Felly ydych chi'n gweithio eich dynach o'r panel aeth yma? Wel, dwi'n gwybod, rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i ddim ymlaen i Peter, dwi'n dwych, ond ond, ein gwasanaeth a'r gwasanaeth, mae'n dweud o'r gwirioneddau ar gyfer y gaf. Wel, y cyfrifiadau yma sy'n golygu'r gwerthau cyffredinol gweithiol, oes yna'r ymlaen i? OK. Those are right. Okay. Director sorry. I think there's two things I think David pointed out. There is no right or wrong model. The thing is is there's sades of grey with regard to how these models will work. But I think one of things about what we look at with our farming relationships is. We take a very simple principle, corporates are good at raising money, farmers are good at farming. Rodd yn amlwg, rydyn ni'n gofnod ai'r gynhyrch arwain yn ddau gwirwyr yn y bobl ac yn y bobl yn ddau'r gobl. Felly i'r mewn medau a gydrofodiasoedd sy'n gwybod nhw i wybodaeth yr sgolriro. Roedd yn bêl i ddweud yn rai'n ei wneud yn ymgyrchu, ac mae'r bobl yn ymddug yn cael eu hyd yn ymddangos yw'r gwirwyr mewn drws沒關係, ac mae'n amlwg yn ddweud. Roedd y siŵr gallu cyfnod lle ei chyfyddo gwirwyr yn ei hwngol, ac doedd weithio cyfansio awrwag ffarrwyddo i'r uddiadol, a oes yn cael cyfansio'r ffarrwyd yn cael eu cyfan i ddim nickname ac rydyn ni'n amryliau'r darthlu a fathio na ddim yn cael eu cyflog. Felly, allan o wahanol, byddai'r ffarrwyd yn du'r peri sy'n newid o fathio. Ac oes yn cael eu ffo modd o ffarrwyd fel y fathio, ac roedd yn gallu wahanol o'i funud. Felly yn cael eu bwysig? Felly, mae'n ei ddych chi i dweud y quotos Mae'n meddwl gwahod rwyf yn ei dynai, sydd roi fod yw'r meddwl gwahod yw'r meddwl gwahod yw'r meddwl gwahodir yw'n meddwl gwahod yw'r meddwl mae mae meddwl gwahod yn ei dynai, yn ei dynol ddigwydd. Mae meddwl gwahod yn ei dynai yw'r meddwl gwahod, yn yr adspun i'r adnod o'r cyfrecydd sydd dod o'r adnod os yw y ffordd. Mae meddwl gwahod, mae rai fod yn waith amhaf i dyrwun, a i dufnod arfer iawn. mae'r gwybod phobl yn ystod o'r llwylo'n gwybod mewn dylai'r cyffredinol i'r dyffredinol yma. Felly mae'n fawr ydym ni. Yn ystod gwaith mae'n fawr? Yn ystod, mae'n gwybod i chi'w cyffredinol a phobl yn gwneud yn cyffredinol i'r cyffredinol. Mae'n gwybod peirio'n gwirio'n cyffredinol. Well, I do have one for Peter now, which is on some of your data looking at how influential capital land appreciation was. Now, when you are an investor and looking at what is wrong with looking at total returns and how should investors see capital appreciation of agricultural ar gyfer? Well there's nothing wrong with thinking about capital appreciation in every sensible investor would. I think you just need to understand what's happened to the price of farmland, and that the increase we've seen has pretty much been in a period from about 2002 through to 2009 or 2007, and since then it hasn't done much. So it's great if you have land gyda'r ystryf? A hynny'n dryddio'r cystafell nawr. Yn gyfrifod hwnna, fel yna yna llawer o fy dyfodd ychydig oedd, ond mae'r cyfrifolau ar yr hyn arbennig, rydym ni'n parfwysydd yw hefyd, criOS inni yn rhanu rhagor. Mae ydych chi'n cael y gorffeni ar yr hyn yn y pethau. Yn gyfaint o'i cyrraed. ac mae gennym o'n ddwybod i fel ffaisio i ddweud o ddweudio'r cyfnod. Felly, yn ffawr o'r ddweudio ar gweithio'r cyfleoedd, y ddweudio'r peiriau yn ffocws o'r ffordd fyddai'r cyfnod o'r ddweudio'r cyfnod, yn ffawr o'r ddweudio'r cyffredinol?  Rwy'n rhaid i ni ddodd i gwybiddio? Fel gennym gweld. Yn ymddech chi oeswch ond, Yn ymddech chi, David, yn unig wedi gweld, ningwch ar y dyfodol, cwyt bersond, maen nhw'n bai tyfu, agri. Fy yw'r gweithio, fel y panolcaid, yn y cyf culio am y bwerd? Ar ôl y Newsp traddiad o'r ffamilieid ym mŵs ffarn yn yroch yn ymgyrch o'r blaid. My Letter to the Family Farmers that don't actually inherit the farm. Sorry, just I don't quite understand that... ...so you're talking about foreign investment giving opportunities to- No, not foreign investment but just institutional investment per se giving.. ...opportunities to people that want to farm that might not have access to the family farm. But they have a proposal in mind? Mae'n cydwylliant. Mae'n cydwylliant i'r llaint, mae wedi anghych am golnt o'r ffram. Mae'r byw'r ffram ychydig. Dwi dwi'n gweithio ein ffram dda nhw'n drafwy ar y cwrin Roeddwch yn credu wel i'r byw hwnnw. Steven, a gan rhaid i ddim yn ein fan? R 1986, dydd e'ch cydwyllti ar y tyl similarlye ar gwrwfiau cydwyllti enwedig fel dwi'n golygu. Felly, caith i ddim yn y bydd hyn. Mae gapio yma hyn ar gyfer y cydwyllti, scenario. We were talking to young people, they were actually 23, just married. The wife was an accountant, just finished uni, passionate, I think fourth or fifth generation dairy farmer. The husband, he was just passionate at getting in and getting involved and loved the farming, but they had nothing to start with. So it was very clear to a larger institutional business down in that area that these people had what it takes. So they actually provided the opportunity and give them some land to farm. And then they've set up an arrangement where they share the returns over a certain amount of years. They've allowed also the young farmers to be able to start to build their own herd. So that's a classic example. So you're seeing more and more of it. Because, as I said earlier, the institutional organisations really are valuing the quality of the farming techniques and the passion of our farmers. So it's how they bring that into their circle, but then how do they give back the other way? So it was a classic young farmer. I think we've got to separate people having careers in agriculture from owning farms. We're in a bind if we think to be a farmer, you've got to own the land. And one of the advantages of outside capital is it gives career paths for good young people to come into agriculture and they don't need to own land, have a good career. Yes, but I'm very sad about that.  So you're saying that really we need to just move on from all that. That's fantastic if you can do it. The reality is agriculture is a capital intensive business. So you need to be capitalised with $5 or $10 million before you start. Unless you're going to share milk or something like that, which has got good models. And no one has the right to suddenly get $5 or $10 million in any other sector of the economy. And it was ever thus I suspect anyway. It was ever. And to think that we need to foster a model where we want to bring young farmers in and give them cheap loans and all that sort of thing is totally ridiculous because it's about running businesses competitively and generating the returns. And it's very well to be a motive about it. And that's fine.  But so be it. My parents made that decision. Righto. Yes, sir. Graham Peart, an agricultural consultant. A question to David Cornish. But the comment is that there are only three ways to get a family farm. Matrimony, patrimony or parsimony. And it hasn't changed in 3,000 years. David, you talked about the coefficient of variation and the cost of variability of income in agriculture, which I'm very sensitive to having analysed and helped farmers through a lot of crises. I asked a man when I started consulting, tell me about the bankrupts in our district. And he said, I can think of quite a few cattle bankrupts, but I can't think of a single sheep bankrupt. It's about the variability of income and the high costs of drought and the variable costs of cattle. You talked about the central west as having the lower, the cheap wheat zone as having the lowest variability. But my observation in the trends is that family farms cope quite well with mixed farms, but corporates don't cope very well with mixed farms. And yet to swing with the punches in a mixed farming can be very profitable if you can do it well. Would you like to comment? The short answer is yes to all your points. It's fascinating dealing with, especially overseas investors, that the concept of a mixed farm is they just, they can't handle it. It's just like we dealt with some Germans and we, when they were saying, listen we want a meat, sheep meat operation, I said, well we can do that, but what I'd like to do is look at a mixed farm. No, we will not look at a mixed farm. They just cannot handle it for some reason. I don't know why, but I think that has a lot to do with not understanding how it is to farm in Australian agriculture, but with the other points about this whole question of mixed farming managing risk, again there's a lot of work being done with the grain and graze group looking at that, which would support your major premise now. Again, I don't know why corporates struggle, and I'm saying that without actually having the facts, but it would be my presumption as well, but I'm happy to be proven wrong. Yes, please Phil. I think the other interesting issue is a lot of institutional investors are very aware of headline risk, and they seem to be very averse to things with tales as they describe them, and they don't like animals, because they perceive higher risk in terms of welfare or something like that, so some of them I would describe as nearly paranoid about having animals on their farms, so it's a real challenge to convince them there's a good thing to do when they're all they're worried about as being a small target. Notwithstanding the protein challenge. Yeah, they'd rather say we'll grow the grain, or feed the cattle to Sildawasia, rather than grow the cattle. I have one last one before we go. Anybody else got one? It's about supermarkets, and you're talking about the focus on lower costs, lower costs, and we must get back to that. To what extent have supermarkets driven that in farming? Is it therefore a good thing, and are we going to see a lot more of it from a farmer's point of view? I think it's inevitable because we're in a global marketplace, so we can have coals and willies putting us under pressure, and they do, and that's quite reasonable, because farmers are the worst when you go into the local reseller to buy a drummer roundup of screwing the price down, so it's in everybody's business model to do that, and so if we don't take that view on that we've got to achieve productivity in order to keep our costs per unit down, not necessarily our costs, but our costs per unit down, then we will be left behind. So we're on a treadmill, and we have to accept that, and just tread faster. I want to contradict your premise a little bit through personal experience in that working with coals and willies, especially in the goat cheese operation, has been the best thing to happen to us with regard to increasing sale and increasing our profit margins, and working with a supermarket or retailer that actually uses us feedback. So from a personal perspective, I can't speak more highly of the supermarkets where the price pressure comes from is our competitors, which is the beef and sheep or French goat farmers. But did working with them actually, and getting feedback from them help with your efficiencies? Oh yeah, yeah, and they also invested in helping it. All right, terrific. Well on that front, thank you all for listening to four very different takes on this space, I think, and look forward to catching up hopefully at dinner this evening. But David, Stephen, David and Peter, thank you very much for joining us.


