We see this interesting story in Ezekiel. We see this story that's known as the story of the valley of the dry bones. We see this picture in Ezekiel where these bones are coming up out of the ground and they're getting connected back together.  Maybe I should call the sermon like clues and milestones zombie apocalypse, right? Because it's this story of like these bones and skeletons coming together and they're covered with skin and they're covered with, you know, they're basically being put back together again. It's kind of a morbid type of scene here that we see in Ezekiel chapter 37, but of course it's not talking about zombie apocalypse. I'm going to explain to you what this means this morning in our clues and milestones series. I'm sure there's somebody out there that probably teaches that this is the zombie apocalypse. I mean, I don't know that, but I'm sure there's a YouTube video, okay? But anyway, in all seriousness, we're in clues and milestones this morning and we're going to be looking at Matthew 24. So go to Matthew 24, keep your place in Ezekiel chapter 37. I'm going to explain to you what Ezekiel chapter 37 is actually picturing this morning and how it's important to us today, okay? Go to Matthew chapter 24 and let's look at the context of the sermon this morning. So we're in clues and milestones this morning. So what is the point of this series? We're talking about clues and milestones of the end times and what the Bible has to say. So we've done a couple of sermons on milestones, like globalism is something that is being pushed today. I've done a sermon on that. The abomination of desolation where the antichrist comes, this antichrist figure, and he puts a statue in this temple that doesn't exist yet and he forces everyone in the world to worship this image and this is where the mark of the beast comes in. This is where the cashless society comes in. We talked about that. But the point is in the abomination of desolation, that's a milestone. We're not going to miss that, right? We're not going to miss that event. There's many signs in the earth. We talked about that. That's a clue, right? That's a clue. I mean there's earthquakes and signs in the earth and storms and all these types of things all the time. We talked about the cashless society. This is again, it's a clue. It's how the antichrist will control people that do not comply to what he wants to put in place, which is basically the Bible believing Christians. You, all right? That mark of the beast all plays into that. We also looked at the destruction of Babylon, this time towards the end of God's wrath. You know, that is a milestone. We're not going to miss that. Well, actually we won't even be here, but that's something that is going to be a drastic event. So the point is this. There's two points to this series before we even get into Matthew chapter 24. The two points are this. The first point is the timeline. I want to have a sermon series so I can keep repeating the timeline to you so we can understand what is going to happen first, second, third, fourth, fifth. That is super important because if we misunderstand the timeline, and that's really what I'm going to show you this morning, if you don't understand the timeline of the end times events, you will make all sorts of mistakes and misjudgments in what is happening right in front of us, especially today. So the timeline is important of the end times events according to what the Bible says. That's the first thing. The second thing is the title of the sermon series. There's clues and there's milestones. So there's certain things that we can see as clues.  The end is here. These are clues. And look, people that don't know the Bible make these mistakes all the time. There's a blood moon, and somebody writes a book that sells millions of copies because it's like the end is here. And we need to understand what is a clue, what is a milestone, and what is the timeline of events. And then we won't make these misjudgments and mistakes. And the one I'm gonna show you this morning, the clue that we're gonna look at this morning is super important because if you misunderstand this clue, it can be falsely applied to where you can make horribly bad moral judgments in your life and what is happening in the world today. Look at Matthew chapter 24. We can't take all that to say this. We can't take the clues as milestones. They're clues, okay? They're clues. Look at Matthew chapter 24. We're gonna look at a clue this morning. Look at Matthew chapter 24 and verse number three. Jesus is talking about to the disciples about what's gonna happen in the end times. Verse number three, it says, and as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately saying, tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming and the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name saying I am Christ and shall deceive many. Look at verse number six. This is gonna be our focus this morning. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars and see that ye be not troubled for all these things must come to pass but the end is not yet. So the Bible here is saying that when the end is approaching, you know, first of all, we're in the last days. Jesus was in the last days, meaning the latter half of history. We're in the last days. But we're not in the end times, okay? We're not in the end times. We're not in Daniel's 70th week, all right? We're not there yet. And we're gonna know when those things are going to happen because of the timeline that the Bible tells us. But the Bible says here, Jesus says, you're gonna hear of wars and rumors of wars. So this is a clue.  But this clue will show you the seriousness of end times misinterpretation.  Is that a big deal if that's what you believe? That in itself, no, it's not a big deal but it will lead to serious errors and serious consequences. And that's what I'm gonna show you this morning. And look, we're seeing it today. And that's why I'm preaching on this this morning. It will lead Christians, save Christians to having their moral compass completely flipped around. And quite frankly, it kinda shows you that if you don't interpret the Bible literally what God says in the Bible, you're gonna be a backwards Christian today.  So we must listen to what the Bible says. And look, when you read it correctly for what it says, it's not complicated. It's not complicated. You don't have to jump backwards through hoops and try to take a sledgehammer and smash a huge round peg into a tiny square hole. You don't have to do those types of things. It's very simple. So let's look at this clue this morning of wars and rumors of wars. The Bible says as the end times approach, we're gonna see wars and rumors of wars. You say, pastor, that's crazy. There's always war. There's always rumors of wars. It's like, thanks a lot, Jesus. Did you get more specific? I agree. There are wars and rumors of wars constantly. I mean, just look throughout history. And let me not confuse you this morning. Let's just look through US history. Let's just start from 1776 and let's look at the warfare in the United States. And I'm gonna, I'll even narrow it down. I won't even really talk about international warfare. Let's just talk about the domestic warfare in the United States. And look, there's a trend here. And I wanna show you this. So let's look at US history this morning real quickly. All right, you're gonna keep your place in Ezekiel chapter 37. We're gonna get there in just a few minutes. But let me show you something about wars and rumors of wars. Why, this is why we can't say, oh, there's a war, the end is here. Look at the history, 1776, what happened? That was a declaration of independence. What was happening during that time? We had the Revolutionary War from 1775 to 1783. So that's the first domestic war in the United States. You say, oh man, there's a lot of peace after that. There's a lot of peace after that. Well then we had the start, in 1775, actually, we had the start of what is known as the Indian Wars in the United States. Now, the Indian Wars basically went from 1770, early 1770s, all the way to like 1920. As settlers in the United States pushed west, it was just Indian War after Indian War after Indian War. They're literally known as the Indian Wars and it spanned well over 100 years in this country. And I'm not even gonna count like the Barbary Wars and all these overseas wars that happened during this time. So 17, the War of Independence ends in 1783. Then you're like, oh, we had a lot of peace. Well then we had the start of the Indian Wars and the Indian Wars were just happening as the continental United States was being settled. Then you had the War of 1812. Another war against England, England wanted more. So we fought England again. And then after that, I mean, again, Indian Wars are still going. After that in 1845, I think it was, or right prior to the Civil War, you had the Mexican American War. In the Mexican American War where we fought Mexico for what is now known as Texas and that went from 1846 to 1848. Again, Indian Wars are still going because normally you could look at that and say War of 1812 ended in 1815 and then we didn't fight the Mexican American War until 1848.  