Holy Spirit, have your way. I pray tonight, Holy Spirit, that you would begin to touch your people and use your word to shape us. We thank you for your presence that's here with us now. In the name of Jesus. Just a moment, just wait with hands lifted and eyes closed. Holy Spirit, come and let your presence be felt. Demonstrate your power tonight. We thank you and we bless you. Can you just say this, I want you to lift your hands and say welcome Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name. Well, I want to minister a word tonight and we'll get you guys going in just a moment. Can we get a chair for Stephen, please? Just so he can be here right here with Ishmael and how many appreciate the worship ministry of Mr. Stephen Montezuma. Always a pleasure, my brother. Ishmael, good to see you. I haven't seen you the whole trip. It's good to see you, my friend. I want to just settle in. I'm going to get into the word tonight. Then I want to minister as the Holy Spirit leads. What I love about ministering with the Holy Spirit is that you never know where the service will end up.  I pray that he would shape your heart, shape your character, shape your nature with the word. So I want to talk to you this evening about ascending the mountain of glory. Going to higher places in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Higher places in your walk with God. Now we understand that everything that God is resides in us. We understand that all that God offers has been given to us by the Holy Spirit. We understand that we don't need more of the Holy Spirit but rather we should learn to surrender more of ourselves to him. So when I talk about ascending to higher places in the Spirit I'm not just talking about receiving more of God because that's not possible. You can't receive more than all of him. I'm not talking about receiving more power, that's not possible. You can't receive more than all of the power of God which resides in you. Luke 1.35 refers to the power of the Holy Spirit as the power of the most high meaning it is the power of God that comes upon a life when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell. And we know that according to Romans chapter 8 verse 9 that those who are born again have the Holy Spirit. The moment you are saved you have the Holy Spirit. The moment you give your life to him, he's yours. You belong to him, it's a covenant. He comes to dwell in you in fullness, in the fullness of his power. In the fullness of his grace. Everything you need to pray. Everything you need to understand the Word. Everything you need to worship John 4.24. They worship in spirit and truth. Everything you need to evangelize boldly. Everything you need to drive out demons. Everything you need to heal the sick. Everything you need to preach the gospel. Everything you need to have confidence in your salvation. Everything you need to receive instruction from the Lord. Everything you need to understand the Word. All of it is in you the moment you gave your heart to Jesus. The moment you receive this free gift of salvation. I'm not talking about a tedious burdensome religious approach to trying to find these higher places. I'm talking about greater levels of surrender. I'm talking about allowing that which is in you to become manifested around you. I'm talking about releasing that which God has deposited in you already. Now I know that the enemy can lie to us. I know that the enemy can try to persuade you that perhaps you were the exception to God's grace. That you were the exception to the receiving of the Holy Spirit at salvation. The enemy will try to throw in your face your past mistakes, your flaws. The character traits that aren't quite polished yet. And if we're not careful we can become convinced that we're lacking. We can become convinced that we are without. I want to talk to you instead about approaching this from faith. So it begins in the Spirit. It begins in knowing who I am in him. It begins in being firmly planted in my relationship with Christ through the Holy Spirit by faith and by grace. So when I talk of ascending that mountain, I'm talking about the fact that your nature begins to disappear and God's nature begins to shine. Scripture declares, Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him. I told the Lord, Lord I want to be a was not too. He simply was not. He ceased to be. I'm talking about a fellowship, a union in which your presence and his presence become indistinguishable from one another. I'm talking about the ripping away of self and it is a tearing. A shedding of the old mindsets. A shedding of the old self. A shedding of your former ways. The higher up the mountain you go, the less of you that goes with you. I'm talking about a death to self. I'm talking about truly being alive in Christ. No longer I live, the Scripture declares, but Christ lives in me. This means that where I step my foot, the Christ steps his foot. This means that when I go to lay my hand, the Christ in me goes to lay his hand as well. My hands become extensions of his. I become an expression of God's divine presence in the earth when I begin to allow him to strip away. So I want to look at Exodus chapter 24. Before I go on reading, I do want to reiterate again that when I talk about this, I'm not talking about receiving more. I'm not talking about coming to this from the place of frustration because the reality is that when you come to the place of frustration, frustration is a great initiator, a terrible sustainer. Frustration will move you to come into an encounter. But if you're constantly living in frustration, my question to you is why are you lacking? Why