Come on how many guys believe and know the word of God says that we're the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom There is liberty and we're free to praise and worship today.  Come on. Let's praise him this morning Come on love you in this place and we welcome you with our praises thousand Down in worship To sing the song of ages And all who've gone before us and all who will believe Will sing the song of ages to the land come on let's sing all together your name Your name Is the highest Can we just lift up our hands the Lord? Lift up a song to you.  We exalt you with our praises lord Thank you lord glory. We sing He was close. Come on church. Just begin to lift your hands in this place Begin to tell the lord how Yes, Jesus we worship you how majestic is your name Jesus. The are you lord? He's in Jesus. We worship you lift your name on come on church Just begin to lift your voice begin to give him the praise the student round of applause this morning worthy of our praise He's worthy of our worship His presence is here now with us And just as we were worshiping I sensed in the room that the lord as we're worshiping him He's sending his ministering his ministering angels those who are in need of comfort I really sense a prayer of comfort over the congregation this morning. I know we pray for healing many times I know we pray for deliverance But I just I just sense that the holy spirit is releasing comfort to those in need right now Whatever it may be that you're going through what's happened recently in your life The holy spirit is sending his peace and his comfort amen church Do you receive that? amen Church, I want us to take a time and pray right now I want us to pray for israel. Some of you may or may not know what's happening right now in gaza strip just recently over 2200 rockets at least what israel was saying 2200 rockets were shot down in gaza strip Hamas the ones who shot the the rocket said 5000 people are estimating around 4000 rockets were shot And just devastated You're seeing the pictures of some of the devastation devastated gaza strip There's over 600 people confirmed Dead at this moment Over 2000 people and the numbers raising of those who have been injured And this is one of the most unprecedented terrorist attacks that's happened in recent decades And I want us to pray for israel right now I want us to pray for god's peace for god's comfort for god's Divine hand to be upon what's happening as we know Israel is god's blessed people He is the chosen nation and I as as believers It's important that we take a stand on the side of israel When things when the enemy comes against israel that we stand with them in prayer that we support them Not only just with our prayers But even with our finances and and in any of the ways that we can that we stand with them If we bless israel the promise of the word is that you'll be blessed and if you curse israel The promise is that you will be cursed and so let's pray for israel I want us to pray for their for god's hand to be upon them scripture says when the enemy comes like a flood What does god do? He raises a standard against it Israel has already retaliated Against this terrier terrorist terrorist attack and they've already declared war And right now I just want us to pray not that we're in favor of war But I want us to pray for god's hand We want to pray for god's favor We want to pray for his grace upon the nation and that god Would fight on behalf of israel amen Let's just lift our voice right now Let's pray that the weapons that were formed against them Even though it may seem like they prosper they may have won a battle But if they didn't win the war and I want us to pray right now because we got to realize that What we're praying for here is not just some fight that's happening some another terrorist attack We're we're talking about kingdom politics that is much bigger than the world scale We're talking about spiritual things that are behind this spiritual implications that are behind it And I'm not going to go into those right now, but there are spiritual Implications behind everything that's happening right now So right now in the spiritual realm because our weapons are not carnal But they're mighty and god and what we're going to do is we're going to send our own Spiritual missiles into the enemy's camp and we're going to believe for god's hand to come against whatever plan the enemy has put On israel because we understand it's not people We're not coming against a people. We're coming against the devil We're coming against the enemy's plan and right now Let's go and take our spiritual missiles into the enemy's camp and begin to tear down strongholds Whatever the devil has used that god would raise a standard. Amen Let's begin to pray in jesus name Come on church should begin to lift your hands father in the name of jesus father We begin to lift up the nation of israel father We pray god for your divine protection in the mighty name of jesus Holy spirit father We pray right now in the name of jesus god that you will begin to move in the nation of israel father We pray god that you will bring comfort to the weary god That you will bring peace to those who are anxious right now father We cover them with their blood in the name of jesus father We pray right now with divine protection god and we decree and we declare god that normal weapons form against the most proper father We pray in the name of jesus god that you will have a divine intervention father That you will bring peace to every person that was affected right now father We pray for those who were hurt god in the midst of all this father That you will bring a quick recovery a speedy recovery into their life right now father We pray in the name of jesus god for the leaders god of israel god that you will give them wisdom That you will give them peace god that you'll give them knowledge and understanding god to make the right And the correct choice is god to bring peace to the land of israel father right now god We pray you give us anoint the grace god to go on god as we lift them up father We decree and we declare god that we will see israel rise up god We decree and we declare god that we will see no weapon form against some god We pray in the mighty name of jesus god for a hedger protection god Now no weapon form against some more prosper god Now no mist of what prosper god