Welcome everyone. This is the second time I've been here in the Mars District. It's always a pleasure. Toronto and Canada, in general, is a hot spot of activity in this space. Looking around this room, one thing that really strikes me is how diverse this audience is, in every sense of the word. So many people from so many different backgrounds gathered here to talk about this incredible technology. I do want to talk about technology. When I first got into this space, and I started talking about Bitcoin, one of the common misconceptions when I spoke to a room full of people was that they expected some kind of sales pitch. They expected that, like selling a timeshare for a holiday resort or a get-rich-quick scheme, I was there to recommend investment in this new-fangled currency, in this stock, this Bitcoin thing, a get-rich-quick scheme. Bitcoin isn't a get-rich-quick scheme, but some could argue that it certainly can be a get-poor-quick scheme, if you don't manage it quickly. The joke goes, how do you make a million dollars in trading Bitcoin? You start with two, and then you day trade. Very quickly, you will lose your shirt. How many in this room, without looking at their portable devices, can tell me what the price of Bitcoin is today? How many of you know what the price of Ether is today? How about the Dow? It's a big mistake to treat these technologies as stocks, yet it is a common misunderstanding, because they look like stocks, right? They've got a price, they trade, they have volatility, we can look at volume and graphs and things like that. But of course, these are not equities. Bitcoin isn't a company. Bitcoin is an industry, and it's a currency, and it's a technology platform. This very strange thing has happened in this space, where it has a tradeable instrument, and we haven't seen that before. When the internet started, you couldn't buy internet and trade it. Oh, look, Yahoo launched something. I bet my internet stock is going to go up. You couldn't do that, right? It's probably a good thing you couldn't, because boy, that would have been volatile. Now, Bitcoin isn't a stock, and it's not an index stock for the industry, even though it sometimes behaves like that. None of the cryptocurrencies are that. At a very fundamental level, these are technology platforms, but the instrument that's traded behaves a bit like an equity, a bit like a bond, a bit like an index stock, and very much so as a currency. But not the traditional type of currency that we know, not a currency with a very large economy behind it, but a currency with a very small, very distributed economy behind it, one that is buffeted by daily events, media announcements, for example, the announcement that Bitcoin died again. Someone's writing that article already. And all of these things make the price move a lot. So when you get involved in this space, a lot of people think, okay, maybe I should invest in Bitcoin. Maybe I should invest in Ether. Maybe I should create a portfolio. And I expect the last four years, dissuading people from that mentality, do not treat this as an investment. And the primary reason you should not treat this as an investment, unless you happen to be an investment professional, is that these things are extremely volatile. So you have to be very careful. You have to pick your timing right, buy low, sell high, which is, of course, the exact opposite of what naive people like me do. Right? It's going up. Time to buy. It's crashing. Time to sell. If you get the timing wrong, you lose a lot of money. What about picking which thing you would invest in? Would you invest in the Dow? Would you invest in Ether? Should you really be investing in Bitcoin? What about these new things that are popping up every now and then, with the initial coin offering, should be investing in those? So picking the right time and picking the right location for your investment, the right thing to invest in, will determine whether you have success or not. So I say, don't do that, because I have a much better recipe for success. And that is to invest in something that does not require timing, to invest in something that does not require choosing, to invest in something that cannot be lost, cannot be seized, cannot be forfeited. And that is skills and knowledge. You don't need timing to invest in learning about this technology. You learn now, and that skill will pay, possibly for years to come. If you learn how to do web development in 1997, you had a 15-year career ahead of you for a highly sought-after skill. If you learned how to do iPhone apps in 2008, you had again a massive career ahead of you for a highly sought-after skill. With learning these skills, you don't need to choose. Do I learn about Ethereum? Do I learn about Bitcoin? Do I learn about the Dow? You can learn about all of these things because these skills are highly transferable. The things that you learn about Bitcoin will teach you about blockchains in general. You'll learn about consensus algorithms. You'll learn cryptography. You'll learn the basics of economics and game theory, distributed systems, concurrent systems, security. All of these skills apply to all of the investments in this space. This is a skill that cannot be taken from you, that you can't lose in an afternoon because of volatility, that will continue to apply at least for a decade, probably more. No matter which direction Bitcoin goes, no matter which direction Ethereum goes, or any of the other currencies. After all, I am here to pitch you an investment. I'm here to tell you to invest in skills, and this, my friends, is a get-rich-slow scheme. It takes work, and if you work hard in this space, you will gain a lot. One thing I have found is that this is a space that moves so fast, that learning is a continuous effort. Every single day I learn something new, and I've been at it full-time for more than four years in this space. Every day I learn something new. Every day I learn something that redefines my understanding of this technology, that makes me think about it in a slightly different way, that unveils a new level of insight and depth that I hadn't anticipated. On the surface, it's a currency, it's a payment system, and if you just see the surface, you are missing everything. Underneath, there is this enormous, rich depth of complexity. If you see my book, you will notice on the cover, there is a woodcutter of ants. Already uses an animal on the cover of every one of their books, but I chose that one very carefully. Ant colonies are remarkable systems in which the individual is irrelevant, in which this very simplistic organism with just a few tens of thousands of neurons, that can be simulated on a computer quite easily. These individuals follow some very specific, very simple rules, triggered by an environment of chemical sense. Within the individual, there is no complexity, but you put a million of them together. What they build is this superorganism, this emergent complexity that is the only species on the planet, the rivals, the social complexity and construction of human society. Leafcutter ants don't eat leaves. They use an enzyme to break them down and brew them in giant breweries. They use the pulp that's produced to feed aphids that they farm like cattle. They milk the aphids to get nectar that they feed to their larvae.  Distributed systems like Bitcoin are systems where tens of thousands of nodes, each following a very well-defined, simple set of consensus rules, come together, interacting with a vast complex society of human incentives and actions to produce this enormously complex secure trust platform, which exhibits all of these characteristics of real applied game theory on a massive scale never seen before. The emergence of robust trust backed by thermodynamic guarantees, in the case of proof of work, to create the most secure system we've ever built on this planet. We take the concept of proof of work that has existed for millennia. Proof of work is evident when you look at our societies. The Pyramids of Giza are proof of work. What they say is, behold the civilization that can marshal tens of billions of dollars worth of value, hundreds of thousands of slaves over tens of years to produce a monument that cannot be replicated unless you put an equal amount of work. The Great Cathedral of Notre-Dame, the Great Castles of medieval Europe, all of these things, the Great Wall of China, are proof of work artifacts. They are monuments of civilizations that say, Here is something that you can only build through the massive expenditure of resource, and that stands as evidence of our might. Bitcoin is the first planetary scale monument of proof of work. In its footsteps, others will follow. It creates this edifice, this monument, and it's a monument to security. It's a monument to trust on the network scale. Once you start understanding the complexities of the interaction of game theory, human motivation, incentives, and markets, you realize how deep this system is. We've never seen free markets operate in the way they do in things like Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies. Truly unfettered free markets that provide complete liquidity and flexibility on a global scale have never happened before. Payment systems that span the globe without borders or intermediaries have never happened before. We are standing on the front row of history while creating something that will change human society. If you learn the skills that allow you to understand these simple systems that produce this enormous complexity, these skills will serve you well. You may be thinking, but I need to be a developer to learn these things. That's not true. If you're a computer scientist, this is probably one of the most amazing things that's happened in computer science since HTTP. If you're a developer, you can learn a lot about this space. If you're interested in distributed systems, this is a revolutionary implementation of distributed systems.  