I think she's been putting all the new stuff in the past. Like, besides the new, but like, this is the same. That's new, that's different. Like, she's been doing different stuff. Yeah, so just help. Okay, let's do this. We will start this show. Everybody ready for a podcast? Yay! Yay, look for the podcast. Starting in three, two, this is Twist. This week in Science, episode number 760, recorded Saturday, February 15, 2020. How to make a protein. I'm Dr. Kiki, and today we will fill your head with thoughts and questions. But first... Yes, clamor, disclaimer, disclaimer. From the beginning of human civilization, nature has been altered. The first organic harm was a shock to the senses. What through these strange grains are in this field? It looks like the grains from the far side of the valley and also the ones from the other side of the mountain. What strange goats are these? They're smaller than normal goats. You're not afraid of people. What strange fruits you have growing on the vines? They're so much bigger than the ones I normally can pluck. And what is this insane claim you are making about owning things? These goats, that grain, those fruits? You haven't even plucked them. How can they be yours? And while humans have altered nature in greater ways since the invention of farming, it is important to remember that altering nature has always been an essential strategy for our survival. For example, the hand-picked story you are about to hear on This Week in Science, coming up next. This is the part where the audience dances. If it's loud enough and you can hear it, then we dance. What's happening? What's happening? What's happening? And a good science to you too, Justin Blair and our listener out there. Welcome to another episode of This Week in Science. We are live, recording live at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Seattle, Washington on the Sci-Mic Studio stage, presented by the Study Shows, a widely podcast. And we are so glad to be here. Thank you everyone in the audience for joining us today. Welcome. Do you like science? It's a good start. On this week's show, we have a little bit of discussion about the science here at the conference, and we have an interview. But as we jump in, I would like to remind you that if your friends aren't subscribed to This Week in Science, maybe you should tell them to subscribe. And you can send them to twist.org to find information. Or just tell them to search any podcast directory, YouTube, Facebook, all of the things. So for this week in science, they'll find us. Subscribe. Okay. I would love to interview our guest, introduce our guest, Dr. David Baker, his professor of biochemistry and the director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington. And he is here at the AAAS meeting, talking about his work in designing proteins from scratch. I would love to know why do we want to do that? Well, proteins are the nature machines that carry out essentially all the important functions in our bodies and in all living organisms. And the proteins that we and everything, all other life forms have in them are the products of millions of years of evolution. And they evolved to solve the problems that came about during that time, like running away from tigers and digesting food and things. But we faced a whole bunch of new problems today. The planet's warming up. We're producing all these toxic compounds. So we know how powerful proteins are from all the examples we have in nature, but those proteins don't solve the current problems. So basically the reason why we're designing brand-new proteins is to solve the problems that humans have created that didn't really arise during evolution. Why didn't they arise during evolution? I mean, when we think about evolution, it's these modifications through time to solve problems and to allow the organism to survive better, more efficiently. So don't you think that the things that we need would be here by now? Why do we need to keep going? One of the big problems we face is huge mounds of plastic in the middle of the ocean. And those were not there 50 years ago. And evolution takes millions or billions of years. Another example is Alzheimer's is a big problem now. It wasn't a problem 200 years ago. These people didn't live long enough. We just died. So there just are a lot of new problems. And I guess that might be that protein that we're looking for could already be out there. But finding is the trick. It could exist somewhere in nature, but we would have to look through every protein everywhere in nature to find something that we want for this specific task versus just... Well, it's useful in that regard to think about some numbers. So the number of possible proteins, proteins are made out of amino acids. There's 20 of these types of amino acids. And typical protein would be a string of 100 or 200 amino acids. Even for 100-residue protein, the number of possibilities is a number... It's 20 to the 100th power, which is like... which is 10 to the 130th power. All proteins... you took all the proteins that existed in nature and have ever existed. It's a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of that. It's numbered like 10 to the 20th. So it's like the tiniest grain of sand. So there's a good chance the proteins we need don't exist in nature. And that's why we have to make them. And even then, wouldn't it need to be folded in the correct way? Yeah. Actually... That's right. There's a whole other layer I'm talking about. Exactly. Yeah. You mentioned that you were talking about fold it yesterday and we have talked about fold it for years on the show and appreciate the way that this crowd-sourced computer, this crowd-sourced human ability to find patterns has enabled us to start really digging into how proteins fold and discover those first principles of that confirmation change. How it goes from a single strand of amino acids into folding and connecting and then tertiary forms and all these changes. So how do you... How do we really start? How do you start approaching this problem of a new protein when you're like, I've got a sequence of DNA. I've got a sequence of amino acids. What's it going to look like? How do you go between those steps? Well, there's two separate problems we're working on and that folded players have approached. One is here's a new gene from some new organism that does some... lives somewhere on Earth and here's its amino acid sequence and hold it up and tell me what it does and that's called protein folding problem or protein structure prediction problem. What we are now doing more of in both my group and on hold it is the opposite problem. Let's say we have a problem. We want to break down plastic or we want to cure cancer and there isn't a protein that already exists that does that. So let's make a protein which does that which could be an improved cancer drug and so we first think, well what properties would that protein have? Now we make a computer model of that protein and then we design an amino acid sequence which will fold up to that protein structure and then we make a synthetic gene. This is a brand new protein. There's no gene that already exists in nature. So we make a synthetic gene that encodes that brand new protein and then we put that into a bacterium and the bacterium makes the protein and then we get the protein out and see if it cures cancer. What does it do? How do you know how the body or a cell is going to react to these proteins? Well, we design them to interact with the body in a very specific way for example to suppress an autoimmune reaction or to kill tumor cells. So that's the way we designed it to work and we know before we actually would get to trying it out in a person that it actually does that sort of biochemically but there's also the possibility we do other things which would not be good things and for that, that's a risk really with any new type of drug. There'll be clinical trials starting on the first design proteins we made later this year and then we'll learn. Try it out and see what happens. That's amazing. Proteins have applications in absolutely everything. Enzymes alone are used in all sorts of industry and they're in everything that we do. How are you narrowing down where to start? That's a really good question. That's almost the hardest question of all. So to give you to amplify what you said some of the things that proteins do is they're involved in forming these really cool materials like tooth and bone and abalone shell and we're trying to design new proteins that will get inorganic chemicals to grow and crystals to grow out of them but out of semiconductors instead. So imagine you could make brand new materials that the world has never seen before and then of course we have disease trying to cure disease. We have a big effort now on vaccines trying to make a universal flu vaccine. We're working hard on coronavirus now. So there are a lot of different things so one good thing is there are a lot of people excited about this area who come to the UW now to try and design new proteins but figuring out exactly what the best most important thing to work on at any given time is we're always looking for ideas. Is this something that you want to then scale to be able to send this ability to make brand new proteins to other universities or to people's garages or is that something that you would want help with or is there a reason that you'd want to keep it kind of controlled for right now? Well no we really want to get it happening everywhere so hold it is an effort to get the whole the general public involved in designing proteins and in fact we published a paper a couple months ago showing that folded players can make brand new proteins. It was a totally unsolved problem just a few years ago but now we've got it so folded players can make totally new proteins and many people who have been in my research group go on to other universities and start their own groups also designing new proteins. From Blair's question though do you think that the potential of this right now DIY bio is growing and people are doing CRISPR in their garage you know meddling with biology is this the kind of thing that would be that people would be able to do in their homes or is this still the technology is too large for that to happen