Amen. All right, well, thank you very much, everybody, for being here today. I would like to, of course, thank Pastor Pizarnski and Miss Heidi for their hospitality and for inviting us and having us here. And, of course, they had us over their house for dinner last night, and it was a wonderful dinner, and we had a great time fellowshiping and talking with them. My wife does send her regards. I'm not, my wife's not here with me today. I've got four of six of my children. Four of them are here. Two of them are back home with my wife, and she does say hello. She wishes she could have been here, but we just kind of have a lot going on right now, and we're doing six weddings in six months at our church, and she's got a lady's... Yeah, you can thank Brother Andrew and Miss Esther. They're here, but they're ruining our lives, so. They're happy marriage is ruining our lives. No, I'm just kidding. But, you know, she has a lady's Christmas party. There's just so much going on that she wasn't able to get away. And we also have a puppy that we can't really leave alone right now, so anyway, she wasn't able to come this trip, but she does say hello, and we're definitely glad to be here, and I want to say, of course, hello to all of you that came from Verity. I appreciate you coming down and being here. This is a great building. I love this building. It's awesome, and congratulations to all of you. It's a nicer building, nicer location, and I'm sure the Lord is going to use it in a great way to continue to bless this church, so congratulations. I know how it is to move into a building and try to get everything ready and accomplished, and there's a lot of stress and pressure that goes with that, but I hope you guys will enjoy this building. It's a beautiful building, and you've done a great job with it. We're very proud of you guys, and of course, you know, the part that the Lord allowed us to play and starting this church and helping it get going, but we appreciate your faithfulness and the work that you're doing, and I hope you'll come and visit us anytime, really. Of course, we have our Red Hop Preaching Conference in Sacramento every year. This year, I've asked Pastor Przarski, since he's officially a pastor now, to preach at the Red Hop Preaching Conference, so I hope you all at least come up and support him while he's preaching and represent Fresno well. If you're able to, we'd love for you to meet us there. You're there in Matthew chapter number seven. Is there any way that I could get a water if that's okay? I apologize if I appreciate that. Thank you. Matthew chapter number seven. In Matthew chapter seven, there's a lot of great truths that we could look at in this chapter. This is, of course, the last chapter or the third chapter in a famous sermon that the Lord Jesus Christ preached, which is the sermon on the Mount. And the Lord Jesus Christ and his sermon, the conclusion to his sermon is found in Matthew chapter seven and verse number 27, where he gives a very famous parable. You're there in Matthew chapter seven. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Matthew chapter seven and verse 24, the Bible says this, therefore, this is what Jesus said, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock. And this, of course, known as the parable of the wise man who built his house upon the rock or the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. In verse 25, the Bible says, and the rain descended and the floods came and the wind blew and beat upon the house and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine shall be of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended and the floods came and the wind blew and beat upon his house and it fell and great was the fall of it. This is probably one of the most famous parables in the Bible, the wise man that built his house upon the rock. There's even a song when I was growing up in church that we would sing as children about the wise man built his house upon the rock, the wise man built his house upon the rock. And you would sing about the rains came down and the floods went up, the rains came down and the floods came up. And of course the idea is that a wise person builds their house, if you think of it not just spiritually but in a secular way, cause that's what a parable is, it is an earthly illustration of a spiritual truth. The idea is that if you're gonna build a building, you better build it on a good foundation. A sand is not a solid foundation. You want some sort of a rock, some sort of a foundation to be able to build your house so that when the rains come, when the winds come, when bad weather comes, it will be able to be sustained, it'll be able to remain. You notice there in verse 27, it says when the winds blew, the rain descended at the end of the verse there, it talks about the house that was built upon the sand. The Bible says, and it fell and great was the fall of it. Now keep your finger there in Matthew chapter seven. I'd like you to come back to Matthew seven in a minute but go with me to 2nd Corinthians chapter five, if you would.  This parable of the wise man building his house upon the rock, I want you to understand what the parable is about. Here in Matthew seven, 24, we're told that he built his house. The wise man built his house upon a rock. We're also told in verse 26 that the foolish man built his house upon the sand. What is this referring to when it talks about the house? Well, in 2nd Corinthians five, and right now at our church on Wednesday nights, I'm preaching through the book of 2 Corinthians and chapter five in verse one made me think of this parable. It says there, this is what Paul wrote. He says, for we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, and I don't have the time to explain all of 2nd Corinthians five, but he says we have a building of God and house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. And if you look at that passage and study it out and I'll ask you to trust me on that or you can study it out at a different time. When he's referring to the earthly house of this tabernacle, he's referring to our bodies, our physical bodies upon this earth. And I believe, and I think everyone would probably agree with this, when Jesus taught this parable about the wise man that built his house upon a rock and the foolish man that built his house upon the sand, the house there is a reference to our lives. The idea is that we should build our lives upon the rock. We should not build our lives upon the sand in the same way that you don't want to actually build a structure on sand. You wanna lay a good foundation.  Now, what is it that we're supposed to build our lives upon? What is the rock? Well, you're there in 2 Corinthians. Flip back to 1 Corinthians, chapter 10. And let me just show this to you by way of introduction this morning. 1 Corinthians, chapter 10. We see that in the parable, the house is a reference to our lives. And even Paul said that our earthly bodies, our earthly house of this tabernacle, in reference to our bodies and the lives we live today. What's the rock? 1 Corinthians, chapter 10, look at verse four. The Bible's clear about this. The Bible says and did all drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them. Notice the Bible says and that rock was Christ. All throughout the Bible we're told that Jesus Christ is the rock, that God is the rock. It's not a famous wrestler, it's the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the rock. So in this parable we're told, hey, you need to build your house upon the rock. What's the idea there? What isn't that Jesus is teaching us? That we need to build our lives upon the rock of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our lives must be built upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that might sound fine and good, and it might sound like a lot of spiritual mumbo jumbo, but I want you to understand there's a very practical application to this. When we say, you know, build your life upon the rock, and we know that the rock was Christ, what do we actually mean by that? What is it that we are saying when we say that? Go back to Matthew if you would, and let me just read this. While you turn there, John chapter one in verse 14, the Bible says this about Jesus. It says, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth. Here in a few weeks, we're gonna, a couple of weeks, we're gonna celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ Christmas. What are we celebrating? The fact that the word was made flesh. The fact that God was manifest in the flesh. See, the Bible tells us that Jesus is the word. Now, obviously we understand that Jesus is the living word. Jesus is the word of God as the second person of the Godhead, but we also understand that in the same way that Jesus is the living word, the Bible that you and I hold in our hands today, this is the written word, and Jesus is the word. So in the same way that Jesus is the rock, the Bible itself is also the rock. The word of God, the Bible, and we understand in our, in the English speaking world, the King James Bible is God's inspired, preserved, inerrant word of God, and we understand that this is the rock. See, it's not just spiritual lingo. When we say, you know, that Jesus is the head of the church, we don't just say that and mean like in some sort of spiritual mystical way, he's the head, yes, he is the head, but in a very practical sense, what that means is that the word of God is the authority. As Bible-believing Baptists, as Baptists we are Biblicalists, so when you come to church like this, here's what we believe, we believe the Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice, why?  As a pastor of a local New Testament church, pastor Pizarra, skis of pastor, our job is not to be the head of the church, but we must submit ourselves under the authority of the word of God, that's why we stand up here and we preach the word of God. So when the Bible says Matthew chapter seven, if you would, look at it again, verse 24. When Jesus said, you need to build your house upon a rock, it's a parable, it's an illustration. The idea is, and the lesson that he's teaching is that we must build our lives upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the word, and in a very practical sense, we must build our lives upon the Bible. We must build our lives upon the Bible, and in fact, if you look at the text, you'll notice that's what he's saying in verse 24, he says, therefore, whosoever notices his words, he says, heareth these sayings of mine. He just got done preaching one of the most famous sermons in the Bible, the Sermon on the Mount, and now he's concluding, Jesus is the master teacher, he's the best preacher that's ever lived. I mean, he concludes his sermon with one of the most famous passages in the Bible, one of the greatest parables in the Bible, the parable of the wise man, but he says, look, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, he said, I just got done preaching, the living word just got done preaching the written word of God, and he says, if you've heard these words, he says, whosoever heareth these words of mine and doeth them, he says, I will liken him unto a wise man that built his house upon a rock. See, the idea that I want to bring to you this morning, the thought for this morning, the challenge that I want to give you is a very simple challenge. It's not sophisticated, it's not complicated. Sometimes we like to preach things that are more complicated and we wanna preach about, and times, and prophecy, and I'm all for that, and I do that myself, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but sometimes it's good for us to be reminded of the basics, and the basic message that I wanna bring to you this morning, and I feel like it's something that God has used to kind of captivate my mind and my thought is this, in the Christian life, your goal and my goal should be very simply this, to build your life upon the Bible. To build your life upon the word of God, and you might hear me say that, and maybe hopefully not physically, but maybe in your own mind, roll your eyes and think, really, you came all the way from Sacramento to Fresno to preach this sermon, but let me tell you something, what I've learned over the last 11 years of ministry is that it's a rare thing to find a Christian that actually is building their lives upon the Bible. That's actually doing the work of building their house upon the rock. In fact, most Christians may not even realize it, they're building their lives upon the sand. So I'll speak to you for a few moments this morning on the subject of how to build your life upon the Bible, how to build your life upon the Bible, and that's really the thrust of my point today is to challenge you to