When you first look at Bitcoin, the initial inclination, the initial feeling is, let me take the tradition I have in my profession and see how that will affect Bitcoin. What will be the impact of traditional economics on Bitcoin? What will be the impact of central banks creating their own currency or banks regulating Bitcoin? What will be the impact of law on Bitcoin? What will be the impact of the accounting rules on Bitcoin? If that's what you see, you're missing much more important, bigger picture. The bigger picture is that Bitcoin will introduce a seed of disruptive innovation in every single one of these industries. The question is not, what will the law do to Bitcoin? What will Bitcoin do to the law? What will Bitcoin do to banking? What will blockchain technology do to economics and central banking? What will Ether do to contracts? What will these new technologies do in a field that has certain methods, processes, and traditions that go back hundreds of years? Because disrupting computer science is not a big deal. We barely have any tradition. This is a space that only has 60 years of history. What happens when you disrupt law that has 4,000 years of history? We are disrupting those spaces. Let me give you just one example. I'll give you several. Blockchain creates new economic tools that we've never seen before. I've coined the term computational microeconomics and computational macroeconomics to describe just two of these new fields. The study of macroeconomics involves today the X post-tacto analysis, six months after the fact, by statistical approximation of the velocity and activities of an entire economy. With blockchains, we can do real-time, data-based macroeconomics, and this has never happened before. We have never had the opportunity to look at an economy and study the velocity and inflation rates in real-time. We could do that with blockchains. In the study of microeconomics, studying the activities of a company or an industrial market, the best we can do again is X post-tacto analysis, six months after the fact, to a statistical approximation, but no more with blockchains. We can look at the impact on specific markets and companies in real-time. We're going to have to start thinking about real-time accounting and providing information to consumers of this data, who can look at companies and industries in real-time and evaluate their activity. We're reinventing accountability and transparency, turning it on its head, providing simultaneously very strong privacy to individuals, and a very strong impetus towards transparency and accountability for social organizations and governments. The opposite of what we have sometimes today, which is how it should be. If you look at all of the things that exist in all of these industries that have hundreds of years of tradition, it's important to realize that the traditions, the methods, the tools that we use in law and economics, even in computer science and accounting, it's not about the tools. This is a point we often miss. One of the characteristics of any profession is to establish traditions that propagate the tools and the means, and create out of those structures of permanence through academia, through professional certification, through regulation. And sometimes the more a match you are in that profession, the easier it is to forget why. Why do we have these processes? Why do we have the tools? What are the goals? Because we've become so attached to the means that we forgot what we're doing them from. I can't tell you how many times people tell me that in blockchains we need identity. As if identity was the goal. Identity is a means to an end. Identity is the means of establishing, as a second-order effect, the reputation. And reputation is a means to establishing, as a third-order effect, the risk of default. You don't care who someone is.  And yet we've become so attached to the means we forgot about the goal. The goal is default risk. But we've associated that so completely with identity that we can't even imagine a way of protecting against default risk... in any other way than full identity, with all of the problems that comes with. And yet, with a multi-sig contract, I can protect against default risk with a party that is completely anonymous. I don't need identity to achieve my goal. In looking at these technologies we have to identify, really, what are the goals we're trying to achieve? And do these technologies give us a way of achieving those goals with fewer side effects, with greater efficiency, and with lower costs? And if the answer is yes, feel free to drop the 500-year-old tradition. If it doesn't serve you, feel free to sacrifice the sacred cows of accounting, law, justice, law enforcement, economics, and computer science if they do not serve you. Because now we have a new tool, a new set of tools, and if we carefully study these tools, we can learn how to apply them in ways that completely change the way we structure society, and allow us to more directly achieve the real goals that we have in all of these other fields. It's very difficult to step outside of tradition, training, professional development, and a sense of camaraderie. And when you do step outside of those things in your profession, you will be ridiculed, you will be ostracized, you will be called a fool, have faith. Most of the really great people in this world who did great things and changed the world were called fools by all of their peers. Fools like Edison, and Ford, and Tesla, Marconi, Maxwell, Einstein, none of them were greeted with open arms and accolades by their professional peers. They were ostracized, ridiculed, and called fools because their very ideas offended 100-year-old traditions, sometimes 1000-year-old traditions. Be the fool that's right. And the best way to do that is to invest in learning the really, really subtle nuances, the really deep knowledge and insights of this amazing set of technologies that is absolutely going to change our world. Thank you. I think we do have a bit of time for questions, if I can get a time check. Okay, we have ten minutes so we can take a few questions from the audience. Anybody have a question for me? Yes? Microphone coming to you, just one second. Microphone's behind me. It's a little rough. Thank you so much. That's number eight for the audio deck. Thank you. And number seven. There you go. This is our first Q&A session of the day so we're just going to iron out some wrinkles there. Go ahead, sir. Okay, great. Thanks for the great talk. I'm just curious if you could comment on the Dow. Awesome for the weekend. I am shocked and surprised that that would be the first question you could bring up. I'm conflicted on the Dow. I've been watching this with great fascination. Meditally disclosure, I am a Dow token holder. I bought, you know, I'm a whale in Dow spaces. I owned $40 for the Dow token. I know it's your doll, aren't you? So I bought that because as I invest in a number of different cryptocurrencies, because in all of these systems, the best way to learn is to do, right? And in order to do, you have to hold the token. If you want to write an Ethereum contract, you have to have Ether. If you want to use Dash or Monero or Bitcoin or Storagecoin or whatever, you have to own the token. So I did buy Dow tokens. I also warned people on social media that this is the first one. It's completely untested and it will probably be extremely risky. I did not expect it to blow up within just four weeks of launch. That was quite fast. But you know, one of the things I've said is that the most interesting lessons come not from success but from failure. If you think of this as a particle physics experiment, the really interesting science happens when you analyze the debris of a fiery explosion. You smash two particles together, create a very big bang, and then you look at what comes shooting out of that collision. Well, we're going to be studying the debris of the fiery collapse of the Dow for years. And it's going to teach us a lot about governance. I think it's important to realize that if you look at this from the perspective of capitalism, you need destruction in order to learn. And one of the things that is unique about all of these systems is we're not talking about them, we're not theoretically analyzing them, we're doing them. And that's the only way to learn. And sometimes that means spectacular problems like this. And I think that's okay as long as you go into it knowing the risks. And really people should understand the risks before they get involved. Now, how is this going to be resolved? There are no good options at this point. There's a lot of people who suggest that perhaps it should be allowed to fail, that it's a great security bounty for the person who discovered the flaws and that the investor's caveat mentor knew what they were getting into. Others say that this should precipitate a soft fork followed by a hard fork and other interventions in