at this point? I think that the computer part I think people could certainly do in their garage and then they would need what's needed to actually make the proteins is nothing more than you would have in an ordinary laboratory so you need to be able to get genes and you need to put them into bacteria and grow the bacteria so it is something that would be accessible it would be a pretty sophisticated garage right it's a garage with venture capital funded well I don't know if you need venture capital funded someone who is serious about it what is your main focus and I guess your hope like if this really goes to fruition and you see it go where you dream it to go what is that? to make the world a better place better place through synthetic biology well you know there's like I said new medicines, new vaccines you know new materials like I mentioned new types of semiconductors degrading toxic compounds in the environment you mentioned catalysts we're working hard on making new catalysts so there's no shortage of problems that human space today that in principle could be solved by proteins it's wonderful is there something we have to be careful of when we're designing new proteins are there kind of warning signs you need to look out for where this could get out of hand yeah it's a good question well I think the example of coronavirus sort of helps think about that I mean the viruses have evolved over hundreds of millions of years to be super sophisticated at infecting people making them sick and spreading and there's so many complicated functions involved in that I think even a bad actor who understood how to use our methodology would simply not be able to do that and unfortunately there already are well known ways of killing lots of people with for example the 1918 Spanish flu sequence is just devastating and that's known so I don't think there's much I think the risk from new design proteins is tiny compared to that what we have in nature because that's one thing that nature has perfected you know viruses have wanted to spread since the beginning of life yeah but this really gets the work that you're doing in designing these proteins really gets down to the mechanisms and how do we create this new tool to help us move forward into that better future that you're mentioning yeah so where can people find you and find out more information about the work that you're doing well let's see on the internet there's the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington and we have a lot of information there about what we're doing there's a head talk I gave a few months ago that described some of the grand challenges we're working on great so we'll link to that on our website so that people can find that thank you so much for your time today really appreciate me chatting with you thank you wonderful thank you oh we got class from the audience thank you thank you for listening everyone so we are closing out the show about five more minutes here to be able to discuss AAAS and the science that we've seen that really has struck a chord with us while we're here and for me yesterday I went to a panel on the circular economy the carbon economy and how we will be working as humans to be able to address the grand challenges that we are up against researchers from around the world look using sociological techniques to from here at UW are using sociological techniques to figure out how to work with people to get them to be more likely to make changes how what kind of language is important in talking about cap and trade or talking about a carbon tax what kind of words will make it more likely for people to find that agreeable versus less agreeable and how what kind of setups do you need to make that work another researcher from Finland was working on the circular economy which is really an extension of cradle to grave thinking where everything from the ecosystem and the resources that are available are taken into account in the economy and moved through to how the end of life of products and how people interact with them and then researchers at Reichen are using new methodologies to create new polymers for biodegradable plastics and it was just just fascinating and I found out that natural rubber cannot be replaced by synthetic rubber because natural rubber is all cis proteins 100% and synthetic rubber is a mix of cis and trans and so it doesn't work so we have to use natural rubber and now there's a fungus that's attacking it so we can't we need our natural rubber so there are ecological things that were efficacy what did you find yesterday well I went to an amazing talk about the future of robotic companions it was very interesting but the thing that I actually take away from it is that there's always going to be some motivation that drives technology and a lot of the time it is not what that technology ends up being used for the majority of the time so with the internet we had a lot of different drivers that bring us to the better world that we have today with greater connectivity so yes there might be robotic companions that are driving the economy and innovation with robotics but there's a great opportunity for us to have caregivers and better use of robotics in our homes every day so that was very interesting I also found out that I might someday be able to have a shirt that is linked via bluetooth to my phone so I can change the color through an app on my phone which sounds awesome the point that you brought from that AI and robotics session that you talked about last night was the fact that this sex industry and sex robots may be leading the drive for these home companions the technology that will one day be taking care of our elderly could have come from the sex industry may it may fascinating having slaved over for mentors to at random hopefully get a protein that can do something that we wanted it to do my favorite subject have you found anything Dr Baker that has piqued your interest let's see there's been a lot of really interesting things I've been mainly involved in sessions where I've been speaking to me actually my talks are rather boring I've heard them before not as interesting very interesting to ask so thank you so much for joining us did you have anything to add here my favorite part at these conferences always is having on other people's conversations get the expo hall outside of sessions that's where a lot of the really interesting conclusions come from and I think that that is something that I will I always value it in times like this because people are coming together and mixing together in ways that we don't often in our day to day when we have all of science under one roof and we get to have conversations across fields that are totally new and different and I think that's absolutely my favorite part of this conference and the little ear dropping thing that happens is like oh yeah good luck with your fungus this is the path to scientific recombination thank you everyone for listening thank you for joining us today Dr Baker I hope that everyone enjoyed the show let us know let us know share it with a friend I would love to give shout outs to people who help with our podcast Vada for your help with the social media getting the word out and for show descriptions before thank you for recording audio for our podcast and Gord McLeod thank you for manning the chat room thank you also to the boroughs welcome fund and our patreon sponsors for their generous support I also want to say thank you to this study shows a widely podcast for supporting the Siamite studio stage if anyone is interested in supporting us on patreon you can find the link at twist.org or go directly to patreon.com slash this week in science on Wednesday live at 8pm Pacific time broadcasting on our youtube and facebook channels and twist.org slash live we are also available as a podcast you can just this week in science anywhere where a podcast is found and we should pop right 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okay so everything is working yeah okay so I will continue what we started yesterday on the generic problem so you estimate a symmetric matrix plus noise so this is a base optimal estimator for the mean square error when you are sampling according to the posterior and so I'm making the assumption that so remember that this notation is for the Euclidean dot product so in absolute value is converging to q and I'm quite happy that Pierpolo gave his presentation this morning because this is exactly the same q as in his matrix in his lecture the first lecture today so this is my on that if you want why I'm making this assumption with absolute value here it's because I'm only able to show that actually the square of this is converging to q square so I don't know there is still a sign he is not I'm not able to prove the that the sign is a plus but this will be sufficient for me to to show so yesterday I gave you a proposition and today we'll prove only this part that's this on that lambda max it's converging to q so yesterday I gave a bunch of other results connecting to q yes sorry otherwise there would be a quite a problem between the two thanks so is there any question on this the the the main goal here again it's a kind of pedagogical because if you only care about the minimum mean square you don't really need to to to show this but it gives I think a nice overview of the mathematical tools that are required in order to to understand the what physicists call their own that's on the overlap matrix okay so let's go for a small proof well it will take so how much time do I need to stop at what time okay a little bit after so this okay so this will do like usual this is the same thing so I'm I mean here I'm I'm just removing the bracket here and you see that there is a the dot product appearing between two independent copies and with with uh sorry nishimori you can say that this is the same as this and by my assumption this is this converse to q square okay so if q is equal to zero then the trace is on the problem on the lambda max so it's okay but if q is strictly positive I need to to do something else in order to prove this second part one way to to deal is to take the third moment of my matrix m this is always true so what you need to prove is that for this which you can rewrite like