build your life upon the Bible. How do you do this? How does somebody actually build their life upon the Bible? Well, you're there in Matthew chapter seven, flip over to Matthew chapter 12 if you would, Matthew chapter 12, and if you're taking notes, I'd encourage you to maybe write down some of these things. I've got three simple points for you this morning. Point number one is this, to build your life on the Bible, to build your life upon the Bible, you do that by first of all, knowing what the Bible says. You can't actually build your life upon a book like the Bible, if you don't know what the Bible actually says. In Matthew chapter 12, we find an example of this, I want you to notice it, this is something that's highlighted throughout the Gospels, I'll give you several examples just from the book of Matthew. Matthew chapter 12 in verse two, I want you to notice what the Bible says, it says, but when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, the hymn there is referring to Jesus, they said, behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day. Here you have the Pharisees coming to Jesus and they're tattle-telling to Jesus about his disciples, they're saying your disciples are doing something that's not lawful, something that's not right. Now, here's what's interesting, is that the Pharisees are actually incorrect about what they're accusing the disciples about being incorrect. It's funny because you'll get around Christians who don't know the Bible and they'll try, they'll tell you things and they'll say, you're not supposed to do that and it's like, actually, that's what the Bible says we're supposed to do. You know, you have Christians say, you're not supposed to judge and it's like, really, because the Bible says to have righteous judgment. When the Bible says judge not that you be not judged, it's not telling you not to ever judge, it's telling you to not judge hypocritically, why don't you read the Bible, actually read the text and you'll find that he's saying, look, take the beam out of your own eye so then you can properly judge. But what you'll find is that Christians who don't read the Bible or people who say they're believers that don't read the Bible, they'll try to correct you with the Bible and they don't know what they're talking about. They'll say, behold, they'll say things like, well, we're supposed to hate the sin and love the sinner. It's like, you're not quoting the Bible, you're quoting Gandhi. That's not, you didn't find that in the Bible. Behold, disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day, notice verse three, but he said unto them, notice what Jesus said, have he not read? He says, haven't you read what David did when he was in hunger and they that were with him? How he entered into the house of God and did eat, show of bread and was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? Notice verse five, he says, or, notice the theme, or have you not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath day, the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless? I want you to notice this is a common theme with Jesus. Go to Matthew chapter 19 if you would. I'll just show you a few references from Matthew, Matthew 19, Jesus is often being asked questions and sometimes very foolish questions and his response is this, have you not read? Have you not read?  Haven't you read what the Bible says? Matthew 19, look at verse three, and the Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him and saying unto him, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cost and by the way, this is a very common thing that people ask. And as a pastor, I oftentimes have people coming to me and say, I want to divorce my wife, I want to divorce my husband. Say pastor, what do you say to them? I say, have you not read? Look at verse four, and he answered and said unto them, have you not read? That he which made them at the beginning made them male and female and he goes on to talk about the fact that the Bible says that when God had joined together, let not man put us under. Go to Matthew 22, look at verse 24. Matthew 22, verse 24. Here again, we have another example. I have to kind of read a few verses before to get you to the question because it's such a complicated question. These are my favorite. When people give you this hypothetical, that will never happen. Well, one if a pedophile actually got saved, that's not gonna happen. Matthew 22, that's a sermon for another day. Matthew 22, verse 24. Notice what the Bible says, saying master, Moses said, if a man die having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up seed unto his brother. That's true. But then they come up with this illustration. Now there were with us seven brethren, and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and having no issue, left his wife unto his brother. Now please understand this. They're not actually interested in the answer to this question. They're trying to catch Jesus in something. See, these people do not believe in the resurrection. They do not believe that there is an afterlife.  So they're saying, look, Jesus, didn't Moses say that, and this is along the Old Testament, that if a brother shall marry his wife and they have no children and raise up seed, that his brother would then marry her and raise up seed unto his brother. And they say, so what if there's this guy, and he's got six brothers, there's seven of them. And the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and having no issue, left his wife unto his brother. Verse 26, likewise, the second also. So the first guy marries the lady, he dies with no children. The second brother marries her, she dies with no, or he dies with no children. And the third, unto the seventh. Look, this is never gonna happen. Where some ladies are gonna marry seven brothers, they're all gonna end up dead. If that ever happened, she'd get arrested. All right, this sounds like a 2020 episode.  Somebody needs to investigate this woman. She married seven brothers and they all wound up dead. There's an issue with your story here. But they ask this question. Verse 26, likewise, the second also, and the third unto the seventh.   Verse 28, therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of the seven? Because they're saying, you know, she married one guy, because here's what they're thinking. If she married one guy, he died, had no children, married another guy, and then they had children, they're thinking, well, the answer is that in the resurrection, she'll be married to the second guy whom she had children with. But they can put out this idea, what if she married seven guys, seven brothers, and she has children with none of them? Then who is she going to be married to in heaven? Notice the response, verse 29. Jesus answered and said unto them, ye do err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God.  You're in error to even ask this question because you know not, he says, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God. Then he explains to them, here's what the Bible says, verse 30, for in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the angels of God in heaven. He says, no one's married in heaven.  But as touching the resurrection of dead, notice verse 31, have you not read? Have you not read? That which was spoken unto you by God saying? And he explains to them, and I want you to notice that Jesus is often bringing up this idea that people don't know what the Bible says. They don't know what the Bible says. Listen to me, you, your job and my job is to build our lives on the Bible. How do we do that? We must start by actually knowing what the Bible says. Go to Hosea, if you would, Hosea chapter four. Hosea chapter four, if you find the major profit towards the end of the Old Testament, you'll find that big book of Isaiah, the big book of Jeremiah, a small book of Lamentations, Ezekiel, then Daniel, Hosea. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea. Let me tell you what your biggest problem is, and what my biggest problem is, when we don't know what the Bible says. We don't, what's the biggest problem in my life? Not knowing what the Bible says? Hosea chapter four, you're there? Look at verse six. My people, this is what the prophet Hosea said under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. He said, my people are destroyed. Why are they destroyed? He says, my people, look, he's not talking about the world here. He's talking about God's people. He's not talking about the sodomites. He's not talking about the drug crowd. He's not talking about the prostitutes. He's not talking about people in sin. He says, let me tell you the problem with my people. He says, my people are destroyed. Why? For a lack of knowledge. My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge because I was rejected in knowledge. I also will reject thee that thou shalt be no priest to me saying thou has forgotten, notice it, the law of thy God. I will also forget thy children. You know what the biggest problem is with Christians? It's not knowing what the Bible says. Right. It's not having knowledge about what the Bible says. Go to 2 Peter, if you would. 2 Peter chapter number three towards the end of the New Testament. If you start at the book of Revelation and head backwards, you have Jude, 32nd and 1 John, 2nd and 1 Peter. Revelation, Jude, 32nd and 1 John, 2nd and 1 Peter. 2 Peter chapter three. 2 Peter chapter three. See, we must begin. If we're going to build our lives on the Bible, we must begin with this idea that we must know. You say, how do I build my life on the Bible? Here's where you start by knowing what the Bible says. Amen. By actually knowing what the Bible says. You say, how can I know what the Bible says? You need to read it. Right. You just spend time in the Word of God and you're actually reading it so that you can know what it says. 2 Peter 3, verse 18. Notice what the Bible says here. The Bible says, but grow. See, when you got saved, you were born again.   You say, what am I supposed to do now? Here's what you're supposed to do, grow. Amen. But grow in grace. Notice, don't miss it. And in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen. See, your job, you say, what am I supposed to do? Build your life upon the Bible. How do I do that? By knowing what the Bible says, by growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Go to 2 Peter, if you would, chapter number one. 2 Peter chapter one. Over the years, I've had people say this to me and I appreciate what they're saying and they're saying this as an encouragement and I'm not bringing this up to beat them up.  But oftentimes, I'll preach sermons about marriage or I'll preach sermons about raising children. I'll preach sermons about relationships or finances or whatever it may be from the Bible and someone will inevitably meet me at the main door and usually after the service, I'll stand at the main door and greet people as they're going out. And oftentimes, I've had somebody walk up to me and shake my hand and look me in the eye and say, I wish I would have heard that 10 years ago. I wish I would have known that when I was raising my kids. I wish I would have heard that when I first got married. I wish I knew that and what they're saying is maybe that they have some regret that they hadn't heard that preaching but what they're really saying is that they made some mistakes in life that there were some regrets that they have in life as a result of not knowing what the Bible says. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Now if that's you this morning, I'm not beating you up. The Bible says Paul said forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth into those things which are before. The past is in the past. There's nothing you can do about it but you can learn the Bible today. You can read the Bible today. You can begin to understand what the Bible says.  Have you ever thought about this?  