are you constantly finding yourself in these cycles? And I want to talk about how to break those through ascension. So go to Exodus chapter 24, and we're going to look at Moses' interaction with the Lord. Exodus 24, I'm going to read beginning at verse number 12, and what I want to do is I want to go verse by verse. Now, understand the context here is that Moses was called to the top of the mountain. God picked him out of all of the children of Israel. God picked him out to lead. God marked him. God sanctified him when he encountered the presence of the Holy Spirit in Exodus chapter 3, and it was the presence of the Holy Spirit in Exodus 3. When Moses encountered the presence of the Holy Spirit, notice that when he came into contact with that fire, that it produced in him a desire to bring deliverance to a people. Whenever you come into contact with the presence of the Holy Spirit, God's desires will become your desires. And that fire transforms something in you. So Moses was called by God. He was hand selected by the Lord. And God began to call him. He gave him an invitation. He gave him a royal invite to come to the top of the mountain and fellowship with him. The mountain was a place to seclude with the Spirit. It represents a long time with God. It represents removing all distractions and standing before him, just you and him. Let's go to verse 12. Then the Lord said to Moses, come up to me on the mountain, stay there. Everyone say, stay there. And I will give you the tablets of stone on which I have inscribed the instructions and commands so you can teach the people. So first and foremost, we see that when God invites you to come with him on top of the mountain, he commands us to stay there. The issue is that many of us make contact with God, but we don't abide in the manifested presence. We don't abide in that time with him. We touch and we go and we try to treat God like we treat everything else in our lives. Now please, this is very dear to my heart. Let's not stand up and just get up in the middle of my message because these are things that are deep in the Spirit. Things that God has deposited in my heart. And me sharing this with you is me opening something that's very, very, very important to me. So we must reverence the truth here. So the Holy Spirit will invite us to the top and he calls us to abide there, not to come and go. And that's the issue with some of our mindsets regarding the presence of God. We imagine that there is this coming and this going of the presence of the Holy Spirit. But let me make this very clear. The Holy Spirit does not come and go. Jesus said, I will send you another. He will be your advocate and he will never leave you. That's what Jesus said. So when I go to this place of prayer, I must understand that this is not a place that I visit. This is a place where I abide. And it's in the abiding that we find the true power. When you go to the top of the mountain, some of us we make the climb. We find the presence and then we leave. And I'm going to show you how that looks. We come to the Lord burdened with mindsets, burdened with today's cares, burdened with responsibilities, frustrations with ourselves, things that we see in ourselves that we just wish we didn't struggle with. And these are the things that can burden us when trying to ascend to the mountain of God. He calls us to the top and as we move, we're tethered to the world by the things that distract our heart and mind. How many times have you gone to pray? Maybe 20, 30 minutes go by and then you realize I didn't do much praying. Or you begin to try to commune with God. And suddenly all of the things that were corrupt or sinful or shameful in your past begin to distract you. Go to Philippians 4, 6 through 7. I want to show you something. Philippians chapter 4, I'm going to read verses 6 and 7. There's a lot packed into just these two verses. Philippians 4, 6 and 7 says, don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. Now, first and foremost, I want you to notice that the Scripture says, don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Do you realize that worry is simply the flesh's powerless counterfeit for prayer? Worry is how your flesh prays. And we worry because we think we're in control. You know what worry is like? It's like me when I'm driving and riding in someone's car as the passenger and they're not breaking fast enough for me and I start pressing my foot onto the floor. Even though there's no break there. That's what we're doing when we're pressing on an imaginary break that we don't have. We're tensing because we think that somehow we're going to solve it and we imagine that by obsessing about it long enough and hard enough that we're somehow going to solve it. Worry is a useless attempt at control. Worry is your flesh's counterfeit for prayer. So what does the Bible say? Say, don't worry about anything. Now, this is easier said than done like many of the things that we read in Scripture. But the Scripture is quite literally telling us not to worry about anything. Now, I don't know if I'm quite there yet. I was sitting with the man of God telling me a story about how he was in a plane crash or so they thought. They thought the plane was going down. There were some issues with the instruments and they woke this man up. They said, you have to wake up. You have to wake up. We're having trouble with the plane. He wakes up frustrated with them. He said, why did you wake me up? Jesus slept through the storm. I'm going to sleep through this. Maybe one day I'll be there. But don't worry about anything. Pray about everything. Do you realize that when you're worried your emotions become entangled in your prayer life? Worry chokes out the faith from your prayers. So what does the Bible say? Instead, pray about everything. Now watch this. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. Then, then, then, when? So this is a sequence of events. Stop worrying. Start praying. Tell God what you need. Now here's what's interesting to me. The Scripture declares that God delights in every detail of our lives. Yet, yet we've been taught that when you pray for something you're demonstrating immaturity. The prayer request is probably the most criticized form of prayer. How many times have you heard quit asking God for things and just love him? Why is that?  Do you realize that the prayer request isn't just a distraction to prayer. It's not some lesser form of prayer. Sure, it's more basic, but that doesn't mean it's least important. I want to show you something here because this will change the way you pray. And when we're talking about going up the mountain and talking about abiding, you have to understand that in order to ascend the mountain, you must disconnect from the flesh. So how do you disconnect from this body? I'm not talking about a physical death, so please don't go putting these videos on YouTube and just posting that section, okay? I'm not talking about physical death. I'm talking about disconnecting from that person who worries, taking off that shell of who you are so that you're free to be who you actually are in the spirit. Now, how do you do this? Because it can become a struggle if we're not careful. And in fact, we become so desperate to encounter God that that desperation and that focus on the encounter, those themselves become a distraction to actually encountering God. All of these things start to cause worry. But the Bible tells us here to tell God what you need and thank Him for what He's done. This tells me that I can be thankful for what God has already done while also asking Him for more. It is not a sin for you to ask God for help in your finances. It is not a sin for you to ask God for help with your school or your academic pursuits. It's not a sin for you to request that God help you with the job or help you get a car or help you in your relationships or help you find a spouse or help you be a good parent. It's not a sin to make your request known to God. Here's the problem, because the Bible gives us that sequence. We come burdened.  And I'm trying to walk up this mountain to meet with God. That backpack will make that climb very, very, very difficult. You can get there, but it's going to take you a lot longer. And so we start to ascend that mountain, worries of the world, relationship issues, financial issues, everything you could possibly imagine that would weigh down your mind. It slows your progress. Now when I make a prayer request, I'm taking off the backpack and handing it to God. The prayer request is the removing of the cares of the world and placing them on his shoulders. Prayer request is powerful. Here's the issue. We're filled with chaos. We're filled with worry. I need this. I need that. And God wants to meet those needs. We come to him. We say, Lord, I give these burdens to you. Then what happens is the Scripture says, after you make your prayer request, then says thank him for all he has done. Ask him for what you need. And after you that, do that. Then you will experience God's peace. So now I give him my worry. I give him my responsibilities. I give him all of those things that are on my mind. And when I hand those to him, then he exchanges those things with his peace. Here's the problem. We make the exchange. Take my burdens, God. I'll take your peace. We go, oh, what a great prayer session. Thank you, Lord. Please hear me. Peace is not the conclusion of prayer. It's the beginning. You see, when you receive peace, it's because you took the backpack off. You're starting your climb.   He gives you his peace. The peace is not just to make you feel good. The peace was given to you not just to have you stop worrying. The peace was given to you so that your climb up the mountain is easier. Some of us forget to take the backpack off when we pray. God, can you hear me? God, are you there?  Imagining that God is folding his arms, looking down at us when we approached the prayer room. Where were you all this week? The scripture says that a thousand years is like a day to him. I don't even want to know what one day is like to him. Time's irrelevant.  We imagine that God is just putting up with us. Some of us imagine like he's just right there, just right about there, ready to cut the ties of our salvation. And then one more mistake and oh, he's done. No, no, no, no. He's much more patient than we are sinful. He's much more forgiving than we are stubborn.  And he wants you to... See, we think this, oh Lord, I haven't seen you in days. I don't even want to ask you for anything. So what do we do? We take a religion's approach and we punish ourselves by keeping our backpack. And oh Lord, I'm trying to find you up this mountain and we think that God's pleased with it when he's just saying, hurry up, put that down and get up here. So when I enter that peace, what does the Scripture say? It says, tell God what you need. Thank him for what he's done. There's the prayer request and then there's faith. Lord, here's what I need. Thank you, Lord, because I know you're going to do it. Now let's climb this mountain. When your mind is free from distraction, when you're filled with his peace, prayer is not a tedious, difficult task.  