that so remember this is the euclidean the scalar the euclidean dot product then you take this one you want to show that this goes to q3 and q3 q square so you will have that lambda max is equal to q thanks to the upper one okay so this is uh you need to to prove this and then you you will be done with my result this particular result is part of no importance but the way we prove it I think will exhibit a nice mathematical tool the the first observation which is crucial is a symmetry in in in this problem so if you are looking at this matrix containing the the euclidean product of a replicas okay so this is not a real matrix this is an infinite array because you can take as many replicas as you want uh iid each time with the posterior distribution those x1 iid according I think I called it gn yesterday the posterior distribution given y so the observation so this is a this is a what is called a a random array but it has a lot of nice property so it's a random symmetric clearly it's a positive semi-finite and it's weakly exchangeable so I will define this infinite array so here I need to define a little bit this term because I'm not dealing with a finite matrix so here's a definition so an infinite symmetric random array r is a collection of random variable within this kk problem such that the symmetry is obvious so this is always almost surely so now the definition of weakly exchangeable is the following if you take a finite n you take a permutation so this is a group of permutation on n elements then you have this property in law okay so if you look at your infinite array if you take any permutation of the n first component you need to to have equality in law okay so for those of you who are familiar with the notion of exchangeable random variable this is an extension to a 2d array well it's hard to define a permutation on something which is infinite so yes that's here in law and the second thing which is what does it mean to be a positive semi-finite it's what you expect I guess so again you take the first n component when you want this matrix to be a positive semi-finite okay so so on for any n so does it make sense so it's clear that this is true in this case I mean because if you are permuting these are iid so it's even stronger than okay so what I will do is I will cheat a little bit only and I have something that depends on n when n is the size of the problem so this second of array is indeed tight because all these quantities are bounded so I will there are also other I mean so this is really the matrix so on the diagonal you have one because I did not specify but I take the expectation the the norm of X to be X is on the unit sphere so the the posterior mean still on the unit sphere and by my assumption I have this okay this is exactly evaluating okay I'm cheating a little bit it's not it's convergent but I will directly take okay I'm saying this is a tight seconds I'm taking a converging one and then in the limit I will consider an infinite array with this so now I have an infinite random array which is a weakly acceptable positive semi-finite and satisfying this and what I want to prove is that all this assumption implies so I'm already in the limit okay you need to do a little bit of mass in order to translate my result in convergence but here you see that I want to show convergence what I will show you is that in the limit this is true meaning that if you take R12 times R23 times R31 this is equal to Q3 okay does it make sense and R is this prop is an excuse for me to introduce I think a very nice representation theorem for such a random object you might know there is a well-known theorem of Aldous and Hoover for a weakly acceptable array when you are adding a constraint of being a positive semi-finite there is a specific instantiation of this theorem which is due to Dov Bish on Sudakov I think Dimitri Pacheco I mean has a proof of this theorem basically using only the Aldous Hoover representation so you take any infinite symmetric weakly acceptable positive semi-finite random array then there exists a separable Hilbert space but yeah the theorem is H with the corresponding scalar product and the random probability distribution eta on H R such that R is equal in distribution sorry H R prime plus possible term on the diagonal so this is this product here in the inverse space H and where conditionally on eta the law of the IID with low eta you have you can find a Hilbert space in which you will pick vectors in this HK and this is just a real number so this delta is for the chronicle so this is just on the diagonal you you can add a constant basically a scalar and then I mean clearly if you have a random array of this form it is a weakly exchangeable and a positive semi-finite and this is the only possible case basically so for Aldous Hoover it's a bit simpler because you well first you don't need to exhibit a Hilbert space you can take all your random variable uniform in 01 and then you have a function then you will basically replace the Hilbert space by you you don't have the the dot product in your Hilbert space you have a generic function that will take as arguments your uniform random variable IID random variable here there is I mean all the randomness is in the H and then this is the the dot product in your Hilbert space so I will not prove this I will just use it in my case so again I already took the limits so I'm basically in this setting with this additional constraint and I want to prove this so what we'll do we will work conditionally on eta okay so this law given by Dovish-Sudeck of theorem on nu will denote the first marginal so nu is basically the law of the H okay so that what we have is h1 h2 is equal to q nu almost surely okay so this is exactly this this condition and I'm a poor mathematician so I don't know the sign so I'm just fighting to for a sign so this indeed implies that sorry the H is a vector in a Hilbert space for nu I'm taking only the distribution on the H not on the yes I don't really care on the diagonal the diagonal I have only one so this is is that is that clear the well I guess this is a simple argument to show that this implies this because okay probably I will just draw a picture so if this is a sphere of radius square root of q so let's say that this is not correct so this means that you have you can find h which is not on this sphere okay over there and now if you if you take a small ball of radius epsilon around it you see that the norm here is let's say strictly bigger than q they will all have radius strictly bigger than q if you take any two vector here if the ball is sufficiently small you will you will be able to to have for all pairs of points in this small ball the euclidean product the dot product will be bigger than q2 okay so basically on this ball you have a ball somewhere that h8 and epsilon where what I'm claiming is this and it's strictly bigger than q for example and now okay if you look at so and this is clearly a contradiction with with this because this means that two different of q is at least bigger than the square of the ball which is built okay contradicting this this fact so here I'm okay so I'm I'm almost done because no so this means that this cannot happen so which means actually this that everybody's so all the vectors in h are on this sphere so you have equals q for all the vector so let's take say okay I have h1 here what are the possible value for for h2 with this constraint which is true almost surely yeah so vector h1 is sitting here I'm picking one according to my measure nu then so h2 has to be on this sphere yeah so there are basically two points okay which are this one so which means that the measure nu is concentrated on at most two points on the sphere and now this is enough for me because what I want to show is what so what is the value of this well so this is plus or minus q it's time but let's say it's plus q here and minus q here then what is the value over there so plus minus which means that h1 and h2 are the same h2 and h2 are different so which means that h3 and h1 are also different so these two should be the same so it's always you more sure okay so even so I don't know the sign I'm still able to to conclude that this is true which is exactly what I was looking for so yep I know it looks like you are using a very elaborate tool to prove something which might be obvious to physicists at least but I don't know what to do so okay here I was so I did prove only the part on the infinite object so the limiting object but there is no difficulty to translate this in a in a result of convergence when n turns to infinity okay I'm not doing that part and I mean being on the infinite object actually even on a on a math from a mathematical mathematical point of view it's I mean it's it's like when you are dealing with exchangeable random variables there are some definitions when for vectors but it's it's a bit cumbersome so you need an infinite second in order to to to to play with this with this object okay so even so I'm not able to show that the matrix of our lab is the one you saw this morning with one on the diagonal of q I have a plus or minus q I don't know the sign but it's enough to to show the result I am interested in for the minimum mean square error and yeah at least if you so it will be more I don't know satisfying to show that you have a connection to q but I'm not I don't know if Jean has a proof now of this or not but yes that's you do the only thing we are able we were able to show is that the square is converging to q square so we still don't know the sign no I don't know okay so uh yeah do you want me to to stop yes so exactly well you are not a physicist anymore then no yeah it boils down to this problem of determining x to a sign or everything for us it's a it's a pain but okay I don't know so when you are not planting anything so when you are not the the the the the plane charitan k k partake model so we not in the inference the the plane charitan k k partake model yeah but but it's I mean the the landscape it's much more difficult than the one I'm presenting here so here I'm basically in the replica symmetric setting I think this is how you call it in statistical physics uh if you are not in this setting uh you need to to work a lot more uh on this overlapped yeah so I