Look, that was happening in the United States. This was a, I mean, I'm talking about like armies against armies. Wars here. I'm not even counting like these little precursor wars of the Civil War, like the bleeding Kansas war where there was an uprising in Kansas over whether or not Kansas would, Kansas was a new state at, I think it was 18, it was something like 1850s. Kansas was a new state. Should it be a free state or should it be a slave state? Was the question. And really, if you look at the history of the Civil War, that was really the driver behind the Civil War right there. It wasn't so much that the Northern States wanted to control what the Southern States were doing. It was just that all of these states were becoming formed as we pushed West settling in the United States and it became this question of, are they gonna be slave states? Are they gonna be free states? So this really sparked that fire and yes, it was over slavery. Okay. Anybody that tells me that Civil War wasn't over slavery is trying to repaint history for you. Okay, but anyway, the 600,000 Americans died in the Civil War. Just Americans killing Americans. Then again, now you're still at, even after the Civil War is over, there's still the Indian Wars going on. In the 1860s, pushing all the way, now we're in the Midwest Indian Wars. We're now in the Midwest where I was from where you have wars against the Sioux, the Lakota, the Mandan Indians, the Cheyenne, all these names from the Midwest that I kind of grew up learning about and reading about. Then in 1910, we had a Mexican border war with another war with Mexico, 1910 to 1919. This was the Poncho Villa. If anybody remembers that, there was kind of an uprising of rebels in that area and then a border wall was actually established. If a lot of people don't know that, but a border wall was established after that war ended in 1919. Of course, what happened in 1914, World War I broke out. And now this wasn't a domestic war. Now this was kind of like, that World War I was kind of the end of domestic wars in the United States. So kind of mark that for yourself. But just think of this, from 1915, all the way back to 1776, was pretty much constant warfare in the United States, domestically, meaning the United States Army is fighting domestically somebody. Every few years, there's another war, another war, another war, another war. Now you have these World Wars breakout. And yeah, those aren't domestic wars, but they definitely affected the population of the United States. So they weren't fought here, but so anyway, there's a shift. No more domestic war really after 1915 in the United States. Basically after the last Indian War was done, pretty much no domestic warfare. But then World War I breaks out, it definitely affected the United States. 20 million people in the world died in World War I. And you're like, it was the war to end all wars. And here we end that in 1918. And then just a few years later, in 1939, because of what happened in World War I, World War II breaks out. World War II breaks out. Goes all the way up to 1945. So again, while not domestically inside the United States, I mean, there was 100,000 something US dead from World War I. I think World War II was about 450,000 Americans that died, but Americans kind of need to kind of look at World War I and World War II from a world perspective, okay? I mean, 20 million people in the world died in World War I and 100,000 Americans died. We're like, we saved the day. In World War II, we think, oh, greatest generation, we saved the day. And look, I get it, my grandpa fought in World War II. Many people's grandparents fought in World War II. But you have to understand, 450,000 Americans died, which is not a drop in the bucket. That's a lot of people. There was a draft, all this in World War II. But 75 million people in the world died. 75 million people in the world died. I think it would do people good today, especially in the United States, to go and study the history of Russia in World War II. You say, why? Well, first of all, Russia doesn't lose wars. You say, what do you mean? One in seven people in Russia died in World War II. They just, they don't lose.  One in seven people in their country died in World War II. I'm not defending Russia. Stalin was maybe one of the wickedest person that's ever lived. Hitler was a boy scout compared to Stalin. But the point is, is that over 10% of their population died in that war. So we think that we were such a great influence, and such a big influence, but like these massive world wars killed tens of millions of people all across the world. And many countries were way more affected than we were. That's all I'm trying to get you to understand. What happened in 1950? In 1950, we had the war in Korea. And that wasn't a small thing. Over 20,000 Americans died in Korea in that war. We had, you know, North and South Korea. We still have the war never ended, by the way. It's still going on. There was never a declaration of peace there. There was never a peace treaty sign there. That war is still typically going. You know, the demilitarized zone, South Korea, North Korea. Then 1965, what do we have? We had Vietnam. Again, none of these are fought in the United States, but Vietnam had a draft. Many people my age, their parents, fought in Vietnam. My father-in-law was drafted and fought in Vietnam. So that generation is still with us today. You know, those are people that are about 75 years older or older were fought in Vietnam. But I mean, you gotta understand that in the United States from 1965 to 1973, during the Vietnam War, 300 American soldiers were getting killed every single week. The total was 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam. It was not a small thing. It wasn't a domestic war, but it was a major war that did affect Americans. But now there's another shift after Vietnam. There's another shift. So we had this shift in 1915 where there was no more domestic wars in the United States. Then after Vietnam, we had another shift where basically we went from these declared wars to, you know, was Vietnam a declared war? I don't think so actually. I don't think we've declared war except for after World War II, we've never declared war again. Korea and Vietnam were undeclared wars. But now we have these interventions. So not only do we not have domestic wars, things got even better for us in the United States to where there's no more draft, we have all these interventions in the Middle East and all these other countries that many people probably don't even know we're intervening in a lot of these places. But it doesn't affect the American's life at all. There's no draft. There's really not that many people getting killed. You know, and many people don't even know anyone that serves in the military that is involved in these interventions. You know, it's an all volunteer army. People's kids aren't getting letters saying, hey, go to fight here or whatever. Then you started up in 1991 with these interventions with the Gulf War. Then we had 2001, Afghanistan, 2003, Iraq again, Iraq Part II, all these interventions. But the point I'm trying to say, why do I try to, why am I telling you this history? The point is, is we're talking about wars and rumors of wars. The reason I'm telling you this is that war has gotten further and further away from the American public. It's gotten further and further away over the, as the decades go on, from the American individual. We go on with our lives and we go to work and we buy our homes and we buy our cars and we have our lives and we are furthering ourselves in these wars, even though we're still being involved in these wars overseas, they are not affecting us anymore. Certainly not on our soil. So something that you need to understand and I want you to think about this morning as a Bible-believing Christian is, is this what we deserve? Is this what we deserve? Do we deserve a period of peace and prosperity in this country? And you know if you've read the Bible and if you've read their history of the nation of Israel, you know that a nation that turns against God is going to lose their peace and prosperity and their freedom. So there's a great convergence that is happening or a great divergence that is happening I should say between what we have and what we deserve. We should probably pay attention to that. And that's one of the things that we should think about when we see wars and we hear rumors of wars. What do we have today and what do we deserve today? Those two things are quite different and they are, look, they're gonna come back together because if we know one thing from the Bible, not only the nation of Israel, but every single nation that is talked about in the Old Testament, they all get what they deserve, every single one of them. So let's talk about these clues. Let's talk about these clues. Turn to Romans chapter nine. Let's look at these Middle East wars now. Now we have all these wars breaking out in the Middle East stemming from Israel. Should we pay attention? Is it possible that a Christian could misinterpret this today? Is the question that I want to think about, I mean, Israel formed the nation that is known as Israel today formed in 1948. Does that matter? Should we pay attention to that? So every Christian today or most Christians today, they see every conflict over there as something that is ushering in end times prophecy and something that every time you see Israel in the Bible, it applies to this country that was formed in 1948. Is that proper? Is that a correct interpretation? What are the ramifications if we get that wrong? That's what I'm gonna show you this morning. There's a very specific sermon this morning on how to apply wars and rumors of wars to our times today. All right, so the first question is, since the Bible, even in Ezekiel chapter 37 that we're gonna look at, these bones and these, you know, it's not the zombie apocalypse, the bones is the whole house of Israel, it says in Isaiah chapter 37. That's literally what it says. You're like, what are these bones? What are these skeletons? What are these sinews? Who are these people that are coming back together from the grave? It is the whole house of Israel. 100% for sure it's in the Bible. So the question becomes, who is Israel? Turn to Romans chapter nine. I went over this on two Wednesdays ago, but I wanna go over it briefly for those that weren't here, just briefly. I'm gonna go over this very quickly so we can understand who is Israel. Look at Romans chapter nine and look at verse number six. The Bible says, not as though the word of God had taken none effect, they are not all Israel which are of Israel. So the Bible here is saying in Paul's time, he's saying that there's going to be people that say they're of Israel that aren't of Israel. So if somebody just says, oh, I'm of Israel, that doesn't mean they are because they're gonna be people that say they are that aren't. Look at verse number seven. Neither because they are the seed of Abraham or they are all children. So he's literally saying just because they're related to Abraham are they Israel? That's basically what he's saying. But in Isaac, shall thy seed be called? That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God. Saying it doesn't matter who you're related to. Do you catch that? Children of the flesh, who your relatives are. I don't know how many times the Bible has to say this. It doesn't matter who your parents are. It doesn't matter who your grandparents are.  