Everything that he wants us to understand. Everything that we need to know to succeed in life. He wrote it in a book and yet the average Christian does not take the time to open the Bible and read it and get to know what God wants them to know. Second Peter one, look at verse two. Second Peter chapter number one and verse two. Well look at verse one, we might as well read the context. Simon Peter a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained like precious faith. He's speaking to believers. I love that phrase, I'm not preaching about that but I love that little phrase there. To them that have obtained like precious faith. I love the fact that I can come down to Fresno, California and fellowship with other believers. I may not even know you but the fact that we have both obtained like precious faith makes us family. With us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ grace and peace be multiplied unto you. Notice, don't miss it. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you. Isn't that what you want? Isn't that what you want in your marriage?  Isn't that what you want in life? Grace and peace be multiplied unto you. How can you get that through the knowledge of God? And of Jesus our Lord, according, don't miss it as his divine power has given unto us. Don't miss it. All things that pertain unto life and godliness. Through the knowledge of him that have called us to glory and virtue. I'm here to tell you in this book God has given you everything you need to know about life and godliness. Everything you need to know about everything. Anything you need to know about anything. Anything you need to know about life is contained in this book. And we're too busy to read it. We're too busy to open it. We're too busy to study it, to memorize it. And you wonder why Christians are failing. Not doing any much better than the world. You say, why is it? It's one reason because they're not. Because you're not. Because I'm not building our lives upon the Bible. We must build our lives on the Bible. You say, how do I do that? Well, you begin by knowing what the Bible says. God has revealed to you everything that pertains unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that have called us to glory and virtue. God wants you to understand. God wants the grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God. God wants you to grow and grace in the knowledge that my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.  I, you know, my job's a mess and I'm just not succeeding and I'm struggling with raising my kids. You know, this is something that Brother Pastor Prasnarski and I have been talking about on my trip here and about raising godly young men and training them. But let me tell you something. If you find yourself as a 30 year old man saying, I just don't know what to do. The answers are in the Bible. Amen. You say, my marriage is struggling. The answers are in your Bible. I'm struggling with my childbirth. The answers are in the Bible. I'm struggling with my finances. The answers are in the Bible. I'm struggling with my health. The answers are in the Bible. I'm struggling with relationships and I'm not getting along with my coworkers or I'm not getting along with my neighbors or I'm not getting along with my fellow church members or I'm not getting along with my pastor. Hey, I'm here to tell you, the answers are in the Bible. Everything you need to know, everything you need to know is in the Bible. I'm just delivering a very simple sermon this morning. Keep your place there in 2 Peter if you would, we're going to come back to it. But go to 2 Corinthians, back to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. Keep your place in 2 Peter and go back to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. A very simple idea this morning. Build your life on the Bible. I hope when you leave here today, if somebody asks you, what pastor might I preach about? Build my life on the Bible. I need to build my life on the Bible. I need to build my life on the Bible. You say, how do you do that? Well, you begin by knowing what the Bible says. We have to start there. Look, we need a church, whole fast Baptist church, Verity Baptist Church. Any church needs a congregation of people that don't just show up to church on a Sunday morning with their Bible and praise God if you do, but they get up on Monday morning and open up the Bible and read it and search the Scriptures daily whether those things are so. And on Tuesday you open up the Bible and you say, God has something for me. God wants to teach me something. God wants to help me. God has given me all the answers to the questions I had and to the questions I don't even know to ask. They're in the Bible. Read the Bible. Know the Bible. But let me say this secondly. Not only must we build our lives by knowing the Bible. I've also noticed this, that we must build our lives by trusting the Bible. See, there are some Christians who are destroyed for the lack of knowledge. They actually don't know what the Bible says. There are others, and you might find yourself in this category. Because you go to a good church. You go to a whole fast Baptist church where the pastor stands up and opens up the Word of God and preaches the Word of God and teaches you truths out of the Word of God. See, some Christians don't know what the Bible says. That's why their lives are destroyed. Others know what the Bible says. And they might not ever say this. These words might not ever come out of their mouths. But the problem is, it's not that they don't know the Bible. It's that they don't trust the Bible. 2 Corinthians 1, look at verse 12. For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience. This should be the description of your life. That in simplicity and godly sincerity.  Simplicity and godly sincerity. You say, how do I get there? Here's how you get there. Build your life upon the Bible. Sometimes in our church, we deal with issues. And I obviously would never say this to somebody's face. But I sometimes think to myself, you know what your problem is?   We aren't, your life cannot be characterized. Look, your life ought to be characterized by these words. Simplicity and godly sincerity. You say, well, Pastor Manes, what do you want your marriage to be characterized as? Simplicity and godly sincerity. What do you want your parenting style to be characterized as? Simplicity and godly sincerity. What do you want to be known for as a pastor to your people? I hope that they'll know me as a man that lives his life. In simplicity and godly sincerity. It's authentic. It's real. It's sincere. And you know what? It's simple. It's simple. It's so simple that I stand up and preach sermons like this. Build your life on the Bible. I'm not getting up here trying to raise money for a jet. We're not trying to build time. Look, we're trying to reach people and I'm all for reaching people. But our lives are not that complicated. They ought not be that complicated. You say, what are you trying to accomplish in the Christian life? Why would you start a church in Sacramento, California in Boise, Idaho in Vancouver, Washington and Fresno, California in the Philippines? Why? Here's why. People that God's people would come somewhere, they would hear the Word of God, if they'd apply it to their lives, they would then take the Word of God, find people that are not saved, teach them how to get saved, bring them back in church and then teach them to do it again. It's not that complicated. Build your life on the Bible with simplicity and godly sincerity. But you know, you'll never get there with this. Notice, not with fleshly wisdom. What's the problem? Here's the problem, that we often lean upon fleshly wisdom. But by the grace of God, we have our conversation. The word conversation means a conduct or lifestyle in the world and more abundantly to your word. See, the problem sometimes is not that we don't know what the Bible says, but it's that we don't trust.  Go to Proverbs chapter three, if you wouldn't. Proverbs chapter three. If you open your Bible just right at the center, you're more than likely found in the book of Psalms, right after Psalms, you have Proverbs. Won't ever say it. Won't ever say, well, I don't trust the Bible. Won't ever say that.  You may know what the Bible says, but do you trust the Bible? Proverbs three, look at verse five. Notice what the Bible says. Trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. And lean not unto thine own understanding. Lean not to your fleshly wisdom. Jesus says it's funny to me and kind of rude. It's Jesus, so you can get away with it. He's got in the flesh. But he says, take no thought. He says, take no thought for the moral. For the moral shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the days of evil there. He says, stop worrying and stop thinking about how you're gonna pay the bills and how you're gonna do this and how you're gonna. He says, hey, take no thought. You know, here's what he's saying. He's saying, stop thinking so much. Obviously, God wants us to have wisdom. God wants us to understand the Bible. God wants us to have wisdom and be intelligent people. But here's what he's saying. You and I, we tend to wanna think about everything. Jesus said, stop thinking, you're not good at it.  So how do I get out of it? Read the Bible, know the Bible, trust the Bible, trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Lean not unto thine own understanding and all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy path. We gotta stop thinking so much and just start trusting the Bible and say, well, here's what the Bible says. Here's what God tells me to do. Here's what God tells me to do. I'm just gonna do it. Go to 2nd Peter, chapter one. If you get your place there in 2nd Peter. 2nd Peter, chapter one. Do you believe the Bible? Do you trust the Bible? Look, let me tell you something. I understand. I understand that the Bible, what God asks us to do is often puts us, often puts us in a very vulnerable position. I get that. I'm not here to tell you, hey. Do what the Bible says, it makes sense. Sometimes it doesn't make sense. Can I just be honest with you? You know what we ask in a church like this? We ask young ladies to marry some guy and literally put all her eggs in that basket of that young man. And by the way, young ladies, that's why you need to be very wise about the young man you pick. Because we're telling young ladies, I'm teaching my, I've got four daughters, I'm teaching my daughters, hey, your job, your job is to submit unto the authority that God has given you, which right now is your father, but one day your father will give you a way to a man and he's supposed to protect you, he's supposed to provide for you, he's supposed, and you say, yeah, but you know, you're putting them in a very vulnerable position.  They need to go get a job. They need to go to college and they need to have a safety net. Here's all I'm telling you, that's not what the Bible says. And by the way, we often focus on the young ladies, but let me tell you something, we're putting young men in a vulnerable situation too.  He's still Brother Jared, by the way, but he's a pastor, you're calling pastor. You're talking about, and I don't have time to roll it out or talk to you about it right now, but I'm working on a plan with my sons to try to prepare them, why? I'm putting them, we're putting them in a vulnerable situation. We're looking at young men today and telling them your job is to find a job that can provide for a wife, that can provide for children, be fruitful and multiply, have three, four, five, six kids, have a wife that stays home and homeschools the children. Praise God, I'm all for that.  And have them live in a nice neighborhood and have two cars and all that. You don't get us pressure? The world's not willing to do that.  