I know you're hungry for the presence of the Holy Spirit. You desire a touch of God's power on your life, but we have to be careful so that we're not so desperate for an experience that we instead settle for emotional hype. I wanna show you, biblically speaking, how to discern between emotional hype and an actual move of the Holy Spirit's presence and power.  First, let's take a look at John chapter three, verse six. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Now here, of course, Jesus is talking about the born-again experience, but a takeaway principle that has universal application is that there's a difference between the flesh, the things of this material world, and the things of the spirit. What is the source of what you're experiencing? You see, all of us are body, soul, and spirit. You are a spirit who has a soul that lives in a body.  Your true identity is your spirit, because your spirit is the part of you that's connected with the Father God. Now, many times we seek God from the outer shells of who we are. When you seek God from the place of physical posturing, you are participating in religion. That's ritual, and you cannot make up with ritual what you lack in the spirit. So, ritualization or physical posturing looks something like, well, if I shout loud enough, if I jump high enough, if I pray for long enough, if I pace aggressively enough, maybe God will respond to my physical posturings, and therefore I will experience something from His presence, but God does not look necessarily at the physical posturings. Now, if that physical posture comes about as a result of something that's actually taking place in the spirit, that's a genuine move of the spirit. For example, I've been in services where the glory of God was so intensely manifested, was tangible, that I could do nothing else but fall on my face and worship. Now, the glory of God was there, that move of the spirit originated from the spirit, and that move of the spirit caused me to posture my physical body in response to what God was doing. That's very different than trying to cause that glory to manifest from the place of physical posturing. So, God was already moving, and I recognized it, and that's when I responded with that posture of bowing down before the Lord and worshiping Him, and maybe you've experienced that before, where you're so overwhelmed in His presence that you respond and go down upon your face and just begin to worship as you lie on the floor in humility and reverence toward what you're sensing, that beautiful weight that's on the room. Now, that's wonderful if you're responding to a move of God, but if you are going onto the floor trying to cause a move of God, and you imagine that God cannot move until you've taken that physical posture, well, now you're borderline entering into ritualization, and there's a close relationship between what we're experiencing and how God is moving, and that's why sometimes it's difficult to discern between these, but right now I'm just kind of talking about the various ways that we pursue the moves of God. So, you can pursue God from that outer shell, the physical body, or you can pursue God from another outer shell, which is a little deeper, but that's the soul. So, the very outer shell, the outermost being is my physical body or my earth suit, and if I'm trying to posture myself to cause a move of God, that's religion, that's ritualization. Now, if I try to pursue a move of God from my spirit, I'm pursuing a move of God from the place of emotion, from the place of intellect, and I'm trying to cause God to move based upon the emotions I'm expressing. I cannot emote myself into an encounter with God's presence. I cannot think myself into an encounter with God's presence. Now, does the mind respond to the presence of God absolutely? Do the emotions respond to the presence of God? Absolutely, but the mind and your emotions cannot cause the presence of God to manifest in the way that you are looking or you are looking for. So, if it begins in the spirit, then it's of the spirit. That which is born of the spirit is spirit. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. So, I wanna make this clear. There's nothing wrong with shouting for the Lord. There's nothing wrong with jumping up and down in excitement. There's nothing wrong with dancing in His presence. There's nothing wrong with crying before the presence of God or thinking about the presence of God. I'm simply saying that those things in and of themselves are not the cause of the manifestation of the presence of God. It begins in the spirit. Now, cynics will ask questions like, do you want an encounter with God or would you rather have an emotional experience? And I think that sometimes we forget the close relationship between our response and the manifestation of God's glory. And therefore we sometimes imagine that our emotions are always at odds with what God is doing. Well, I've been in services and I know you have too. And you can see in scripture, I'll show you a little bit later on the different responses that people have to the presence of God. There are times when the beauty of the Lord is so apparent to you that you can't help but weep. There are times when the beauty of the Lord is so apparent to you that it brings you joy. So yes, your emotions respond to the presence of God, but again, they cannot cause a manifestation of his presence and power. And that I think is the difference between hype and a genuine move of the Holy Spirit. I'll share other differences, but let's assess this just for a moment. Because when God begins to move, you will sometimes feel that physically. Now this does not mean that God comes and goes and often Christians imagine that. They imagine that when they're worshiping, the presence of the Holy Spirit comes down. That's not what's happening. It's not that the presence of the Holy Spirit is coming down, he dwells in you. How can he come and go if he forever abides in you? No, what's happening in those worship services, what's happening in those prayer services is not that the presence of God is coming nearer, it's that you are becoming more aware of the presence which was already there and therefore that apparent nature of the presence of God. When you begin to see it and sense it, that is the manifestation of his presence. So in our emotions, we can respond to him. I mean, everything about you was created to respond to God. So how can you be near to God who is love? How can you experience that presence? How can you be aware of such compassion, such love, such peace, such joy and not be moved? So people will ask, again, as cynics, they will ask, do you wanna move of God or do you want emotion? Forgetting that moves of God can sometimes cause emotions. Encounters with God can be emotional but emotions cannot cause encounters with God. Let me say that again. Encounters with God can be emotional but emotions cannot cause encounters with God. So it's not as though you have to choose but you do have to recognize that emotions do not cause the presence of God. So people will criticize you for experiencing the presence of God when you weep or maybe you tremble in reverence or maybe you sense the overwhelming joy of the spirit and people will criticize that expecting that you're supposed to be like this fake plastic individual who isn't moved by the beauty of the Lord. Well, that's just nonsense. How can you not be moved by who God is? So again, it's not one or the other and emotions aren't necessarily against the move of the spirit but here are some rules for experience, some wisdom here I wanna give you in this area that will help you to be more discerning because the truth of the matter is that some believers are caught up in hype and that's just the reality. And sometimes, and this is a little bit more nuanced sometimes we are experiencing an encounter with God but then we add to that encounter with emotion and hype. I'll give you an example. Just recently at the service, I believe it was in Brooklyn there was a woman getting delivered in the service. She began to manifest the power of God was moving and so this was during the service and what happened is actually during the worship as we're worshiping the Lord I was leading the people telling them to be focused on Jesus telling him he would heal them, deliver them. This woman starts to receive the touch of the Holy Spirit on her life. She begins to manifest like a demon, she's screaming and what happened was the Holy Spirit began to do a work in her but then people around her started to gather around her and started to like scream at her. I don't allow that in our services where people gather and start screaming at the person who's manifested because their emotional additions could take the person beyond the place where they need to go in order to be delivered. You don't need to scream to be delivered. Now if your demon possessed, okay, usually that comes with a scream but another example is Christians, born again believers who insist that they need to vomit on the floor in order for God to deliver them. Now, God can work through that. Maybe that happens sometimes. I'm not necessarily against that so don't hear what I'm not saying but if you're insisting that that needs to happen now you're moving beyond the spirit and you're adding to it. So I told the people, leave her alone. In other words, don't hyper. It's already happening. The Lord's delivering her. Leave her alone, let the Holy Spirit do it and within 15, 20 seconds she was delivered and it was the Lord who did it. Now what usually happens or what can happen, I should say, is someone gets delivered, the Lord does it, it's done and then someone will come along and say, no, it's not complete, as if the Holy Spirit missed something. No, it's not complete. Come on, everybody, let's gather and then they all start screaming and yelling and then that person gets hyped again. Well, that began in the spirit and then it took a turn toward the flesh or someone will experience the touch of the Holy Spirit's power and they feel it like electricity on their body and they're shaking but then they add to it maybe with a little bit of extra and they start kicking or they start punching the air or maybe they start screaming when they're not necessarily moved to be screaming by the spirit. Again, the manifestations themselves are not what we're looking at, but the source of them. So the Holy Spirit can move on someone and then they can add to that spirit-filled experience with emotion. They go above and beyond and this is what we call mixture where now they're beginning to add flesh to what the Holy Spirit is already doing in them. So this is why I wanna give you some wisdom here because again, we are sincere about seeking the Lord. We want encounters in His presence but again, don't be so desperate for an encounter with God that you throw discernment out the door to where now you're just willing to be hyped into anything and that's where we have to be careful. So number one, here's some wisdom and then I'm gonna give you more keys to discerning the difference between an emotional experience, a purely emotional experience and an encounter with God. And again, emotion is not necessarily against it but sometimes we will mistake encounters that are entirely emotional for moves of the spirit. Number one, experience is valid when it's consistent with God's word. Yes, experience has a place, especially if an experience aligns with God's word. So if you're experiencing something that contradicts the word, believe scripture, not your story. I tell people all the time. Scripture over stories. We do not get our theology from our stories. We do not get our doctrines from our stories. We do not get our biblical applicable teachings from our stories. We get them from the word. Now I understand the word of God is comprised of stories and experiences but the word of God, the written word of God is comprised of stories and experiences that were inspired directly by the Holy Spirit to be recorded just as they were. The word of God is infallible, we are not. And so take your experience, don't dismiss it but instead ask yourself, is this consistent with the word of God which leads me to point number two. Interpret your experience through God's word not God's word through your experience. In other words, when you experience something you don't take your experience and then try to force that upon the scripture or your understanding of that experience upon the scripture. Rather you take the word and you use that as the lens through which you interpret your experience.  