This is why some of us have trouble praying because we imagine that when we go to pray, we're going to have to work for the connection. We imagine I'll have to make up for all this lost time and what we're doing is we're taking a religious mindset on and approaching to prayer.  Peace precedes revelation. If my mind is so cluttered with my own thoughts and worries, I'll never allow what the Holy Spirit is speaking in me to become revelation. The scripture says, thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind has stayed on thee. Verse 13, So Moses and his assistant Joshua set out and Moses climbed up the mountain of God. I want to point out to you in fact that Moses did climb.  Can't tell you how many times people have asked me, Brother David, how do I start a prayer life? I tell them just start. The only way to begin praying is to begin. You see the Holy Spirit will give you the desire. It's your part to enact the discipline. The Holy Spirit will give you the desire. It's your part to enact the discipline. He gives you spiritual desires and by the way if you desire to pray it was the Holy Spirit who gave you that desire in the first place. Therefore the desire to pray is itself an invitation to prayer. So when he gives me that desire it means I'm being called. When I want to pray it means I'm being called. When I feel that sense to seek his face it means he's calling me because otherwise you would not have that desire. So stop listening to the enemy who will tell you that God doesn't want to talk to you or that you shouldn't pray or that your past disqualifies you from becoming a person of prayer if there is even the smallest desire to pray and climb the mountain of God it means the Holy Spirit himself put it there. But I must climb. I must set the time. I must make my schedule. If you're too busy to pray you're too busy. If you're too busy to pray you're too busy. I can accomplish more in a prayer filled day than I can in a prayerless week. See sometimes we think that prayer is going to cost us more time when it's actually prayerlessness that costs us more time. Because then we go when we start making decisions without the guidance of the Holy Spirit and we have the tendency to mess things up. Don't tell me you don't have time for prayer when you're caught up on the latest Netflix series. Don't tell me you don't have time for prayer when you took the latest Buzzfeed quiz on what type of bread you are. Do you realize and I know this is something that's so often talked about especially in our generation and you hear so many people say it social media taking up so much of your time social media taking up and it's true. But do you realize that at some point you have to stop listening to just hearing that word and you have to actually start doing something about it.  What have you done? If you have to wake up earlier wake up earlier if you have to stay up later stay up later whatever you have to do to rearrange your life around prayer do it. And I promise you this that the one who prays walks with God and here's the thing we so often miss these things I could see sometimes why God repented that he made man. I can see why sometimes Jesus was so frustrated we were like what these how long do I have to put up with you because I see so many flaws in me I see so many mindsets that need to be broken. He calls us to prayer God and the problem is we're so distracted in our living and we've heard that before that's what's so crazy to me we've heard that and have done nothing about it himself is inviting us to know him to know his mind to fellowship with him and all too often we ignore those pleadings really their pleadings of the Holy Spirit we must climb we must set aside the time we must rearrange the day we must do everything we can to stubbornly cling to our prayer lives and sacrifice it for no one I'm married I have a daughter but my wife and my daughter do not come before the Lord and if your marriage or your children or your anything else comes before the Lord you're making a mistake because the only way I can be the husband my wife needs me to be is if I'm a man of prayer the only way I can be the father my daughter needs me to be is if I'm a man of prayer and we make our excuses and we go about our day exchanging the supernatural for the mundane exchanging the heavenly for the earthly spiritual for the secular and we do it every day but God is looking for people who are faithful to prayer verse 14 Moses told the elders stay here and wait for us until we come back Aaron and her are here with you if anyone has a dispute while I'm gone consult with them I really sent strongly this word for someone when you go to higher places not everyone can go with you I believe in divine connections yes but I think more importantly God will often give us divine disconnections this is a heavy word I know I know it's heavy because the Holy Spirit is making it heavy there are people who will hold you back there are people who will waste your time and it's just a fact you say well shouldn't we be like Jesus shouldn't we talk to everyone who needs Jesus didn't you think Jesus talked to everyone who wanted to talk to him no way in fact he would often retreat in fact there were times when he was leaving a town and they said Lord there's still all these things in my next assignment now I'm not talking about being cruel or at all neglecting those who need the gospel or who need help I'm simply talking about being intentional Jesus comes first before all our loved ones and we must guard that time now there is a partnership in prayer the Holy Spirit gives that desire I respond to that desire with discipline I begin to dig that well I begin to seek His face this is what we all must