the Ethereum chain. The idea is appealing. It sets up a terrible precedent that may cause more problems than it solves. And I'm not going to take you in position because I have the luxury of not being either a minor or one of the Ethereum core developers who has to make this very difficult decision. I'm going to watch with interest, but there are no good options. In the end though, I don't think this changes the fundamental nature of these things. Smart contracts are fascinating. They will have an enormous impact on law, on commerce, on the internet of things, on many other technology fields. The implementation of distributed autonomous organizations, either as investment vehicles or as new forms of social organization for entrepreneurs, for cooperatives, for any form of governance-based social entity. All of these things are amazing and they will happen again and again and again, and more of them will blow up spectacularly and we will learn. Even Enron taught us something, if not at least to improve our accounting standards and practices. We have four of the great accounting and management consulting firms here today. Ten years ago, they were five. So sometimes that's the price you pay for innovation. All right, let's see if we have one more question in the back there. So I'm speaking from one of the accounting and consulting firms. I'm enough. So this sort of hype now, like a year ago, clients and folks would not know about blockchain. And now I get into a meeting and everybody is like, this is it. I've read so much about it. But then I'm wondering, is this the hype that's kind of building into it? And I see proof of concepts being done. But if there are, if there are to be scared that it's at least five years away, that's what I kind of see. Like would blockchains survive that long? And what would it take fundamentally one or two examples or events that will actually make it mainstream and people would start talking real things rather than just really hype about it? I think you're absolutely right. The hype around blockchain is entirely out of sync with the actual implementations. With one exception. And that exception is the Bitcoin blockchain. And you could also say, perhaps with two exceptions, because Ethereum has now become a large-scale viable production system with still some growing pains, but definitely something to watch carefully. So there are a couple of really important blockchains in the world today. And other than that, we're seeing an enormous amount of hype. I think part of that represents just kind of the general economic conditions. If you have a lot of money, and in many corporations today, a lot of money is the situation because of free money and stimulus and low interest rates that we've been in now for six or seven years, what are you going to invest in? Equities? That's a bubble. Real estate? That's a bubble. Student loans? That's a bubble. Auto loans? That's a bubble. Bonds? That's a bubble. Corporate bonds? That's a bubble. And so one of the problems we have in all of the Western developed economies is that we have a lot of money chasing very little yields, and that tends to create these exuberances. And so people are looking at blockchains, and maybe FinTech is the place where we might get some yields. And I think the investment has far outpaced the reality on the ground, which will eventually correct. But if you look at the broader space, you have to realize there are some real blockchains changing things in a very real way. And those blockchains are the open, transnational, borderless, open access, open innovation, permissionless blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum and others that are setting the stage for real change with real applications today. A lot of hype, but also a seven-year experiment that refuses to die, continues to deliver more and more innovation every year, and will continue to surprise people. Five minutes. Let's take one more question and then we'll wrap it up. Maybe two questions if we have a quick one. Hey, Andreas. Thanks for the talk. Do you mind commenting quickly on alternative consensus mechanisms that are being proposed in different blockchain environments, and maybe how that impacts what your view is on the private versus public blockchain space as well? Thanks. I think consensus algorithms are really a very interesting area. It's basically a new science. It started in January 3rd, 2009, with one. If you look at the number of academic papers published in this space, they're growing at a hyperbolic rate at the moment. Hundreds and hundreds of PhD dissertations and papers on consensus algorithms in the last year. I only expect that pace to increase. I expect we're going to see entire master's degrees, perhaps, or postgraduate M-Fills or PhDs focused on consensus algorithms. There are many interesting experiments in that space, but to me, the really important thing is running your experiments in the wild at scale with real actors, real money at stake, and seeing how it survives in those conditions. This is not a theoretical science. This is an experimental science where we can run global-scale experiments and prove these systems in real terms. I think that's really to use the trite expression, where the rubber makes the road. Until we see large-scale deployments of practical use of novel consensus algorithms, I know one that works today, and that's proof of work. We'll see what comes next. That doesn't mean you can't do it another way, but I think it's also important to recognize that different consensus algorithms produce different characteristics and features. Proof of work produces thermodynamically guaranteed immutability, which is something you can't do any other way. Maybe with proof of stake, we're going to see different results, different features, different characteristics. This is a broad ecosystem in which different systems will specialize for fitness to a particular niche application use case, and there's plenty of room for a lot of competition. This is not the old zero-sum national currency game where in any particular domain there can be only one, and it's a winner takes all. That's not what we're doing here. It's completely different. Let's take one more question and then we'll wrap it. Hi. I know decentralization is the ultimate and final goal. I know you made mention of breaking and challenging traditions. Do you feel that a radical change in transformation to this can be accepted and adopted with ease? Or do you feel that a more gradual transition is the more logical road with more honest and transparent centralization methods of methods and practices for mainstream public adoption? I think neither is really the correct answer. First of all, I don't think you can have gradual transformation. History shows us that disruptive innovation never works in a gradual fashion. Revolutionary change, if you read about the philosophy of science, if you read the history of science, what you will see is this form of punctuated equilibrium where you have the status quo and tradition established kind of a plateau where ideas are relatively stale for very long periods of time, and then a little spark knocks everything out of equilibrium. It gets very chaotic for a short period and then it resettles into a new norm. We see that again and again in science. We also see it in technology. We also see it in politics. We see it in society. Gradual is not the way of this world. What you have is systems that build up energy within them until they reach a tipping point, and then some event, you never know what kind of event it will be, triggers that tipping point, and you have a sudden cascade into a new reality. We will not see a gradual transition into a new world through these technologies, and part of the reason is that there are many places in the world where people will not wait. Where mainstream adoption is not going to be done because of a whim, it's going to be done because of a desperate need. Talk to a Venezuelan, an Argentinian, a Brazilian, a Kazakh, a Ukrainian, perhaps even a Greek, or a Cypriot, and they will tell you that looking at these types of technologies as a safe haven, as an exit, as a safety valve from failing monetary systems is a very real possibility, and when you have that level of desperation, there's nothing to stop people from adopting them. Now, I can guarantee you that we do not need acceptance. We do not need the participation of the old system. We do not need the permission of the traditional systems in order to succeed. People will use these things because they are useful, and they will use them because they can opt in and choose to use them when they feel they are ready, when we give them a use case, when we give them an application that is sufficiently compelling to overcome their comfort zone, and then they will find a way to use these technologies. But I certainly don't expect that we will see this primarily driven by traditional institutions gracing us with permission and acceptance, so that we can innovate from within, disrupt the disruptors, create change from within the organizations. That stuff doesn't happen. In reality, large organizations can't do that, and they get disrupted from the outside. Most of the time, very painfully, and few of them survive in their original form. Start learning the skills, polish up your resume, and get ready for a roller coaster. This is going to be fun. Thank you very much. We'll close the questions there.