Number three, experience is a result of seeking God but not the purpose of seeking God. Please hear me now, this is a major point. Encounters and experiences in God's presence are wonderful. I believe in these with all my heart. You know it, you've seen it in our services. In fact, I'm constantly talking about the wonderful experiences that we have in our meetings all around the world where people are saved, miracle healings take place, people are delivered from demonic power, people are empowered by the Holy Spirit, people receive the gift of tongues and spiritual gifts. I'm all for that. However, those experiences themselves must not become our pursuit. Jesus and Jesus alone must be the object of our affection. Jesus and Jesus alone must be the goal. Jesus and Jesus alone is the focus, his person, who he is. And so we do not seek experience. We do not seek necessarily encounters. We seek Jesus and in seeking Jesus we often will experience things. In our seeking of the Lord, we will have encounters, but don't shift it. Don't take your eyes off of him. Don't remove the focus from his heart to his hand. Seek his heart and you'll receive from his hand. And this of course is important because you may look at some believers who are having a certain experience or a certain encounter and then you start to fill a certain way about that because maybe you're not experiencing it like that. So you may wonder, has God abandoned me? Does God not love me as much as he loves that person who's encountering his presence and the way I want to encounter him? Is there something wrong with me? Do I lack faith? Am I not as spiritual? Am I not as important to God? Am I not as favored by God? And those questions arise only when we begin to elevate experience above the word of God. Only when we begin to elevate experience above faith in what God has promised. You do not need your emotions. You do not need an experience to convince you of something that the word of God already says. Well, is God near me? Yes, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. And the Holy Spirit will dwell with you and he will never leave you. Well, that's what the word of God says. Who cares what your emotions say? Who cares what you're interpreting your experience as?  So no, there's not something wrong with you. No, in most cases, and I said in most cases because there are some exceptions, in most cases it's not a lack of faith. In most cases it's not because you made a mistake and God has not favored you and God doesn't love you as much as them. It's just that maybe you're so focused on having the experience that you've forgotten to seek Jesus. Because sometimes an intense desire for an experience can itself become a distraction from having an encounter with God. We become all tangled up in our emotions, in our doubt, in our confusion, in our questions. And we're so focused on one thing and so obsessed. Well, this person told a story and this is what they felt. Or I saw this in a church service once and this is what I saw them encountering. Why can't I have that? You can, just take your eyes off the encounter.  So let's recap what I've said about the source, the source being the spirit. There's nothing wrong with emotion. There's nothing wrong with jumping up and down and praising God. There's nothing wrong with shouting and dancing. There's nothing wrong with feeling his presence physically. There's nothing wrong with weeping before the Lord. There's nothing wrong with being overcome in joy. There's nothing wrong if when someone is getting delivered from demonic possession, they're screaming and foaming at the mouth and rolling on the floor. That's all well and good as long as it's genuinely beginning in the spirit. As long as it's genuinely move of God, what I'm simply saying is those expressions, those outward expressions in and of themselves cannot cause something of the spirit to take place, which is why I've been giving you these points to help you balance it.  If you're someone who wants an encounter with God but also wants to make sure it's based on the word, give me balance. Just some examples here real quick and then I'm gonna get into the differences, some more differences between the Holy Spirit's presence and your emotion. So the first difference is that true moves of the Holy Spirit begin in the spirit. And very often we can add to what the spirit is already doing. And you've seen it in church services. It's happened where the spirit's moving, people are enjoying the presence of God. Maybe the congregation is weeping. And then there's one person who out of wanting attention or out of wanting to height the mood will just begin doing something weird and it throws the whole thing off. They're adding to the spirit with the flesh. So be careful of doing that. So here are some just biblical examples of this. The presence of God brings joy. Psalm 1611, thou wilt show me the path of life in thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. There are physical reactions to the power of God. John 18, five through six, they answered him. Jesus of Nazareth sayeth unto them, I am he and Judas also which betrayed him stood with them. As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he they went backward and fell to the ground. Now there are some who are very hyper critical of moves of the Holy Spirit who will take that instance and get ultra specific with it and say, well these specifically were guards who specifically fell backwards, specifically in response to the judgment of God's presence. And that may be true, but a universal application here that cannot be denied is that the presence of God can cause a physical reaction. The manifested presence of God can cause a physical reaction. So here we're not looking for anything particularly specific in this area. Just the general principle is biblical that the presence of God manifested can cause a physical reaction. You see this a lot in the Old Testament and some references in the New Testament. Acts 26, 13 through 14. At midday, okay, I saw in the way a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun shining round about me and then which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me and sang in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecuteest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Now here we see an example of Saul being physically thrown from his horse. He's physically thrown onto the ground and he has this experience in the presence of God. It's a physical reaction in the presence of God. Luke chapter 24, verse 32. They asked each other, we're not our hearts burning within us? Well, he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us. So they sense this burning in their hearts and even if you don't take that to mean something physical, it is an emotional response then that they're having to the presence of God. So I could give you story after story, instance after instance, you can't read the Bible without seeing people respond to the presence of God physically and emotionally. Sometimes it's awe, sometimes it's fear, sometimes it's joy, but there's always a response to the manifested presence of God and it's a beautiful thing when you experience these things. So the point I'm simply making here is that there is a response to God's presence. Sometimes that response can be emotional and physical. Now, of course, hype can still cause issues. I gave you an example of some of the things I've seen for example, when people are manifesting demons, you can very easily hype that beyond to where God wants to take it. So that's why you have to be discerning, keep a level head and move forth with discernment so that you're not hyping beyond where God wants to go. Cynics, again, will ask for very specific references. Well, no, I wanna see a specific instance where they're in a church service and some of these hands on them and then they begin to cry. Well, you're not gonna get that, but you will get the biblical principle and we can't ignore biblical principle and nitpick and look for these ultra specific examples. We're looking for the biblical nature of the move of the presence of God and it's very clear in scripture how that affects us. So here are some differences. Number one, I should say number two. Number two, it draws you closer to God. Emotional encounters cannot draw you closer to God. Think of Moses, think of Isaiah, think of the disciples, think of Saul who we're gonna analyze in just a moment. When they had that encounter with God, they were drawn to him. They were not drawn back to their sin. They were not drawn back to their old lifestyle. They were drawn closer to the Lord. Now look at Luke chapter five. I'm gonna read quite a few verses for each one of these points. Let's begin at verse number one. One day, as Jesus was preaching on the shore, the sea of Galilee, great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the word of God. He noticed two empty boats at the water's edge for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push it out into the water. So Jesus is looking for a place to speak. He chooses Simon's boat. He steps into it. So he sat in the boat and taught the crowds from there. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, now go where it is deeper and let down your nets to catch some fish. Master Simon replied, we worked hard all last night and didn't catch a thing. But if you say so, I'll let down the nets again. So here he's explaining to the Lord, Lord, we already tried that. We did it in our own strength. We're experts. We know what we're doing. We tried all night. He says, do it again, verse six.  A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat. And soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking when Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, oh Lord, please leave me. I'm such a sinful man. So here conviction hits his heart for he was awestruck by the number of fish they had caught as were the others with him. Now watch this, watch this. This is powerful. His partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee were also amazed.  