Or what your grandfather did, what your great, great, great, great grandfather came or what tribe you say you're from. Nothing. It is a Christian that has never read the Bible.  You say, why does it matter? Why are you so angry, pastor? Well, I'm gonna show you why this morning. Look at Galatians chapter three. No, but I'm sorry. It's still down to verse number eight. It says the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. So it's not the children of the flesh. It doesn't care. It doesn't matter who your dad was or who he was related to. It's the children of the promise. What does that mean? Turn to Galatians chapter three. This is very simple doctrine. This is not complicated at all. Look at Galatians chapter three. We're looking for who the children of the promise are because it's saying the children of Abraham are the children of the promise. That's why the Bible says pay no attention to genealogies again and again. Genealogies mean nothing. Family, trees, nothing. The children of the promise, who are they? Look at Galatians chapter three, verse number 27. For as many of you who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. For there is neither June or Greek. Oh man, what? You know what it's saying here? It's saying there is neither June or Gentile. He's saying it doesn't matter if you are from the tribe of Judah or if you are from Sweden or wherever or China. That's what he's saying. It matters not. Is that hard to understand? There is neither June or Greek. He's just saying there's physically not people from China and people from Russia and people from Ukraine and people from, no, it's saying there's neither June or Greek. There's their bond nor free. There's their male nor female for you're all one in Christ Jesus. It's saying as far as who can be saved and who can not be saved in Christ Jesus, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter your nationality. It doesn't matter who your grandparents were. It doesn't matter what country you came from. Your heritage means nothing. It's whether you believed on Jesus or not. That's it. That's why everyone's, you know, the Bible is very clear that men and women should have different roles in the family. But it's saying as far as who can be saved and who not, it doesn't matter. Women and men have the exact same spiritual heritage. That's what it's talking about. It's not like there's not men or women. It's talking about from the perspective of salvation in Christ Jesus. And if he be Christ, now this is really the key. If he be Christ meaning what? You're saved, you're in Christ. You have decided that you are going to trust in Jesus Christ as your savior then guess what? Your Abraham seed. Man. Is that complicated? The Bible is saying that Abraham's seed and heirs according to what? Doesn't this match Romans chapter nine? Heirs according to the promise. What is the promise? That Jesus Christ came here to pay the price for whosoever would trust on him and they would be given eternal life, everlasting life. Again and again and again the Bible says this. That's the promise. If you trust on Jesus you have everlasting life. If you can take all the trust off yourself and put it only on Christ in a moment you're saved. That's the promise and guess what? You're Israel. That's what the Bible saying. I'm staring at Israel today. I'm staring at Israel right now in Fresno, California. That's what the Bible is saying because it doesn't matter where you live. Israel is everyone that is saved. Now look, you know what that means? That means we're not Zionists here. Man. What does that mean? That means that 1948 to 1970, 1917 to 1948 to the formation of this country known as Israel. I don't recognize that as God's Israel. That's what that means.   You know what they did? The same thing with World War II with the Nazis and the Russians. They did the same thing when George Orwell wrote Animal Farm. Animal Farm was a critique of communism. And you know what people said? You love Hitler.  So you preach what the Bible says about Zionism today and who Israel actually is today.  No, you talk about the evils of the Ukrainian government and things that have happened there and they're like, oh, you love Putin. You want him to rule the world. Don't put me into your mid-wit box. We don't hate Jews today.   We're not talking about that this morning. But the point is, is that these people, the Jews today need to be saved just like the Arabs do. It's just another false religion. That's all it is. It's just another anti-biblical religion. Now, people will take Ezekiel chapter 37 to point to 1948 and say, see, God is gonna resurrect his people. He's gonna resurrect Israel. So, let's take a look at it this morning. Turn to Ezekiel chapter 37. Let's see if they're right. Let's see if they're right. Let's see if we can make it fit. See, Christians today, I'm talking, when I say people, I'm talking about Christians. I'm talking about people that are saved. You know, you can be saved and know nothing what the Bible says. The gospel is the simplest thing in the Bible. So I could be saved.  Look at Ezekiel chapter 36. So Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse number 37 talk about this valley of bones, this resurrection of the house of Israel. Ezekiel chapter 38 and 39 talk about a battle that I'm gonna talk about in a few minutes. And then Ezekiel chapter 40 and chapters after that talk about Ezekiel's temple, which we're not gonna get into this morning. But look at Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse number 24. Let's see if we can look at this resurrection of the house of Israel and see if it fits what we're seeing in the last 100 years today. Look at verse number 24. For I will take you from among the heath and gather you out of all countries and bring you into your own land. See, that's what happened in 1948. Okay, let's keep reading. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols, I will cleanse you. A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put in you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you shall keep my judgments and do them. And you shall dwell in the land that I gave your fathers and you shall be my people and I will be your God. Let me ask you a question. Does Israel today follow the statutes of the Bible? It's one of the most liberal nations in the world. They reject Jesus Christ. Like you literally, I don't think you can be a Christian and actually go there and like immigrate there. Like you have to reject Christ to live there. It's a false religion, but it's a nation based upon a false religion. It's the only nation like that in the world. Now look, in Ezekiel chapter 37, there's a dual fulfillment of Ezekiel chapter 37 of the house of Israel being brought back into the land. And I'm gonna show you that this morning. Israel was brought out of captivity. First we need to understand who Ezekiel was. Ezekiel was a prophet to the lower kingdom of Judah and his contemporaries were Jeremiah and prophets during the time that Israel was taken into captivity by, Judah was taken into captivity by the Empire of Babylon. This is who Ezekiel was. So Ezekiel in chapter 37 is prophesying that they will be brought back into the land. There's a dual fulfillment. There's a dual fulfillment because they were brought back into the land after 70 years. But there is, how do I know it's a dual fulfillment? Because many of the things Ezekiel says do not fit them coming back into the land because he talks about forever and eternity and that there will be the two tribes, the two kingdoms will be brought together. We're gonna look at that. But there's a dual fulfillment. There's a fulfillment of Ezekiel's time and there's a fulfillment for end times prophecy. Look at verse number one of Ezekiel chapter 37. Let's look at the bones, the bones, the valley of dry bones here. The Bible says the hand of the Lord was upon me and carried me out into the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley which were full of bones and caused me to pass by them around about and behold, there were very many in the open valley and low they were very dry. And he said unto me, son of man, and these bones live and I answered, oh Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said, prophesy unto these bones and say unto them, oh ye dry bones hear the word of the Lord. So think about, this is a picture, okay? This isn't a literal story here. It's just a picture of what's gonna happen. And he's saying Ezekiel go out and prophesy, speak the word of the Lord to these dry bones. And as soon as he does, thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter into you and ye shall live.  Put breath in you and ye shall live and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So that's another point when these dry bones come up into full living bodies again, full living people again, they will know, just like Ezekiel chapter 36 said, they will know who is the Lord. Okay, look, if you reject Jesus Christ, you don't know who the Lord is. Well, you missed the bus on that one. So it's literally saying that these, whoever these people are that are resurrected here, they will know who the Lord is. All right? Verse seven. So I prophesied as I was commanded and as I prophesied there was a noise, behold, the shaking and the bones came together, owned to his bone, so it happened. And behold, lo, the sinews and flesh came upon them, the skin covered them above, but there was no breath in them. Then he said unto me, prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me and breath came into them and they lived and stood upon their feet in exceeding great army. Verse 11. And then he said unto me, son of man, these bones, who are these people? These bones are the whole house of Israel. Do you understand why I showed you who Israel is first before we got to this? Behold they say, our bones are dried, our hope is lost, we are cut off for our parts.  