Send that wife to work, put those kids in daycare, don't let the government raise them in public school. I'm just here to tell you that as Christians, we have to get to the place where we say, not only do I know what the Bible says, but I trust the Bible. Amen. You know what doesn't make sense telling a brand new Christian that just got saved, hey, 10% of your income now needs to go to church. First, that doesn't make any sense. I know that doesn't make any sense, but it's what the Bible says. That's right. I mean, do you believe the Bible? Have you ever thought that preaching makes no sense? The Bible calls preaching the foolishness of preaching. Let's go find 200 people, bring them to church, so I can yell at them for three hours a week for the rest of their lives. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. We should have provided some sort of entertainment. We should have provided a rock concert. We should provide movies and things like that. I know, that's what the world does. That's what Christian worldly Christians do. We're just gonna trust the Bible. Amen. We're just gonna do what God tells us to do. Do you believe the Bible? I mean, do you believe the Bible says, for the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints of marrow and as a discerner of the thoughts and intent of the heart? You believe God's Word is quick and alive and powerful? You believe God's Word can help you and guide you? Hey, not only do you need to know what the Bible says, but you have to actually take the step to trust. The Bible. We must trust the Bible. You're there in second Peter? Second Peter chapter one, look at verse 19. Second Peter chapter one, actually look at verse 17 just to get the context. 16, just to get the context. Notice what Peter says. He says, for we have not followed cunningly devised fables. When we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but where I witnesses of His majesty. Peter's about to tell us about something that he witnessed. He was an eyewitness. He says, for he received from God, the Father, honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved son and whom I will place. Peter is referring back to what's known as the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus, Peter, James and John went up on the Mount. Jesus was revealed, he was transfigured in his glory and they audibly heard a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved son and whom I will place. And Peter says, look, we're not following cunningly devised fables. This is not a myth or a story. He says, I was an eyewitness. I actually saw. I heard this. Look at verse 18. And this voice which came from heaven, we heard when we were with him in the holy mount. Peter is talking to us about an experience he had. But then I want you to notice the context or the contrast to that experience. Verse 19, he says, we have also a more sure word of prophecy. What is he referring to? The Bible. The word of God. Here's what Peter's saying. Peter's saying, I was on the Mount of Transfiguration. I saw Jesus, I was an eyewitness. I saw him transfigured into his glory. I heard the voice from heaven, the voice of God saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. But Peter says, hey, you know what? You know what's more sure than my experience is the Bible. The word of God. That's the context of verse 19. He says, we have also a more sure word of prophecy. Now here's what's interesting about second Peter 1 and verse 19. Usually he has fundamental baptism. As King James was only baptized. When we go to second Peter 119, we focus on this phrase, a more sure word of prophecy. And there's nothing wrong with that. Our priest's entire series called a more sure word of prophecy about the word of God. And that's the context. Peter says, the word of God is more sure than any experience I've ever had. Anything I've ever witnessed, anything I've ever heard. But I want you to notice a little phrase that I hadn't thought much about till recently. In fact, I was preaching out of this verse last week. And as I was preaching about the more sure word of prophecy, this little phrase stuck out to me. I've read this verse, preached from this verse, but I never really thought about this little phrase. We always look at, we have also a more sure word of prophecy, praise God. Then he says, where unto ye do well that ye take heed? Where unto ye do well that ye take heed? Hey, let me tell you something. We've got the King James Bible, we have the word of God. It's inspired, it's preserved, it's an errand, it's perfect. God has revealed to us everything for life and godliness. But let me tell you something, ye do well to take heed. It's not enough for you to know that you got the word of God. It's not enough for you to know you've got the word of God written in our Bible. It's not enough for you to have it. He says, ye do well to take heed. You need to actually listen to it. You need to actually apply it. You gotta trust it. You gotta trust it. You gotta trust the Bible. Here's all I'm telling you. You will succeed in life. You will have grace and peace if you build your life on the Bible. Say, but how do I do that? Well, number one, you gotta know it. Number two, you gotta trust it. You gotta trust what the Bible says. Go to 1 Thessalonians chapter two. 1 Thessalonians chapter two, if you would flip back, you find the T books, they're all clustered together. 1 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, Titus. 1 Thessalonians chapter two, look at verse 13. 1 Thessalonians 2, 13, Paul also wrote this. He says, for this cause also think we God without ceasing, because when you receive the word of God, he says, when you receive the word of God, and by the way, as a pastor, I like this verse, Pastor Przarski should like this verse. I hope that we can say this about all of our church members. I hope that as a pastor we can say, for this cause also we thank God without ceasing, because when ye receive the word of God, which he heard us, ye received it not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God. Look, at some point we're gonna have to get to the point where we say, this is the word of God. I know it and I trust it. I trust it. I'm gonna do what it tells me to do. I know the world says, don't discipline your children, don't spank your children, don't do this and don't do that. I don't care what the world says, I trust the Bible, I'm gonna do what the Bible says. He received it not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God. Don't miss it. Which effectually worketh also in you that belief. You know what, God wants to work on you and he wants to do his work through the Bible. We need to build our lives on the Bible. You say, how do I do that? Number one, you do it, you build your life on the Bible by knowing what the Bible says. Number two, you build your life on the Bible by trusting what the Bible says and not leaning upon your own understanding and not having your own ideas and your own plans and your own agenda and so making all these, well, I can do this and I can do that and what if I went there and what if I did that and what if I made that decision? No, no, just do what God tells you to do. Thirdly this morning, let me just give this to you quickly. Go back to Matthew chapter seven if you would. Keep your place in second Peter if you would. Keep your place right there or I'm not sure if I asked you to keep your place there but I meant to. Matthew chapter seven. We gotta build our lives on the Bible. How do you do that? By knowing what the Bible says. How do you do that? By trusting what the Bible says. But thirdly, we must build our lives on the Bible by doing what the Bible says. Matthew chapter seven, verse 24. Here's the point of Jesus' parable. Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine. See, it's not enough to know what the Bible says. It's not even enough to believe what the Bible says. Notice and do with them. You gotta do what the Bible says. I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock. Look at verse 26. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine and do with them not shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand. See, you and I need to apply the Word of God. Here's the point that I'm making. Go to James, if you would. James, James chapter one. James chapter one, if you're there in second Peter, first second Peter, Hebrews, James. James chapter one, look at verse 22. All throughout the Bible, we are told, we're told that we need the Word of God. But let me say something. The Bible is a spiritual book, but it's not a magical book. Do you understand that?  It doesn't work that way.  It's not gonna make your kids grow up and serve the Lord. It's not gonna give you good marriage. It's not gonna do anything for you. So then why come? You come to learn so you can do. You come to hear so you can believe it so your faith can grow, so you can trust it. But I'm here to tell you something, if you don't actually put it into practice and you don't actually do what the Bible tells you to do, it cannot help you. You actually have to do. If people come to our church, they get mad. They get mad at me. They come to church on Sunday mornings. Hear me preach. Walk out of church. A few weeks later, I'm not going back to church. It doesn't work. I went to church for three weeks and my marriage is still a mess. It's like, it's not that the Bible doesn't work, it's that you don't work. The Bible's there. God's there. But if you think that sitting somewhere, listening to, preaching is gonna do something for your life, you're wrong. You must hear it. You must read it. You must study it. You must memorize it. You must love it so that you will do it. Look, I'm all for memorizing the Bible. I believe in memorizing the Bible. I think we ought to memorize the Bible. But you ought to memorize the Bible. You said, what's the point of memorizing the Bible? This book of the law, Joshua said, this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate there day and night. Why? That thou mayest observe to do. So why do you memorize the Bible? So you're gonna apply it? My word, have I hid in my heart? Why? That I might not sin against thee. We're supposed to do what the Bible says. We're supposed to do what the Bible says. James chapter one, are you there? Look at verse 22. Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only. You know what's wrong with most churchgoing Christians? Is that they're hearers only. They're not doers. And by the way, deceiving your own selves. For if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is likened to a man beholding his natural face and a glass, for he beholded themself and goeth this way and straightway forget it, what manner of man he was. You say, look, please understand this, please get this. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I'm trying to help you. You say, why do I come to church? So that the word of God can be preached and it can become clear to you what your problems are. I don't like a church where they make me feel bad. Then why are you going to church? I just wanna read Psalm 23 and the stuff that makes me feel good. But Pastor, you're telling me I gotta get up and read the Bible every day and read the Bible cover to cover?  Read the eternal word of God. You know why you don't wanna read it? Because you don't wanna read what it tells you to do when you know you're not doing it. When you know you're not applying it. But I'm here to tell you something. That's the point that you may beholding his natural face and a glass, for be he beholded themself. Look, here he's using the illustration of a mirror. What's the point of looking at a mirror? What's the point of looking at a mirror? So you can see what's wrong.  And unfortunately, there's not much I can do about it, but I can at least wash my face and shave and whatever.   My tie is all crooked. I mean, my tie may be crooked, I don't know. You know, my tie is all crooked and you look at it and you're like, man, I got to fix that, I got to fix that, I got to brush my hair, I need a haircut.  And don't do anything about it. You say, that's silly. That's how most Christians live their lives. They come to a church like this and the man of God holds up the mirror of the Word of God and says, look at yourself, look at the problems. We're not mad at you, we're saying, you got to fix that. You got something in your teeth. You got to straighten out your tie. You need a haircut. You need to fix that.  