From now on you'll be fishing for people. This is the key. And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus. Now I am all for preaching this text and emphasizing the miracle that they experienced. I'm all for acknowledging that in their faith they experienced abundance. I'm all for acknowledging that in their surrender to the Lord they experienced more than enough. That's a biblical principle that of course we stand behind as believers. But I want you to notice here that even in the midst of this miracle, even in the midst of this abundance of fish, even in the midst of this wonderful act that God had done for them, they left everything and said, I want Jesus. So here they have now this abundance of fish to where their partners had to come over and help them carry it. And they didn't stay with the fish. They didn't stay with the miracle. They didn't stay with the blessing. Instead they left everything and said, I want you Jesus. So the miracle, the experience, the encounter led them to Jesus. Now some believers, they become like consumed with looking for the next emotional high. Now let me be careful about the way I say this because I don't want to confuse God's people. There is nothing wrong with desiring an encounter with God. As long as I said a moment ago, there's not so much of an intense desire for an experience that you distract yourself from the Lord himself. So we must recognize that in the scripture, whenever they experienced a miracle or a healing or deliverance, it drew them to Jesus himself. So that's number one. A true encounter in the Holy Spirit's presence and power is ultimately gonna draw you closer to Jesus, not just to the miracle or to the experience itself. Next we see that the miracle brings a positive change. So Acts chapter nine verses one through 20, I won't read the entire portion of scripture, but let's start at verse number one. Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath. In other words, he's very passionate about what he's doing here and was eager to kill the Lord's followers. So he went to the high priest. He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus asking for their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the way he found there. He wanted to bring them both men and women back to Jerusalem in chains. So the way was the name of the movement of Christianity, the Lord's followers back then. So here we see that he's very passionate about destroying this movement called the way. He's very passionate about coming against the followers of Jesus. Now he has this encounter with the Lord and as soon as he begins to have this encounter, verse five, I love this, who are you Lord? In other words, he didn't know who he was but he knew enough to call him Lord. He was so moved by the beauty and the majesty and the terror of the Lord that he immediately becomes submissive. The Lord Jesus of course reveals his identity to him, says you're persecuting me. Tells him it's gonna be very difficult for you to resist my will, I have plans for you. And then of course we see, and let's go down to verse 19. Afterward, this is after scales fall off after he meets Ananias and so forth, verse 19. Afterward he ate some food and regained his strength. Saul stayed with the believers in Damascus for a few days, talk about a turnaround. He wanted to kill these people and now he's staying with them for a few days. Verse 20, and immediately he began preaching about Jesus in the synagogue saying he is indeed the son of God. Well, here's actual transformation. Now let me balance this point. Yes, there should be actual transformation in your life when you encounter the presence of God.  Although say it's all emotion, no transformation. And I thought that's interesting. How could you possibly know that? How could you possibly know that there's no transformation taking place in that person? I've seen people have encounters with God and never again touch the object of their addiction. I've seen people have encounters with God and never again touch drugs, touch alcohol, touch pornography. I've seen people have experiences in the presence of God where they're shaking, crying, sometimes where they're overjoyed, where they're laughing, sometimes where they're just in awe of the beauty of his presence. Sometimes they sense it like a weight, sometimes they sense it like a fire, sometimes they don't sense anything physically or emotionally, but they just know in the spirit that the presence of God is moving upon them and then they walk away completely transformed. Now somebody who's cynical in watching that maybe from a screen or maybe just seeing 30 seconds of an encounter that they have with God, it's very easy for them to say, well, I don't see any change in this. Well, of course you don't see any change in that. You're watching a 30 second clip. You're watching a 10 minute video. How can you possibly know what's happening in that individual? How can you possibly know how that's going to affect them for months to come? How can you possibly know that God's not doing a deep work in that individual? I've seen people healed of trauma. I've seen people healed of mental illness. I've seen people healed of wounds from the past, of sinful addictions and they're transformed from that moment on, but all the onlookers and all their expertise will look at it and say, well, this doesn't glorify God and there's no transformation. How could you possibly know that? Next time somebody says that to you, just ignore it. How can they and all their arrogance possibly know whether or not you're being transformed, even if it's just a small transformation and something in your character, even if it's just drawing you that much closer to the Lord, even if it's just shifting your mindset slightly, even if it's just for the moment, encouraging you, uplifting you, giving you peace, giving you strength, giving you hope, giving you that ability to continue for another week. Who are they to say it brings no transformation? I rebuke that religious spirit in the mighty name of Jesus. Jesus would have rebuke people like that, but those who come to him humbly and recognize that the presence of God can change them, the power of God can transform them, that an encounter in his presence can alter the course of their life. Those are the ones who receive of the hand of God. And so you may look at it, maybe the cynics look at it and they say, oh, I just see them shaking. Oh, I just see them crying. Oh, they're just getting together and worshiping for 45 minutes. It's all emotion. It's all hype. Who are you to say that? And how on earth could you possibly know that? You know what that is? They're parroting things they've heard from the people they follow with no original thought whatsoever. And they are pseudo-intellectuals who are applying what they think as a great argument against the move of the Holy Spirit. But you, child of God, can know that if God is doing a work in you and you know it, then who cares what anybody else says? If God is doing a work in you and you know it, then that helps you to move forward in a new hope. You can be refreshed. You can be encouraged. You can have your spirit uplifted. Maybe you were just having a terrible week. Maybe you were just struggling with depression or negative thoughts. Maybe you were wondering if God was near to you and he and his mercy, compassion and grace decided to allow you to have an encounter with his presence. And for that moment you knew you were encouraged, you were strengthened until the next time. Even if that transformation is just to get you through the week, who is anybody to say that there was no transformation that took place? Again, I rebuke that religious spirit in Jesus' name. And don't you allow anybody to discourage you in that act of receiving from the Holy Spirit. I sense a strong anointing on that one. Next we see that true moves of God, true encounters in his presence, bring glory to God. Emotions alone cannot do that. Emotions alone cannot do that. Look at Acts chapter three. I'm gonna read verses one through 10. Peter and John went to the temple one afternoon to take part in the three o'clock prayer service. As they approached the temple, a man lame from birth was being carried in. Each day he was put beside the temple gate, the one called the gate. Beautiful. So he could beg from the people going into the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for some money. Peter and John looked at him intently and Peter said, look at us. The lame man looked at them eagerly expecting some money. But Peter said, I don't have any silver or gold for you, but I'll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ of the Nazarene, get up and walk. Then Peter took the lame man by the right hand and helped him up. And as he did, the man's feet and ankles were instantly healed and strengthened. He jumped up, stood on his feet and began to walk. Then watch this. Walking, leaping and praising God. There we see a miracle that allowed him to walk and to leap.  When they realized he was the lame beggar they had seen so often at the beautiful gate, they were absolutely astounded. So when these moves of God astound people or wow people or confound the religious, that in and of itself is a sign, a sign not the tell all end all be all, but it is a sign and indication that it could be a genuine move of the Holy Spirit in that it brings glory to God. People rejoice and sometimes it's just to astound and to confound. Sometimes moves of the Holy Spirit can cause miracles and healing and transformation. Other times they're there just to astound and confound that we might go, wow, what a great God. That we might be awestruck and that's what the Lord does. So it brings glory to God. It does not bring glory to man. Be very careful and I wanna say this boldly. Be very careful about individuals who very subtly bring glory to themselves. Yes, they may verbalize that Jesus deserves the credit, but then on the other side of their mouths sometimes they'll say things that indicate that they're the source. That's very manipulative. Watch out for that because true moves of God bring glory to Jesus. I'll tell you this right now. When you glorify God, he can trust you with more. When you see the Lord begin to move and you're careful, reverent, fearful even to make sure that he receives all the glory, now he looks and he says, okay, I can trust you with more. Finally, it upsets the religious and the comfortable. Your emotions don't have that strong of an effect. Look, if it really was just your emotions, why are people so upset about it? Think about it. You're crying in the presence of God. Someone has an issue with that. Well, whoever had an issue with crying, you're laughing in the presence of God because you're just moved and overjoyed. Now, I'm not talking about again flesh because there's that distinction I gave you where sometimes you can in the flesh move something beyond where the Holy Spirit wants to take it and you can always tell when this happens because there's a lack of beauty and a lack of reverence and a lack of heavenliness that is apparent when people do that. But really, notice how if you were just laughing at a joke or laughing with friends, no one would have any issue. Oh, but you laugh in church. All of a sudden it's an issue. Why do we do this? Why does the human mind respond in this way? Well, you can't reduce moves of God to your understanding. Moves of the Holy Spirit, please hear me now. Moves of the Holy Spirit will never contradict the word, but they will often conflict with our preferences. Watch this, Acts chapter two, verses 12 through 13. This is on the day of Pentecost after the Holy Spirit had come upon the church in the way that he did next to, they stood there amazed and perplexed. What can this mean? They asked each other. So they're amazed by this and they're perplexed by it. You know, you hear all the time, God is not the author of confusion. And I agree with that. God does things in an orderly way, but God does things according to his order. Now, if you're thinking in a carnal mind, you will be perplexed by some of the things that God does. In fact, there are things that happen in our lives where we wonder, God, what are you doing? Why would you allow this? And I'm not talking strictly about just moves of God. I'm talking about just life in general. Things happen, tragedy strikes, loss happens, things that we don't understand occur and we trust the sovereignty of God.  