So who are these people? These people are those that are in Christ when we apply it to end times prophesy. Those people back then were the people that came from Babylon back to the land of Israel. And that's exactly what happened. Look at verse 14. So go back to those who are in Christ and look at verse number 14. He says, I shall put my spirit in you and ye shall live and I shall place you in your own land. Then ye shall know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord. The word of the Lord came again unto me saying, more over son of man, take the one stick and write upon it for Judah and for the children of Israel, his companions, then take another stick and write upon it for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim for the house of Israel, his companions. Let me explain this verse to you. Something profound is happening here. And this is only in end times prophesy right here. What he is saying, the house of Joseph, remember Joseph never had land that was just his. There was Ephraim and Manasseh. And many times when you're reading the Bible, when you see, so the kingdom split. All right, the kingdom split when the time that Judah, Judah is the lower kingdom of Israel. There's two kingdoms by the time Judah was taken into captivity, the northern kingdom of Israel had already been destroyed by the Assyrians some 180, 150, 60 years earlier. So what happened was after King Solomon, David's son, there was a split in the kingdom. So David ruled over the nation of Israel and when David's grandson, Rehoboam, took over the throne, there was a split. Rehoboam took the lower kingdom of Judah which was made up primarily of Benjamin and Judah, those two tribes. The rest of the northern tribes, the 10 tribes went to Rehoboam who started the northern kingdom of Israel. So you had Israel and Judah. By the way, Jew, just that word Jew means you come from the tribe of Judah, by the way, which it doesn't apply to the whole all 12 tribes. Not that that really matters for what we're talking about today, but just some context there. Okay, so the lower kingdom of Judah was a much better kingdom and it was always ruled by David's son.  When God promises David that your kingdom will last into eternity, that's the messianic promise because it will only be brought into, it can't be brought into eternity by some earthly king because none of us are gonna live forever, just eternal life in Jesus Christ, of course, but the only way even we will enter into eternity is Jesus Christ. So that's why it's important that Jesus Christ came from the line of David because it was a prophecy fulfillment of what God promised David. So the northern kingdom of Israel, the 10 tribes of Israel are gone. They did not get taken into captivity. Assyria came in and destroyed them and lived amongst them and the tribes, the genealogies of the tribes were just all gone, basically. And that's where the Samaritans came from. When you read the New Testament, you see that the Jews just couldn't stand the Samaritans because they were polluted people and they had false gods. It was true that the northern kingdom went into idolatry almost immediately.  There was just dynasty after dynasty after dynasty. I think there was one son here and there but then a complete overthrow of the dynasty happened. It was just a mess from the beginning. It was idolatry and a mess. That's why they were judged 180 years earlier than the nation of Judah, the southern kingdom. So where am I going with this? Look back at verse number 14 or verse number 15. The Bible here is prophesying that these two nations one day will be reunited. They will be once again an entire nation. That's what the Bible is prophesying here. But Judah was only two tribes. And yeah, I mean, I get it. There was some mixed, I'm sure there was stragglers from each tribe living in the southern kingdom during that time. But for all intents and purposes, the other 10 tribes were lost with the Assyrian assimilation and the Assyrian invasion, basically that happened 150 years earlier. So what you need to understand is that even for someone to say, oh, I'm part of the tribe of Asher or part of the tribe of Rubin or whatever, one of those 10 tribes, it would be impossible today. Even in James chapter one, where he says to the 12 tribes, basically that was 2,000 years ago though. If you just do the math on just your ancestors in your life, if you just do the math on your ancestors, like you have two parents, four grandparents, and it just keeps, it's two to the n basically. And it just keeps doubling, doubling, doubling, doubling. After like 16 generations, you have like 32,000 ancestors. And a generation being 25, 30 years, 16 generations is not that long. Now talk about 2,000 years back to the time of Christ, you have like a quintillion ancestors or something like that. I mean, mathematically possible. You say, well, there's not a quintillion people on the earth. Well, it's because as this works, is as the triangle goes, as far as your ancestors go, they say 80%, I don't know if I believe this, but they say 80% of marriages are actually second or third cousins. So what happens is, this triangle goes like this, and then it kind of comes back in and goes out and goes in like this. So there's never like gonna be a quintillion people on the earth. It's just because people marry their relatives. But the point I'm trying to get you to understand is mathematically, when you get 10, 15, 20 generations back, everybody's everything. We're all Jewish. We're all Arab.  We're all mixed because we all have relatives that I mean, people traveled all over the world and settled different places. And I remember, look, even today, you can see this cousin's thing happening today. I worked with a guy in Sacramento four years ago. I worked with him building this power plant. I worked with him for two years. This guy and I, we worked together on this power plant every single day. And he had a common last name. It wasn't like Smith, I won't mention his last name. But it was a fairly common last name. It wasn't as common as Smith. But we went to a conference together. We were on an airplane together. And he mentioned like North Dakota. And I'm like, and I've often made the joke that like, if you know somebody from North Dakota, I probably know somebody that at least knows them. Because it's that small. But just think, we're in California. I've worked with this guy for two years. He's got a common last name. And he mentions like somebody in his family went to Fargo, North Dakota. And I'm like, are you related to, you know, I mentioned the last name in Fargo? And he's like, yeah, and it turns out that his uncle or my uncle is his dad's cousin. I'm working with this guy for two years. He's like my third cousin. And we're just like, what in the world? He brings me a family tree and I'm like, yeah, it's my uncle in his family tree. The point is, everybody's everything. You can even see it today, folks. You can even see it today. So to say that, oh, I'm from the tribe of Asher, it's ridiculous. And that's why the Bible says in the New Testament, pay no attention to genealogies. It doesn't matter because who's Israel? Those that are saved. Those that are in Christ. That's Israel. So you see, the Bible is though saying to us that these tribes, the nations, Israel and Judah and Ephraim, the reason he says Ephraim is because many times if you're reading the Old Testament, Ephraim was the largest tribe in the Northern Kingdom. So many times the Bible would just equate Ephraim to the Northern Kingdom. So he's basically saying Ephraim and Judah are gonna come back together, meaning all the 12 tribes are gonna come back together one day. That's gonna happen, folks. The Bible says it. The Bible says it. You say, so who are the tribes? Turn to Matthew 19, the Bible tells us. The Bible tells us where these tribes are going to come from. Here's the answer, folks, whenever the Bible is talking about, it's those that are in Christ in the 12 tribes of Israel. Think about that. What's that mean? Well, were people in the Old Testament saved any differently than people in the New Testament? No. They're saved by looking forward to Christ as we're saved by looking back at Christ. It's the same salvation from Genesis to Revelation. So when it's talking about people from the 12 tribes of Israel, it's talking about Old Testament saints. It's talking about people from the Old Testament that were part of those tribes that are saved, that are in heaven today. That's what it's talking about. Look at Matthew chapter 19. Look at Matthew chapter 19. In verse number 27, the Bible says this. It says, then answered Peter and said unto him, behold, we have forsaken all. He's asking Jesus, what are we gonna receive for everything we're doing?  And followed thee, what shall we have there for? And Jesus said unto him, now this is the key to Ezekiel chapter 37 right here.  The 12 tribes of Israel. This is talking about after the regeneration. The regeneration is the resurrection, folks. Remember all the preaching I've done on the first resurrection, that's you. But guess who else it is? It's the Old Testament saints too.  You will be part of what the Bible calls the first resurrection. But guess what? The dead in Christ shall rise first.  Their souls are in heaven, but we are all going to be resurrected. Ezekiel chapter 37 is talking about this regeneration. It's exactly what it's talking about.  Exactly.   