I I didn't made uh I I didn't make uh I didn't prove anything right now because I started with an assumption that the absolute value is converging to q yes so this I I'm making the connection uh and with uh we have a formal proof that so we can show that the assumption is correct so in the end everything is is correct um but uh right now you you don't have I didn't show you how to prove that's my first assumption is correct uh okay so the the last part uh I wanted to uh to come back to and this is I mean also uh this is true for uh in in a rather general setting so but I will come come back to the spike uh I'm afraid I will only have 10 minutes to okay let's start then yes I will write it properly so that I I will start directly with this this afternoon back to the spike so again okay then uh again we are observing only the upper triangular part of this I'm assuming now that's uh all the x are IIT with the distribution p0 the Spickner matrix I hope I convince you that the right MMSE is not on the vector because of the problem of sign and this is this one okay so this is a framework so you you might wonder why I spent so much time uh uh at the beginning presenting a Bayesian tool with uh for uh with a vector and with Gaussian noise but uh you should be able to see that indeed I'm exactly in the framework uh we use uh in the previous lectures uh you basically just need to flatten your matrix uh x okay so now the number of indices is exactly as this n times n minus 1 divided by 2 and so you have a of course if you flatten the vector now the entry of this vector they are not IID anymore but I never assume that uh I had the IID component for my x vector in uh in my in my previous lectures what is important is that uh the noise is a white noise so there is no covariance and this is still correct in this setting so all the IMMSE theorems that we show all the the free the free energy all the computation we made and the connection between them are still valid in this setting you just need to rescale the I'm rescaling the lambda with the n so you just need to play with the parameter lambda on the number of components which is not a small n now but this quantity and you you you can use all the tools so what we did uh before is not lost if you if you want and we uh we can apply all the tools I show you so I will uh I will end this morning course with basically two basic facts uh I will keep this one later so I told you we're interested in the minimal mean square it's also good to to look at the performance of natural algorithm so there is the first one which I'm calling the dummy one the dummy estimator is the one where you are not even looking at the dataset why so what is the best guess you can do without even looking at the why here so it's also just taking it will be constant equal to the mean I'm taking of this uh yes the entry of the matrix is the square so I'm just taking the mean to the square so I'm assuming also let's say that okay so what is the performance of this so call it d dummy mean square error this is x square minus so this is the best constant estimator you you you can make so I'm making the assumption that this is one okay so and this is clearly uh an upper bound on the d dummy square error okay so now I have uh what I'm calling the naive pca so uh all what I said I tried to convince you that what you should do is look at the matrix m which is uh you sample according to the posterior you take x transpose and you take the leading eigenvector of this but of course if you knew how to sample uh given the posterior then basically the problem will be solved so you do not have access to the m matrix I introduced that before so instead uh you have access to this matrix and what you you might do is uh do the same algorithm but not on the matrix m on the matrix y hoping for the best okay so this is why I'm calling it naive pca so your estimator now for x hat is a leading eigenvector of the matrix y so I'm normalizing it uh equal to n the dimension and now your estimator so okay we'll take a delta times this so you are still have one degree of freedom and we'll try to to to pick the right value for for delta so for this you saw uh I don't know you you call it if there's a in in maths it's called the bag benarus pca phase transition and in in this case I will take it here but if you uh put it in in this setting when lambda is less than one then the leading eigenvalue is two it's uh the bulk of the semicircular law and you have no signal zero almost surely when lambda is bigger than one then the leading eigenvalue is square root of lambda which is strictly bigger than two so you have one outlier and which is correlated with the true signal so now I want to take delta this you do the math and it's a function of delta two delta times zero if lambda is less than one and times one minus one over lambda if lambda is bigger than one so which means that if uh you you take delta equals zero if I mean you want to minimize this in delta if lambda is less than one so basically there is no I mean in this regime there is no hope to recover signal anyway uh on the the when lambda is bigger than one then the right value for delta is this okay and I will write it so this is the optimal value if you want to minimize this in delta and so the msc for the pcrn of lambda tends to one if lambda is less than one and this value one minus lambda to one over lambda okay so here it's a very simple application of of the pcr so you see that okay if you in the example we'll we'll see as this afternoon I will take a a symmetric distribution for x so this will disappear so in this case the best estimator is zero okay uh so the value one here corresponds to random guessing so there is no information and as soon as you are above the dbp phase transition you are able to recover a little bit of signal and this is the exact value for the mean square error achieved by the pca so now the question is is it the best possible uh is it equal to the minimum mean square error or not and we'll see uh this is a teaser for this afternoon so at what time do we so is there any question on all right what time is it it's one it's uh 15 past 12 we were supposed to restart at two let's restart that 130 okay okay so let's start again at 130 p.m so for those online we we start earlier because we have some transportation problems here so keep that in mind see you


Having studied in the National Institute of Design in India, which was a Bauhaus-style design school, I think multidisciplinarity has always been an integral part of my work. On one hand, I was very influenced by notable image makers and storytellers who were creating radical visions of the future. But on the other side, I was heavily influenced also by the Eames Report, which was created by Charles Henry Eames, the founders of NID. The Eames Report was regarded almost as a sacred piece of text and it kind of emphasised what was quite obvious at that point, that young designers in India need to be aware of the context within which they are working, which was that of an economically fragile, recently independent state, and that we needed to think about how design could become an essential ingredient in innovation. And so when I came to study interaction design at the Royal College of Art in London, I think I was interested in finding a space which would allow both those aspirations to come together, a space for magic, alchemy, provocation on one side and people, communities, making and building on the other. Essentially, we are living in what one might call the black swan country, where chaos and complexity seem to have become the operating parameters of the new normal. Within this, you are starting to see the rise of maker culture from all the way from fact toys and jewelry to making your own sort of autonomous drones and synthesising DNA at home. And there is this whole sort of rising crowdsource funding. These might appear to be sort of weak signals at the moment, especially within our sort of industrialised set of products and services that we use today. But what happens when these weak signals start becoming mainstream? Where does that lead the design profession? Especially when designing, making, manufacturing and distribution starts to get easier. Who is the icon and who is the maker of the iconic products? I think at Superflux, we are really interested in these challenges and we find them extremely exciting because it doesn't remain so much about the big, audio-genius designer, but it's more about the network, about architectures of collaboration and participation. I grew up in the late 70s, early 80s in India, which was very much a sort of socialist yet conservative sort of government where the basic hopes and needs of the community were still being met, whether you're talking about getting a television or a car or a telephone on one side. But then all our sort of community engagements, all our sort of fantasies were built on these ancient mythological scriptures, history around anti-gravitational machines or sort of iconic mythological figures. So this whole sort of juxtaposition of the basic needs of a community with the fantastical has played a key role in shaping my worldview and each time I keep going back and forth between India and the UK, these influences only get stronger. The reason we want to do the lab work alongside consultancy is because it allows us to research, collaborate and partner. It allows us to keep a progressive design agenda, allows us to explore unexpected opportunities and brings vision and freshness to the consulting work as well. And yeah, of course, keeps us creatively and intellectually sustained. And the sweet spot is of course the space when we are able to find projects that start moving from consultancy to the lab and from the lab to the consultancy because that's where often the most relevant and impactful work is created. And finally, it's about rhythm and pacing, I think, by having the mix of projects going on at any one time that can be unexpected collisions and cross-virtualization of ideas and also having a set of multiple projects that have different sorts of clients, that have different sorts of economic and business models bring structural resilience to our studio, allowing us to be flexible in any sort of economic volatility.