And so people often think that if they have an issue with it, or if they don't like the order that it's going in, or if they're uncomfortable, then that automatically means it cannot be of God. They think that automatically means it cannot be of God and that's just nonsense. Look at what happened here. They stood there amazed and perplexed and then others were mocking them. But others in the crowd ridiculed them saying they are just drunk, that's all. So people will mock the move of God, people will be perplexed by the move of God, people will be amazed by the move of God. But just because somebody is mocking the move of God, just because somebody is perplexed by the move of God doesn't mean it's not a move of God. Now, again, we have to make sure we're staying balanced in all things, biblically balanced.  Of course, we should do things with a heavenly culture and excellence. Yes, we understand that. But just because someone in the world doesn't like the way God is moving doesn't mean that we should sweep the moves of the Holy Spirit under the rug. I'm so amazed by Christians who see the move of the Holy Spirit and say really ridiculous things like, see, this is why the world mocks us. This is why the world rejects the gospel. This is why people don't go to church. No, Jesus told us why that was. Jesus said, this is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but those who are in darkness rejected that light because they love the darkness. So never mind blaming the moves of the Holy Spirit for the world not wanting anything to do with God. The world wants nothing to do with God because they love darkness and sin because they're carried away by their own carnal desires. That's why. So again, people tried to spiritualize their own personal discomfort and blame the Holy Spirit for their inability to accept what God is doing. So you can't reduce, I'll say this again. You can't reduce moves of God to your understanding. Moves of the Holy Spirit will never contradict the word, but they will often conflict with our preferences. So let me be clear on this. I'm not saying God is a God of disorder. I'm not saying our meetings should be disorderly. I'm saying that we should go by the opinion and the definition of what the word of God teaches is order. And sometimes what God sees as order contradicts what we see as order. Sometimes the way God wants to move will make people uncomfortable. So just because people are perplexed by it just because people are astounded by it just because people will mock it does not mean that we therefore should dismiss it. Think about Mark chapter five versus 14 through 17 the herdsmen fled to the nearby town and the surrounding countryside spreading the news as they ran. People rushed out to see what had happened. A crowd soon gathered around Jesus and they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons. So here we see a man who was demon possessed delivered. Remember Jesus cast that legion of demons into a herd of pigs. They went off the cliff and then the Bible says he was sitting there fully clothed and perfectly sane and they were all afraid. So people were freaked out by what Jesus had done. So already we see people were amazed. People were perplexed. People ridiculed the move of God and here we see it freaked them out. This is scary stuff. We don't like this. And so the Bible goes on to say then those who had seen what happened told the others about the demon possessed man and the pigs. Now verse 17 is really heartbreaking and the crowd began pleading with Jesus to go away and leave them alone. Well, that's what many believers do today. Yeah, they're saved. Yes, they love the Lord. Yes, they're redeemed by his blood because salvation is by faith, not of works as any man should boast but they're missing an opportunity to experience what God has for them all because they're uncomfortable. And then we say things, oh, I'm gonna really upset some people now. Then we say things like, well, I don't know, this just doesn't sit right in my spirit. And I'm thinking it doesn't sit right in your spirit or you're trying to blame the Holy Spirit for your own inability to accept a move of God, your emotions, your intellect, your preferences, your culture, your idea of how God should move, your box of how he should fit in, your box of what he should fit in. So we say, I don't know, this doesn't sit right with my spirit and this is the danger of that. This is what's so dangerous about that. Once we have equated our own personal discomfort with Holy Spirit discernment, it's very difficult for us to admit we have it wrong. You see, you block yourself in when you do that. You block yourself in. Once you say, oh, my spirit, it doesn't sit right with my spirit. Well, now that's it. Now your ego will never let you correct that or it will be very difficult for you to correct that.  And it's ironic that those who tell Christians they're too emotional often condemn moves of the Holy Spirit based on their own emotions. Not on the word, not on scripture, not on foundational doctrines, but rather on their emotions. I've seen Christians comment on moves of the Holy Spirit and say things like, I believe in God's healing power, but this has to be fake. Why? I don't know because of how their emotions responded. And now they box themselves in. Well, it has to be right what I said because I said I discerned it. No, you didn't discern it, you felt it. And if you're twisting scripture like that to try to dismiss moves of the Holy Spirit, now you're operating in manipulation. So make sure you're being discerning and not emotional when looking at the moves of God. We have to be careful about this. So it upsets the religious and the comfortable. It upsets the moves of the Holy Spirit upset. Your emotions can do that. If it was really just your emotions, whoever had an issue with anybody laughing, whoever had an issue with anybody crying, whoever had an issue with anybody being passionate. We see it in sporting events all the time, cheering, yelling, screaming, jumping. That's awesome. We appreciate that. But somebody gets like that for the Lord and all of a sudden we want to condemn it. Why? Because we're being emotional in our condemnation of people's response to the move of the presence of God. So your emotions don't have that kind of power to upset the religious. And this is why we have to be very careful with how we react to things. Don't react, respond. Discernment is a response, not a reaction. And so people will criticize moves of the Holy Spirit and try to say it was the Holy Spirit criticizing it when it was just their emotion. You did not discern it, you felt it. And now you won't admit that you got it wrong. And that's a difficult place to be. I know I have to watch my own heart. Guys, we all do this. I'm gonna say this again. We all do this, myself included. We have to be careful to be truly discerning and not emotional. Because when we begin to condemn moves of God based on emotion, well now we're operating in a way that the Pharisees did. So that's the final point I wanna make is that moves of God bring this disruption to the religious. Your emotions alone cannot do that. Now I wanna pray something. I wanna pray, first let me read this scripture, Matthew 11, I'm gonna read verses four through six. There was another example I had, Matthew 12, 22 through 24, where the Pharisees accused Jesus of operating a demonic power. Why? Because they were uncomfortable with it. Why? Because it's something they had never seen before. Why? Because they were jealous. Why? Because they were feeling emotional themselves. Now granted, there are abuses, okay? Balance. There are, I've seen some crazy, loony stuff that is not of the spirit. We don't allow those things in our services, but that doesn't mean that everything that is intense, everything that is expressive, everything that makes you uncomfortable is not of God. Matthew 11, four through six, Jesus answered and said unto them, go and show John again those things which ye do here and see. The blind receive their sight and the lame walk. The lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear. The dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. Embrace the Lord in his work. So we're gonna pray right now that you have an encounter in the presence of God focusing of course on Jesus himself. But let me recap here. Moves of the Holy Spirit begin in the spirit. It's okay to express things emotionally as long as we don't go believing that emotion can take us into the presence of God. If emotional expressions come from a move of God that's very different than if we tried to use emotions to cause a move of God. So moves of the Holy Spirit begin in the spirit. Moves of the Holy Spirit, yes, do affect us emotionally, but the differences are that a true move of the Holy Spirit will draw you closer to God. Your emotions alone cannot do that. True moves of the Holy Spirit will bring positive transformation in you. Your emotions alone cannot do that. And that doesn't mean that some cynic can judge you just because they can't discern the change that's happening in you. Next we see that true moves of the Holy Spirit bring glory to God, not to man. Emotions cannot glorify God in and of themselves. Finally, we see that moves of the Holy Spirit upset the religious and the comfortable. Your emotions don't necessarily always have that effect in and of themselves. Don't be offended by the Lord. Don't be offended by his work. I'm gonna pray the power of God touch you right now, but I want you to say this out loud and I want you to say it in faith. I want you to say it with sincerity. I want you to say out loud right now, welcome Holy Spirit. And I want you to mean that, welcome Holy Spirit. In fact, I want you to write that in the comments too. Let that be a public declaration. Welcome Holy Spirit. If you're someone who says, you know what? Whatever you have for me, Lord, I want it. Holy Spirit, you do your work. And yes, allow the Holy Spirit to correct you when you've added flesh to his moving. Allow the Holy Spirit to correct you when you've added emotion unnecessarily to something that he's trying to do when your emotions disrupt the flow of the spirit. That can happen. Let him have his way. Let him balance you out. Whatever extreme you're on, maybe you're just all about emotionalism. Let him balance that. Maybe you're all about intellectualism. Let him balance that. Be founded upon the word. Live your life based on the word. Allow the Holy Spirit to lead you. Let him balance you in whatever way. Father, I thank you that your presence and power are now moving upon your people. And I pray, Lord, that even now they would begin to encounter you in ways they never had before. Refresh them, Lord. Bring joy and peace. Father, let them begin to sense the touch of your presence even physically in the room with them now. Some of you may sense like a wind blowing across your room. Others may feel like a heat on your body. Some may feel like electricity. Some may feel like a weight. Some may feel nothing at all. It does not matter. Just surrender to the Holy Spirit and say whatever you want to do, do it in my life. Lord, I thank you that you're bringing healing and deliverance. I thank you that you're drawing your people closer to you. I give you the glory and the honor. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray, say it because you believe it. Now, I want to read a portion of scripture to you. Go to Matthew chapter six.  That's because it actually helps other people to see it. It's not just something I'm asking you to do for the sake of numbers in and of themselves. Are you leaving a like? You're actually helping to spread the content further. So if you think more people need to hear this, just leave a like. And also, don't forget to subscribe to my channel for more teachings like this. But go with me now, Matthew chapter six. I'm gonna begin reading at verse number 25. This is Jesus speaking now about the cares that we have in this world. That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life, whether you have enough food and drink or enough clothes to wear. Isn't life more important than food and your body more than clothing? I'll continue to read the scripture right now. But let me comment on this just for a moment. You know, there's always a reason to fear. There's always a reason. I should rather say it this way. There is always an excuse to fear. Believers don't necessarily have a reason to fear, but we do have excuses that can cause fear. You hear the news reports about the job market, the stock market, the economy, the currency, the forecasts for the future. Maybe it worries you. You hear the news about society as a whole, things changing, some things collapsing, other things transforming. Seems like it's difficult to find solid ground to stand upon. If you're not careful, when you hear these reports of things going on in the world, you can be filled with fear. But here's what Jesus is saying. Here's what Jesus is saying. He's saying, don't worry about everyday life. Verse 26, look at the birds. They don't plant or harvest or store food in barns for your heavenly father feeds them. And aren't you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don't work or make their clothing. Yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith? Ask yourself that. Why do you have so little faith? Do you wanna know the evidence of a lack of faith? It's fear. Fear is the evidence of a lack of faith. So don't worry about these things saying, what will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear? These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers. So the world worries about this.  But your heavenly father already knows all your needs. Now, Jesus gives us the solution here. Seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously. And he will give you everything you need. So I'm gonna ask you to do what Jesus says here and put the kingdom of God first. I wanna challenge you to support this ministry financially. Every believer, those who are wealthy and those who are challenged in the area of finances, every believer has a responsibility to give in proportion to what God has given to them. Now I understand the message of financial fruitfulness has been abused in the past. Yes, we know this. There are many who have been turned off to the message of financial fruitfulness because so many have abused it before. But that abuse of the message doesn't make the message any less biblical. I know there are some believers who are uncomfortable when you talk about finances. You can talk about sin. You can talk about the end times. You can talk about judgment. You can talk about wrath. You can talk about hell. But the moment you talk about money, something in their heart turns. And that is revealing. It shows that there's something in the heart that needs to be corrected. Why? Because it is biblical to give to the gospel. It is biblical to present the opportunity to the people of God to give. And this is something we ought to do, live in faith, not fear. Instead of looking around and saying, God, how will this happen or that happen? Live in faith. You see, fear grips. Faith releases. So allow the Holy Spirit to move on your heart to support this work. Our encounter services that we do around the world, we do them absolutely free. We do not charge registration. And they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars because of the large venues we have to get and the crew we have to bring. I can go on listing all day the various costs associated with these services, but we keep them free. Why? Because Jesus said, freely received, freely give. How do we do it?  All of the content is free, even though it costs thousands of dollars to produce each live stream, each episode. How do we do that?  We want to reach more people. We want to see the gospel advance. We want to see more soul saved, more people delivered, healed, and empowered by the Holy Spirit to step into their God-given callings so that we might see the work multiplied. So I'm challenging you now to resist that urge to withhold and fear. There's that little part of all of us that holds grips and maybe is a little nervous about these things, but seek ye first the kingdom of God above all else. Then all these things, what things? Those material things, they'll be added to you. So I'm asking you today to support this ministry as the Holy Spirit leads you. You can give a single gift by going to davidhernandezministries.com slash donate and you can become a monthly partner, which I'm encouraging many of you to do. Many of you have already done that. Monthly partnership helps us to plan for the year and the month and so forth. Monthly partnership is key. Become a monthly giver to the ministry by signing up for our automatic giving plan by going to davidhernandezministries.com slash partner. You're giving large or small, a single gift or a monthly gift. It all goes toward the advancement of the kingdom. So step out in faith today, exercise that faith muscle and do this for the Lord. This is for Jesus. This is for the Lord. This is for his kingdom. Do it today and we'll appreciate you and your giving.


mae'r ddechrau'n cael iddo i'r llwylliant yma i ddweud y nifer a'r yn ddweud y cyfranedd yma yn ysgolwydau ddechrau ac yma'r olyw ben o'i ddweud, felly yn ni fyddai ddechrau'n ei ddweud yma i ddweud ac yn i ffredd yn gallu rhoi, mae gennych wedi ddweud, a oeddwn ni'n ddweud yma yn oed. Mae'r llwyffau'r llwmpau o'r llwyffau yn oed ar hyn oherwydd, a'r ysgolwyr G4s yn ystod, ddylai'r gw抽'r srynwyr maes hwnnw yw ni'n siwr. Unwch i'r gwaith hon yw'r maes honny yw Llobster﹢ol. Gwbod o'u ddweud i helpu curvell, o'u ddweud o'u olympladau bywyrwyr... ...og unrhyw o ddweudio roi gan oed, o'u ddweud o dywedru saeth... ...og ond o'u rywun o'r hotel ar sian. Mae'r unrhyw pofysgu ffwmpio yn ymddangosio, o'i mwyfio, o'u zipwyr yn y Pwyrgyffredd... ...o'r rai hawl. By education was otherwise a staggering success and we need now to build on that success. The lesson of the Olympics is that we must never underestimate our strengths in this city or in this country. We are still the sixth biggest exporter in the world, the third biggest global exporter of services after the US and Germany. London is still the world centre of banking and finance, and even if the CEBR is right to say that the sector is likely to shrink from its current high of about 320,000, the same economic think tank has also pointed to the phenomenal growth we are seeing in sectors that scarcely existed 10 years ago. London leads Europe in nanotechnology, in biotech, in academic health science with a growing constellation of intellectual power along the Euston Road. I could take you to Shoreditch and introduce you to brilliant young men and women in funny shaped glasses who can do the time's super fiendish Sudoku crossword in four minutes flat, and who are coming up with apps that will allow children in Ohio to watch videos on their playstations. And that, which is good for London in some way that they explained to me, and that sector in which we now lead virtually every other city in the world with the possible exception of New York has come from almost nowhere to account for 40,000 jobs. We still dominate in property, in insurance, in accountancy and an incredible 47% of the world's legal services exports come from the UK. Most of them, of course, from London. Now, I would never encourage anybody to sue in the possible exception of Alison McAlpine. But if one oligarch feels defamed by another oligarch, it is London's lawyers who apply the necessary balm to the ego. And it is those ruble-fuelled refreshers and retainers that find their way into the pockets of chefs and waiters and dormant and janitors and nannies and tutors and actors and aromatherapists and keep the wheels of the London economy turning and put bread on the tables of some of the poorest and hardest-working families in this city. So I have no shame, whatever, in saying to the injured spouses of the world's billionaires, if you want to take him to the cleaners, darling, take him to the cleaners in London. Because the London cleaners will be grateful for your business. And with more Michelin-starred restaurants than Paris. Yes, a fact too good to check, I feel. More bookshops, twice as many bookshops as New York, the lowest murder rate in this city now in spite of the massive increase in population for 40 years. London this year is officially the most popular city on earth with 16.9 million people visiting. And it's also actually the most populous city in Europe as London's fantastic phylo-progenitive effort going on by the population. London's mothers are producing more babies than ever. And we are about to, we are going to beat New York. We're going to hit 9 million before New York. So after decades of post-war decay and depopulation, the demographic and cultural resurgence of London continues. And it is the chief glory, I would say, in great respect to everybody else who's spoken today, it is the chief glory of the UK economy. And we need to proclaim that resurgence and to protect it because we are locked in an intensifying competition with other great cities around the world. 