The way you're treating your wife, that's gonna ruin your marriage. The way you're acting with your kids, that's not good.  Hey, we pull up the Word of God and we say, look at the problems. The Word of God wants to fix it. The problem is that we are hearers and not doers. He beholds himself and goes this way and straightway forgets what matter of man he was. Verse 25, but whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, don't miss it and continue with therein. What does that mean? They do it, they apply it. He being not a forgetful here, but a doer of the work. This man shall be blessed in his deed. Isn't that what you want? Isn't that what we want? We want to be blessed. We want the blessing of God in our lives. We want to prosper. We want to live right and do right. You say, how do I do that here? It's just simple, it's simple. It's this, build your life on the Bible. It's not complicated, I know. It's hard to do, it's easy to grasp. Build your life on the Bible. Build your life on the Bible. Build your life on the Bible. Go back to Matthew chapter seven, we'll finish up. Matthew chapter number seven. You say, how do I build my life on the Bible? Well, number one, by knowing what the Bible says. Look, some of you, and I'm not mad at you, I'm just trying to help you here.  You know, there's two types of Christians in the world. Those who read the Bible and those who don't. Just decide, I'm going to become a Christian who reads the Bible. You say, how do I do that? Choose a place. Decide right now, before you leave here. Don't be a forgetful here. Decide right now, before you leave today. Hey, okay, I'm thinking of this place in my house. For my wife and I, it's our dining room table. In the morning, every morning we get up, we go downstairs, my wife makes a cup of tea for herself. She makes a cup of tea for me. We sit there and we read the Bible. We read the Bible, we have a place. Choose a place, hey, choose a time. Make an appointment. For us, it's first thing in the morning. I think that's a great time to do it. In fact, I recommend people do that. Some people, that doesn't work for them. You work graveyard or whatever, hey, that's fine. Just pick a time. Maybe it's your lunch break.  But why don't you decide?  I'm gonna know the Bible. Then this coming year, 2022, I'm gonna read the Bible. You gotta read the Bible. But let me say this, don't read the Bible. Only, you gotta trust the Bible. You gotta say, man, God's asking me to do this and I don't know about it. My flesh just doesn't want to. I just, I feel like, he's asking me to go and knock on a stranger's door that I don't know. Hey, lean not unto thine own understanding. And all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy path. Know the Bible. Trust the Bible. Then do the Bible. Apply the Bible. Our lives, this should be our lives. This should be, you say, what's your life about Pastor Jimenez? What are you trying to accomplish? Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. Helping people build their lives in the Bible. That's it. I do a lot of counseling. As a pastor, I try to be available to our church people when they need us and they need help. My wife does the same thing. We do a lot of counseling. And I think it's great.  There's nothing magical about my office and there's nothing magical about a counseling session. You say, what are you doing counseling? Here's what we do. We open up the Bible. And we say, here's what God wants you to do. And I tell people this all the time. Counseling doesn't work unless you do it. Preaching doesn't work unless you do it. Church doesn't work unless you do it. God's word will not work unless you do it. Build your life on the Bible. Build your life on the Bible. What's our lives? What's it about? Here's what we're trying to do. We're trying to teach people to build their lives on the Bible. By the way, our lives should be an echo of the Bible. I love the statement that's made about John the Baptist when he says, I am a voice crying in a wilderness. He says, I'm just a voice echoing the Bible, echoing the Bible. Brother Oliver, who's our deacon at Verity Baptist Church and the second man at our church. He recently told me, and he's a little upset, you know, and I appreciate it. He's a loyal man. He's loyal, so he was, I don't know what the word, he was upset on my behalf, and I appreciate that. Something I often say, and this is not original with me. I often tell our church people, I don't preach to be heard. I preach to be repeated. I hope, I hope. That's my goal. My goal is not for me to preach a sermon that will be heard. My goal is to preach a sermon that will be repeated. See, I recently preached a sermon at our church about tenacity and having tenacity and I went through the Bible. And I love the fact that, you know, people as they're talking and they're kind of joking and it's okay, you know, well you're gonna need a little more tenacity. You know, hey, praise God. You say, I know they got the message. Right, I don't want to preach just to be heard. I want to preach to be repeated. Here's what I hope. I hope some of you moms and dads throughout the week or I hope some of you husbands and wife and maybe even kind of joking a little bit with each other and well, you know, we gotta build our lives on the Bible. Hey, I hope that my attempt is to preach and take the word of God and communicate it in such a way that it'll get into your heart and it'll help you and you'll teach it to your children and you'll teach it to your converts and you'll teach it to new church people.  You know what we're trying to do here? We're trying to build our lives on the Bible. I don't preach to be heard. I preach to be repeated. And Brother Oliver, he comes to me. He says, pastor, I know this guy. And it's a guy that's not a friend of ours. He's not in our movement or whatever. He's like, you know, and he knew him personally. He said, I listened to the sermon he preached. He said, I knew that he was preaching at the certain place and he preached the sermon and the title kind of caught my attention so I listened to it. And he said, the guy stole your sermon.  And he's like, point by point.  He's like, I'm just, you know, I can't believe this guy. And I just, and by the way, let me say this. I appreciate R. Deacon being jealous over his pastor. I appreciate that. But you know, I kind of joked to him and I said, well, you know, here's the thing. I talk to people all the time. I don't preach to be heard. I preach to be repeated.  I'm happy that the Word of God is being preached. I'm just a voice crying in a wilderness to be honest with you. The, I stole the sermon title. I didn't steal the sermon. I wrote the sermon, right? But you know, I was, I saw a thing of an old IFB and this something Pastor Anderson told me, sometimes you're kind of thinking about what to preach about. And you might go and look at sermons that other old IFB preachers preach because sometimes they have good titles, you know? And the titles might inspire you. I don't really listen to their sermons because a lot of their preaching is lame. But I saw somebody else preach the sermon called build your life on the Bible. And I thought to myself, hey, that's a great idea. I want to preach that. Now I didn't steal the sermon, right? This is my sermon. I wrote the sermon. But the point is this, we're not coming up with anything original. There's no new thing under the sun. What are we doing here? We're doing here what Christians have been doing for centuries, a Lord willing, they'll continue to do for centuries. We're teaching people to build their lives on the Bible. I hope you will. I hope you'll know what the Bible says. I hope you'll believe what the Bible says. I hope you'll do what the Bible says. But I do have to just end with this warning, if you don't. Matthew chapter seven, are you there? Look at verse number 27. Actually look at verse 26. And everyone that hear these sayings of mine, today you were challenged to read the Bible, trust the Bible and do the Bible. Now I'm not the Lord Jesus Christ, but if I could steal his sermon for a second, here's what I'd like you to know. And everyone that hear these sayings of mine, and they're not mine, they're God's, and do it them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man. Are you calling me a fool? I'm not Jesus's though. Which built his house upon the sand, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew. This parable is told in Luke, I like how it's told in Luke, because in Luke it uses the word when. When the rains ascended, when the floods came, when the winds blew. By the way, let me tell you something, it's not if the storms of life are coming, it's when the storms of life are coming. And beat upon that house. Notice these words. And it fell. And just look at this phrase. And great was the fall of it. I've known churches. I've known ministries. I've known pastors. I've known marriages. I've known children. Raised in churches like this. And this is how you would describe their lives. Great was the fall of it. You say why? Because they didn't build their lives on the Bible. Maybe they didn't know. Maybe they knew and they didn't trust. Maybe they knew and trusted and just didn't do. But it doesn't matter because at the end of the day, great was the fall of it. So I just want to encourage you this morning. Will you build your life on the Bible? Will you build your marriage on the Bible? Will you raise your children on the Bible? Yeah, I hope this church, whole fast Baptist church, I hope is built upon the Bible. Because it's not when, it's if. And by the way, the storms, this is what we say. We say, oh, a great storm came and it caused them to get back to it. No, no, no. The great storm did not cause anything. All the great storm did was reveal what was already there.   The storm doesn't cause you or I to fall or succeed, it just reveals what's already there. So you and I have to decide today that we will build our lives upon the Bible. That's about our heads and I will pray.


Wednesday. This is our first Yates lecture. We're going to have three of them. For the next class, I'd like you to do a few things. I know that your teaching fellows will have handed out a meter exercise for you. I'd like you to work on something else. You don't have to do this for Wednesday, but let's say for next Monday. That is, I'd like you to memorize a short poem by Yates or by Frost, either one. This poem could be the basis of a first paper, a topic for one. It doesn't have to be, but it might be. On Wednesday, I'll also hand out a topic for paper one. In class, I'll talk about Easter 1916, the Magi, the Second Coming, Leida and the Swan. I'd like you to pay special attention to these special Yatesian words, tumult, turbulence, bestial. Think about also that phrase, Terrible Beauty in Easter 1916. Finally, in your RIS packet, you'll see a timeline that charts significant dates in modern poetry that tells you something about when the different poets we're reading were working and helps you perhaps keep track of them, because confusingly, although the course has a kind of rough chronological order, we do move back and forth in time. And in fact, today, right now, we're going to move back the furthest we go all the way into the nineteenth century to talk about the early Yates. Yates's career is maybe the most famous one in modern poetry, that is a career that has been seen as a kind of representative story about modern poetry as a whole. What's that story? Well, Yates begins as a romantic visionary and a kind of late nineteenth century seat. And under the pressure of political and social crisis, he breaks with the artificial rhetoric of his early poems and becomes a kind of heroic realist. Now, there's something to this story, but it is also a kind of cliché, and I'll try to introduce, I think, a more true and also a more