that you will god begin to bring a divine intervention in the name of jesus Let's pray right now for your will to be done god in israel and jesus mighty name in jesus name we pray Amen church. Well if you're happy to be in the house of the lord this morning I just want you to give the lord a shout of praise You go go ahead and take your seats Screech your neighbor to the left and the right of you and fix your eyes on the screen I'm giving you some time to determine if you really want to come into the kingdom Or if you just want to be a christian by title real revival has to be both the awakening of the church And it has to be the salvation of the lost Revival is when the world is impacted by the knowledge of the glory of god Revival is you saying i'm going all in for god. I'm tired of being lukewarm Is the revival we're talking about about to happen god preserves a remnant to bring a revival We are not to play with sin. We are to abandon it and walk the other direction. That is called repentance I just love that it's no longer like oh those are the carers maniacs.  I mean she gets out of the wheelchair She gets healed revival comes to revive that which was alive before and get it back to its former state How many lives would we have lost if we just did religion as usual? I do see a holy remnant rising Alrighty awesome. Let's put our hands together What you just saw here was actually a movie that's going to be being released here in the kinoic theaters With pastor mike signarelli. He's he's making a movie and it's going to be on october 24th That it's going to be We're going to have showings in the kinoic theaters and our own very our very own pastor vlad's going to be in that movie And so come out and support It's going to be an awesome movie. I know we we all saw come out in jesus name 2.0 is this one's 2.0 So it's going to be awesome with that said though church I want you to take out your tithes and your offering right now And we're going to pray for our tithes the things that we've prepared to bring before the lord and I just want to encourage as you give today. I want to read to you proverbs 3 9 We all know the verse it says this honor the lord from your wealth And from the first fruits of all your crops then your barns will be filled completely and your vats will overflow with new wine I want to encourage you today that as you give As you honor the lord with your wealth I just know this to be true that those who give freely receive freely and and when you choose to be Like we always say here rather be a river than a stagnant pond And anytime that you're a river there's always fresh flowing water coming through meaning that When the water goes out there's always water that comes in but if you're a stagnant pond that too can even be be Spoiled and so I just want to encourage you today as you give Just know this to be true that as you honor the lord with your wealth with your finances Knowing that this is something that first god is the one that has blessed us in the first place We're only giving back to god what he gave us But as we give he promises to take care of us and not just bear minimum But to take care of us in abundance and so prepare in your heart and in this one last thing There's a difference between honor and obedience Obedience is doing it because you have to honor is doing it from a heart It's the attitude in which you give and the attitude in the in the mindsets you have As you're giving if you if you're giving today and you feel in your heart man I don't want to give because I feel like god or the church is trying to take this from me It's better that maybe you hold on because then you're not going to receive the benefit from it But if you honor the lord and it's coming from a place of genuine Realization and thankfulness you're a cheerful giver You will see god's grace and hand upon your life and men church Amen, let's take our offerings in hand and let's begin to pray lord. Jesus. I thank you for today I thank you for every person who has purpose in their heart to give into what you're doing here And in this church and I pray holy spirit that you would bless their hands lord. I pray that you would Uh, that you would watch over their household that you would rebuke the devourer for their sake lord that as they give today I pray that each one of us we give out of a place of honor not just out of obedience But god out of a true truly cheerful heart and thankfulness towards what you've done in our lives And what you're doing and jesus mighty name we pray Amen, amen So offering bus buckets are going to be going around you can drop it in the bucket or you can text 84321 or go online to hungry jen.com slash give but with that said let's go ahead and fix your eyes on the screen again It all started in march 2006 with a message. I preached as a youth pastor called raised to deliver That message made an impact on our kids and on myself It became the name and the theme of our conference which happened on april 2015 We are on our way to the convention center where this year we will host a race to deliver conference As i'm remembering how the race to deliver started The first race to deliver We saw already god marking those conferences with healings deliverances as well as Invasion of god's kingdom. There was a guy named nehemiah. He had asma sin's birth And there on our first conference god healed him. He's still healed till this day I remember years later on the race to deliver conference. There was a young lady that was brought on the wheelchair from a different state She actually rented a wheelchair. She had an accident which rendered her paralyzed from neck down And there at that conference jesus christ touched her and she was healed I can't tell you how many people have been delivered from demons curses have been broken Parents who brought their children who didn't believe in jesus and they met jesus after they encountered the power of god of healing and deliverance Now let's go and see where this year's race to deliver going to be at This is the place where the race to deliver conference will take place this year try cities convention center Race to deliver conference is free of charge. Everyone is welcome, but registration is required So go to hungry gen.com and register today for this amazing event And I can't wait to see you as race to deliver amen. Come on. Why don't you put your hands