19th century London became the biggest and richest city on earth. Why? Because it was open, because it had doctrines of free trade and openness to trade and talent. And I'm worried that we are at risk of losing some of that openness in what has been a very difficult time for the economy. We've moved from the age of excess under labour through this age of austerity, which I think should come to an end. Because if this country is to grow, we need to move to a new age of enterprise. And for enterprise to flourish, people like me need to be responsive to what is happening in the rest of the world. And we can't solve the banking crisis by imposing more regulations than our rivals in other European or indeed Asian jurisdictions. We shouldn't be gold plating the rules on capital adequacy out of some guilt for having got it wrong last time. If the result is, it makes London less attractive as a place to establish or to expand your business. And not only have we got to stop vilifying bankers, we need to make the moral case for banking, for financing ventures at risk, for the free market allocation of capital as the most efficient means of enriching the greatest number of people. Because human race has tried communism and it wasn't a howling success. And symmetrically, we need more moral leadership from the bankers. And it's not good enough, I'm afraid, for them to lick their wounds behind the stuccoed walls of their Notting Hill schlosses. And as that happens, I think they're doing much better than they used to and the climate is changing. And many leading financiers are now giving and engaging with society in a way that I don't think would have happened 20 or even 10 years ago. But they won't give and they won't engage if they feel persecuted and despised and regularly bashed by every politician under the sun. And indeed there is a risk that they will take their business away. And so we won't succeed as a society and a city if we actively set out to sabotage a sector in which we are very strong. And therefore we need to be careful that taxation is reasonable. And this year yet again Andy Murray reached the last 16 at Wimbledon, fantastic. Along with players from Germany, France, America, Russia, Spain, Argentina, Croatia, Switzerland, Uzbekistan and Serbia. Now of all those tennis players, who do you think faced the biggest single confiscation of the prize money from his national tax jurisdiction? Who was it? It was before Francois Hollande got in, by the way. It was Andy Murray. It was Andy Murray and the British top rate of tax is effectively higher now than any of our competitor countries. And he's worth bearing in mind. I mean I merely put it to you that Roger Federer was facing a tax rate of 20%. I don't know whether it made all the difference to Andy Murray as he lept, whether he would have gone half a yard further and faster if he had that extra incentive and I'm not suggesting frankly that it would. But in the end at the margin and across the board I do believe that high rates of personal taxation, consistently higher rates of personal taxation are likely to make us less competitive. And in case your heartstrings remain untwanged by the fortunes of a superstar tennis player, I should point out that the OECD now officially rates Britain as a high tax country with average earners now paying more than Sweden. We should have taxes that are low but fair and it is absurd to be suddenly whacking up taxes on cash poor people who happen to inhabit expensive houses in London when firms like Google are paying zero. Now neither arrangement strikes me as being very fair so Google and Co have a very clear choice. They can either change their tax arrangements or they can do much more visibly to serve the society in which they are making these profits by taking on more of the 54,000 18 to 24 year olds who are currently out of work. And that I passionately believe is the best solution for a city that had riots after all only a little more than a year ago. We need to boost apprenticeships and get young people into jobs and I look around this room, I know there are many many businesses here who are doing a fantastic job of taking on young people and helping us to reach our goal of 250,000 by 2016. Let's tackle youth unemployment by investing in education, by encouraging a culture of competition and excellence in our schools, by getting people into apprenticeships and not by slamming the door on all non-UK nationals. Of course we should keep out people who are going to be a drain on the state. But we need the software experts to be able to get here in days rather than in months. And we shouldn't have London's arts barons being forced to cancel events because the prima ballerina is stuck in minx and unable to get a visa. We have seven of the world's top 200 universities, four of the world's top 100 universities. Here in this city foreign students account for five billion cash in to the higher education economy. And it is utterly crazy that we have been losing potential Indian students to Australia and Canada and the United States. So my message is that on tax, on regulation and on visas we need to be careful to remove the barriers to growth. And above all, we in city hall and in government generally must create the physical platform for enterprise. We need security of supply for energy. The shard alone, once it gets filled, is expected to use four times as much juice as the town of Colchester. I mean that's electricity, not orange juice, electricity. Though I wouldn't be surprised. We desperately need more housing. And with the population set to rise by a million to 2020, we're talking about 300,000 more homes which we need in London alone. That may seem an astonishing number to you, but we have phenomenal opportunity areas that everybody involved in development in this city knows. In the docks, in Barking Riverside, Tottenham, Victoria and Ironham, Battersea, Croydon and so on. Brent Cross. Since I was re-elected in May this year, we've released public land, made public land available for development of the value of £490 million to help kickstart schemes. But we need to go further faster. There are 170,000 homes in London that have been consented but that are currently frozen on the plan. We need to get those homes built now and it's time for an aggressive strategy to expand the private rented sector to get London building as a single best way to drive jobs and growth. One in four SMEs in this city is involved in construction and I hope the Chancellor, I'm sure he is thinking of this, I think it would be a good idea if the Chancellor thought of cutting stamp duty on new build homes in order to promote supply. I hope he thinks about that in the autumn statement. Above all, to create the opportunity for those homes, we need to build the transport, local, national, international transport links that this city will always need to give us a global edge. If we want to unlock thousands of new homes and jobs in south London, then for heaven's sake, let's get on and do the city's number one shovel ready project, the Northern Line extension. Two new stations, Battersea and Llinelms. If we want to regenerate Totland and Waltham Forest and that area that suffered so badly last year, then let's put in four tracking on the West Anglia line. While we're on that line, let's put in a high speed link to Stanstead because you can't hope to compete globally if your hub airport is running out of space or indeed has already run out of space. I speak of somebody who circled only on Friday morning, who circled like all of us over Croydon for about 15 minutes having come in. We left Dulles Airport perfectly on time. He flew all the way across the Atlantic, attended by blown faster and faster by warm Atlantic zephyrs. We got over London and we had to spend 15 minutes circling over Croydon. We had a perfectly beautiful place, of course, but a wonderful thing to do. As the captain told me, every 24 hours planes circling over London use £300,000 worth of unnecessary aviation fuel enough to send a flight from New York to China. I congratulate, by the way, the CBI, John Krillin on the campaign that you have been running to get more aviation capacity. I think it's an argument that you are winning and I think it's very, very important. But I must warn you that the Heathrow option is a shammer snare and a delusion. It will be no quicker to deliver a third runway, a short third runway at Sipson than to deliver a 24 hour hub elsewhere. By the time you've been through the legal challenges and the toxic political chaos, and by the time this short runway has been completed in 2026 or 2028, to the detriment, by the way, of millions of Londoners who will wake up feeling as though somebody is using a hairdryer next to their ear. That runway, that space will be overwhelmed with planes and then the Heathrow lobby will be clamouring, as they already are, for a fourth runway with truly disastrous environmental consequences, slap bang in the middle of London's western suburbs. And instead of making that planning error, a catastrophic planning error, we now have a historic chance to do the right thing, to seize the nettle where previous generations have failed, and to go for one of three excellent options that have been identified by TFL, options for a new four runway hub that will allow British business to think and act way beyond the miseries of the Eurozone. Only this solution will allow us to reclaim those routes to Asia, to the growth cities of Latin America that are now being colonised by our continental rivals and airports on the continent. And that option will allow London to reassert its lead, not just as the commercial, financial and cultural capital of Europe, but as the world capital of the Bricks. And if you look at the options in the estuary, you can see the potential for hundreds of thousands of new jobs in South East England, one of the most productive parts of the whole EU. I believe that the lesson of the Olympics is that we should be brave and that we should go for it. Because if those games, if that effort taught us anything, is that we have extraordinary abilities in construction and engineering. And when we plan and when the private and the public sector work together and we build a political consensus, then there is no limit to what we can achieve. And above all, if we did this, we will be being positive and ambitious about our future, which is what frankly we need to be at the moment. We need to abandon the rhetoric of austerity. Because if you endlessly tell people to eat nut cutlets and tighten their belts and wear a her shirt and all the rest of it, that is not in my view a recipe for economic confidence. You are putting a downer on growth and enterprise at a time when global opportunities are growing and not shrinking. The world economic pie was worth $32 trillion in 2000. By the time of the crash in 08 it had doubled to $62 trillion. But in spite of everything that's gone on, it is still growing fast now at $72 trillion. In the immortal words of G.W. Bush, we are making the pie higher. And we are. And London firms globally, collectively, we are making the pie higher, $72 trillion. It will be $82 trillion at this rate in just a few years time. London firms should be superbly placed to claim their slice of that ever escalating pie crust. We have the right time zone. We have the right language. We have 300 of the right languages. It is a great, great city to live in, I hope you agree. We're going through a neo-Victorian phase of investment in public transport. Crossrail, as you'll have seen, is making fantastic progress. We're drawing up a 2020 vision for all the improvements we need to make, including Crossrail 2. We already have the cleanest, greenest new bus in the world. We have a steadily falling crime rate 12 points down on where it was four years ago to pick a period entirely at random. We have the streets pollulating. The streets pollulating with beautiful, blue, burly, banker-funded bicycles.  See our lead in the creative and culture sectors. And it is to help tell that incredible story about London that this week I'm leading a business mission to India with banking, law, retail, infrastructure, all represented on the mission. By the way, 3% of the cost to the public purse of the mission to India led in 2007 by my predecessor, Mr Lewis. I just thought I'd make that point. And I'm doing it. I'm leading that mission because you should never underestimate this city's protein ability to find new markets around the world. We export. I never tower of telling you, members of the CBI, you export bicycles to Holland. Mosquito repellent. Definitely a CBI member who does this. Mosquito repellent to Brazil. TV antennas to Korea. Tea to China. Rice to India. Piers Morgan to America. Not just cake to France, as I think I may have told you. Not just cake, but I discovered the other day we sell lavender perfume and lavender oil and essence of lavender. Grown from south London lavender to France. Parfan de Bromley. Ode Wollington. And frankly, we can sell that. My friends, we can sell anything, can't we? And that is the achievement and that is the result of the imagination of British business. Ever since London was founded in 48 AD by a bunch of pushy Italian immigrants. London has benefited from the consciousness that we are a great global city and we will win if we think global and open ourselves to the world. Thank you very much indeed.