do and something happens there in that partnership that I want to show you and it's found in verse 15 tell me if you can see it the partnership between God and man then Moses climbed up the mountain and the cloud covered it I can only do the natural and sometimes in doing the natural it can feel interesting but I want you to understand that whether you feel it or not prayer is doing something please hear me when I say this it is impossible to accomplish nothing in prayer for every moment you are praying you are changing for every moment you are praying you are growing for every moment you are praying every moment in prayer how could it be possible that I spend even a second in God's presence without it affecting me in some way I think we become frustrated in this area and I can't tell you how many times I've talked to people who said I can't overcome this sin or I can't change this thing about my character or I'm struggling in this area and I tell them you need to seek the face of God you must get into the place of prayer and forward and back and forth and though their prayer life is inconsistent they expect their spiritual strength to remain consistent their prayer life is inconsistent yet they expect their spiritual strength to remain consistent how is that possible if your prayer life is up and down you will be up and down if your prayer life is all over the place you will be all over the place but when you are praying please hear me You're standing before God and you're pleading with Him and I'm talking about truly pleading. This is how you can overcome sin by the way. I'm not talking about, oh I tried repenting. No, no, no, because sometimes we think that feeling bad for something we did is repenting. I'm going off on somewhat of a tangent here but I really sense the leading of the Holy Spirit here. We begin to feel sorry for what we did and we think that apologizing to God is repentance. Let me tell you how deceptive the flesh is.  You know how to overcome that? You get on your face before God.   It's really not going to change. Now I'm not talking about trying to convince God to do anything. I'm talking about the death of the flesh because persistent prayer as I've said before is not convincing God to do anything. He's working with you. When you go before God and you say Holy Spirit, I can't stand this thing in me. Holy Spirit, you're going to have to help me. I'm talking about really going to the deep places of groaning. That's the kind of prayer that liberates and you may sense nothing in that moment. You may be praying and you look around and it's the same plain ordinary settings of your room. You sense nothing changing. You sense no presence. You sense no power. I'm here to remind you that prayer still works whether you feel it or not. Please hear me because it may take a couple of weeks. It may take a few months. But if you're on your face before God every day saying Lord, change me. Lord, transform me. Lord, set me free. Something is going to happen in you. You know why people don't pray? Because they don't believe prayer works. Let's just be real. The only reason some people don't pray is because they don't actually believe that it works. But when I go before God, something is happening and there's a partnership here. Moses climbed the cloud covered. All you can do is your part and that's all we could ever do. Everything that has ever been done that's supernatural in the scripture began as a command to man and became a fulfillment of God's power through his promise. It's all partnership. I preach the gospel. What a strange thing that I stand up there and preach the gospel. I tell them a story of God and I tell them about what the Bible says and that God through that transforms the heart.  Who thought of that? That's the Lord's mind. All I have to do, I place my hand on your head. I mean, many of us know, I mean, we know we're only flesh. Why does that do anything? It's the faith. It's the partnership. We stand here, they play some music. We do this with our hands for some reason. No, really think about it. This is where my mind goes with these things. We vocally project hopefully in the proper key and suddenly the room changes. You get on your face before God, you start praying for your family.  I'll tell you, we have the easy part. That's why all he asks of us is faith, because we have the easy part and even then we still sometimes mess it up. He says, believe, just do what I say. Lord, how about, how do I just do what I say? That's the power of prayer. That's the power of partnership with God. Verse 16. And the glory of the Lord settled down on Mount Sinai. And the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day, the Lord called to Moses from inside the cloud. Here is that royal invitation. No one else being allowed. It's you and God. The invitation has been sent to all believers, but few of them actually respond. Verse 17. To the Israelites at the foot of the mountain, the glory of the Lord appeared at the summit like a consuming fire. I love this. I love this. I love this. I love this. Verse 18. Then Moses disappeared into the cloud as he climbed higher up the mountain. He remained on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. Now, Pastor Vlad, you know me better than most people do. We're close, and I'd say year by year we'll be coming closer and closer. Do I strike you as the kind of guy who would go to the mountains and camp? He said no, and that's correct. My idea of camping is going out into the woods, nature, and then going back to my cabin to sleep at night. That's my idea of camping. I'm not, I don't know. We spent years and generations as a civilization to try to get indoors and people decide to go outdoors. It just doesn't make sense to me. All of this progress we've made is the human race to have inside air condition and all that, and we want to go back out there like, no, that was where they suffered. I'm not, I would never call myself like a mountain man type guy, but I want to be a man of the mountain. I want to be a person who ascends.  