together for jesus? Our church is hosting this amazing conference in hopes that you will invite People that you know, they're in need of god's touch This is a conference where we know the spirit of god will move powerfully to save heal and deliver amen And then and I actually have a testimony of a life that was transformed at one of our conferences So why don't you help me give her a warm welcome? Hello, good morning. So tell us what's your name and where are you from? My name is tiana and i'm from puallup washington. So the other side of the mountains Nice, so welcome. Thank you so much for agreeing to share your story with us today And I know you're before you get into Kind of how got intervened into your situation. Why don't you tell us what was going on before that? Okay, so um, I went to race to deliver two years ago was my first experience and um, I was invited by a friend and um Moving up to that whole year What's kind of started happening in my life was I was for years. I was having a lot of dreams, but also um I was experienced this growling that would come out of my mouth during worship And my voice would get completely taken away. So I'd be at church and all of a sudden this just like Would start coming in my mouth. I'm going. Oh my gosh. What's going on and then Kind of leading up to that october. So exactly two years ago at the same time. I also um Received news from my doctor going in for a regular checkup and my blood work came back Really really off and they immediately sent me to the oncologist Because of a cancer diagnosis. So that was two years ago Wow, and You were a believer when you were invited to this? Uh, yes. Yes. I was um, so There was one evening. I was at a worship night. I remember it was a tuesday night The growling came back in my mouth and I turned to my good friend. I was like, I'm done I don't want to deal with this anymore. Like this this has got to go and she just looks at me and she goes Oh, there's this prayer conference. I went to a couple years ago and received healing Let me see if it's going on again. So in my mind, I'm just going to prayer And I said, yeah, find it. Let me know. She looks it up. She's like, oh, it's this saturday in Vancouver, washington I was like, okay, let's go like I have no idea what I'm going to never heard of hungry jen Nothing just the faith. I was like, I'm ready like I believe I know god will deliver me Heal me whatever it is. Let's go. So I was ready to go Okay, so you make your way there and what takes place at this conference So that morning just a little step in the morning as well just for people to know Prior to leaving that morning, I'm you know getting ready and I didn't realize it at the time But I began to manifest that morning just a lot of anxiety a lot of depression a lot of fear just Just hitting me so hard And um, you know, I remember calling my parents just to pray for me because I didn't know what was going on And just to make my way down there and I was like, I have to go like I'm going This is fear is not of god. I need to I need to stick with that So, you know going down I just arrive at the conference. I'm watching testimonies I can feel this anxiety just getting stronger and stronger and I'm like nope just stay in I don't know what's going on. So go through a pre prayer counseling and then Worship starts and just immediately just hit by the spirit of god. They didn't even receive prayer Um and just started manifesting and got through the prayers and just brought up and during that time Definitely received the power of the holy spirit over me I didn't understand what was going on, but I knew it was god and I knew he was Releasing and freeing me of everything that had gone on through generations in my family line witchcraft Uh healing just you know just removing that I was freed of anxiety and depression at this time That was uh, I was taking antidepressants and had panic attacks for 12 years And after that it was gone all the medication gone everything gone at that time So I was healed of that and also of the cancer. I came back Went to the doctors as well He was you know, you always have to get your blood checked every time you go and um, it was he was in shock He goes, what are you here? You don't need to be here like there's nothing and I was like hallelujah praise god So yeah, so that all happened two years ago Wow, what uh symptoms were you having that? You didn't have anymore So yeah, no more panic attacks. No more anxiety. No more headaches. No more depression.  I just no more thoughts in my head No, we're suicidal thoughts Nothing it was it was just removed and I know is the power of god and it's in the name of jesus Come on. Let's give jesus one more round of applause yeah So, um, I'm gonna keep going because there's there's a reason why I'm coming back full circle to today for two years So, um and just for people to understand this and know as well that there's a process with god So right after that received like cleared, you know clear no more cancer Um a month after receiving my deliverance three days after that. I was in a major hit-and-run car accident Um, I from that my spine was slightly moved. I had a traumatic brain injury And it just it completely put me out. So, you know, you're on this high of like praise god He's healed me. He's done all these things and then just bam, you know, there's there's a big hit in your life And this is the time of two years So it'll be two years next month since the accident that god just really began to Heal me and I wouldn't say there was a physical healing because you know There comes to a point of that of what just happened recently as well that jesus did for me But he also at the same time has healed me in my heart the inner healing in your heart because There's such a process with that. You know during this time of healing. Yes, I could barely walk I was barely walking. I couldn't speak. I speak spanish and english all my spanish was taken away My english was taken away. I was literally had to move home. I couldn't work anymore I've always worked for all of my life very independent very able to do things my way not god's way But dependent on me and that's not what he wants from us.  