Hello, I am Lucas Lasota and welcome to my presentation Why Device Neutrality is Important for Free Software. I work as a legal project manager at the Free Software Foundation Europe. Today, I will introduce you to an important topic concerning our freedom to choose and use devices and how the concept of device neutrality can help us safeguarding control over them. But first, let me thank the FOSTEM organizers for the hard work in making this event happen. I am also very grateful for the policy and legal deaf room managers for the opportunity to talk about this fundamental topic for our digital freedom. This talk is a follow-up from last year when I had the opportunity to contestualize router freedom in the light of net neutrality debate and the implementation in the European Union. In case you have any questions regarding this presentation, we will have enough time for Q&A, but you are also welcome to drop me a line. My email is displayed now on the bottom of the slide. Okay, so this talk aims to introduce the concept of device neutrality as a policy term and explain the practical consequences for the Free Software community. In order to do so, first, we needed to understand how big techs exercise their power over end users and how they distort competition on device markets by blocking installation of third-party software, locking users down and increasing switching costs which hamper individual freedom and fair competition. Then, we will discuss how the rationale behind the policy terms as net neutrality can provide us with insights to start dealing with such monopolies. For that, the term gatekeeper will be instrumental. We will learn that such monopolies could be broken by allowing end users to bypass the gatekeepers to access third-party software, content and services on their devices. Device neutrality would translate in this context as safeguarding software freedom in devices, protecting end users from blocking and allowing end users to recover control over the data. In the end of this presentation, we will inform what has been done for device neutrality and the next steps as many challenges await us in the future. So let's get started. What do you see in this picture? Well, digital devices are a present reality in all aspects of life. Used them for work, communication, entertainment and internet access. Such devices are powerful machines allowing us to have access to incredible amount of features and perform an infinite number of tasks. Our tablets, phones, laptops and other connected devices are general-purpose computers. It means we can potentially run any software we want to make full use of the hardware. However, our experience as end users has been pushed away from this freedom. While you use more and more devices, the number of such equipment on which we cannot run programs we want is exponentially increasing. The consequences is loss of user control over technology. Due to complex digital environments, manufacturer and regulatory lock-in and market monopolization, users' freedom has been gradually reduced. What is happening in the market for smartphones, for example, is paradigmatic. While the number of people using smartphones has achieved incredible high levels, the number of operating systems provided remains stuck. We took this chart only as an example, but it shows how concentrated the market is. In Europe and indeed across the world, there are in fact just two dominant mobile operating systems, Android and iOS. Both of them are proprietary. Android, born free software, but after the Google acquisition in 2005, the company has developed more and more apps on the proprietary schemes that have trapped users into a restrictive environment. The Google Play Store, the mobile application store and Google Play services are proprietary. While Android runs on hardware from different device manufacturers, whether under license for Google or not, the case with Apple is even worse with the hardware being bundled with the operating system. It is interesting to note, however, that the hardware market remains competitive with several manufacturers around the world. But as we know, the hardware alone is dysfunctional without an operating system. The main issue is that in contrast to the hardware scenario, there are significant network effects at the operating system, because companies are more inclined to produce software for an operating system with a large user base and consumers are more likely to adopt such an operating system. This colossal market concentration leads to serious distortions and abuse on how these companies treat end users. For instance, the term wallet garden is an euphemism to denote the complete submission of end users to a digital environment controlled by a company. While Apple and Google dominate almost completely the operating system and Apple markets, users are trapped into these companies' terms of services. These very few firms have strong commercial incentives to restrict users to their app stores, which they misrepresent as being, for example, for technical security privacy on other reasons. The negative consequences for software freedom, individual autonomy and digital sovereignty are obvious. Why we call companies such Google and Apple gatekeepers? These firms controlling devices may perform a gatekeeper function in the same way that a provider of internet access connection controls a gateway to the internet. This is referred by scholars to a termination monopoly. Such companies seek to intermediate between different groups of users in a way which means users have no alternative route to other services, software and devices. In very general terms, gatekeepers achieve this power by restricting software freedom by limiting users to install operating systems, browsers, app stores, drivers and etc. Locking devices down by controlling pre-installed apps, hindering interoperability and applying proprietary standards, increasing switching costs by restricting users on ecosystems, tying devices to online accounts and services, and humbling data portability. At this point, you can already perceive how bad the situation is. The great oligopoly we are now facing is not a technological issue, but a political one. Software freedom, individual autonomy, consumer welfare and digital sovereignty are all backslashed by commercial interests of a few giant companies. The challenge now is to find ways to disintermediate the power of gatekeepers to reestablish competition on markets and end user control over devices. Corey Doctorov, in his excellent book How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism, recognized that the size of giant tech companies give them power to cause such distortion on the market and users' rights. For him, the impact of dominance far exceeds the impact of manipulation and should be central to any analysis and any remedies we seek. User freedoms, including the ones relating to free software, depend on a political and economical environment in which they can exercise their free choice when using their device without being stuck on closed environments under control of gatekeepers. And here, the concept of open internet and net neutrality can provide us with some basic elements for dealing with that. When we analyze the terms in which the public debates around net neutrality in the 2000s in the US and in 2010s in Europe have developed, we identify some similarities in relation to fair competition on digital markets we are facing with gatekeepers today. Net neutrality originated from observation that there was little competition between internet services providers, which gave those ISPs market power and made them powerful gateways for consumers access. By then, the conclusion achieved was that, since the value of the network is located on its extremities, ISPs should not influence access to the content, service and communication. The transmission of data packages should be neutral. Since normally users use only one physical network for internet connections, neutrality obligations should be applied to all ISPs, not only to the dominant ones. As we will see further, device neutrality borrows some of these concepts and seeks to apply them to gatekeepers. Similar to what net neutrality imposed on ISPs, device neutrality aims to prevent discrimination of the services or apps by platforms or hardware companies exercising gatekeeper control. Therefore, what is desired for end-users is that they should be able to bypass device gatekeepers to access 30-part software and services. Device neutrality is understood as a policy term which the main goal are resolving determination monopoly on devices and safeguarding users with alternatives to reach software and content within their devices. Software freedom is dependent on how freely users can run software in their devices. Therefore, it is insufficient that gatekeepers do not interfere with users choices and activities. Users must be free to use operating system and applications of their choice and hence remove the application they do not want. Since its genesis, FSFE has been working to put control over technology in the hands of end-users. Along the years, we have gained experience with several dedicated activities focused on how users can keep their control over devices. For instance, the demands of our newest campaign, Upcycling Android, although concentrated in sustainability, intersects with several components of device neutrality as the freedom to install and run software in general purposes computers and full interoperability based on open standards. Other success of activities like router freedom and radio lockdown refer to the hardware layer of net neutrality principles. Such activities relate with what could be considered the first step for device neutrality from the perspective of telecommunications law. Nevertheless, we wanted to consolidate the necessary principles to empower users to regain control of their devices. We believe such principles are fundamental for our fair, competitive and considerable digital market. For us, device neutrality relates to safeguarding software freedom in devices, protecting users from vendor lock-in and regaining control over data in devices. Free software and open standards are key to achieve these goals. So let's talk more on each one of these principles. As we discussed before, blocking end-users' freedom to install, run and uninstall software on their devices is a central source of gatekeepers' control. Although gatekeepers may argue that installing 30-part software could be potentially a harm or two