for leg bands. And if you see them and you could take a picture, please do. That would be awesome. We would love to see that. But if you see a leg band, make sure to note the color of it. And also be sure to email us immediately when you see it. So you can write it on your monitoring form and we'll get it eventually. But if you could email us immediately too, if you see a banded loon, that would be great. So thank you very much for that. And yeah, that's a repeat. And with that, I think I'm going to throw it over to Maggie from Maine Lakes to talk about the survey. Okay. Tracy, did you want me to do the screen share thing again or do you just want me to go from the slide? You can do the screen share if you'd like, if you're ready for that. All right. Let me grab. So Ethan, you might have to unshare yours. All right. Okay. Can everybody see the survey? Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Beautiful. I suppose. Okay. So the survey is closely linked to, well, I mean, it's made to mimic the form because we're looking for the same information on both. I think it was mentioned earlier though that there is some information that the survey does better with and then some that the paper form does better with. So it's not necessarily an exact copy. So if things look a little different or they're worded a little bit differently, please just reach out with any questions so that we can clarify whatever is needed. Now, the majority of the survey is, has already been gone through by virtue of the paper form being gone through. So I won't make you listen to that again. I will point out a few small details though, including there are, including question type. There are multiple different kinds of questions. And when you see a square box, that's a multiple choice question or not. I mean, clearly it's multiple choice. You can choose multiple answers though. Whereas if it's a circle, then you can only choose one answer. Now, we've tried to make the survey as concise as possible for you. So you don't have to answer questions that might not be relevant every single time. And so that means sometime when you click a box, a new question will appear beneath it. But if that doesn't pop up, that's fine. It just, you didn't click on the trigger to that question. That's all right. The next thing that I want to point out, here's an example of a one choice question and of the linking question. So how many chicks did we see here? If I clicked zero, we can't see zero chicks and two chicks. So you only get one choice. But if I click one or two or three, then we get to another question pops up so that you can choose the approximate age of your chick. Now, there's two more questions that I want to just run through really quickly. And they're both geographic questions. That means they're involving maps. So for this one, oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me. The map question up here. Sorry, Tracy. A little disorient. So this is, we're just going to go over both with the chick because they're both functionally the same. I'm going to note that if you are entering the survey on your phone via the one survey 123 app, it looks a little bit different. For example, the little plus sign up here that allows you to add a second data point for a second chick on the, is above the map on the website. And then it's below the map on the survey 123 app on your phone. Regardless of that, though, the question functions mostly the same. You can, if you've got location services for your computer or phone turned on, you can just click use current location and the map will hone into where you are. Alternatively, you can type in the name of your lake and the town and hit enter. And then that will bring you approximately there. So you see what I just use my wheel on my mouse to scroll up and that didn't go the way I wanted. So to zoom into the map on your computer using your mouse, you actually have to hold down the control button. And then scroll, scroll down. Okay. Now, when I'm using maps, I don't really like to... I don't like this map. My preferred is actually imagery. So to get my preferred background, I have to do is click on this. They call it a waffle menu. These four little squares in the corner here. And then that pulls up a choice. And I believe the choices are different if you're on the survey 123 app. But either way, you've got choices. And so this looks a little more familiar to me. It helps me pinpoint where I want my points to go. And so that's where I'm going to choose. Now, you can... If you zoom in, it'll put the marker right in the middle of the page. Now, if you don't see a marker there, you just have to click once. Now, if the marker is in the wrong choice or in the wrong place, you have a couple of choices. You can just grab the screen and move it and then click the screen once and then the marker should move there. And that's all there is. You don't have to press enter. Now, sometimes there is a little bit of a background work when Survey 123 updates their program. This marker sometimes goes away, but you can be sure that you're collecting information here if the latitude and longitude is filled out there. And of course, if you notice the marker not working for you, please just give us a call so we can help set that right. Now, the other map doesn't have this choice for adding one. Adding point because it's just asking, where is the nest? That's a one point thing, but this is for checks. And because you could have up to three, we want you to be able to add more than one marker. So in order to do that after you've got the marker for your first chick placed, on the website, you come up above and you see there's a little trash can and a little number one and then a plus sign. And you just hit the plus sign and you go through the same process again. And you scroll on down and there you go. And it's the same situation. Now, another thing to point out is the loon pictures. If you're using the Survey123 app, there is an option for you to switch to your camera live and take pictures. However, I've found that when that happens, the picture, there's a glitch in there. So the picture isn't always tied to the survey in the back end. So I think it's gonna, it's easiest if you either take the pictures first and then go back and fill out the survey or if you take a picture and then make sure it's saved to your phone, and then you can come in here and then you can select the image right from your phone or you can save it to your computer. Tracy, did I explain that clearly? I think so.  