Coming to you from our GIS Studios, I am Manisha Antoine and this is your Midday News Brief. Prudent fiscal management by the Government of St. Lucia has resulted in a better budget outing than anticipated. Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, the Honourable Alan Shastney, in delivering the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure 2019-2020 on Wednesday, April 10 reported that a lower budget deficit of $68.3 million was achieved compared to the $163.92 million recorded in the Estimates of 2018-2019. Honourable Shastney explained that this was due to the combined effort of higher than anticipated revenue and underspending of the budget. A surplus of $37.3 million was realised from the Citizenship by Investment Donation Receipts. Tax receipts registered an increase of 5.17% above the last financial year. Non-tax receipts amassed $69.26 million, a 10.1% increase. Meantime, the bulk of Government's capital allocation is geared towards improvements in the agricultural production, infrastructural development, sports infrastructure, health and education. $79.8 million or 32.3% of the total development budget is proposed for allocation to the Department of Infrastructure, Ports and Energy, which will cater for ongoing roads, bridges and maintenance and rehabilitation projects. Government has also allocated $7.8 million in additional resources to continue ongoing projects under the Department of Agriculture, which includes the Water Supply Redevelopment Projects in Viewfort and Dennery. A proposed sum of $20.6 million has also been allocated to the Department of Sports to cater for major improvements to spotting facilities around the island. The Department of Health and Wellness has received confirmation of the Association of H1N1 Influenza in one of the recent respiratory-related deaths among males. This confirmation was received from the laboratory at the Caribbean Public Health Agency CAFA in Trinidad. H1N1 Influenza or Swine Flu has also been confirmed in other persons who only developed mild flu-like illness and recovered completely with treatment. Persons with flu symptoms should avoid crowded places in an effort to decrease the transmission to others. The flu vaccine, which is available free of charge at all wellness centres, can also assist in flu prevention. This has been your media news brief. Thank you for watching.


Good to see you guys back. It's good for us to be here, amen. Worship the Lord together, consider His word together. So it's a joy to be able to have that on a Sunday night, and I'm grateful that you're here to join in that with us. We are back in Judges tonight, which I'm grateful for. It's been a couple of weeks since we've been able to be back in the Book of Judges. And so we wanna pick up now in the account of Samson, and it's our joy to be able to look at the early stages here of Samson's life. As we work through these chapters in the middle of the book here. So turn with me to Judges chapter 14. Our text this evening is verses one through nine. Judges 14, verses one through nine. And read along with me as I read the text aloud. The title of our sermon tonight is According to the Council of His Will. According to the Council of His Will. And we'll look at how God here in the early stages of Samson's life is working through in and through the circumstances of Samson's life to bring about Israel's deliverance. We see that beginning in Judges chapter 14, beginning in verse one. Now Samson went down to Timna, and he saw a woman in Timna of the daughters of the Philistines. And so he went up and told his father and mother saying, I have seen a woman in Timna of the daughters of the Philistines, now therefore get her for me as a wife. Then his father and mother said to him, is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren or among all my people that you must go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said to his father, get her for me, she pleases me well. But his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord that he was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines, for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel. So Samson went down to Timna with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timna. And now to his surprise, a young lion came roaring against him. And the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. Then he went down, talked with the woman and she pleased Samson well. After some time when he returned to get her, he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion. And behold, a swarm of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion. He took some of it in his hands and went along eating. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them. They also ate, but he did not tell them he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion. This is the word of God, amen, amen. Let's pray and let's consider the text together tonight. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we're grateful to you for the blessed privilege of studying your word. And we're grateful to you Lord, for your word. Grateful for the resources that we have. This is the work, the labor of men, women whom you have indwelt by your spirit to consider the text and for us Lord to have help in understanding the text. Thank you Lord for the teaching of godly men over the years. And Lord, thank you for the blessing we have tonight of coming to this text and learning ourselves from the lessons that you have for us here. I pray we'd be faithful to consider these lessons and help us Lord to glean from your word what you intend. And please Lord, work in us both to will and to do according to your good pleasure. Jesus name we pray these things, amen. And again, the title of our sermon tonight, according to the counsel of his will Judges chapter 14 verses one through nine in the account of Samson. If you remember in the account of Samson in chapter 13, the angel of the Lord has visited Manoa and his wife. And at the very end of the chapter, Manoa and his wife give birth to a son. Manoa's wife Baron had no children and miraculously a supernatural work of God. She has a son, they name their son Samson and Samson as was foretold as to be a Nazarite from his birth. And so now we come to chapter 14 and we see the beginnings here of the account of Samson's life. I guess at the outset, I'd like to ask a question concerning the circumstances that we find here in Judges chapter 14. And I guess the question would be this in considering your own circumstances, considering your own life. Have you ever felt as though things in your life just hadn't always worked out the way that you thought they would? Things haven't gone the way that I hoped that they would, the way that I planned that they would. I really wanted things to work out differently. My life just has not turned out the way that I thought that it might. It's common, isn't it, in our human experience to have felt that way at one time or another. We don't know the future. We can't tell ahead of time how things are going to turn out, but God does. And sometimes things don't always turn out the way that we think it might be best if they did. We plan our way. We order our steps. We think and plot and act and we hope. We form expectations. Sometimes our expectations aren't net. It's just not the way that we wanted things to go. We had hoped that life would turn out differently. The Bible says that hope deferred, and the word deferred means seized or carried away. Hope that is carried off makes the heart sick. It's often that we don't fully understand why circumstances turn out the way that they do. Sometimes we can see that right in the providence of God. We see it in the wisdom of God, but sometimes we look at our circumstances and in particular we may look back on a series of circumstances and really not understand why in the world things went the way that they did. We sometimes have difficulty when we think that we see God's providence in advance of God's actions. And we can't interpret providence in that way. We often find ourselves, don't we, trying to decipher God's providence in advance or expecting God's providence to work out in the way that we think it should or in the way that we've planned when it doesn't. Now we often misread, we often misunderstand God's providence altogether. We simply don't know and frankly can't know. And when things don't work out the way that we think they should, far too easy for us to worry, far too easy for us to become anxious, far too easy for us to stop trusting him and not unlike Eve in the garden, we may subconsciously, if not consciously, begin to think of God, maybe like Eve did as that ogre who withholds those things that are good for us rather than giving to us, not withholding any good thing from those who believe in him, those who trust him. Far too easy for us in those circumstances to stop trusting him. I know we've all seen it before or had experienced before where someone is hesitant about coming for counsel, right? They got an important decision and they don't necessarily want to ask counsel. They'd rather isolate themselves and make the decisions for themselves. Why? Because they've already made up their mind exactly how they want that thing to go, right? And they don't want to ask counsel because they're fearful that the counsel they're going to get is not what they want to hear. We can often be that way with God himself, can't we? We want, we begin to clutch, we begin to worry, we begin to get anxious about the way things we, the way we want things to turn out, the way we want things to go and rather than just trusting him and being faithful to him in the decisions that we make, we begin to make decisions, we begin to think thoughts, we begin to make compromises that demonstrate a lack of faith in him, a lack of trust in him. Maybe we begin to imagine that God is someone who withholds good from us rather than who he actually is, who's our Heavenly Father, who withholds no good thing from us. Even when that good comes clothed in adversity, right? Even when that good comes wrapped up in trial or difficulty, well, the initial response out of the flesh when those circumstances begin to fall upon us, the initial response out of our sinful flesh is often panic, right? The first response out of our flesh is often worry, doubt, despair, anxiety. And when we panic, when we worry, when we doubt, when we despair, we are susceptible, vulnerable to compromise. We're tempted to compromise. We will allow for sinful attitudes, we'll allow for sinful actions in order to control, manipulate, or manhandle our circumstances because ultimately that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to manhandle our own circumstances when God is the one who is sovereign, right? Those actions, those heart attitudes are not the actions or attitudes of faith. In our own life, we may think to ourselves that desperate measures or desperate times call for desperate measures. We may say that we're acting in faith. We may think to ourselves, well, I'm not worried, but our actions say otherwise, right? Because we're trying to control our circumstances. Our attitudes say otherwise because our attitudes are not faith-filled or faithful. It's in times like these that we must trust in the fact that God really is sovereign and God intends all things for the good of those who love him. Proverbs chapter 16, verse nine, a man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.  