due to security, data integrity and privacy concerns, in fact, commercial interests are the main drive to lock users in. Instead, regaining control over devices requires safeguarding software freedom, therefore, defend that users should have the ability to install and uninstall any software, including operating system and app stores. Besides, gatekeepers should provide to third-party software the same access privilege as the pre-installed ones. This may sound common knowledge for the free software community, but it's far from being current commercial practice by gatekeepers. Keeping users in very restrictive environments is another key source of gatekeeper control. Users can only access and use different services if their devices can interact and communicate with other devices and services. Companies such as Apple exercise direct control of their customers by locking them into a very limited number of proprietary alternatives that operate within the same interoperable ecosystem. This results in less freedom for users and increasing off-switching costs. We, therefore, defend that gatekeepers should provide interoperability based on open standards, open drivers and open hardware. Besides, providers of operating systems should make available specification for APIs and functionalities invoked by third-party apps. Equally important, devices should not be bundled with app stores and online accounts. Gatekeepers should permit third-party app stores and code repositories in their devices. Last but not least, we believe that breaking monopolies over devices necessarily requires importing users to control their own data on equipment. Our smartphones, smartwatches, and computers are very personal equipment which accumulate a large amount of personal and non-personal data that we care about. Such data constitutes a switching cost that taking together can be decisive for users to exercise their freedom to change devices, especially if this includes switching between operating systems. We think the importance of the correlation between data and software tends to grow, we, therefore, advocate for data portability, and users should easily transfer personal data from apps, operating systems and devices. And most importantly, gatekeepers should be bound to open standards and common interfaces for data transfer. Facilitating data portability contributes to more user control over data and facilitates competition among device solutions. At this point, you may be thinking that all these principles sound quite utopistic or farfetched. But this is not true. We are very happy to report that device neutrality got attention from policymakers in Europe and was included in the Digital Markets Act, the European Union's largest initiative to regulate gatekeepers in digital markets. We will have an interesting talk about the DMA on this dev room, so I will not give you many details, but enough to say that device neutrality principles were included in the text voted by the European Parliament, except interoperability based on open standards. We are optimistic that the principles will survive the trilogues phase and remain in the final text. From the regulatory perspective, however, device neutrality is a very complex issue. Differently from net neutrality, which focuses on the network layer and ISPs, device neutrality encompasses the regulation of several elements of devices as operating systems, browsers, app stores, as well as interoperability and data portability. We therefore need a framework for free software and device neutrality that would allow us to monitor the DMA implementation and to make it rules effective. Net neutrality obligations, although simple to implement, are taking years to be properly applied in the European countries. For instance, our router freedom activity is all about devices from this perspective and has been running for several years now. Nevertheless, we remain confident that we can make a difference and change our digital future for the better. Our activities focused on device will continue to run and will develop further the implementation of device neutrality in Europe. So, if you stayed with me until now, thank you very much for the attention and please join us and support our work with a donation. Your help enabled us and our work for empowering you to control your devices. Thank you very much. Most people would choose an Android phone over iPhone because they believe it to be free software, not proprietary. Can you talk a little bit more about why you view Android as effectively a proprietary system? Yes, and hello everybody and thanks for being here and thanks also for the question, the support. Yeah, Android was born open source, was born free software and has been developed by a large community and Google joined the project in the beginning of 2000 and became its main contributor. And in 2000, passing the years, Google started to develop new functionalities and these new functionalities, these new functions, these elements of the Android ecosystem was being distributed under proprietary license. But unfortunately, this functionality, these elements, they were not introduced back to the region of free software environment ecosystem. And therefore, what people are receiving today in their phones and are proprietary elements. So, therefore, I could make this comparison between with iOS. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more and the thing I would add to that is, even though the kernel of Android is Linux, we see so many GPL violations on Android, it's so common that most users who get Android devices don't get the source code to the Linux software that's on there. That's been proprietary as to and so I really appreciate you flagging this issue and bringing it up. We're getting a lot of questions and you and I were also talking before about the question of what the legislative answer to this is. What laws around the world and in Europe can really hold gatekeepers accountable and change the ecosystem in some real way. I'm very happy to watch Torio's presentation today and he gave an amazing introduction to the digital market stock and the whole concept of it. And well, I think policymakers, they are concerned about the size of this tech giants. And as I put in my presentation as one of code from chorus doctor of say that size is a big issue. So, what they are doing to the market, they are monopolizing it and they are doing whatever they want. And that's the main issue. So, the Digital Marks Act tries to get already some obligations. As Torio also mentioned and answering already one of the questions here saying what gatekeepers are ready if you're late in some law. The thing is all this issue has been tackled from the perspective of competition law and competition authorities around the world have been imposing huge fines. We saw that fines that are surpassing billion of euros and dollars. But even so, all these procedures, these competition procedures, they take a lot of time and usually they start after already some, well, some unfair commercial practice has been already developed and being practiced on the market. And therefore we need to put something before our practice could be implemented on the market. And the Digital Marks Act is all about that. We have been involved in the legislative process and following up what are the principles that have been included in the do's and don'ts. And so these principles that we are advocating like software freedom in devices, interoperability, so no vendor lock-in and data portability have been included. Of course, not 100%. There are some problems if interoperability, interoperability was not defined by open standards. But I think we are making a great progress there. But also, as I said in my presentation, this issue is very complex and the implementation of GMA will be a matter for further discussion in the coming years. That's my big question. I have written right here in my notes when I watched your talk, it says, will the Digital Markets Act actually work and bring device neutrality? As written, do you believe it will work and will have the utopia of device neutrality when the DMA is in effect? Well, I want to believe so because this is a new competition too. And I think this is a very bold initiative to start tackling this problem, not as the traditional way as we have been seen since the 90s, considering these internet issues only a matter of competition law. But indeed, we need a new competition too. And this tool, I think it's a novel thingy. And I really look forward to the implementation. We'll have to work together with the Commission. We'll have to work together with organizations that will try to push this forward in national courts, within national competition authorities. But I remain optimistic. There will be a lot of work ahead, but I remain optimistic today. So Mick 32 is asking a question that I think that almost everyone who's not a free software activist is going to ask. The companies that put these devices together, they argue that they can't give the user more access and more control to change their operating system because of security reasons. What is your plan? How are we going to respond to that when the law starts saying that? I think this is a wonderful question. And this week, we have been seeing some news on the media that the Biden administration shared some concerns on DMA saying that they're targeting U.S. companies. And U.S. companies, they're saying that it will, yes, represent a risk for security, but we do not share this concern. I think these arguments of security, privacy, data integrity should be taken with a grain of salt because, in fact, the main driver of behind these arguments are commercial interests. And as we saw in the last presentation, there was in the beginning of 2000 manuals saying how to lock in your customers. So I think using such arguments on security and integrity is one of these arguments to lock users in. Yeah, I think that most Fossum attendees are going to agree with you and we all have a lot of work to do in our respective countries to convince our leaders to agree with you. And that leads us to the last question. The DMA is the EU specific law. Will the EU have enough clout and ability to affect the worldwide ecosystem? Can the EU really make big changes around the world by being the leaders in this area? Yeah, this is a very hard question to answer. Well, I think I'll take two examples. The first one wasn't the debate on net neutrality in the US. It started in the beginning of 2010. We had a regulation on net neutrality in the EU. And now this subject, we reached a consensus in the EU on net neutrality. The other thing is about data protection. We also passed this novel legislation in the EU about data protection. So I think the DMA can set the bar for other countries to look for and say, okay, now we have the bar. Perhaps we can surpass the bar and make some structure rules. And I hope so. For an example, I still think that the threshold for gatekeepers is too high. I would like to have a lower threshold for gatekeepers. But definitely, it's a good start for our conversation, a good start for lobbying on other countries to say, yeah, now we have a standard and perhaps we can do it better. Thank you so much for being here. I'd like to ask everybody to come join the room to ask you more questions. And they can actually join this chat if they click over to the room that'll be in the main channel briefly. Thank you so much for your talk.