He is your deliverer He is the one who takes all of those things and heals your heart So, you know, you got to start there first of like lord. Yes, I can't move I'm I'm in my bed people are not coming to see me anymore that I thought were in my life Like my good friends of years and years didn't come to see me didn't come there you feel alone But god is with you the holy spirit is inside of you. He is by your side. Jesus is by your side He never fails you he will never leave you and so he's the one during this time of just Coming to the realization of things I needed to repent of of my life what I have done in my life Not he doesn't condemn us. He doesn't put us down. He wants us to understand that I want you to turn away from that sin. I want you to repent of your past I want you to be removed of those things forgive yourself and forgive others that hurt you because when you forgive There's a release. There's a break and that repentance of what the enemy has in your life Because he has no right in your life.  I'm home. I'm crying.  So, you know this past year I've I've watched hunger gen like I came to raise to deliver last year as well I wanted to receive physical healing then I didn't I was actually delivered more of a spirit of death Lucifer and a spirit a spiritual spouse So, you know there was there was a tax going on and so, you know, then coming up I see oh, they're going to do hungry gen online school and I'm like well I want to enroll and you know just really dive deep more and so during that time just to be coming into, you know another community as well and and Went out to encounter so at the end of that there's an encounter weekend It was incredible and during that time just more realization of a the rejection that I had, you know Happened in my life, you know abandonment from a parent to Just ferrins and things that you experience when you're a young child that you don't realize that and where the again The enemy just comes in and there's generational curse in that and so during that, you know Just again healing my heart and opening my heart and be like lord deliver me of this like Jesus I know you can I am done it is coming at time of that desperation like I am done no more Because he can do it he can do it for you and so I receive that deliverance again And I go home, you know and I still have a lot of physical pain. It couldn't do much My brain wasn't still working right. I was getting there a lot of therapies a lot of doctors moving in the right direction No timeline of healing post concussion syndrome is what they gave me after the traumatic brain injury So something I have to live through my life And I was like, you know, don't accept that some people could say to you. Oh, this is your no normal No, it's not you do not believe that you say no my god is my healer. He's my jojoba rafa He's going to do this and he will it's in his time for you and he knows when you're right So you have to keep that faith no matter what people say no matter what the doctors say anything like that You stand in that agreement with the lord you stand with the holy spirit. He's inside of us and he's guiding you He's your best friend So I go to this encounter I receive that you know I go home a couple days later and I get up to do my exercises that my physical therapist has for me And I start moving and all of my pain is gone I can move my arms. I can go up and down. I move my neck all the inflammation gone I'm just tears and rejoicing with my family.  That is our powerful god.  I break those generational curses I heal that pain. I repent from my past and I turn towards you He is the healer.  Amen. Come on one more time. Let's just give it up for Jesus. This is a celebration of our god. Amen There is nothing that is impossible for our god What is one quick word of encouragement that you would give to somebody listening, you know Just encouragement like there's so many scriptures in the bible But just do not give up your hope and faith Second timothy one seven always stood out with me, you know, because god is not a spirit of fear But he is of power and he is of love any of us a sound mind that power is to heal you to deliver you To free you that love is the inner healing in your heart to remove all those hurts and pains that you have And the sound mind is the renewal of your mind in jesus christ the renewal of your minor four He has in store for you So just stick to that keep your faith hit in a group Believe believe believe and the faith will come sometimes it can be two years minus the two years process Sometimes it can be overnight But the lord knows what's best for you because he will always prosper you and do what he knows what's in store for you Amen, thank you so much for sharing your story. We celebrate what god has done in your life Amen, let that be an encouragement to you today Whatever your situation may look like god The god that we serve the god that we worship is alive and he's able to do anything To intervene in your situation. Amen Amen with that, please help me welcome ever as he gives the word today Good morning church Today is a beautiful day to spend in the house of the lord First off Our race to deliver conference I want to mention because it's basically our super bowl for our church as many of us know And we are wanting volunteers. We're wanting people to You know do a variety of things. You don't need to have any necessary experience or volunteer here, but that promo The vision behind it if that is your heart as well And you want to be a part of it and more than just attending more than just inviting your friends and also to mention If you've got friends across the country friends and family They're a little bit iffy on deliverance.  