We just have to trust him. And it's good that we trust him. His ways are righteous. All of his works are gracious. He is all wise. He is in control. He sits in the heavens and does whatever he pleases. And what he pleases for those in Christ is their good. He delights to do them good. His judgments are unsearchable. His ways pass finding out. No one knows the things of God except the spirit of God. And who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him. So what we must do then is to ready ourselves. Ready ourselves and faithfully and joyfully accept that which he has ordained for us. Not just resign ourselves to take it through clenched teeth, right? But to rejoice in it. Ready ourselves in advance to faithfully and joyfully, except at his hand, the good that he intends for us. No matter what shape or form that good comes to us in, right? Our circumstances may appear as though they are random. They are not. Our circumstances are not random. It may appear as though God determines to withhold that which is good. He does not. The lot is cast into our lap and we may forget that it's every single decision is from the Lord. We must not forget, right? We must not forget. God is at work even when it may appear that he isn't. And because of Jesus Christ, we know that it is for our good when God is at work and we can trust in him. There's an example of this reality, this fact for the Christian life. There's an example illustrated for us in Judges chapter 14. Beautifully illustrated in Judges chapter 14. God is the one who is working all things according to the counsel of his own will in Judges 14. And that begins really with the angel of the Lord coming to Manoa and his wife. The angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ, appears to Manoa, appears to his wife and promises them a son. Now think with me about the circumstances. A child was destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, we could say. He would be a Nazarite from the womb and God would use this child, this son, to deliver his people from the hand of the Philistines. So in chapter 13, verse 24, in fulfillment of the promise, verse 24, the woman bore a son called his name Samson and the child grew and the Lord blessed him. And we're not exactly sure how the Lord blessed Samson as he grew up. I don't envision this little like four year old, seven year old, nine year old, extremely muscular, long-haired kid, you know. The Lord may have made him incredibly strong even at an early age. We're not sure how the spirit of the Lord blessed Samson as he grew. We're not told exactly, but what we are told is that God is at work. God is at work in the life of Samson and God is going to prepare Samson for the work that God has for him to do in delivering his people. So verse 25, the spirit of the Lord began to move upon him at Mahanadan between Zora and Eshtahol. Now we might be caught off guard about that statement from the verses that follow. It might not appear that the spirit of God was working on or in or through Samson at all. What we see in the verses that follow in our text, chapter 14, verses one through nine, we really see Samson acting entirely in his own self-interest. Entirely, according to his own personal agenda, and even in those circumstances, that does not mean that God somehow is not at work. God's will will be done. His hand cannot be thwarted. We see that in the account of Samson. Look at chapter 14, now verse one. So in verse one, Samson went down to Timna, saw a woman in Timna of the daughter of the Philistines. So he went up and told his father and mother saying, I've seen a woman in Timna of the daughters of the Philistines. Now therefore, get her for me as a wife. His father and mother said to him, is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren or among all my people that you must go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? Samson said to his father, get her for me for she pleases me well. But his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord that he was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines. For at that time, the Philistines had dominion over Israel. And notice with me the bookends. And I want you to see from the text, in the life of Samson, Samson, it's almost proverbial in the book of Judges that there was no king in Israel and everybody did what was right in his own eyes. That's Samson right here, right? The Lord has given Samson a clear mission. We have every reason to expect that Samson knew exactly what his mission would be, knew exactly what his vow as a Nazarite entailed. And yet Samson seems to act entirely in indifference to the will of God. He's doing his own thing, okay? But notice the bookends, there's an inclusio or bookends placed on either side of this text. In chapter 13, verse 25, the spirit of the Lord began to move on Samson. And in chapter 14, verse four, these circumstances were of the Lord. The Lord was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines. So in 1325, the spirit of the Lord moves, 14, four, all the circumstances we find are of the Lord. Everything in the middle looks like the Lord isn't in the actions of Samson. Samson, it looks like he's acting entirely on his own. It's important to note, because everything we see between looks like Samson is taking the reins of his life to himself, right? Looks like he is setting his own course. Looks like he is casting the will of God to the wind, you know, and doing his own thing. But consider with me how this works out. Verse one, Samson went down to Timna and saw a woman in Timna of the daughters of the Philistines. Notice she's not a daughter of Jacob. She's not an Israelite woman. This man who was supposed to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines wants to jump in bed with the Philistines. He's gonna marry one of them, right? So he went up, verse two, told his father and mother, saying, I've seen a woman in Timna of the daughters of the Philistines. Now therefore, get her for me as a wife. In verse two, you can start to see a tone in Samson's words to his parents, don't you? There's a tone in the text. This comes across as insolent, comes across as self-willed, even rebellious. Certainly it's disrespectful, disrespectful. Samson doesn't come to his parents asking for counsel. He certainly is not coming asking their permission. He comes to his parents, verse two, with a director, with a directive, right? Get her for me as a wife. Now mom and dad are justifiably aghast at this. They're taken aback. Verse three, his father and mother said to him, is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren? Or among all my people, you must go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? Samson, unrelenting, said to his father, get her for me, for she pleases me well. Literally the word means she is right in my eyes. So notice Samson's motivation, right? He seems entirely concerned here about her outward appearance. Nothing about this woman. He didn't consider anything else other than she's right in my eyes. Notice verse one, he saw a woman in Timna. Look at verse two, I have seen a woman in Timna. Verse three, she is right in my eyes. In other words, this is gonna get Samson in trouble later as well, right? This continues to be a problem for Samson. Samson likes what he sees. He's operating entirely according to his senses. In other words, what Samson is thinking and what Samson is doing is being driven by that which is sensual, of his senses. He's not thinking. He's not looking upon anything else in determining his decision. He wants her, so he goes to his parents and says, get her for me. This is gonna be an ongoing problem for him. Now remember, as we consider what's going on here, that Samson was raised as a Nazarite. Remember that vow from chapter 13? He was consecrated or set apart, sanctified to the Lord from birth, and that with a purpose. Yet Samson, just ignoring his vows in Nazarite, isn't concerned at all about living among the enemy Philistines. He seems to be perfectly content with that. Samson isn't concerned at all about the counsel or even the opinions of his parents. And Samson has absolutely no concern for the law of God. What does the law of God say with respect to this? If you listen to Deuteronomy chapter seven, listen to what the Lord says in verse one concerning the law here. When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go into possess and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites, the Gurgoshites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Parasites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you.  You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them. Verse three, nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.   That was to be the Nazarite. The Nazarite was to be holy, consecrated, separated to God and Samson acts with contempt toward his vow.  