interesting way of understanding Yates's development today. Starting with this picture. This is an unlikely picture. The face there, if you have seen him before, you will recognize as Yates's. This is Yates as King Gaul. This is Yates in costume, costumed as a figure from Irish myth, as an ancient bard, Mad King Gaul, which is the furthest thing from a modern poet. It's a late Victorian image of an archaic singer rendered in the melodramatic manner of pre-Raphaelite art and thoroughly removed from the aesthetic values of modernism, such as naturalism, formal clarity, emotional restraint, and so on. It's an image that was created by Yates's father, the painter John Yates. You could also say that it was created by the late 19th century culture that Yates's father, John, represented and introduced to his son. It's an image of Yates that modern poetry eventually forgot. Yates as an unmodern 19th century poet, hamming it up. But this poet is, in fact, important to the one that Yates became. In a way, Yates is always in costume. His poetic identity is forged through identification with the heroic characters of his poems, characters who are sometimes surrogates for the poet, such as King Gaul, the warrior Cahulin, or the mysterious Michael Rabartes, all characters you will meet, or who are sometimes simply versions of the poet himself. That is, the poet rendering himself for us in stylized roles, that is, Yates the public man, Yates the lover, and Yates the mad old man. Yates is always creating himself in his poems and creating himself as a kind of a version of a type. And he does the same thing, in fact, to those around him, famously to his lover, Maud Gunn, who becomes Helen of Troy in no second Troy and in the martyrs in the Easter Rebellion of 1916 become ancient Irish warriors. We'll talk about that next time. There are many other instances of this kind of mythmaking imagination that Yates is always working with. Yates takes on self-consciously staged identities, requiring costumes, and he sees other people in similarly theatrical and mythic terms. His poetry is in fact deeply autobiographical, but it doesn't necessarily help to know that, because his life is not a reliable key for reading the poems, exactly because he treated his life as art, raising the particulars of his experience into, well, general symbols, working the narrative of his life into myth. This is a way of conceiving his activity as a poet, but it's also, as we'll see, a way of conceiving, in fact, culture and human history in general. In Yates people are always particulars who are fitted to types, which are new versions of old identities that travel across time. In a certain sense, Yates, I think, really felt that he was King Gaul. Now, the story of King Gaul is interesting. It's a longish poem, not in your anthology, but you can find it in the complete Yates, and I've given you on this handout page just a couple stanzas from it, so you have a sense of it. King Gaul is a mythical Irish ruler who goes mad in the heat of battle.  Finally, he destroys his harp in the scene represented by Yates' father's portrait. This story is a certain version of Yates' own early ambition to become a particular kind of figure, not an Irish king but an Irish poet, which would mean consolidating in himself a sense of national identity and explaining that identity, representing it, embodying it in all senses, representing and embodying Irishness for an English-speaking readership in Ireland, but also in England and elsewhere. The nationality of that identity is important, that is Yates' Irishness, and so is Yates' audience. His ambition is to become the first major Irish poet writing in English. Significantly, this picture of Yates as King Gaul was used as an illustration for his first appearance in an English periodical, a magazine of art and ideas called The Leisure Hour. Yates bridges Irish and English cultures, and he is importantly Protestant with social and family ties to English life. The ambition that I'm describing is the first and political one. But paradoxically, perhaps for the young Yates, this ambition drew him away from the social and political world into the charmed landscapes of Irish myth, maybe in the same way as King Gaul is drawn away from, lured away from, battle to wander in the world. All of Yates' early poetry takes place in a symbolic, mythic domain. King Gaul's madness and the destruction of his instruments are perhaps warnings about the dangers of a poetry that would be confined to a symbolic world, as if to fully enter a mythical world, to write a kind of pure poetry that was archaic in its aims and its sources. This would be to go mad, to give sway to dangerously inward passions that can't be satisfied, to be cut off from the world. Being cut off from the world in some kind of higher or separate reality is a lure and threat opened up for Yates by the particular ambition that he had to write a mythic poetry on Irish themes. Now, something else is worth highlighting about King Gaul as a way to understand who Yates was. King Gaul is a singer. Yates identifies poetry with song, in particular with songs of passion, in which songs in which sound takes over is ravishing and chanting. Yates' early poetry has those aspects of song as its aim. They suggest verbal and oral equivalents for the poetry's cognitive concern with symbols. That is, in sound, just as in theme, Yates' poetry is idealized, purified, centrally rich, and yet also abstract. Contrast Frost. Yates' poetry dominated the poetry world in which Frost began writing and publishing. Yates publishes King Gaul in The Leisure Hour, and Frost mocks the ideal of poetry as the dream of the gift of idle hours. He mocks the idea of poetry as easy gold at the hand of fey or elf in mowing, characters that come right out of early Yates. Frost's realism, his roughness which is part of his sensibility, it's part of the sound of his poetry. Well, it contrasts quite directly with the smoothness sought by Yates and the kind of simulation of ease. You could go to Yates' poem, Adam's Curse, poet talking about this aesthetic ideal. Yates, there in Adam's Curse, which is in your anthology, calls specifically for a kind of simulation of ease in poetry, which is a traditionally aristocratic ideal, one which hides one's labor in order to make accomplishment seem natural. Yates, in Adam's Curse, regrets that the beautiful is something to be labored for, and he wants to conceal that labor. The contrast with Frost is powerful. Yates once said that he wanted the natural words in the natural order, but he had a very highly cultured sense of what is poetry, and his poetry is full of verbal archaism. It's characterized by a kind of high formal bearing. It has a careful decorum, a kind of high sheen, especially this early poetry. Metrically, Yates' attitudes result in a kind of superb regularity. In the early Yates you find smooth, unbroken lines, addiction that's elegant and seemingly easy, without ever daining to seem merely colloquial. The sound of Yates was and was meant to be seductive. The poems are in fact very often about kinds of seduction, a child, a king, the poet. These figures are drawn away from society or from family towards secret, sacred places, magical places of love that are frequently imaged in these poems as an island or the center of a wood. In short, this is a privacy that shut the world out and that stand for Yates' ideal of poetic autonomy, his desire to create and inhabit self-sufficient imaginative worlds. The Lake Isle of Innisfree, who goes with Fergus, the hosting of The Shee. These are all poems from your anthology that exemplify this idea, and there are many, many more. These poems come from a phase in Yates' career, the climax of which is this book published in 1899 that I showed you the cover of in the first class, The Wind Among the Reeds, with its gorgeous Celtic aestheticism. Here's the title page reminding us again that this gorgeous Celtic aestheticism is published and put up for sale in London, which is important again. Here is the table of contents, which you can't read, that has on it, well, the first poem, the hosting of The Shee, the song of Wandering Angus, and other famous poems from Yates' early career. I'd like to look with you at the song of Wandering Angus as a kind of model of the kind of poem I'm talking about, and its aesthetics. It's on 98. Yates says, I went out to the Hazelwood, Yates says, that is to say Angus says, it's a dramatic monologue for Angus.  If you're having problems with an iambic pentameter, this should – well, it's not quite pentameter, but if you want to get an iambic rhythm in your head, this will do it, and cut and peeled a hazel wand and hooked a berry to a thread. And when white moths were on the wing and moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream and caught a little silver trout. When I had laid it on the floor, I went to blow the fire of flame, but something rustled on the floor and someone called me by my name. It had become a glimmering girl with apple blossom in her hair, who called me by my name and ran and faded through the brightening air. Though I am old with the moon, through hollow lands and hilly lands, I will find out where she is gone and kiss her lips and take her hands and walk among long dappled grass and pluck till time and times are done the silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun. This rhymed iambic tetrameter four beats per line with some variations. It is a popular song form in English. It's the way Puck and other folk characters speak in Shakespeare. Its smoothness and its simplicity is associated with folk forms, perhaps with the condition of enchantment or trance into which the speaker Angus falls. The poem is a fairy tale. It's the story of Angus's longing and quest for union with a fairy girl whom he desires. Yates spoke of the poem as a mad song. It's maybe not a kind of mad song. It's not what we would think of as a mad song necessarily. The poem imagines, through a dramatic character, Yates' own coming to poetry, which he represents here both as the undertaking of a specifically erotic quest and as a sort of fury in the mind.  Angus begins. Yates wants us to share in, as we attend to the sound of his poem, a certain state of enchantment and longing, which includes a feeling of monotony as we listen to those repeated phrases and images and syntactic structures that always seem on the verge of redundance in this poem. Think about how generalized, how abstract, how unnatural nature is in this poem. But then it's exactly a poem about nature transformed. The fish, who turns into the glimmering girl, who, like any really marvelous catch, gets away. The transformation here, importantly, interrupts the eating of the fruit. Consummation of desire is deferred. Appetite gets sublimated, and at the same time deferred, the glimmering girl then calls Angus by name. She names him, she in a sense makes him Angus. Angus is the Celtic name, the Celtic master of love, a certain kind of Irish version of Apollo. He's also a mortal who ages. The poem describes a vocational moment when the poet is called to his calling, called to his calling in a way that amounts to a kind of seduction that lures him out into the woods, wandering as he follows this fishwoman and fairy girl, who is a kind of muse or mother too. The quest is without end. It's even without direction. It has a goal, however, that's described in that last stanza. Contrast Yeats's old age and the freshness of his desire in this poem. He holds in dream the possibility of satisfied desire, possession of the beloved, meaning specifically physical possession of her, which would be an apocalyptic moment of time and times. Yeats represents that moment of consummation as the plucking of the silver and the gold apples. Yeats was trained in the occult disciplines of theosophy and gnosticism. Those traditions merge in his early work with European symbolism and also with cultural nationalism. Here, the gold and silver apples are specifically alchemical