No one today knows what tribe they're from. And if it was important what tribe you were from, why would the Bible say it's not important? Yeah, that's right. That'd be weird. Yeah. The Bible's like, don't pay attention to genealogies. Quit all this fables and quit. No, genealogy's bad. It doesn't matter. What matters is what you believe. What matters is that you're in Christ. That's what makes you of Israel. And then it says the 12 disciples that follow Jesus will judge Israel. What does that mean? They will rule Israel in the millennial reign of Christ. Judge means, you know, the judges. The judges. They will rule over the 12 tribes and over the Old Testament saints in the millennial reign of Christ that are now regenerated as we all will be in the first resurrection. Go back to Ezekiel chapter 37. Let me give you another clue. So first of all, the millennial reign's important. It's important that the Bible talks about that because that's when this is gonna take place. Go back to Ezekiel chapter 37. So you need to know who Israel is, first of all. You need to know who Israel is. And yes, it matches perfectly that this regeneration of these bones and these sinews and basically it's, Ezekiel chapter 37 is talking about a resurrection. And it's talking about the first resurrection. It's talking about the dead in Christ rising first. And Jesus tells the 12 disciples in the New Testament you are going to rule over them. He's talking about the 12 tribes that have now been put back together. They're now one nation. They're gonna be ruled over in the millennial reign by the 12 disciples. Kind of fits. Exactly what the Bible says. Look at Ezekiel chapter 37, verse number 24. Here's another clue. That Ezekiel chapter 37 is not talking about 1948. I know it doesn't make any sense at all to you now but let's look at another variable here. Look at verse 24. It says, And David, my servant, shall be king over them. Oh man. And they shall have one shepherd. They shall also walk in my judgments and observe my statutes and do them. So obviously, the current nation of Israel, the physical nation of Israel formed in 1948, nothing to do with this. Nothing to do with the Bible. Nothing to do with, which is what? These are the statutes right here. And do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto my, Jacob, my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt.  And my servant, David, shall be their prince for 22 years. Forever.  Their governor was Zerubbabel. Was Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel is in the line of Christ. Go to Matthew chapter one. Actually, you don't have to turn there, but in Matthew chapter one, Zerubbabel, that's why the line of Christ is listed. Zerubbabel is in the line of Christ. So Zerubbabel is the son of David. And guess who else is the son of David? Jesus Christ. So David is ruling over the nation of Israel as they came back from Babylonian captivity and the Bible says in the millennial reign who is going to rule in the millennial reign is going to be Jesus Christ. And that is how the nation of Israel, the 12 tribes will be judged by, they'll have governors of the 12 disciples and Jesus Christ shall rule over them. It fits perfectly. It's just perfect, easy to understand. It's Matthew one chapter 12 or verse number 12 if you wanna just reference that in your notes. But let's look at the third clue. The point is you need a sledgehammer to fit this round peg into the square hole of Israel being this nation that we're dealing with today. It's not the Israel that the Bible is talking about. Israel are those that are in Christ. Let's look at the third clue. Remember how important the timeline is, I just keep speaking timeline, timeline, timeline, timeline. If you don't know the timeline, anybody can make up anything and make you believe anything. If you don't know the actual timeline that the Bible talks about as far as the end times prophecy. Turn to Revelation chapter 20, Revelation chapter 20. What happens right after the millennial reign of Christ? The millennial reign of Christ, there's another battle. You say, why is there a battle? I mean, isn't everyone, look folks, during the millennial reign of Christ, people have free will. God doesn't create the millennial reign and just make everyone robots. People are still gonna get saved and not get saved during the millennial reign of Christ. But yeah, Jesus Christ is ruling and reigning. People who, everyone's not gonna believe in it. No, they're gonna be able to fight against him. There's gonna be people that are against him.  Through the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. Look at Revelation chapter 20 in verse number two. Some people are gonna get saved, some people aren't. The Bible says in Revelation two, it says, and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, who's the dragon? Which is the devil and Satan and bound him a thousand years.   They will eventually be in the same place and that's a whole another doctrine in itself. But they're in the lake of fire, they're never coming back. They're never coming back, they're gone, their use is over.  But look, guess what? When the thousand years are expired, verse seven, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. He shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth. Look at this, Gog and Magog. To gather them together to battle the number of them who is the sand of the sea.  It's because he's gonna let him out so he can gather people that are following him together so he can take them all out in one battle. It's kind of, you call it a trap or whatever it is, but he's just gonna let Satan out and all the people that are against Jesus Christ on the earth at that time are gonna go to Satan and there's gonna be one last battle and it's this battle of Gog and Magog. So the battle of Gog and Magog is gonna be a quick battle if you just read the next verse. The battle of Gog and Magog is after the millennia reign of Christ. And people have thought, it doesn't even matter where Gog and Magog are. But you know, Bible scholars today would be like, this is Russia and Iran.  The battle of Gog and Magog is gonna happen. I'm gonna write a book.  After the thousand years, there's this battle of Gog and Magog. Gog and Magog is not all over the Bible. It is not like, if you just do like a search of Gog and Magog, you're not gonna get like 100 instances in all these different places in the Bible. It's in like two places. It's in Ezekiel, it's in Revelation chapter 20. Guess what? It's in Ezekiel chapter 38. Why? Because it comes after Ezekiel chapter 37. See how complicated this is? So after the first resurrection, after Jesus Christ rules his house of Israel, the two nations that are come together after the millennial reign turned out to be Ezekiel chapter 38. Ezekiel chapter 38. It's the only other place that Gog and Magog, and look, I don't even care if it's Russia or if it's Persia, whoever it is, it makes no difference. It makes no difference. Just look at the Bible in Ezekiel 38 and verse number one. The Bible says, the word of the Lord came into me saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Messiah, and he just goes into Gog and Magog. Again, in chapter number 39 talks about this Gog and Magog being against Jesus Christ, against this house of Israel ruled by Jesus Christ. It makes perfect sense if you just understand what the Bible is saying. Turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter four. I got a land that's playing here pretty quick, but I mean, the idea is this. The idea is this, that the house of Israel is gonna be resurrected because you are Israel. Those that are in Christ, those that are saved are Israel. And that matches everything that the Bible talks about as far as the first resurrection, the antichrist coming, the abomination of desolation, the tribulation into the great tribulation, and then Jesus Christ. Look at verse number 16, 1 Thessalonians chapter four. Jesus Christ comes back to gather his elect. The Bible says the great tribulation against Christians that the antichrist is gonna bring in in that first three and a half years of Daniel 70th week is gonna be worse than anything we've seen before. That's bad, because there's been some pretty bad persecution throughout history. It's kinda like the hike, right? Like that was a really bad hike yesterday. It was really hard yesterday, so that's our 10. But if we look at some of the persecutions that Christians have gone through throughout history and we mark those as like the 10, the Bible says it's gonna be above that. So we know it's gonna be really, really bad persecution. But you say, well it just means that if Christians think they're just gonna poof and their clothes are just gonna fall and all the airplanes are gonna all fall out of the sky like the Hollywood movie says and all this stuff, it just means that they're just not gonna be ready for hard times. Now I'm gonna show you that it means much more than that. It means much more than that. Look at 1 Thessalonians chapter four and verse 16. It says, this is the rapture. The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout in the voice of the archangel with the trump of God. You think we're gonna miss that? You think that's gonna be a secret? As this, it must be the trump of God like, no one's gonna hear it except for us in this building. No, but then look at this, the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then which we are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. That's the dead in Christ shall rise first. Underline that and just point to Ezekiel chapter 37 if you write in your Bible. It's really simple. That's the whole chapter right there. The dead in Christ shall rise first. And those 12 tribes that are part of the dead in Christ, because the dead in Christ is who? Anybody that is now currently dead that is saved.  They're still, but they're gonna be regenerated. That's the resurrection where we're gonna get those glorified bodies that the Bible talks about and then we're gonna go into the millennial reign of Christ. And at the end of that millennial reign is the battle of Gog and Magog. Ezekiel chapter 38, Ezekiel chapter 39. It makes perfect sense. No back flips, no logical inconsistencies, no nothing. It's just the Bible. Then after that, the battle of Gog and Magog. So look, I'm not denying today, well you say why do I preach the sermon now? I'm not denying today that things are going on in the Middle East today.  