Because the question, the question is important. Am I someone of the mountain top? Because people of the mountain disappear in God. People of the mountain are friends with Him. Think about the covenant He gives us. Your battles are my battles. My resources are your resources. Your enemies are my enemies. Covenant with God. Friendship. You know why so many things, I mean, there are so many times I can look in my life and say that went so perfectly right and I know it has nothing to do with me. Anything you see that needs work in me, give me grace. Anything you see that works, give God glory. Because God doesn't move because of me, I promise you. He moves in my life despite me. What's He looking for? He's looking for someone who comes to the mountain. Moses wasn't perfect, but he had the ear of God because he was a man who would talk to him face to face. You know, I pray some of the strangest prayers. When things aren't going right, it's not even my problem when things start doing this in the ministry. You know, it's a roller coaster. Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down. When things start going down I just say to God, I go, Lord, I'm not going to str- that's your problem. I say, Lord, if anything happens to this ministry, what are they going to think about you? You say, that's bold, he's my friend. Now does that mean I have no reverence for God?  But you know that exact prayer is in the Psalms. If my enemy should defeat me, Lord, what does that say about you? It's not a disrespectful saying to God. What it is, it's saying, God, this is on you. You know why I can say that? Because I'm a friend of God. He's my friend. But don't really think about that. What that means. People come against me all the time. You should go look up some of these wonderful videos they make on me. I talk with my hands and every now and then I make a triangle with my hands and suddenly I'm in the Illuminati. I'm serious. I do this and they go, oh, they think like the devil owns triangles or something. And I'm saying, people come against me. I say, Lord, bless them.  That's what blessing means to me, the will of God be done. Just Lord, I'm leaving that to you. Sometimes the team will come to me, here's an issue we're dealing with, this is a problem. I say, okay. And I just leave it to God. If it wasn't for the Lord, you may look at this ministry and say, oh, wow, God uses it and God anoints that ministry. Can I just be real with you? If it wasn't for the presence of the Holy Spirit, me personally, I'd be a million broken pieces on the floor. The reason God uses me is because I gave him my weakness. I had nothing but weakness. Nothing but weakness. Pastor Vlad, I've heard you talk about this, some of those things, those insecurities. It really is. Mind nothing, but I'm a friend of God. I'm a person who climbs that mountain. Why do things seem for some people to just be the right thing at the right time under the right, they're people of the mountain. Now, Moses on the mountain top received instruction for the people down in the valley. When you're a person of the mountain, God assigns you to help the people in the valley. If you don't go to the mountain top, what will you have to say to the people in the valley? Moses went and he met with God. What if he came back with no instructions? Think about the time that Peter, James and John followed Jesus to the Mount of Transfiguration. They see the glory of the Lord. They come back down the mountain to some disciples trying to cast out a demon and they can't do it. Do you know why? Because only those who spend time on the mountain can cast out demons in the valley. Valley problems require mountain top solutions. There's a lot of talk about privilege today. Privilege, privilege, privilege. I'm here to say embrace your privilege. Embrace your privilege. There is no greater privilege than knowing Jesus. There is no greater advantage in life than the presence of the Holy Spirit in me. No, please hear me. Nothing can keep you down.  And all God requires is that you ascend.  What can anyone do to you? No, really. If God is for me? Who? Who? I dare them. Who can be against me? For that confidence comes from that faith, that power? Time with him.


Present all throughout pop culture, from Marvel's Captain America and Teen Titans Red Star to the Clone Troopers in Star Wars, super soldiers have been portrayed as ultra-powerful super-humans in various fictional universes.  