symbols of body and soul and a kind of mystical image of earthly paradise. That's a nice touch. But don't worry about these symbols or don't worry about them too much. Here, as elsewhere in Yeats's poetry, it's not essential for you to be able to pursue his occult learning and decode his symbols in order to read his poetry. Johann Ramazani, who is the editor of the Norton and a great Yeatsian, himself has decided that all this is too much to explain and you don't really need it, and fair enough. The point is simply to recognize that the apples are occult symbols, which is to say they're not apples. They are rather images, symbols, artifacts. And isn't that clear already from their colors, the material that they're made of, gold and silver? These colors mark them as fashioned precious objects that are unorganic, and in all these ways, beyond time and nature, growth or decay. When Angus or Yeats pursue their desires, the object of desire that is, when they pursue a kind of hope for unity of being that the merging with the beloved would constitute, this carries them out of the natural world into a realm of high art of symbols. The realization of desire for this young Yeats is something only possible in art. In many ways, Yeats retained this aesthetic bias. This is Yeats rather later still dressed, however, in his study as an esthete and dandy. That's a wonderful coat and silk bow tie. He began and ended his career as a decadent, I suppose, a reader of Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. Nonetheless, Oscar Wilde, a friend of Yeats. Nonetheless, Yeats' poetry does undergo an important and notable stylistic change. When I said that there's a story about Yeats' career that makes him out to be an exemplary modern poet, I had in mind how, over the course of this long career, he leaves behind him that idealized world of late nineteenth-century art for a more fully human, realist poetry, one that rhetorically strips away Yeats' own poeticisms and locates his subjects in contemporary politics and history. This is the kind of generalized story of Yeats' career. Pound, Ezra Pound, is Yeats' younger friend. Pound, you'll see, keeps turning up in all these stories. He had a role in pushing Yeats in the direction in which he went. He had also a big role in publicizing Yeats' developments. Here's a copy of a letter to Pound by Yeats when they were both living in London. This is at the Beinecke among Pound's papers. This is Yeats' letter. He's living at this point at Woburn Place. Yeats is in London, where one of the bombs went off in London two summers ago right outside Yeats' house. My dear Pound, here is the poem. Many thanks for taking so much trouble with it. Yours, W.B. Yeats. Pound goes to work on Yeats, goes to work on his poetry and helps modernize him, although I think in lots of ways the influence went just as much the other way. The period of Pound's influence coincides with Yeats' significantly titled book representations, Responsibilities Rather. This is published in 1914, which is the same year as Frost's North of Boston. These two books are coming out at the same moment in London. Some of the poems in this book dramatize and describe the stylistic changes I'm talking about. For instance, the short poem A Coat. Here it is. It's in your anthology as well. I made my song a coat covered with embroideries out of old mythologies, from heel to throat. But the fools caught it, wore it in the world's eye as though they'd wrought it. Song, let them take it, for there's more enterprise in walking naked.  He's tossing it off. The embroidery and decoration, all that now seems inauthentic. Something that, in fact, Yeats' audience had failed to value properly, he's complaining here in this poem. In this short poem he's referring to the vexed efforts by himself and his collaborators, J.M. Singh and Lady Augusta Gregory, to create an Irish national theater. Yeats sought a popular audience for his poetry, in part through his work in the theater, but he became disenchanted with the theater going public, with imitators and detractors too, all of whom, as he puts it here, caught at his coat. This is a poem that declares nakedness as a poetic value. It's a kind of semi-official announcement that Yeats is giving up his early manner precisely because it seems like a manner and a disguise. In doing so, Yeats might have seemed to be moving closer to the Irish people in a move something like Frost's foreswering of the poetry of dream and elves and fairies in favor of a poetry of fact. Let's keep in mind Frost's own wish to create a poetry that would reach ordinary people and would reach all kinds and sorts. Again, it might seem that Yeats is interested in something like this too, and again the same moment that Frost is publishing his work in England. But there's a difference in Yeats. He adopts this ideal of poetry precisely as a repudiation of a popular audience. It's a kind of dare, demonstrating not just his indifference to the crowd but in fact his scorn for it. I'm going to walk naked. I'm not going to dress for you. Yeats's early poetry is elite because it is high, aristocratic, ideal in character. The middle poetry, the poetry that begins with volume responsibilities, remains elite. Only now its elitism will be expressed differently. It will be expressed in a rhetoric of nakedness or what Yeats will also call coldness. The Fisherman. The Fisherman is another poem from this volume that both comments on and exemplifies the transformation that I'm describing, the transformation of Yeats's style and values. It suggests both the difference between the earlier Yeats and the middle Yeats but also importantly the kinds of continuity between them, the ways in which Yeats remained very much the same poet. Let me read it for you. Although I can see him still, the freckled man who goes to a gray place on a hill in gray Kanamara clothes at dawn to cast his flies. It's long since I began to call up to the eyes this time. All day I'd looked in the face what I had hoped to be to write for my own race and the reality, the living men that I hate, the dead man that I loved, the craven man in his seat, the insolent, unreproved, and no-nave brought to me who has won the drunken cheer, the witty man in his joke aimed at the commonest ear, the clever man who cries, the catch cries of the clown, the beating down of the wise, and great art beaten down. Well, Yeats begins in scorn of an audience that's unable to recognize true wisdom and great art. In scorn of that audience he imagines another audience, another audience to write for and to emulate an audience represented by the fisherman. What is the fisherman like? What does he represent? What values does he embody? What is the grayness? Grayness that suggests the color of a land and a culture, the color of stone, of peasant clothes. He, the fisherman, is a solitary figure in a landscape of stone, a stone that is dark, resistant, apparently non-ideal, that is real. Contrast this place, this way of imagining Ireland, what Ireland means, with the sensual landscape of Angus, with the unreality of the world of that earlier poem. In a sense, the earlier poem, Long of Wandering Angus, transformed the Irish landscape into a place of myth, in the same way that the poem is describing the transformation of the trout into the girl. Yeats seems to be reversing this trick in the fisherman, seems to be converting myth back into reality, the ideal object of desire from a glimmering girl back into a trout. The poem represents a kind of, as does the short poem, a coat, represents a kind of ascetic move, an act of imaginative and rhetorical stripping down. The landscape itself, Yeats's poem, seems naked, barren, probably untillable, and the poetry that Yeats wants from this place will be, as it seems, as he goes on to describe cold and passionate. Let me finish the poem here. Maybe a twelve month sense suddenly I began in scorn of this audience that Yeats has been describing, this audience associated with the double and middle class and theater going public. In scorn of this audience, I began imagining a man in his sun-freckled face and gray Connemara cloth climbing up to a place where stone is dark under froth and the downturn of his wrist when the flies drop in the stream, a man who does not exist, a man who is but a dream, and cried, Before I am old I shall have written him one poem maybe as cold and passionate as the dawn. The poetry that Yeats wants from this place, the place that the fisherman takes him to, is it's going to be cold and passionate, as he describes it. You can see him in a sense, Yeats, cooling the fire in the head of Angus at this moment. The poem identifies also cold and passionate with dawn, the moment of awakening, which is also a moment of coming into reality from dream and sleep. The kind of rhetorical and stylistic transformation I'm describing identified with Yeats' modernness, his coming into modernity all has these qualities and is associated here powerfully with morning. Importantly, though, morning and dawn are also seen as moments of passion. If Angus is a figure of passion, so interestingly is the fisherman. It's only what it means to write a poetry of passion that Yeats is now beginning to rethink. Passion seems to lie in coldness rather than heat, lies exactly in the restraining and disciplining of passion. In this sense, the fisherman is not, after all, a poem that's very different from the song of Wandering Angus. In fact, Yeats is still writing a solitary fisherman. Just as in that earlier poem, the act of fishing is symbolically resonant. The fisherman is an image of man searching the depths of the world for the wisdom that hides beneath the surface of things. The fishing is seen here, as in the earlier poem, as an image of quest, an image of desire. For all these reasons, the fisherman is really a rewriting and even a kind of continuation rather than a description of the song of Wandering Angus and the poems from that period. In fact, as Yeats declares, the fisherman does not exist. It's a wonderful sentence, isn't it? A man who does not exist, a man who is but a dream. Yeats is still writing a theme. The man is not a real man, the man is a symbol, only this time a symbol of the real, a symbol of the actual and local, of the Irish race and the reality, and the poetry that he stands for, that the fisherman stands for, like all of Yeats's poetry, is a poetry, again, of symbols. The fisherman is also representative of the Irish peasantry to whom Yeats turns in scorn of the urban audience that he had tried to write for in the theater. This is, again, not a break with the aristocratic values of the early poetry, but an aligning of those values with an ideal image of the peasant classes with whom Yeats creates a kind of imaginative bond against the bourgeois people who seem to represent the new order of things, modernity and Dublin. Yeats's sense of modern history, of the crisis of his moment, this is something we can describe and explore next time in Eastern 1916. Before we finish today, let me just connect the fisherman and its images of cold passion to another poem, the, well, specifically, the elegy for Robert Gregory Yeats's friend, Augustus Gregory's son, who dies in the First World War in Airman. Yeats here evokes Gregory as a kind of representative of Irish culture and of aristocratic culture, in particular, in which art and eloquence and political and cultural life all coexist and all combine and form a passionate heart. Yeats evokes Gregory's death and sees it in relation to other friends and collaborators of Yeats's early life, including Lionel Johnson and Singh and others. This is, again, Gregory representing a kind of aristocratic elegance and culture that is juxtaposed to, will be juxtaposed to, the revolutionary violence that comes to shatter the Irish capital in 1916 and in many ways reshape Yeats's career as he encounters what he calls the terrible beauty of that explosive rebellion. Well, that's enough for today and we'll continue with Yeats on Wednesday.