I'm not denying that things are going on in Russia today. I'm not denying that, but the point is this folks, you have to understand this timeline because the point of all of this happening, the point of all these wars in rumors of wars is to usher in the first milestone, which is the coming of the Antichrist. Which is the coming of the very first sermon that I preached on this, which is the coming of the Antichrist, this great leader that is gonna come in and he's going to make in Daniel chapter nine, it talks about he's gonna make a covenant with many. He's gonna make a covenant with many, not all. He's gonna make a covenant with a treaty with many. Then Revelation chapter six kind of goes through this great detail of how through war he's gonna turn that covenant with many into this one world government. And that's what we see in Revelation chapter 13. So Revelation chapter six is the means to get to Revelation chapter 13. Then we go into the Abomination of Desolation where he declares himself God and all that. Not that it's not talking about, none of this was talking about some gathering together of a nation that rejects Jesus. It makes no sense at all if you're looking at the words of the Bible. And again, we just need to pay attention. We need to pay attention to what's going on. So what is the clue? What should we do with the clues of, now that we know all this, what should we do with the clues of wars and rumors of wars faster? You asked me, what should we do with that? And what is the danger of not knowing everything that I just showed you? What we need to understand with wars and rumors of wars is that wars usher in world order shifting. Because right now folks, right now, so we need, look, we need nationalism to die around the world. We need nationalism in order for the Antichrist to come in and make this treaty that turns into a one-world government through war. We need nationalist nations and we need nationalism to die. But, and what is the West pushing today? West is pushing this idea of globalism today. But guess what? Globalism is dying. Globalism is dying today. If you're paying attention, globalism for the globalists, it's not going well. Because the rest of the world, look, clown world's ideas are being rejected by the world. And like, clown world doesn't want to go down without a fight. This is the problem. This is where it gets dangerous. Right here, NATO is fracturing. These treaties, these treaties, these countries, these, the West that's pushing this globalist idea, it's being rejected by the world. We're seeing the uniting of the Muslim world. That has never happened in my lifetime. Where, where like Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims are like coming together saying like, hey, we need to get together and like keep these guys out of our business. Because they just keep wrecking everything and they just want to take all our stuff and tell us what to do. Like, but here's the danger in how we need to apply the Bible properly. Look, if clown world won't die quietly, they will expect people within clown world to fight for it. That is the pattern throughout history. See Ukraine. Don't tell me that every single Ukrainian that is fighting and dying today believes in what that government was doing on the eastern side of the country. They're all just farming and they're just doing their, living their lives. And all of a sudden, their country is destroyed. Why?  This, this sodomy and all this perversion and all these things that were pushing on the whole world and pushing on children and all these things. This is wicked. This is against the Bible. It's against God. If nothing is said, eventually you will be expected to fight for those ideas. That's the history. That's the pattern throughout history. And here's the real problem. Here's the real problem. This idea of Zionism. And again, this idea that, oh, if you're not a Zionist, meaning if you don't agree that 1948 was of God, which, how could you read the Bible and agree with that? This idea that, that doesn't really matter and all this. Look, this idea that Zionism, it makes the Christian lose his moral compass. It makes the Christian like love war.  You say, oh, it doesn't matter. Oh, see, but God reunited Israel. So whatever they do is right. No. That's not Israel. That's your first mistake.  That's God. What is wrong with these people? Jews and Muslims both need to be saved.   Give me a break. People say this stuff. The Christian who believes in this pre-Trib Zionism has a moral compass that is backwards today. You say it doesn't matter. Yeah, it matters. I'm actually starting to see how much it matters. Look, wars all around are, the majority of wars all around are being used to shift world orders. That's what they're being used for. And they're used by wicked people all around. We can't have some fake theology that's been sold to Christians that don't know what their Bible says that just allows wicked things to happen to innocent people. Look, it's innocent people on both sides is a wicked thing being killed. We have to have, this is why even these end times events, I hope you understand that even these clues and these end times events, understanding these things properly, reading the Bible and understanding what the Bible says. Do you notice how well all this fit together? We just looked at this through the Bible. Whenever somebody starts teaching you doctrine that they have to do all kinds of back flips and twists and oh yeah, but this and that and whatever, that makes no sense, that should just throw off red flags. But look, we're seeing how really that could affect how we think about things today. And moreover, there's this idea that if we think that Jesus is just coming back and nothing's gonna precede that, guess who we're looking for today? We're looking for Jesus instead of the Antichrist. Now go to verse number five of Matthew chapter 24. What is the preceding context of wars and rumors of wars? Look at the preceding context of it and you'll see why it's so dangerous to even be a pre-tribber. To think that oh, Jesus is just gonna come back at any moment, because then who am I looking for? Who am I looking for if I think Jesus can just come back at any time? I'm looking for Jesus, but who's really coming? This wicked, evil world ruler that claims to be what? One of the Bible tells us this. Look at verse five. Look at verse number five. Verse number six is you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, but what's the context? What do I always tell you? If you don't understand a verse in the Bible, read a few verses above it and a few verses past it and you're usually gonna figure things out because what do people that teach false doctrine do? They pick one verse and they go make up some story. But look up at verse number five, where Jesus says this, he says, for many shall come in my name. Saying what? And here's another one. Did Jesus ever claim he was the Christ? Brrr! Many shall come in my name saying I am Christ. What's the antichrist gonna do? He's gonna come and he's gonna say he's the Christ. You know what? The Muslims are looking for a Christ. The Jews today, they're looking for a Christ. There's all these religions across the world. You know what? A lot of unsaved Christians today are looking for a Christ to come back because they're not looking for the antichrist because they think, oh, poof. Jesus is gonna come get me. I'm gonna see this great world leader. You know what? They're not even saved. They're not even saved.  Because the Bible says that it's only the elect, it's only the saved that will not be deceived. I don't care what you identify as. If you have not trusted 100% in Jesus Christ, you are not saved.  And look, the person that believes in 100% and is trusted in Jesus and never goes to church is saved because it has nothing to do with going to church. It has only to do with trusting in Jesus. And that person, if they know the Bible, they're looking for the antichrist, not Jesus Christ. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. You're looking for the wrong person. You're looking for the wrong person. And that's why, if you wonder why you see so many Christians today that are just so backwards on what is happening, it's because they don't know what the Bible says. They've been taught false doctrine, saved or unsaved. But look, it's an embarrassment. It's an embarrassment because all of these, you know what these unsaved people need across the world?  They don't need to be blown up. You know what they need? They need somebody to walk up and preach the gospel to them. These Jews that are not saved need somebody to walk up and preach the gospel to them. All these people, Hindus, Buddhists, I don't care what they are, they don't need to be fought against and blown up. They need the gospel. They need Jesus Christ. That's what they need. And for us, we need to be educated because God told us how it's gonna go. And you know what, it's going that way. It's going that way. All we have to do is just study the word, listen to the word. You know what? Our moral compass is frustrating as these things, this is why Jesus told us these things. So at least we wouldn't be confused. We wouldn't be offended. We wouldn't know. And I am so glad that I can at least see with a straight moral compass. And I thank God for the Bible for giving me that. He could have just saved me and just left it from her. But he not only saved us, he gave us the truth. So we can see these things happening, we know exactly why, we know exactly who, and you know, the wind is kind of gonna work itself out. But we got these milestones. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.