The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. In all that they were to do, they were to acknowledge God. They were to acknowledge God in all of their actions, all of their circumstances. Certainly they were to acknowledge God in who they married. Even more so, Samson having taken a Nazarite vow, consecrated to God from birth. So Samson the Nazarite shows no concern whatsoever for God, shows no concern whatsoever for God's law. There's no concern given here for his mission, right? I'm not going to marry one of the Philistines. I've been sent to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines and no fear of God whatsoever before his eyes. Samson simply acts with impunity, does his own thing. There is no king in Israel and Samson sets out to do what is right in his own eyes. Well Samson's parents, Mino and his wife, express their profound disappointment, describing the woman as being from among the uncircumcised Philistines. That's supposed to be a pejorative, right? It is insulting. But they themselves don't mention the law of God, do they? It's just she's an uncircumcised Philistine. They don't mention the law of God. Don't invoke the law of God to persuade Samson otherwise. They don't mention Samson's vow. They don't mention Samson's mission. You're supposed to deliver us from the Philistines, not marry one, and there's no escaping the obvious point. The judge here is not a part of any solution at this point. The judge is simply a part of the problem. The judge is a part of the problem. The implications are obvious. Samson is acting in his own self-interest and left to himself, think with me, left to himself, Samson would have absolutely no interest in the God of Israel, right? Left to himself, Samson would have no interest in anyone else's agenda, but his own. Certainly not God's agenda. He's not concerned with God's agenda. No interest whatsoever in rising up against the Philistines. He was perfectly happy living among the Philistines, even marrying one of them, and absolutely no interest in delivering Israel. And Samson, in that sense, is Israel in microcosm. Right, he's a small individual picture of the spiritual condition of the nation. Israel, Israel at this point in history, has no interest in the God of Israel. Israel has no interest in the covenant. Israel has no concern for the law. Israel has no concern for being delivered from the hand of the Philistines. Israel is doing what is right in her own eyes. And despite the fact that Samson is acting entirely in his own self-interest, there is someone else who is also acting entirely according to their own good pleasure, and all of these events are ultimately ordered by him. And it's amazing, look at verse four. His father and his mother did not know that all of these circumstances, that everything that was going on, in particular Samson's marriage or interest in his Philistine, that it was of the Lord, so that he, that pronoun he, the nearest antecedent, is the Lord, so he is referring to the Lord. The Lord was seeking an occasion, verse four, to move against the Philistines, for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel. No indication here whatsoever that Samson was gonna be the one who was gonna take opportunity from this marriage to a Philistine to move against the Philistines. He was doing his own thing, as we'll see as we work through the rest of the text. His father and mother might have thought to themselves, we raised this boy as a Nazarite his entire life. He was supposed to be the one to deliver Israel. This is a disaster, right? They might have thought, this is a tragic set of circumstances, but they did not know that this unexpected and unwanted circumstances, circumstance, was the way in which God had ordained to move against the Philistines. God is at work, even when it appears to us that God is not at work. And even when things don't turn out the way that we think that they should, God is at work.  Circumstances are simply never outside of his sovereign care and control. And so in all our circumstances, if we think ahead, right, it's far easier to make a good, faithful, faith-filled, rational, thinking decision when we're clear-minded, right? When we're not in the heat of difficult circumstances. Determine now, think now about what you will do, what you will say, how you will act, what you will decide when adversity comes upon you. And commit yourself to being faithful to the Lord. He's talking to a brother who's a police officer here and he was talking about situational awareness. Right, situational awareness. And police officers train for situational awareness. They don't know what situation they may face when they turn a corner and unexpectedly come upon someone who's committing a crime, right, or doing something nefarious. They don't know all the situations they're gonna find themselves in. So what do they do? They train for situational awareness. They think ahead of time, what am I gonna do in this circumstance? What am I gonna do in that circumstance? That's why it's often that when you hear gunshots, you see a bunch of people fleeing, but you see a police officer going toward them, right? Situational awareness, they've made the commitment already. In their mind, they made the decision, I need to go toward them and help not run from them, right? It's, we make those decisions when we're clear-minded ahead of time. Situational awareness, we need to think about that with respect to our circumstances as Christians, living our Christian life. Think ahead of time about serving the Lord faithfully, making decisions in faith. When the circumstances get difficult, when the heat of summer is bearing down on you, so to speak, that's when you need to be fully committed to being faithful, steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, not turning to the right or turning to the left, trusting Him that all your circumstances will be worked out together for your good. God is gracious and God is good and God keeps His word, and we need to be faithful to Him. Verse four really gives us the big picture, right? The view of the forest that we don't always recognize when we're caught looking at knot holes on trees. And sometimes we look at our own circumstances and we've got our face in the knot hole of some tree, and if we just step back for a moment, we see the grand and glorious plan that God is at work over all of our circumstances. But Samson looks as though he's acting freely, but Samson is ultimately not acting for self. Isn't that amazing? This is called the doctrine of divine concurrence. The doctrine of divine concurrence. Samson is acting freely, but ultimately Samson is not acting entirely for himself. He ends up doing exactly that which God had intended for him to do for good. Samson's trip to Timna was determined by God. Samson's sensual desires were used by God. A Philistine woman in Timna was serving unknowingly as an agent of the most high God of Israel, and all along God had determined to use these circumstances to blow up the happy cohabitation that Israel was sadly tragically enjoying with the Philistines. God was about to drop a grenade in their circumstances. God knows what is good, and God has determined good for his people, and God knows how to bring that good about. Even what men mean for evil, God means for good. That's the lesson of Joseph, isn't it, and his brothers. The doctrine of divine concurrence. The relationship between human and divine motives and plans. We plan our way, but it is God who directs all our steps. The doctrine of divine concurrence. Samson ultimately does that which was ultimately good, by that which was ultimately not good. It's the extraordinary, the extraordinary, wonder working power of divine providence. God's control over all things whatsoever that come to pass. That does not mean in any way, shape, form, or fashion that Samson's actions are commendable. They are not. It does not mean that Samson isn't responsible entirely for his own actions. Samson certainly is. It doesn't mean that Samson's parents wouldn't be right to object to Samson's actions. They certainly are. But what it does mean is that neither Samson, nor you nor I will ever thwart the plans, purposes, and promises of God. Praise God, right? Praise God. His plans are perfect and he intends in Christ to only do us good. So let's stop working against him.  Why are you anxious? Why are you worried? Why are you compromising, right? Be faithful to the Lord. He can use even the foolishness or sinfulness of men to bring about the good that he intends. Romans chapter eight, verse 28, and we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. Dale Ralph Davis in his commentary on Judges used an illustration to make this point. I thought it was just a really good illustration. It tells the story of Ehud Avriel, good Jewish name, and Ehud's shipment of Italian onions to Palestine in 1948. So if you may know your history and remember some of the history, what was going on in Palestine in the year 1948, it's interesting that there'd be a shipment of Italian onions to the land of Palestine in 1948. The manifest on the ship showed 600 tons of onions, and 600 tons of onions kept customs agents from sniffing around, and the onions that were in the cargo kept custom agents from finding the real cargo, the intended cargo, which was a shipment of Czech rifles that had been purchased for the Israeli army. Davis has said sometimes, all we can see in our circumstances are the smelly onions. The smell of disappointment seems to dominate the scene, but perhaps that is only the cover for God's secret work. Perhaps our greatest good, our greatest comfort, is hidden in what we don't know or what we can't see. And I would say that that's often likely the case. Why? Because we need our faith built, we need our faith cultivated, and so God will often bring about good to us through circumstances that we simply cannot discern. We can't see, we don't know, can't understand. Many of us have faced circumstances not unlike Manoa and his wife. Maybe it's a son or a daughter who's turned away from following the Lord or turned away from obeying their parents. It's tragic, right? It's devastating. And yet we should meditate on verse four. We don't always know his plans. Don't always know what he intends, but one thing we do know that he intends is our good, his good. He is righteous in all his ways. He is gracious in all his works. So praise God and let's trust him for what he does and what he works. He is always just, right? Always righteous, always good. Our text focuses on the hidden and unknown providence of God. And I would suggest that for us often his providence is hidden and unknown to us. Samson's parents, they don't know about the plans of God in verse four. They don't know about an incident that Samson has with a lion either. And the text begins to emphasize it appears. It begins to emphasize that which is unknown, right? What Samson's parents simply don't know. Look at verse five. So Samson went down to Timna with his father and mother, came to the vineyards of Timna. Now to his surprise, a young lion came roaring against him. The spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him. The word means it