Yes, please do. I'm sure that you have questions about that. Yes, please do. And I think probably the very last thing to note is that there's a character limit for the comment section down here. It's large enough for most comments to be fine, but if you find yourself running out of room, you just find this little plus sign next to the green number, click that, and then you'll have a whole new comment. That you can add. And then down here, when you click submit, and if everything's done correct, you'll get this nice confirmation that all has gone well and we have received your data. Thank you, Maggie. Is there anything else you'd like me to touch on, Tracy? I don't think so. People can ask questions at the end about that. And also, when we come on site, we often also, if you have a computer there or we'll burn our computers, we'll go to the website and go through it with you. So we'll do a survey while we're on site and then enter the data with you. So you'll get a chance to do a live run of that too. Yeah, and if you're ever not sure of how to get the survey, the website is published on the backside near the bottom of your field sheet. And you can also go to the main Audubon website. And I believe the LEA website now also has a link to the survey form as well. Oh, fantastic. Great. Okay. Yeah, Ethan, do you want to just, in the interest of time, I'm not going to do the last slides we had, but let's go ahead and share it anyhow. Yeah. So the last thing I wanted to mention is that another way to kind of boost the amount of monitoring that's happening, we do have several, at least one dozen, if not close to two dozen of these game cameras. So if you have an interest in getting more constant monitoring, it's not real time. We get the data later. All the pictures come off the CD, I mean the SD card at the end, but we can put these out near the raft or near a nesting sign and keep track of things like if loons are looking at the raft and nearby, we can see if there are muskrats or other types of animals using the raft besides loons. And we can get a sense of how much disturbance is happening around. So please let us know if you're interested in that more constant daily monitoring. And it also goes overnight, which is nice too, which captures things that often aren't captured. We did have some quiz questions, but I'm going to skip over those for now just to see how much you're paying attention, but I don't think we really have time for that. The last thing, yeah, is we do have this really nice video that if you want to quiz yourself on being able to read behaviors, you can go to this link. And so we can put that in the chat as well. And just, I know we've put an awful lot of links in the chat, so we will be emailing all these out to anyone who is on this webinar. So with that, yeah, just go to the next slide and just thank you. So hopefully we've given you an overview of why we're doing this monitoring, what we're focusing on, and how to go about doing it. And all of the resources are found on the project website.


Yeah, yeah, I'm really I'm happy for the the whole team actually because the guys that don't play that often got in there and started and in particular Alex our setter and then Garrett our oppo and Tanner outside and Tyler Was swinging and boss. He was in the middle So and then drew to he played his middle position which is pretty tough to do He's a natural setter and then Mikey was libero. So the whole night and no one Didn't perform so sometimes it's a coach does that and then somebody struggles It's kind of tough coming out, but they all they all played well. Yeah, we were reminding them But it's just like a reminder. That's what's nice about this team. They all wanted to To respect the opponent when you talk about that and play their best game And I think they did they swung hard They never like, you know started tipping or serving easy, you know toying with the other team They they gave it their best game and that's why you know, we're out here in 58 minutes well, yeah, I've coached them three of the four years and Yeah, and volleyball. It's just really nice to have somebody that's a threat from the service line Always if you can get, you know two serves in like normally gets like an ace or gets the other team out of system and then he You know For for him to break break that record normally he keeps going he gets next serves in and and it's just constant pressure on opponents That skill in particular can when you championships or conference, you know, and that and it has so I'm really happy for Landon he's in a really good rhythm right now and and it's kind of you know, it's he says it's not on his mind, but that's why I started him actually is because You know now he's accomplished that and he can relax and just keep bombing and not worry about any any records


The first question was from an anonymous patron. How confident are you that Lightning Networks will bring the desired scalability and security to the network? Thanks. I am very confident. I am not only confident that we will be able to achieve tremendous scaling with Lightning Networks, but I think we will also be able to achieve that in a scale-free manner. We will also get much better security and privacy. What do I mean by that? I think we will see Lightning Networks operating either before the end of the year or very shortly after the beginning of 2018. I have already been running beta test software from both the L&D variety, which is the Lightning Network daemon, made by the Lightning Network company. But there are a number of implementations. Most people misunderstand that they think Lightning Network is a company. There is a company called Lightning Network. Just like there is a company called Blockchain, but that doesn't mean that's the company that makes the blockchain. It doesn't mean that's the company that makes the Lightning Network. There is one implementation by the Lightning Network company. That is the company that started all of this. The specification for the protocol is open source. Not only is it open source, but about a year ago, the various different groups, companies and open source projects involved in Lightning, got together. They