So, just to tell you I'm Francophone, so English is not my first language, so if sometimes I make mistakes, please don't kill me yet. And also know that I'm the one standing between you and the after party, so I'll try to make it quick so we can just all go. We are a team of two superheroes for now, and of course we are already trying to get more people to join our team, but for now we are just 12. We are specialized in e-commerce customization mode medium, so for example if you have a website and you want to get your customers to customize something online, we do that kind of stuff. Okay, so this is really trending right now and for the next few years, they are already modules that allow people to purchase from their home, from same product to complex one, like a car from their home, a business car designed entirely online and that kind of things, that's what we do. And we sell exclusively of codecanyon and Temporis, I'm not sure if some of you know this website, so we have a little talk there, we've been doing that for 5 or 6 years I think, something about that. And we have 7000 clients around the world, and for us being in this small country in Africa, yes, that's something that we are kind of proud of and we used to brag about that, but it's not a lot yet, but it's something. And for now we make more than $400 and we are looking to double that amount in this year and the next few ones. So what I'm about to tell is how we can do something like that and beat that number because when we talk to foreigners about what we do, what we achieve with the means we have, people say yeah, you guys are strange. How can you manage that? How can you make it work with all the troubles we have? Okay, how did that start? I started alone, I was alone and after my degree I went working for a small company in my country, Benin, and after one year my boss just fired me. Yes, it was kind of hard because I was like, yeah, I'm a rock star, I'm the best. And one day I come to work and we guys say, yeah, you have a letter waiting for you. I say, yes, probably a raise. And they say, yeah, what? And they gave me a letter and it was like, yeah, you are free to go now. I say, what just happened because it was a hot note and they say, ah, okay, but why? Because when someone gives you a fine note and say yes, you are free to go now, it was yes, okay, but why? Effectively, I didn't have a chance to ask my employer that because he was not there. He just sent me a letter from his secretary and said, yes, you are fine. I say, okay, no worries because where I come from, you are very proud, you don't beg and it's hard for us to cry. And I say, yeah, I wanted to cry. I say, okay. So I guess he's goodbye now and okay, so I brought my stuff and just went home to cry. After that, I was looking for money because I didn't have money and I needed money in order to do stuff, get friends, chase girls, get married. So I needed money. So what do next? I joined a public company called Port on the Cotonin. This is a port when they get ships and hand everything there, a public company there in my country, a big one. And after the first day, I said, I can't work here. I just want to resign. And my friend will say, why? I said, these kind of people get a request from our IT support service. When they get a request and say, yes, people, we need something like this, our computers are not working, we can't be like clients, they call us. And when they call our office, I had a boss who was just sitting there and say, yeah, yeah, we are coming, we are coming. And we were like 10 people in the office.  But nobody was moving. And nobody was working, that was even worse because nobody was working, 10 people in the office, nobody was working, nobody was moving. And people were always calling. And I said, I can't work here because people don't just do anything, just sit there waiting for the end of the month to get paid and just go home and do anything. No, no way. But my mother was also working there. And I said, yeah, okay, let's make her happy for a while before quitting. But I did that for a few months. Yes, about six months. They say, yeah, man, you are too good, you just work here because we need something or someone like you. And I said, no way.  I said, no, I resign. My contract was ready. It was all about signing my contract. I said, no way. Me, I just resigned. I can't work in the office.  And just get requests from customers. People say, my fingers are not working. And people are just, yeah, we are coming. I said, no way. I resigned. And my boss was, why? You have a good money, you have nothing to do. I said, yes, that's exactly the point. I have nothing to do. And I was just running my salary. No way. He didn't understand because that guy just spent around ten years doing that. And he was, it was good for him. But me, no, I was young. I had energy, so I had to spend it somewhere. So yeah, I just buy my friend for good to meeting you. Not really, but yeah, bye. And then I started freelancing on illness. Because yes, I quit, but yes, that's great. But money, where's money? Because we have no job. You still need money, right? We need to go out. We need to make friends. So money. And then I found out about freelancing on illness. Who knows illness? You have too much willingness. Okay. So I did illness and coders. And it was great because I was paying in dollars. And I was spending in CFA. So yeah, money was good. Money was good, but it was not easy because on illness, you have to compete with Indians. I'm not sure if any of you know about India. How you know about India? What do you know about them? You know your stuff. That's Indians. I mean, these people are great. Let's not lie about that. They are great. And even if they don't know what they are doing, you can ask an Indian. Yes, I need to do something like this. He say, here, here. I know, I know. I can do it. Don't worry about that. But that guy doesn't know what to do. And what does he do? He just look online. Look for documentation, how to achieve that. Because he knows that it's not impossible for him. So what if he looks and he can achieve what he didn't do for the first time. And at a cheaper rate. For example, me, I can charge something like 14$ 20$ 15$ 5.0 5.0$ Ok, 15$ And that guy just come along and say 5$ How do you compete with that? That guy knows his stuff. It's 10 times cheaper than you. How do you compete? How do you compete? I found a way. I was ok. 4$ First. And I was getting customers because I had to describe what I should do. So my customers were trusting me to get it done. And once I get them the first time next time they offer me a job I say 50$ And customers don't want something else. They just want to be sure that it can be done. And you know the dictum, right? You don't change your winning team. Something about that. This is something you say in French. You don't know if you have someone who is already achieving something. You don't go somewhere else. You just ok with my friends. You just meet and find an agreement. So yeah. First time was 4$ because that guy was offering 5$ But me is 50 now. And my customers were But ok. And we go from there. And that's how I was able to learn around 5 customers for the first 2 months and then we escalated to 20 customers all paying and recruiting revenue. But I was alone. And I needed to hire more people. What I did I send an ads in order to get more developers to work with me because there is a limit on how much someone can achieve in a day. And it doesn't matter how good you are there is a line you can't cross. So you need other people to come and help you out. So I needed a team. So I started recruiting people one by one. But this is Africa because when you go to school and you try to hire people they are not ready but they want to get paid. So you give a part of a work to someone who is not able to deliver but still want to get paid by the end of the month. How do you do? You say ok I will pay you but I will train you to become better than me. So I get just rest when you are on the work so that's what I did and there are some people who are great better than me but first they started and we build our team from there. After that I met WordPress because it was good you have to code something for scratch every day and then I met WordPress. It was easy because you have to plug in and start plug in and start terms and start clicking click click click until the work is done the work is complete yes stop stop it was good money too because you don't have to go in code just click click click click and it's complete work done get paid and since then yes I become lazy because yes it was press white and now we are happily married me and WordPress of course and five years now and we have more than 7000 kids who are our customers okay yes 7000 kids is not me only I can't do that but 7000 customers paying all paying yes now let's not forget that we are in Africa internet is still an issue even though we have top internet consumer in the world internet is still expensive here even when you are paying customers you can't get a working internet everyday for example in my country when it rains you can't walk I don't know how they do that because but the fact is when it rains one day you wake up it is raining you can't walk just don't cry my friend don't cry don't cry even after that internet was still expensive because we had four or five major internet providers in our country we did all of them all of them I am not lying I am not exaggerating we did all of them one day we started with that down you have to install the connection install the antennas install everything buy a new router everything okay hoping it works but it doesn't and it is still costing a lot of money we did one, two, four, twenty five and one day we were calling our last provider when I heard all young guys we don't have enough bandwidth for you I said when you learn about this we know you we know you we don't have enough bandwidth for you okay why? we tell about you guys we did a lot and you complain a lot we don't have it we can't and that's why that brings me to my next question what kind of bandwidth to expect when you work from Africa let's do some math okay who are developers in the room what developers okay who are simple users simple users normal users regular users who don't know anything about code okay so yeah we have more developers that's strange because usually there are only two developers and all of the other guys are regular users so I think that's congratulations for once we