rushed upon him. I'm not sure exactly what that looks like or how that works. The spirit of God just rushed upon Samson, right? It's this thought from the word that it overwhelmed him, overpowered him and gave Samson great strength, right? Says the spirit mightily rushed upon him. He tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat. It was nothing for him. He just tore it apart as though he had nothing in his hand. But look at verse six. He did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. This was a mystery to them. They didn't know about it. Right in the strength of the spirit, the lion may as well have been a young goat. It was nothing for Samson to have taken that lion and to tear it apart. But Samson's strength here is described as the strength of the spirit. And it's an illustration, right? This is a practical illustration because this actually happened and the spirit gave that strength to Samson. The spirit will give us the strength that we need. Won't he? Right? We may not be in a situation we find where we have to tear apart a lion in some back street of Chuliota. But we may be tearing apart spiritual lions in our own lives, need the strength of the spirit. The spirit of God showed Samson like he will show David years later in the same way, right? Ahead of his encounter with another uncircumcised Philistine, God had to prepare David by tearing apart a bear. And he showed Samson what he could do in the strength of the spirit. This is a faith builder in verses five and six. It's a faith cultivator, a preview of coming attractions. In other words, where God is preparing Samson, preparing even us through a smaller, less significant episode, God proves his strength, proves his faithfulness, and prepares us for the more significant episodes in our life that are coming. All right, God is so gracious to do that.  It's a smaller episode. God is preparing you for massive episodes, right? God is working all these things together for good. You know, Samson could have rolled over. Why would God have sent a lion after me? Look at my circumstances and bewailed and bemoaned. Nope, the strength of the spirit, the spirit rushed upon Samson, he just ripped it apart. Do you think that that might have caused Samson to think for a moment about who it was to strengthen him? Yeah, I think so. It's a faith builder, a preview of coming attractions and it's helping to prepare Samson for the episodes that he'll face later. The episode, that episode for Samson, the greater episode is about to come inexorably now as circumstances are leading to his wedding, verse seven. He went down, he talked with a woman and she pleased Samson well. All right, this is not a matter of Samson looking for an opportunity against the Philistines. It was God who was working circumstances to move against the Philistines. Samson just pleased with his girl from Timna. He had no idea what was going on. After sometime, verse eight, when he returned to get her, he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion and behold, a swarm of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion. Throwing out anything to do with his Nazarite vow, it wasn't to touch a dead body. Verse nine, he took some of it in his hands, not only was he not to touch a dead body, he certainly wasn't to eat anything out of one. All right, he took some of it in his hands, verse nine, went along eating. When he came to his father and mother, he didn't tell them anything about it. He simply gave some of it to them and they also ate, but he did not tell them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion. So much for Samson's Nazarite vow. No problem touching, even eating from a corpse and even gives his parents some to share. We fail, you and I, in numerous ways, right? Inumerable ways, daily, feels sometimes hourly we fail, right? These are just the beginnings of Samson's failures, but when we are faithless, God is faithful. God will never, never violate his promise, violate his word. We are weak and often, God pities us in our condition and works circumstances for our good to build us up in our faith and our trust. And remember the story of Gideon, the patient lengths to which God went to prepare Gideon to trust him in the battle, right? When we are faithless, even when we're weak, our weakness, his strength is made perfect in our weakness. God is always faithful, always strong, always in control. We can trust him as we navigate our choices, our circumstances, absolutely no reason to compromise his word, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and don't give it another thought that God can't work that out for your good, even when a choice for his righteousness, his kingdom, may appear to be circumstantially harmful to you. God is working all things together for our good. We should trust him as we make choices and navigate our circumstances. Always act, decide in faith. Proverbs chapter three, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding, far easier for many in their circumstances to say than to do. In our circumstances, our judgment can be clouded. Don't lean on your own understanding. Simply trust God for what his word says and do that which is most faithful. Do that which is most faith-filled. Give opportunity for God to work through your faith. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones. That is where real strength comes from. Samson known to be a man of great strength. Great strength comes from the spirit of God working through faith in the life of a believer who is entrusting themselves to God. God's plans, God's purposes, God's ways, God is in control of our circumstances, amen. And when we trust him, what need is there of fear? What need is there of worry? Why would we be anxious? God works all things together for our good. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, we are so grateful to you for your promises, your good and gracious promises you've given us such glorious promises, Lord. And we know that you are faithful to your word. I pray, Lord, now as we think and consider these things ahead of certainly difficult circumstances that we will face in our lives that we would consider these things now commit ourselves to obeying you in faith, trusting you, knowing, Lord, that you are working all things according to the counsel of your own will and that the counsel of your own will toward us who believe is our good and that we can entirely trust you and rest in you. Help us to be faithful, Lord, to seek first the kingdom of God and your righteousness, God, and help us to just rest in the fact that you will do us good, not harm. You're not withholding good from us. You are working all things together for our good. Help us, Lord, build our faith. Thank you for those kind providences that you ordain through trial, through adversity, through difficulty that prepare us for greater trials and difficulty, adversity, and persecution. I've thought many times, Lord, that these circumstances that we face now, even in our country, are just precursors and they're just trial runs. They're smaller episodes preparing us, cultivating our faith, strengthening us for greater episodes yet to come. And we pray, Lord, that when those come, we would be found faithful. We love you and you are worthy of that, Lord. We praise you and thank you for these things. In Jesus' name, amen.


How do you get to somewhere? We have to have a map and then we drive the car, right and later maybe have a navigator GPS to tell us where to go But now we have self-driving cars that we don't even need the GPS As you just press a button, technology has advanced in the same way for getting you where you want to go So you want to feel yourself as a destination or if you want to Improve your meditation or you want to become more lucky. You want to become more abundant. You have a destination So now with technology that I've developed is you press a button and then it takes you there automatically like a self-driving car You just need to choose your destination


Over one thousand for this tiger financial news network Tuesday the 12th update and we're looking at the Dow up 93 at 31,267 in my show the tiger traditions are a few moments ago I was mentioning that yesterday and today just briefly the nine period moving average flipped over the 14 to go green but it couldn't hold that and all of a sudden it's gone back to green we'll see if that's going to hold because that's really important you want to see it turn green it hasn't been green since about June the 6th so that would be important in terms of looking at the chance of making a new leg see above the little doji candle high that was made on the what was that that was on the 8th and 31,000 was that the one that went to five yeah 31,511 ah we still got a long way to go it's at 30 31,253 right now the S&P and it's going to be also important because the S&P today is very close to flipping to green it hasn't but it's trading down 271 and 3851 it had a high of 3873 wait a minute it had a low of 37 so it's way off the low but it's also off the high so they're going to be important title doji candle and you want to see some kind of a close by the end of the day preferably up about eight or more points in the S&P the QQQ now it's going to be interesting because the QQQs have come back nicely from being much weaker early on down just 25 and 25 cents at 288.80 not a great candle but it has been the line has been positive for the last four days you want to see the higher today 292.28 taken out preferably on a closing basis IWM it's the lag it but it is holding okay it's down it's up 37 cents at 172 gold was weaker earlier it's still weeks down 417.27 I did quite a bit of work on that in my show so that it really needs to if a lot depends on the dollar at this particular point yes but gold is also in its own independent move because it's a geopolitical currency of nervousness so at this particular point is still in play but going down slowly 108.07 and the dollar down 11 ticks in leg E this is where you start to see the chance of some kind of a at least a short-term pullback watch the dollar closely and crude oil crude oil is down oh it's even more it's down almost eight points at 96 and the TLT is up sharply this should all be positives for the market dollar and yields are coming down like crude oil is down we'll see what happens stay tuned for that if it's even a great program don't forget Tommy Junior sources off at 9 a.m. with market kickoff great programming here at TFNN I'll see you later with Tom O'Brien