It'll be a great time But also if you can sign up there's going to be a qr code Above my head and you'll be able to sign up there and become a volunteer and and help be a part of what the lord is doing there Um, how amazing was that testimony man? That is just the the story of god in so many people's lives The story of god in my life as well like he is the true healer and deliverer The one who really solves all of our problems. He is the way the truth in the life. That was amazing um today, I want to share a message Entitled kingdom politics Now I want to share about what is the true kingdom perspective on this topic of politics because You know, we see a lot of people they become either divisive Distracted or they start idolizing politics They get obsessed with it instead of the things of god and they just kind of drift away from what what truly matters And sometimes that division and that that that contention can really leave a sour taste in our mouth about politics About christians being engaged in politics or talking about politics, but Politics is is very important. It's very important to god all throughout the bible We see gods people in the political realm doing his will Now although there might be division and people who don't operate the way god wants them to operate in this area That doesn't mean we neglect it as a whole and I want to offer a a biblical sound perspective on how we are meant to engage How the believers meant to engage in politics And Jeremiah 29 7 the lord said this to Jeremiah He said seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile And pray to the lord on its behalf For in its welfare, you will find your welfare In proverbs 29 2 when the righteous are in authority the people rejoice But when a wicked man rules the people groan In an isiah chapter 1 it says learn to do good Seek justice rebuke the oppressor defend the fatherless plead for the widows rebuke the oppressor Now I want to clarify some misconceptions because a lot of people unconsciously we believe certain things And we don't fully know kind of what the the bible says and as I mentioned we see all the division the craziness And we just want to be in the house of the lord We just want to be you know focused on the things of god But I want to clarify some misconceptions that might be Leading us away from having a true view from being effective in this world from being effective for the lord In this very important realm, which is politics. The first misconception is this Quote on quote politics isn't what's important preaching the gospel is what's important Now that's 100 true preaching the gospel is the most important thing possible But if you look at the country of north korea and there should be an image behind me Of of uh of the korean peninsula and you can see at night Down below that's south korea Up above is north korea now after world war two the countries that split Had very different trajectories and very different Ways of living now south korea became extremely developed went from poverty to prosperity and there is freedom there there is a democracy there and then north korea is Almost slavery for many people and to preach the gospel there try and go preach the gospel in north korea Try and get on a plane and go preach the gospel in north korea. You can't And to even be reading the bible to be caught with a bible to be singing a christian hymn to telling a friend about jesus You can face 15 years in prison sent to a labor camp along with your family Because satan has infiltrated the politics of that nation god's word is unable to flow into that area to reach the souls there So preaching the gospel and is inevitably political And the lord wants the political structure of a place to be conducive For the gospel to be preached while satan wants it to be obstructive He wants to create walls prevent people from actually getting god's word for the salvation of souls in that area And the early christians knew this That the preaching the gospel is inevitably political because jesus told them jesus said in matthew chapter 10 He says look i'm sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves, but beware For you will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues You'll stand trial before governors and kings because you are my followers But this will be your opportunity to tell the rulers and other unbelievers about me He specifically prepared his disciples for political engagement From preaching the word not from being obsessed about politics from preaching the word from preaching their testimony who jesus christ is It's inevitably political an angel of the lord even told paul. He says you're gonna stand before the emperor of roam caesar The emperor of roam the most powerful human being on the entire earth at that time Caesar paul was gonna stand before him for preaching the gospel The persecution in ancient roam was was so bad that to even be going to life group on tuesday night You were in risk of treason and being executed Just imagine that You want to go to life group gather with a bunch of believers go through the words study the scriptures You were at risk of being the fbi coming into your door knocking you down stripping you away from your kids and executing you That's what it was like in ancient roam And the early christians had to find ways to spread the gospel in such a demonic and dark And an obstructive culture One of these ways was the fish symbol you ever seen the fish symbol on the bumper bumper stickers and stuff Well, you know wonder why that is associated with christianity. Well, that was actually one of the early christian symbols used Amidst that persecution fish in greek is ictus And it's an abbreviation for an encoded message of the gospel and behind me. You'll see this fish right here with ictus below it's actually I iota chi theta epsilon and sigma those are the letters and this is what's encoded iota is usus, which is jesus Chi is christos, which is christ or anointed one theta is the you which means god Upsilon is uos, which means sun And sigma the last letter is soter means soter, which is savior jesus christ son of god savior This is the symbol they used to go undercover To to operate under the scenes and preach the word and spread the word of god And in only a few hundred years the biggest empire on earth was converted to christianity They overtook the biggest empire on earth because they were engaging they were strategizing they were seeing How can we spread the word in this political persecution? How can we spread the word as jesus commanded us to? Inevitably they're going to engage with the governors the kings the rulers the emperors And they're going to need the holy spirit's guidance on how to penetrate and effectively bring god's will here on earth we see in modern times And actually the spirit of this house has a great deal of of Ancestral connection to soviet union communism And the the senior pastor of our house pastor vasily his grandfather Was actually a a it was martyred for the cause of christ in the soviet union And he would not renounce his faith they put him in prison He was ended up getting dragged behind a horse and suffered traumatic brain injuries and died Because his faith was so strong in