But what exactly is a super-soldier? And more importantly, can the concept of a super-soldier be implemented in reality? So, first off, what is a super-soldier? A super-soldier is a human who has been genetically modified. That is, had their natural DNA altered by scientists to be stronger, faster and more meticulous than a normal human being is naturally. While the super-soldier has never been created before, the alteration of DNA by scientists to achieve other desired functions is done all the time in labs around the world. DNA consists of four different bases, arranged as a sequence of nucleotides that form genes with specific functions. A very specific order of the nucleotide basis codes for a certain function. Any change to the order, even if that change is just a single base, can completely alter the function of the gene. Genetic engineering utilizes this concept in order to change the function of a gene to complete a desired task. For example, if a natural mutation in a gene resulted in a cell not being able to synthesize a functional copy of a protein, that gene can be genetically modified, not only to be able to synthesize the normal copy of a protein, but to even synthesize a copy more efficient than the normal one. While many different methods exist to genetically modify DNA, we will discuss here one of the most promising and powerful methods of DNA alteration. CRISPR-Cas9 CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspace Short Palindromic Repeats, while Cas9 is short for CRISPR-associated protein 9. Originally found in bacteria, CRISPR-Cas9 is a natural defense mechanism against viruses. The CRISPR portion of the CRISPR-Cas9 system consists of nucleotide sequences taken by the bacteria from invading viruses and stored as the sequences in the bacteria's own DNA. The Cas9 protein is an enzyme that recognizes viruses through the help of a guide RNA that is synthesized using the viral DNA or RNA stored in the CRISPR sequences. Cas9 then makes a cut at a restriction site in the viral DNA or RNA, thereby preventing it from hijacking the bacterial cell's machinery and propagating itself. A restriction site is a specific sequence of bases in DNA that can be recognized and cut by restriction enzyme proteins such as Cas9. Utilizing CRISPR-Cas9, scientists can cut sequences of DNA at a specific site, allowing for the insertion or deletion of bases that can remove, add, or change the function of a particular gene. The process by which a gene is removed or made inoperable is called a gene knockout, while the process by which a gene is added or its function is changed is called a gene knock-in. There have been several examples of CRISPR being used to genetically enhance other living organisms. For example, both knockout and knock-ins have been performed on mice to reverse the effects of blindness. Blindness in mice is caused by the degeneration of rod photoreceptors due to the mutations in various genes. However, by implementing CRISPR-Cas9 and targeting the NRL gene, the rod's survival rate can be increased, thereby slowing down and preventing the retinal degeneration that leads to blindness. This treatment, when tried on three different groups of mice, resulted in the improvement of rod's survival and gain a function of malfunction rods in all three groups. Similar to tests performed on mice, CRISPR has been used on other organisms showing positive results. Zebra fish have been used to study autism spectrum disorder, while fruit flies have been used to study cancer. CRISPR has also been used in cuttlefish, pigs, and ants. So, how exactly can CRISPR be used on a human to create a super soldier? Super soldiers tend to be stronger and faster than normal humans, with greater endurance and heightened senses. It would then make sense for CRISPR to be utilized on genes that affect muscle growth, bone strength, lung capacity, heart strength, hearing, smell, vision, and the sensitivity of nerves. A typical procedure would entail designing genes that could encode specific functions you would want your super soldier to have. This might mean the production of more proteins to speed up a cellular function, the synthesis of new enzymes that are more powerful than the current enzyme present, or even production of new proteins that can add new functions to your cell of interest. At both ends of this new gene, a sequence of DNA bases complementary to a restriction site on the human DNA is present. You also need to design a guide RNA that the Cas9 protein will use to locate the restriction site to make a cut. Once a cut is made in the human DNA, the new gene can be inserted, and the new function coded for by that gene can be carried out by the cell. This can be done by several different new gene inserts to achieve a set of desired functions for your super soldier. So, can we actually create a super soldier? Theoretically, yes we can. However, due to several reasons, scientists have not implemented CRISPR on a large scale yet. While CRISPR has been used to combat cancer, blindness, and other genetic diseases, concerns about ethics, safety, and bioterrorism have slowed down its implementation in healthcare. In the United States, concerns have been brought up about unintended side effects that could be passed down to the next generation and quickly proliferate in the human population over the years. There have also been fears that CRISPR may be used by people for more sinister plans. While developing super soldiers to protect and benefit society sounds really great, the same genetic technique can be utilized by terrorist groups and criminal rings to hurt people. CRISPR should thus be used very carefully so that we can fully take advantage of its benefits while still addressing ethical and bioterrorism concerns. While a super soldier may not be implemented anytime soon, the usage of CRISPR to help cure or fix debilitating conditions such as cancer and mental disorders is definitely a possibility in the near future and will revolutionize healthcare. But outside of making super soldiers, CRISPR has many other applications which will be discussed further in this two-part collab with Adam's Talk. If you wish to learn more about how this amazing Cas9 enzyme is used, be sure to click the link and check out their video. But before you do that, hit the subscribe button and notification bell for the science first. And as always, stay tuned for more science videos.