What's going on everyone? Sam here with Layton Sports Cards. We are ripping 22 Bowman Inception Baseball hobby Yeah, Daniel C. Hold on Okay, eight box break number 24 random team stylers looking again at your random results as always you can find these on the website On under the results tab as well as the link in chat. Yeah, Daniel you're Daniel L not Daniel C I don't have what happened on that one here. Let me I'm gonna re-upload or re-update the Sheets you got the cardinals on that one Daniel my mistake, man Let me edit this really quick. Yes, you've got the St. Louis cardinals Not Daniel L. There is no Daniel L again same same situation. There's no cheese dude. My bad I apologize on that guys, but Daniel you're in now Daniel C I updated that on the results so you can see here now Daniel C instead of Daniel L that was originally Daniel L who doesn't exist in this one. So you're good to go I know I know trash exactly We need to come out of imagination Guess so man Good Lord. Sorry about that Daniel base and base I don't even think that would help to be honest. There's a rental compost 27 out of 99 for the Tigers Got Tyler Black that is 90 out of 248 interesting for the brew crew nice one there and 44 out of 50 at William Burgoyah going to the Phillies Appreciate that Daniel. Yeah, if that ever happens just assume that I put the wrong initial at the end that usually Because it was numbered to 248 instead of 250 or just random number to a random number, you know what I mean Yeah, that'll happen I'll do a wrong initial every now and then especially if we have like like we have a Daniel L Who will buy into like baseball breaks do so a lot of times that'll happen? I'll do it with certain names a lot of times. So my apologies on that guys base and base Base base blue Alex DeJesus two out of 99 going to the Dodgers Yeah, it's going to the angels. That is Denzer Guzman Let's go into the angels that we've got 16 out of 50 nice one there for the Pirates Henry Davis Grats on that 16 out of 50. There you go Pittsburgh Joseph V Never want to accidentally put me in a break. I'm good with that. Yeah.  I got Donnie.  Oh, yeah, Henry. That's not bad actually. He's number one overall pickin 21. It's not bad at all There's West Cap and no, I'll be Marta Base that is Ricardo Cabrera going to the Reds 33 out of 50 nice one there congrats Reds Got Luis Miza that is 239 out of 250 for the Blue Jays Out of wahoos Yeah, we do dude, that's Diego Velazquez 69 of 99 for the Giants as well nice one there congrats to that one Giants I was kept mixed up Giants and Orioles with Velazquez because Giants San Francisco Giants, right base and base Base there's a Dustin Harris blue 83 out of 99 for the Doyers or not the Doyers the Rangers I thought that was Los Angeles for a second now for the Rangers that is Rangers. What's up Pete? We've got that is Marcelo Meyer 75 out of 200 going to the Red Sox nice one there Red Sox and Gunnar Hoglund 15 of 50 gold for the A's The Dodgers the Doyers that's what I say sometimes the Doyers Blow Stoyers Illegal just just roll with it man. Yeah blow Stoyers The Dodgers Got a roll with it man. Let's just get through it Base and base I'd be safe till there was a Vaughn P that showed up. Yeah true true, hon There is a blue Curse Mead 35 of 99 for the Rays followed by Lenin Sosa that is 24 out of 75 for the White Sox And 35 of 250. Willman Candelario that's going to the Royals nice one there Kansas City Yeah, there's a lot of Christopher S's. There's a lot of Chris and Christopher S's There's Baez and Churio Base Ryan Bliss 88 of 99 for Arizona We've got a Nora Rivera 15 out of 75 Nice one there for the White Sox And going to John slash Joe Victor La Brata 51 out of 250 nice one there. Congrats, buddy One of their top prospects going to the Mariners Congrats on that John What's up Scott How you doing buddy? Oh, man. He picked up some spots. Oh boy Man he jumping into some of the phoenix stuff. Nice. Nice. Nice We won't break your phoenix so far That's it. Yeah Really? Well, I mean like I joined one break Oh, oh, what'd you get? Oh, PYT. How'd you do anything? Um 99, uh, Davante Smith. That's not bad. I'll take that. Nora Rivera and uh, Juan Benchio They're not so we don't have one for super expensive either, which is good No, I think I got on sale for like 37 gold Samuel Munoz 26 to 50 is pretty solid I gotta get the Ravens in it, dude And phoenix, I don't have a great bet checklist and phoenix style. Me either does chili Right, reinde and cone that is 156 out of 250 Nice one there for the Dodgers And orange Anthony Gutierrez 19 out of 25 that is going to the Rangers Not that I know of a hundred percent. I don't know if he's in that Got exactly zero. Yeah Put up soon That wasn't me. I don't think soon was it? Oh forest Yeah, don't make fun of forest then But you're here Might be spelled Mindy base and base There's a pink Daniel Vasquez 59 out of 75. Oh nice. Going to Universal tomorrow. You're gonna stop by the shop. You think at Odell scoff Averson Artega that is 135 out of 200 for the Giants Benny Montgomery 69 out of 75 for the Rockies Nice one there Colorado. I know who he's he texted me with who he's thinking of see my first pick I mean uh forest and illegals league Uh averson artega anthony gutierrez reinde and cone victor lebrado Um, nor have era willman candelaria lenin sosa gunner holland marcella mire diego valazquez louis meza henry davis denser guzman willing bergoya, uh, tyler black and benny montgomery That will do it for the break guys. Thanks again for the fill next up. We've got um the next one of this


I'm pleased to present the 2022 AL MVP award to none other than Aaron Judge. Congrats, ma'am. It's tough to put it in words, man. It's an incredible, incredible moment. You know, a lot of hard work throughout the years to get to this point. You know, I got a lot of people to thank, you know, I go back all the way to coaches and travel ball to Little League, high school, college, you know, the guys I've worked with through the minor leagues, major league, man. This is, you know, I always feel like any award you get, it's never an individual award. It's a team effort, you know, through and through, and this is, I mean, it means a lot. When did you begin to think that a year this great, this historic was possible?  So it was tough to really enjoy it because of the ups and downs throughout the year and you're chasing the vision, you're chasing, you know, a good spot in the postseason. So, you know, it wasn't until really the past couple weeks where you can kind of sit back and reflect on the year and see how good it was. A special season this was. Thank you. It was amazing to watch. Enjoy this night. You're American League most valuable player, Aaron Judge. Congratulations once again.