jesus christ. He wasn't going to relinquish his faith for some communist government He wasn't going to relinquish fear not who can kill the body but he can cast a soul into hell And and there is a there is a fight that the christian needs to have to hold strong to the faith because our rock On which we stand is jesus christ to his eternal And we will continue in this church fighting against any persecution that comes against the spreading of the gospel Whether it's a planned pestilence that tries to shut down all the churches and force people to take things against their will And scientific scrutiny whatever it might be god's people will fight for the kingdom of god and the salvation of souls on this earth Jesus said go into all the world and preach the gospel All the world is every single government nation political structure, whatever it might be and the second misconception is this We're citizens of heaven not of earth politics are earthly and temporary and the things of heaven are really all that matter Yeah, we are citizens of heaven in philippines 320 But we are citizens of heaven where the lord jesus christ lives and we're eagerly waiting for him to return as our savior And we're also seated with christian heavenly places But the reality is we can be dual citizens We can be citizens of heaven and citizens of a nation here on earth paul Actually used his citizenship to get out of government torture and imprisonment We see Acts chapter 22 they tied paul He was literally preaching his testimony preaching the word of god the jews wanted to kill him wanted him to get Executed so he gets imprisoned and he says this When they tied paul down to lash him paul said to the officer standing there Is it legal for you to rip whip a roman citizen who's never been tried When the officer heard this he went to the commander and asked what are you doing the man's a roman citizen So the commander went over and asked paul tell me are you a roman citizen? Yes, I certainly am paul replied I am too the commander muttered and it costed me plenty paul answered But i'm a citizen by birth The soldiers who are about to interrogate paul quickly withdrew when they heard he was a roman citizen And the commander was frightened because he had ordered him bound and whipped We too can have a valuable earthly citizenship And just as paul used his to get out of that persecution We can use ours and even to be a united states citizen is an immense privilege here on this earth The constitution of the united states is one of the most unique documents On the planet earth because of the rights that it bestows upon its people thomas jefferson a founding father he wrote this these famous words We hold these truths to be self-evident the truths of the rights of every human being That all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights Among those are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness And with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence We mutually pledge our lives our fortunes and our sacred honor When he wrote this and the people who signed it They knew that if they lost the war against the greatest military on the planet at that time great britain that they would be executed That they would lose their entire fortune and it would not pass on to their children They signed away everything and they believed that these truths were self-evident from our creator In the bible even says there's neither greek nor jew nor slave nor free male or female were all one in christ jesus These are biblical values judaeo christian values that built the west thomas jefferson also said god who gave us life Gave us liberty and can the liberties of a nation be secure when we've removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of god Our liberties rely on a belief in god And what's happening in the world today People are coming against that very notion that there is a god who created all things who is holy Righteous and just and if you don't believe there's a god How can you believe there's an absolute morality if you think evolution is the truth and hey the strongest wins You have the right like macchiavelli said to oppress the weak because Genetically you're stronger and the gene pool needs to increase and then all these dark ideologies like eugenics and and the holocaust They're trying to cleanse the the genetics to create a master race It becomes more feasible because you don't see the inherent value of a human soul And the inherent absolute morality that we are meant to live by that god has put in his word And that's why satan wants to destroy the united states rip away those rights But just like paul we need to use those rights to spread the gospel And when you hear about separation of church and state people try and use this all the time Well, you shouldn't be trying to influence, you know the government and politics with your religion There's a separation of church and state the constitution says well Actually, the constitution never says that and it was in a letter that thomas jefferson wrote to a baptist church in 1802 Where he mentions this idea and what this idea is is that the state cannot dictate or demand a specific Denomination that everyone has to pledge allegiance to Because prior it was the catholic church that you must describe to every doctrine Then it was the anglican church and the king you must subscribe to every doctrine So then these pilgrims come on the mayflower to the united states And they want to practice their faith as they believe the scripture and god wants them to And this this idea was that this country is going to be a place where you can truly interpret the word of god As you wish and worship god in your way And that the state with its political power with its military power cannot tell you what to do in that area It's not that we can't influence government We're we're meant to influence government to make this place because our welfare relies on the welfare Of the of the country we're in Another aspect of this misconception that must be clarified is that Although, you know, we are not of this world We can still be in this world, you know We don't need to to completely place our identity 100 percent there and forget about the identity that god has given us here And jesus actually prayed to the father He said i've given them your word and the world has hated them because they're not