have more developers than anyone in the room so when we work with customers they are for example in the US or they are in Germany you need to upload files on servers because a website is all about browsing files you need to upload your files you need to upload your pictures if you have bad logs and your guy needs video you know you just can't but you should try right so uploading files uploading media uploading websites upgrading doing a lot of stuff that costs a lot of bandwidth if you are alone you can manage well if you are 10, 12 people who does that every day long what do you do will you just buy a router per person that will come up expensive right you can't so I found a way to make it work by implementing something called flexible work hours we noticed that in the morning people were able to make it work because there was not enough charge in the network so in the morning it was the best after 11pm it was also good so I let my guys work from home and they had internet at home and then we had to upload files when someone has a lot of files to upload he just does it by home and we are looking if we combine all our needs we need something around 10 megabytes per second and it is a dedicated line because when you are with an internet provider they give you something we call shared bandwidth that's just a lie because they can say where else you can upload up to 10 megabytes that's a big word up but the way it is very small you can't notice it up so the first day you call to complain they say no man it's up up to 10 so even if you are uploading in 1 megabyte per second you are still good my friend just keep trying so we need 10 megabytes per second a dedicated line because you just want to be alone using that 10 megabytes and when you are uploading that kind of bandwidth sorry when you are using that kind of bandwidth you just need people to be able to deliver but it will be hard to find and we were spending at least 650k naira per month on the internet and even when you get paid that's still a lot of money to give to someone on the internet and when we go outside of Benin our country in somewhere like France or US they spend something around $25 for internet tv phone line everything in that $25 with someone who is spending 650k naira when another person is just home and spending $25 for me I found that very frustrating because you don't get paid easily and when you do you give your money away to internet providers so one thing I learned about that is just to let it go because you just end up dead one morning for heart attack, hypertension a lot of things just breathe be zen and let it go and remember that there is not much you can do without internet so you just have to give money and work and when you work every day you just remember that you have to pay that at the end of a month and work harder in order to get enough money to give them otherwise when you tell your US customers that internet is slow so I can't upload your hundreds where are you based again and I say in Africa say you have internet there yeah true story I heard that you have internet there we do we also have computers we don't browse for online you have a computer too so yeah next one I know that in Nigeria you know about that electricity issue yeah because what's the point having computers when you just can't have electricity to charge them back in the day there was not enough laptops we were using dextops and dextops don't have battery right when you are working you are coding you are saying yeah I'm good okay no electricity and what you do you just want to breathe until the power comes back and then someone started important generators and you say yeah I'm good now I'm saved but when generators are plugged in and are working you get a lot of noise how do you think how can you conceive something write an algorithm and then still be able to code that when right on the door you say you just try are you buying are plugs you have no choice and when we use generators we met someone who is not our friend full scarcity because generators are working all day long right but they don't work for free too you need to fuel them you need to put fuel in them right and then we met full scarcity because we our country is very small we don't produce we don't produce fuel oil okay so we are buying our fuel for use guys but then you when you have full scarcity what do we have Nadia had full scarcity let's try to move to England France but honestly we don't have much to do we just have to wait until you guys fix your full scarcity issue so we can get some fuel because that matter is out of our hands so just be zen and wait until that issue goes away why how do we manage to harm that by politics you see we can spend a lot of time complaining but when you elect a good president who is able to fix few things I miss that that's a lot because we were just suffering waiting that someone one day found a better way to make electricity work in our country and then we elected a new president the first thing he did was fixing the electricity and when he did that I said I don't care how much you how but what do you do me you are my guy forever because I don't care you are my guy because he fix electricity and after that we were able to work really work double our revenue and then just work so that's why politics matter we can complain and say I don't want to vote I don't care who is elected but once someone is elected and fix electricity for me that's good and that's why when they are election people should vote now after that we had to fix clients issue because when people heard that you are from Africa they need okay but I'm not sure that you can support me so there are a lot of techniques because when people found Africa they don't allow first they don't they think Africa is not good enough they they we don't have enough for them to help them out and that's friend because when they heard that we are frequent after using our plug in the station good job guys but only after they vote our product before we free when you give away something from free to customers they won't complete first okay they will just use it try it and make the best of it and then you have a solid product that's why we free matters just think about giving something for free to users something with limited features or limited in time that goes a long way and after we were giving for free we just charge them after few months or if they needed program features and that's how we managed to get a lot of customers by giving something for free and getting them back few months later live chat when a customer is not in our site there is not much he can understand right away so he need to talk to a support team or a developer who implemented the tool he is checking that way a live chat is really important because your potential which stop customers can just come and say yes can your tool do this can your plugin do this can you have that kind of features how do you handle this how do you handle that when you are able to talk to them you got a new sale every time okay so that is one of the things we did in order to get more customers first efficient support when your customer has issue you need to be fast be there answer and then get to another customers that give you a lot of reviews good reviews okay our sales was just create a core you can do everything by yourself so when you get a team you create a core group of developers these guys will help other people train them and get them to train your company okay because you can train everyone you get 4 or 5 people you train them first and then they train other guys for your product to code or everything push to cut the limits you need to know your team limit it's not about getting them to be lazy it's about to get them to be better make the best at what they do and once you reach that limit you can know everyone what they can do what they can't do never stop recruiting I learned that with hard way because we were at some point we were refusing customers we could not hand them all but when you have a lot of money power you never stop to recruit so that means you basically have everyone in your team so you just never stop recruiting and just get people when someone is asking for a job train your team learn to work with your core and then you never let them go okay yeah I'm ahead never let anyone to go just like the mafia when you join with mafia you don't go out okay so we like them they have very good corporate values but don't be them so never let anyone to go you need to be able to understand your team because without your team you are nothing but once you are able to understand your team and nobody will like to go work for someone else because they trust you okay so you don't just don't let them go try to understand why you are trying to find something better and be able to overbate yeah we got that too we got a lot of co-teams because when you are successful people will just come and steal your code that's a compliment but not a good one because that means you are good but if they are better than you they will just give you with your own code so we got that too and we had to let them go why? because someone stole our code but he was in the US we don't have a jurisdiction there you can steal someone from there even if you have a lawyer online you need to be able to pay that guy and you can just bribe someone in the US that cost a lot of money so instead of paying that kind of fees to someone who just stole your code you need to keep it to be better but keep an eye on him otherwise only you just woke up and someone will tell you that guys you stole your plugin from that guy why? because you were not taking off what he was after but once you keep your eye on your teeth you can know everything he is doing and then we have to do it better and of course prevent this from happening because you can fight one piece but you can't fight a hundred of them so for developers when you produce some code you can just minify your source code so someone else can't just steal it okay I think that's all my friend is dead just told me that I don't have any time left so question