All right. Good morning everyone. Welcome to this class. Welcome to our students online as well. Good morning, sir. Thank you so much. All right, let's just get into what we studied the previous week. We looked at chapter 2, right? The Gospel of Jesus Christ and we established the fact that the gospel is more than enough when you're sharing to people, right? We don't need to add anything extra. We don't have to remove anything from it. The gospel can be just five minutes. And we studied in 1 Corinthians, we said the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. So it's not the person, right? We may be somebody very insignificant. We may be somebody who don't know the scriptures. That's all right. But when we are sharing the gospel, when we share the message of Jesus, it is the power of God unto salvation. Yes? Right? But we also saw the other aspect. The gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing. So for those who it doesn't mean anything, it's foolish. But it's the wisdom of God unto salvation. Right? So you and I, as believers, when we begin to share the gospel, we must understand this should be our foundation. Right? Because if our foundation is on anything else, for example, the way I speak or the way we look or the way we minister or the way our eloquence or speech, all of that is important. But if that is the foundation, we will fail. Our foundation must be the gospel is powerful. And God has commissioned us to share the gospel. Right? We looked at the word sozo. Right? How many of you remember the word sozo? Right? We saw that it is a big word. It has saved, healed, delivered, redeemed, blessed, delivered from the works of the devil. We are healed both in our body, in our spirit, in our soul, in our mind. And so when we become a believer, we receive sozo. It's not like our name is written in heaven and we are happy. That's not the end of it. There is so much eternal life begins when we receive the Lord Jesus as our personal saviour. Right? So we looked at different ways also. We can share the gospel, gospel in five minutes, gospel in two minutes. And let's get into chapter three today, power and love. Now, even as we keep sharing the gospel, it is very easy for us as believers to become very rude.  We can think of ourselves very high of ourselves. Right? Now, remember the Lord Jesus, who is the son of God, he ministered in power and love. Nowhere we see when the Lord Jesus was doing his ministry was, did he minister out of hatred? Right? Because people came, Romans came, Gentiles came to him. People from different backgrounds came to him. People who are immoral, they came to him. But we see that everywhere Jesus ministered in love. Right? So let's read a couple of verses, right? First one, Matthew chapter nine was 36. So for those who are online, we don't have an additional mic this morning. So, you know, you can just follow along on your Bibles. But I request anyone here can read Matthew chapter nine and verse 36. Another person can open to Matthew chapter 14 and verse 14. Somebody else can also open Matthew 15, 32 and Mark 6, 34. Quickly, go ahead, read Matthew 9, 36. Yeah, when he saw the multitudes, when Jesus saw the multitudes, his heart was moved with compassion. It was not like Jesus was standing there and saying, Oh, now I'm famous. Now people know me, or now I will start a big ministry now. His heart was moved with compassion. Need the next one, Matthew 14, 14. This verse says he was moved with compassion and healed those who were sick. Right? Next one, Matthew 15, 32. Thank you. So Matthew 15, here in Matthew 15, there are crowds of people, hundreds of people following Jesus. And they've been with Jesus for three days. Now picture this, three days they've been with Jesus. Probably whatever they have, the food is over. Jesus say, I have compassion on them because they've been with me for three days. So he makes sure that they get what they need at that time. Matthew, sorry, Mark 6, 34. Right? So again, when Jesus came out, he saw that they were like sheep without a shepherd, he was moved with compassion. So what can you and I learn from this? Each one of us, as believers, we must minister in compassion. Compassion, love. Love is the greatest gift that God has given each one of us. You know, it's very easy in ministry to put up a show. Very easy. I have seen people do it. I've gone, traveled all across India and I've seen how it is to put up a show. We can put up a show, but Jesus didn't do that. What did he do? He ministered in compassion, in love. That should be the root of our ministry. I do ministry because I love God and I love people. If the reason we want to do ministry is because we want to become famous. We want to start a church and we want the pulpit. You know, people should see us. People should recognize us. People should call us pastor or people should call us prophet, apostle for fame. If that is the reason, then we have failed because Jesus didn't do that. What did he do? He moved with compassion. He loved them. That is why he did all of it. What does John 3 16 say? God saw up the world. So very important, each one of us.  I started preaching. I didn't understand so many things. I didn't understand that ministry is about love. I go to love people. Sometimes, you know, when we are young, we want to do so much for God. That's wonderful. But I wish there was somebody who told me when I was young, get your foundations right. So each one of you get your foundation right. Why you're doing what you're doing? You ask yourself, right? So you go back to your rooms, pray and ask God, fill me with your love that I can minister to people and I can do your ministry. That's what Jesus did, right? So let's look at it. First one, we minister in power. John chapter 14, 1 through 13. You can keep reading it. I may stop you in between. John chapter 14 verse 1 through 13. Let's move to chapter 12. Move to chapter 12. Sorry, verse 12. 14 verse 12. Verse 12 onwards. Okay. I just want to let's focus on this verse, right? Verse 12 says, I tell you the truth. Anyone, say everyone, say anyone, anyone, right? Anyone, anyone has faith in me will do what I have done. He will do even greater things than this because I'm going to the father. Now, who is testifying of this? Who's saying this? Jesus. Jesus is telling his disciples, see, if you have faith in me, greater things than what I did, you will do. So Jesus is giving his disciples a commission, right? Now, in the Greek, the word greater does not mean in essence, right? Now, let me explain. Jesus walked in water. Can we walk on water? Okay. Okay. Now, the essence is not what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is talking about greater meaning in numbers, in quantity, right? Jesus ministered for how many years? Three and a half years. He did certain, did miracles. But when he's talking about the church, he's talking the greater things you will do. It is about numbers, right? Doing more than what Jesus did right now in terms of numbers, right? So if you look all across the world, there are millions and millions of miracles that are happening, even today, right? So the numbers are more. Now, Jesus is saying, greater works than what I did, you will do. And he's saying this with just one criteria. What is that criteria? If you have, if you have faith in me, that's all he wants, right? He says that if you have faith in me, greater things than what I did, you will do, right? So the Lord Jesus encourages us. He's exhorting us to be men and women or believers, to walk in power. Power is very important, right? Power and compassion is like salt and, you know, sugar and salt or salt and pepper. You need them, right? They go together. God has called us to walk in power, but also to walk in love, right? Now, how does power come? What does the Bible teaches us? Acts chapter one, come on. We should know this. Acts one, verse eight. Acts chapter one and verse eight. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, right? So the moment you and I are filled with the Holy Spirit, we will receive power. The Greek word to be witness means to be willing to, the Greek word witness here means martyr.  