of the world Just as i am not of the world I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one So when you're saved when you're born again when you have faith in jesus christ You've been cleansed of your sin You have an eternal dwelling place that will you will dwell in in heaven And you have a security that you are sealed for the day of redemption by the holy spirit But god still has a plan for you in this world Although you've been translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light You still have a purpose in this world and what christians are meant to do is make this world more like heaven In the lord's prayer the only time that lord jesus christ actually gave a specific words on how to pray when his disciples are asking him He said you will be done Your your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven Christians are meant to bring the will of god The very values the very culture the very state of heaven where there is no suffering no pain No tears where me are meant to bring that will into this earth of righteousness and holiness bring Healing to people who are in darkness be the be the ambassadors of christ that we are that the bible says an ambassador is a political office term We're meant to represent our citizenship in heaven here in this fallen world where we are dwelling here temporarily And we're meant to be ambassadors for the will of jesus christ for the will of heaven Just as an ambassador of this nation and another nation is meant to You know speak on behalf of that nation to do the will of that nation in the foreign nation We're meant to do that here on earth because we are citizens of heaven Ambassadors of christ and we are called to make this world more like heaven This doesn't mean that we usher in the totality of god's kingdom here on earth That's going to come after his second coming when the new jerusalem comes when we all dwell in the kingdom of god forever But that doesn't mean that we're not meant to be doing things here on earth instead. We're meant to be zealous for good works The bible constantly says be zealous for good works Jesus told us to be salt and light in this world Assault preserves what is good and also makes things makes things better and the light It brings life to to to earth the light of the sun and it also exposes the works of darkness Jesus said let your light shine shine so before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven Ephesians 5 11 have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness But rather expose them when you are a christian when you have the light that's in you You will automatically expose the works of darkness You will automatically expose where the enemy is operating which is in deception Which is in lies which is in fake news trying to deceive people from actually knowing the truth But we have the spirit of truth the holy spirit who leads us into all truth We are the ones who are meant to be the beacon of light on the hill We are the ones who are meant to bring light to this world that we live in this dark and fallen world We have a relationship a connection to the very source of light Jesus is the light god is light What we do in this lifetime is also extremely important because it actually determines our rewards in heaven So we're not meant to just passively wait around for christ coming after we're saved We're meant to be activated by the holy spirit empowered by the holy spirit to do the works of god And and we're actually in a war like paul told timothy be a soldier in christ We're meant to be enlisted into the war. Well, what is the war? First carinthians 5 58 therefore my beloved brethren be steadfast immovable always abounding in the work of the lord knowing that your labor is not in vain Always abounding in the work of the lord not just passively waiting Always abounding and that everything you do for the lord is not in vain. It's noticed god sees it There is a reward second carinthians 5 10 for we almost appear before the judgment seat of christ That each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done whether good or bad Everything's weighed everything's seen everything's worth it paul told timothy command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty nor to trust in uncertain riches But in the living god who gives us richly all things to enjoy Let them do good that they beam you rich in good works Ready to give willing to share storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come We're meant to be rich in good works and the spirit of god empowers us He is the fuel that we are empowered because it's not i who live but christ who lives in me And he has a will that he wants to happen on this earth in this nation in this world He wants to reach whether it be your school whether it be your city Maybe the school system where satan is trying to infiltrate his will wants to travel through you when you submit to him And actually impact and influence the world around you In titus It says our great god and savior jesus christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed And purify himself for his own special people zealous for good works zealous hungry Determined for good works Ephesians 2 10 where his workmanship created in christ jesus for good works This church coming to church on sunday isn't the destination. It isn't the hey I'm a great christian lord, you know now i'm good now i'm coming to church i'm bringing my family This is the gas station You get fueled up here listening to these messages to go out into your world that god has you and to reach people for the kingdom of god This is where you get armed and equipped the armory where you get in you get Strengthened as a good soldier in jesus christ and you go out into the world and you fight for the things of god This isn't the destination. It's the gas station The fourth misconception Is that jesus wasn't involved in politics nor were his disciples You know, they're just focused on the spiritual things of the kingdom of god Well, the reality is jesus was crucified by the political leaders and so were many of his disciples He was actually sent to trial before the sanhedrin, which was a 71 member council In that time that was full of sagices the Pharisees and other leaders and they gave the judgments criminal civil Judgments on people up into the death penalty. They had the power But since they were