built a set of common inter-parability standards. These standards are called BOLT. BOLT is the basics of Lightning technology. All of these puns you can make about weather, clouds, lightning strikes, thunder, and all of that. People are really milking that metaphor. BOLT is a set of standards. These define how the various implementations would inter-operate. I believe there are 12 BOLT documents. You can find them on GitHub. They are part of an RFC. They are basically the inter-parability standard. The six different teams that are working on implementations of the Lightning Network, including the Lightning Network company, Blockstream, C Lightning, Async, Eclair, and French company. Those three are most prominently involved in the inter-operability testing. There are three more companies that are working on implementations in a variety of different languages. These are completely independent teams working on all open source projects, all of them are open source, and all working on the same inter-operable standard. For the last month or so, I have watched the three companies that have the most advanced implementation so far, which are very close to production capability, have been doing inter-operability testing. Last week, all three companies were able to pass all 75 tests of compatibility, meaning that using any one of the three different implementations would allow you to work as part of the Lightning Network. It doesn't matter what client you have, just like it doesn't matter what Bitcoin wallet you have to use, it doesn't matter what client you have to use, Lightning Network, as long as it's inter-operable. It will be able to open payment channels to any of the other clients, be able to route payments across multiple channels, and do so with a very high degree of privacy. They are all implementing the onion routing protocol. What onion routing means is that each node only sees the immediate hop before it, and the immediate hop after it. The reason it's called onion routing is because the routing information is wrapped in layers. You receive an encrypted package from the node immediately previously to you, and you don't know where this is going, and the node before you doesn't know where it's going. You unwrap it, and you find routing information inside which tells you where to go for the next hop, but you don't know anything more than that. Then you send it to that next hop. They open it, and they find routing information to send it to the next hop. Every node in this route doesn't know how many hops have passed, and it doesn't know how many hops are yet to come. In fact, the routes are always the same length, so you can't tell if you're the first or the 20th in a 20-hop network. Paths can be up to 20 hops long, and they always look 20 hops. If the route information for less than 20 hops is padded with garbage that's encrypted, you don't know it's garbage, but you just pass it on thinking it's routing information for the next node, until one of the nodes opens up the package and finds out it's actually the destination of that route. The other 19 directions that follow are garbage, and it discards them, but only that node knows it's the last one in the hop. Only the sender and the recipient know how long the route is. Only the sender and the recipient know which position they are in the route, and everybody in between is just passing this encrypted bundle of information. This is a very high-security protocol. It's the same protocol that's used in Tor. If you've heard of Tor, Tor stands for the onion router, and it does this form of routing called onion routing. The initial implementation of Lightning Network will use onion routing for very high-degree privacy. One of the questions that remains is, will Lightning itself become centralized? Are there particular incentives to run a hub, to run a node that's connected with lots of payment channels, lots of other nodes, and that gets used for a lot of the routes? Is it possible that people with a lot of money, for example, exchanges, would set up Lightning nodes that are essentially the main participants in the Lightning Network? Can you end up with this hub-and-spoke system where there's a lot of concentration and centralization? I think it's unlikely that will happen, and there are a number of reasons. First of all, if you're running a Lightning node and you set up payment channels, in order for you to effectively route and make payments, you have to have the keys online on that system. The more funds you put into those payment channels, the higher the risk that your node is a target for hacking. There's a disadvantage to having a node with a lot of funds. If you open lots of payment channels to do a lot of routing, you have to put quite a lot of funds in those channels. If instead each node opens four or five different routes, they all end up creating this fairly tight mesh, where it's very peer-to-peer, and there's not much centralization. That's actually the best model for this, and that's what's called a scale-free network, which means that it looks the same at any scale. As a result, a network like that doesn't have the tendency to centralization. There are good reasons why centralization is discouraged. One of the really interesting things is that the Lightning network, as is already with the current Bolt specification, is implementing various techniques to rebalance channels. If you continuously send on one channel, all of the funds will end up on the far end of the channel. In order to rebalance it, you need to route payments in the opposite direction. They do that automatically. I've looked at the Lightning network daemon, and one of the things I also like quite a lot, is that they have a mechanism for automatically managing channels. You don't have to think about your node, which could be running on your smartphone. You can run a full Lightning network node on your smartphone, laptop, or desktop computer. You don't need to worry about what channels it needs to open. It basically manages channels on its own. It opens channels to parties that it thinks will give you good connectivity to the network. The same way that your Bitcoin node makes connections to eight other nodes in order to maintain good connectivity. The advantage of that is that it is designed to automatically manage channels, so as to create this not centralized environment.