Everyone know what martyr is? Martyr means somebody who's willing to give their life for Jesus, like the disciples, right? Somebody who's willing to give their life. Now, look at this best example of Peter, Peter and the other disciples. When Jesus was dying, where were they? At the cross, where were the other disciples? They were all fearful. They were all hiding, right? But Acts chapter two happens. The Holy Spirit comes upon them on Pentecost. They're filled with power. They're anointed of the Holy Spirit. What happens? Acts chapter three, the same Peter who was scared and afraid and running away. Now he's coming and saying, coming to the temple, standing in front of all the Pharisees and saying, the people that you have killed, the person that you have killed is now alive. He's the Messiah and through the name of Jesus, everyone will be seeing, Holy preaching the gospel. What is the difference? Same Peter, same fisherman. I didn't do 10 weeks Bible college course and come. No. It was probably one and a half months or probably three months, two to three months. That's it. Same Peter, same fisherman. I said, Jesus, I don't know who's Jesus. Same person is standing here in front of all the people in Jerusalem and he's preaching with such boldness. If you read in Acts, they say, where did this fellow get all his reigning from? Isn't he a fisherman? What is the difference? Same person. One is fearful here. He's anointed by the Holy Spirit. The same Peter, when he's walking the streets of Jerusalem, his shadow is healing people. So imagine this Peter's shadow ministry. Everyone are carrying, Peter's coming. So they're carrying sick people, putting them on the streets and as Peter's walking, they're healed. How? The anointing of the Holy Spirit. That's all it is, baptism of the Holy Spirit. Here, the same Peter. Here, it's the same Peter. Only one difference, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So when you and I have to minister in power, how many of us want power? What is power in Hindi? Samarth, correct? We need power. Now, let me tell you this. You and I cannot do any kind of ministry without the power of the Holy Spirit. It'll be a big zero.  We can know this Bible in and out, right? But without the baptism, without the anointing of the Holy Spirit, we will not be able to. Because Jesus Himself said, go and wait. I'll send the Holy Spirit. Only then you can do ministry. So for us to be powerful, to walk in the power of God, what do we need? Anointing, the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Remove. By nature, we are fearful. By nature, by our own, we are not able to do things. By our own, can we do? We can do certain things. We need the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I always tell people, it's easy to start a church, right? Especially now, if you talk about early 1990s to early 2000s, it was a little difficult to start a church, right? You have to do so many things. Now it's very easy.  Open a trust, start a church. It's easy to start a church. But what does Jesus say? You shall be known by your fruit. So if you want the church to be powerful, you as a leader, I as a leader, must ask God for the power of the Holy Spirit. Only that will make the difference. You're with me, right? Otherwise, we can start something. But there won't be any power in that. Because we need the power of the Holy Spirit, right? There were times when, you know, I've traveled across North India. And there are times when, you know, these people who are possessed by demons. Now, it's easy to talk about it. You know, when I studied, I got full marks in everything. I did very well in my studies in Bible college and all of that. But when I went and saw with my own eyes on paper, it's a different story altogether. It's important to study. It's important to learn the Word of God. It's important to do well. I remember I was in, I think it was Kashmir. And we're there and this young boy, maybe 20 years old, highly possessed. He came right in front. He suddenly, he gave a look that shook me.  And it was a conference. We had about 200 people there. I was probably my early 20s, 23, 24, right? Young boy. I knew, I thought I knew everything from the Bible. Like I studied really hard. I saw that. No, all this Bible knowledge was there, but everything is gone. Because it's when you look at it, when you look at a person who's possessed. It's a different story. I'm sure most of us have seen in North India. It's a different story altogether. We cannot say, you know, I have a degree in BTH. I have two certificates in English and two certificates and he doesn't care. You know, I get up at five o'clock and pray. Good for you. You know, I can sing 10 songs in a row, 10 worship songs, 10 praise and praise songs. Continuously I can sing. It doesn't matter to him. But if the Holy Spirit is inside us, there will be a change. So I remember that day. It's very fearful. I went back home to the room and I prayed and I said, God, why is it that I got fear? Why was I fearful? You said, I don't have a spirit of fear, but of power, love and sound mind. When I saw this person who's younger to me, I have so much of fear. Why is it? I felt the Holy Spirit telling me because you're trying to do this ministry on your own. You're trying to stand on your own ability.  You stand on my authority. You stand in the power of the Holy Spirit. I said that night I said, God, I want to change the way I minister. I prayed and I said, God, I'm going to go back tomorrow. I'm not going to stand on my own. Stand on your Holy Spirit, on your power, your authority. I remember the next day we went. Same thing happened during the prayer and the ministry time, right? All of us are praying in tongues and came. The same thing, same, exactly the same event happened like the previous day. They came and they stood, there was zero fear. And because of that zero fear, there was boldness. All of a sudden I was saying, hey, you can't do anything. I was able to minister, pray, eventually those demons left. But you see the difference. We do something on our own. Do not last long, but when it's anointed of God, God will use us. We need the power of God in ministry, especially in ministry, right? Acts chapter 5 and verse 32, let's read that. Acts 5 and 32.  Now you and I, now we know that all of us, we have not seen Jesus face to face. There will come a time we will see him face to face. But you and I are witnesses of the Gospel. It says there, now when you look, when you read the whole of Acts, in Acts 5, you see that Peter and John testify about Jesus. What does it say? We are witnesses. You are telling us that not to preach in the name of Jesus. Now let me tell you, I'm a witness. Now how many of you know what the meaning of a witness is? Let me give you an example, right? You're going on the road, you're driving somewhere and from far away you see one accident. You see two bikes banged each other and they both are fighting. But you know exactly because you're an eyewitness, you have seen everything. But they both are fighting there. So what would you do? You'll go and you'll say, hey, I saw with a few. You were actually wrong. This other person was going the right way. You came the wrong way and that's why this accident. So I saw it. So you're an eyewitness. So in some cases if they call the police, police will say, who's seen the whole event that's happened? Say, hey, I'm an eyewitness. They'll take you also and go. You'll sign you're an eyewitness. You have seen it. Now Jesus, during Jesus's time, Peter and John were eyewitnesses. They saw Jesus. They saw his ministry. They sat with Jesus. They ate with him. They slept with him. They traveled with him. They saw him doing his wonderful ministry. Imagine 5,000 people are there. Jesus is taking 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish and saying, give everyone. How will Peter feel? What are you talking? How will the disciples feel? They've seen the miracles. The end of that whole incident. 12 bags full. It's like Jesus was saying all the disciples take one bag home. 12 bags full. They've seen Jesus walking on water. They saw they've seen Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. What did he do? Weep and cry. What did Jesus do in Lazarus' tomb? He said, oh, please God, please, please, Father, thank you. Lazarus, come forth. He came. Simple. They've seen the miracles. They're eyewitnesses. And when Jesus said, I am the Messiah, they believed. And what happened? He said he'll die. He'll rise again from the dead. That's what he did. Now Peter and John are testifying. If you call some of our alumni, alumni means those who have completed our training here, they'll testify of the college. This is a college. These are the subjects. This is how we studied. They'll testify whether they were blessed or not and everything. So they're eyewitnesses. Now you and I may not be eyewitnesses, but we are witnesses of Jesus Christ. We are witnesses. And as witnesses, just like Peter and John and all the other disciples walked in power, you and I must walk in power. Let me give you the story. It's a real story. In the early 60s, there was a man named David Wilkerson. He was a pastor. And he started a church in the countryside, a small church, about 100 people. And every Sunday he would go preach. But one day as he was praying, he said, God, I'm only preaching about the Holy Spirit. I'm preaching about your power. I'm preaching about your anointing, but I don't see it.   So one day he was reading the newspaper he saw in New York. That's another city. There was a lot of gangs, gang fights and people, children, 12 years, 15 years old, gang fights and they're being killed. Now David Wilkerson said he was a pastor. He said he left his comfortable life. He went to the city and he started ministering to the people. And these are drug addicts, gangsters. They could have killed him at any time. But then he saw the power of God working. Many of these gangsters, gang leaders, drug addicts put their weapons down and they gave their life to Christ. He wrote a book. The name of the book is called The Cross and the Switchblade. The switchblade is that blade. You press it and then the knife comes up. The gangsters used to use that. The name of his book is The Cross and the Switchblade. It's a powerful book. It talks about how the cross is more powerful than any weapon in this world. Let's read Hebrews chapter 2, verse 3 and 4. Hebrews chapter 2, verse 3 and 4. Let's look at verse 4. That's so powerful. Verse 4, God also testified. Right? So it was not like Jesus is saying, okay, go do ministry. No. God, our Lord Jesus, he testified this gospel by signs, wonders and miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his own will. So when you and I are doing ministry, if there's signs, wonders and miracles, it is because God has testified it through his gospel. This is what Jesus wanted to do. And this is what will keep going on. Let me tell you this. Any kind of bill may come. The Church of God will never stop. It will never stop. Let any kind of persecutions will come. If you read the book of Revelation, the persecutions will grow stronger and stronger. But the Church, the body of Christ will never stop. Miracles will never stop. Signs and wonders will never stop. It will not stop because this is God who is building his church. Right? So isn't that an encouragement for us? A government may say hundreds of things, but God doesn't work on that level. God's level is somewhere else. When God says, I will testify of the gospel with signs, wonders and miracles. And people will see signs, wonders and miracles. And people will be added to the church. The church is not going to stop just because some people come and burn one church. No. God is going to build the church even bigger and greater. But he needs you and us. He needs us to build his church. For that we need the power. Right? So it is very simple. God is saying, are you willing? If we say yes, he'll say, I'll give you the power. If we say no, he will not push us. He's gentle. You say, no, I don't want to do ministry. I want to do something else. Or I want to do, you can do anything else. Right? You can start your business, do something in the corporate. But what he wants is, he wants us to, you know, to scare the gospel, to minister to people, signs, wonders and miracles to happen. Right? With these signs, wonders and miracles, God will testify the gospel. Each one of us, when we are preaching, a time will come. Right? Now is the time to study. The time will come. You will go back. You will preach. You will minister to people. And you will be surprised when you're laying hands on the sick, they will be healed. When you lay hands on people who are brokenhearted, they will feel comforted. And you'll feel, hey God, thank you for using me. It's not like we are perfect. Right? But that is the greatest joy that we can have to minister and power, to minister in authority. Right? Next one. We minister with compassion. Let's read 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 14 and 15. Yeah. Guys died for all that we, those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him. You know, let me give you an understanding of what's happening here in the church in Corinth. Now in this church, in the church in Corinth, there was division. Right? So if you, let's, let's just go to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 13. Let me read this. Right? Now verse 12 and 13. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 12 and 13. It says, what I mean is this. One of you says, I follow Paul. Another, I follow Paulos. Another, I follow Cephas. Still another, I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? Right? Now what is happening in this church is that there is division within the church. Some are saying I follow Paul. Some are saying I follow Paulos. Some are saying I follow Peter. Some are saying I follow Jesus. Now this is a big problem. Is it a problem or no? Right? When a church is divided, is it powerful? Right? For example, all of us are here. If we have to be one team, we have to have unity, oneness. Right? But if there's division, it causes chaos. Anger, jealousy, strife, hatred, all of these things will start. Right? Hey, you're in that team. And there's another group saying I follow Paul. Another group is saying I follow Paulos. That's a big problem. So Paul is writing and he's saying is Christ divided? No, we're one body. And so the background of this is when Paul is saying Jesus died on the cross for all. If we are in him, we're all included in that. So he's ministering in compassion. He's saying there's no division. There's no division in the body of Christ. Remember this, when the Lord Jesus looks at us, we may be Methodist, Pentecost, whatever the backgrounds are there, many other things are Baptist and all kinds of backgrounds, denominations are there. That is man-made denominations. We have different styles of worship, different ways of worship, different methods of preaching. So every church is different. Right? But when the Lord Jesus, he looks at us, he looks at us as one body. He's not looking at us and saying, okay Methodist, you go sit there. Baptist, you go sit there. No, he's looking at us as one body washed by the blood of Jesus. So when we go to heaven, there is no denominations. There is no pastor, prophet, apostle, nothing. So all these titles will last only for a while. When we are in heaven, one thing the Lord Jesus sees are we washed by the blood of Jesus. Because it is through the cross. Christ died for us through the cross that we find forgiveness. We find the love of God. So as believers, you and I must walk in this compassion. Avoid divisions, avoid things that can cause strife and anger and jealousy. These are natural things which come into our life. But as we did in the first week, we need to lay the axe. Sometimes we may feel jealous of somebody else. Lay the axe. Say, God, I don't want this. When you pray, you say, God, I don't want to be jealous. Please remove it out of me. And the Holy Spirit will remove it. Or when you may feel by nature, we may feel jealous of people or angry or we may hate people. Now, for example, there are people of other faiths. And when we look at them, sometimes we may, our heart may be filled with hate. How can they do this? How can they follow these wrong things? How can they live in such a sin? Now, it's very important to remember that we were also in sin. That Christ died for them also. So we need to tell ourselves, God, I remove this hatred, remove pride, remove anger. Remove these things from my heart that I may walk in love. I love what the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13. Let's read that. Let's read 1. 1 Corinthians 13, sorry, verse 4 to 13. Let's read that entire passage. 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verses 4 through 13. Right. So in chapter 12, Paul is writing one big passage. We have different kinds of gifts. We have prophecy, word of knowledge. We have, you know, speaking in tongues, working of miracles, gift of faith. He's listing down all the gifts and the church is already flowing in all the gifts of the spirit. Now, isn't that wonderful? Imagine a church, all of them are prophesying. There's people who can speak in tongues, working of miracles. Wonderful. But chapter 1, there's division. Now, chapter 13, he's saying, love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. Love is not proud. It's not easily angered. It is not people record of wrong. Love does not delight in the evil, but chooses what is right. Love never fails. Gives us big list. And then he ends it by saying, these three remain. Faith, hope and love. The greatest of this is love. Everything else will cease. The gifts, the prophecy, the word of knowledge, working of miracles, everything will cease. It will stop. The love of God will remain. So Paul is writing to a church that's already flowing in the gifts of the spirit. So what does it teach us? We can prophesy. We can have word of knowledge. We can have gifts of the spirit speak in tongues. But still we can be in a place and walk in anger and jealousy and pride. Paul is saying, walk in love. The greatest of all of this is love. That is why the Lord Jesus set the example. Each one of us, even whatever we are doing, right? We come here to study, to learn. It's good to exercise spiritual gifts. It's good to study and learn. But don't forget to walk in love. Because the greatest of all of this is love. Amen? The greatest of all of this. You can say, oh, I know so much. I know how to do this and that and this. That's wonderful. But are we walking in love? It's a question. First Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 1 through 8 here. Paul is writing to the Thessalonians. First Thessalonians chapter 2. I'll read a couple of verses here. First Thessalonians 2, 1 through 8. He says, we have previously suffered and have been insulted in Philippi. As you know, but with the help of our God, we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong opposition for the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives or nor are we trying to trick you. On the contrary, we speak as men approved of God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God who tests our hearts. You know that we never did come with flattery. Not that we speak with a mask to cover up our greed. God is our witness. We are not looking for praise from men, not from you or from anyone else. So he goes on in that passage and he says, through all the hardships, Philippi was a church that was going through a lot of persecutions. And sorry, Thessalonica was a church which went through a lot of persecutions. And Paul is saying in all those persecutions, in all those challenges and oppositions that we faced, we see the love of God. The love of God encouraged us. The love of the church, the people encouraged us to continue the gospel. So I want to leave us today with these two points. As we minister the gospel, two very important things. Number one is what? Love. You can say number one is love to walk in the love of God. Number two is to walk in the power of God. Only if you love somebody will you share the gospel with them. Now, for example, you're outside, you're seeing somebody, you may not feel love for them. Somebody is just walking on the road. How can I feel love for them? But when the Holy Spirit, you ask the Holy Spirit, minister to me. When I'm ministering to this person, I can minister in love. Holy Spirit will pour out his love upon our heart. Suddenly we will not look at them as with hatred or with anger or with people of different, you know, faiths, but we will look at them with love. As Paul writes, he says, love breaks barriers. Divisions are broken when we walk in love, right? So we'll stop here. We'll pick up from chapter four next week. Any questions? Right? So I want to encourage each one of us. Will we do this? Right? Yes.  The love of God will teach us. The love of God will bless the work of our hands, bless our ministry, bless everything that we are doing. Right? So that your time here is fruitful. Right? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time. We thank you for your word. We thank you, Lord, for teaching us so wonderfully that, Lord, we are to walk in love, to walk in power. We are your children, Lord, enable us, equip us, empower us to walk in this God kind of love, to glorify your name, Lord. Kill us with your love. Thank you, Lord. We thank you for your Holy Spirit.  God bless everyone here online. Thank you for joining. Have a great week. Thank you very much, sir.


A film in three minutes, Under the Volcano. If there was one actor I could identify more deserving of winning an Academy Award than any of his contemporaries, it would have to be British actor Albert Finney. And if forced to choose which of his five nominated performances was most deserving of such prestigious recognition, it would undoubtedly be his portrayal of tortured alcoholic Geoffrey Furman in John Huston's 1984 masterpiece, Under the Volcano. Right in Mexico on the eve of the Second World War, the story follows haunted drunkard Geoffrey, a retired British consul to the country who has spent a year separated from his wife Yvonne, played by Jacqueline Bassett. After her having committed an affair with Geoffrey's half-brother Hugh. Upon her miraculous return, the two attempt to reconcile their past grievances, but as each gruelling hour passes by, Geoffrey's alcoholism only makes itself more present, preventing him from being able to move on from the deep pain that plagued his soul. Based on the best-selling semi-autobiographical novel penned by troubled author Michael Lowry, the film suffered from a prolonged period of development hell, changing hands with numerous producers and studios before director John Huston, who had been attempting to adapt the film for more than 30 years, found a version of the screenplay written by first-time writer Guy Gallo that he was happy with. But despite Huston's legendary status as a film director, it's the performance by Albert Finney that pushes the movie into masterpiece territory. His portrayal of Geoffrey's self-indulgent, as well as self-destructive drunkenness, becomes hypnotic on the screen, and edges almost towards the theatrical at times. The sense that this man is haunted by inner demons, which he in turn keeps feeding through alcohol, is palpable throughout, and delivered with an energy and nuance that only a master performer like Finney could muster to prevent it from becoming comical. You realise just how controlled and measured the performance is when considering how Geoffrey's drinking is in fact simply a way for him to mask his pain and function. Finney's efforts at portraying the terrifyingly functional alcoholic verges on the sublime, and was described by film critic Roger Ebert as being the best drunk performance he had ever seen. While director Huston before dying stated that Albert Finney's performance was not only the finest he ever directed, but the best he had ever witnessed. But this in no way makes under the volcano in easy watch. It's three main characters are pulled apart from one another by a misdeed that cannot be condoned or condemned, and the strain of this sin is excruciatingly apparent in every scene they share. Geoffrey's inability to forgive his wife's misdeeds condemns him to us, the audience, and to those closest to him, with his lack of empathy taking him on a journey into his own personal hell at the film's climax. A journey that we also share as Geoffrey's demons slowly consume us, making us too feel like Geoffrey that we're trapped under the volcano.