under the power of roam the control of roam They couldn't issue the death penalty hence why they had to go to paunchiest pilot to kill jesus The herodians you might think well king herod isn't he the political they were more or so in charge of enforcing the collection of taxes administrative things and and they left the sanhedrin to judge the actual enforcement of the Torah the law of society So jesus was constantly at war with the Pharisees. He called them the brood of vipers Sons of the devil you're of your father the devil you hypocrites. He was constantly at war. They were trying to trap him countless times To try and kill him Literally these were the people who are trying to kill jesus since the dawn of his ministry And even before that king herod was trying to kill him when he was a baby Jesus was at war with the political leaders of his day because they were not on the side of god And when we look at men and women of god throughout history in the bible we see The same theme john the baptist who jesus said was the greatest of all men Was beheaded for exposing the evil deeds of herod and herodias And you might say man. He was beheaded. That's kind of a that's kind of a tragic death Well beheading in the new testaments associated with the honor of martyrdom And those who will be beheaded during the great tribulation are the ones who will reign with christ for a thousand years As it says in revelation chapter 20 So so you're saying that the the greatest man to ever live somehow wasn't meant to make that decision to expose The sin of the political leaders The bible would likely say otherwise in esther She risked her own life to influence the king and actually the legislation to prevent a genocide And she said that if i perish i perish she fasted to make the decision to approach the king Because if you approach the king without being summoned you risked death And she knew i need to do this. I need to influence.   Well, daniel was in babalon an extremely wicked nation But he was a very powerful leader in that nation for the force of good He was communing with the lord every single day even when there was an edict saying you can't pray He prayed to the lord nick on his sentence to a lions den But god supernaturally protected him the bible says he had a spirit of excellence on him and that his enemies could find No fault in him no corruption no crony capitalism no little deals and bribes There was no fault found in him yet. He was serving as a politician in an extremely wicked nation under three different kings Nathan the prophet boldly confronted king david over his sin a sin that david thought nobody knew about david could have killed the guy right there And kept living on nobody knew about his sin Nathan knew that that risk, but he boldly confronted him because the lord said so Prophet samuel rebuking saw when he disobeyed god's command Jeremiah advised the king to surrender to the babalonians because the city of jerusalem would be destroyed He ends up not surrendering and jerusalem gets destroyed joseph was second in command of egypt a very wicked pagan nation And governed with absolute wisdom In one man in history who we actually don't learn much about in mainstream school Is surprisingly as a man named william wilberforce and william wilberforce back in the late 1700s Was instrumental in abolishing the slave trade in great britain And this occurred before the slaves were actually freed here in america. It first happened in great britain And the people behind it were godly men godly men and women They were fueled by god by the scriptures to see that that african slave on the boat being crammed Where they can't even lie down they're stacked on top of each other not as some cattle But as a human soul made in the image of god With equal worth and value to them, but the politics of that time did not believe that Actually the economy was booming The the the slave trade was bringing great prosperity people didn't want to touch on that Hey, you little conspiracy theorists no way they're getting transported like that in the in the ships, you know No, they're they're they're treated. Okay. We have a great economy. Why are you? Why are you bringing this up? Well, william wilber first wasn't actually a believer for for the first 20 something years of his life He was a very wealthy man born in an upper class family And he ends up going to cabrange university And he befriends a guy named william the wit william wit the younger Now after they graduate william wit the younger goes into politics And will before us decides to fall away and back in that day you could pretty much buy your votes So they both go in william Wit his friend becomes prime minister at the age of 24 like a very Incredible political feat and now he's like wow my one of my best friend is prime minister. I have a great career ahead of me This is incredible. They're going to gentlemen's clubs. They're they're revered in the town They're doing all sorts of going to parties and drinking and and they're just living the high life as these very very Renowned people in that time Then his mom invites him to go on a a european vacation They're going to take a carriage across europe and he can bring a friend His family's not not uh, not really a christian not really religious So he he wants to bring a friend the friend can't so he brings a guy named isaac millner This guy's a mathematician and a theologian Really instrumental in bringing the faith into cambridge actually at that time And so they get in the carriage ride together and it starts to come up like hey man. Yeah, i'm a christian And wilber force said something effective like like really man like you know Like he kind of disses his faith and isaac millner's like Dude if you actually want to have this conversation, let's have it But let's not have those little comments because I could totally Just basically lay out the whole thing to you here if you want to have a conversation about this Let's do it And wilber force says all right. Let's do it and over those course of the weeks studying the scriptures hearing The the reasons for why the bible is true why jesus christ is lord and savior why this faith is actually the truth He gets converted right there He goes back home and he's like what do I do? You know my best friend What's he gonna think of me now that i'm this kind of like methodist kind of religious bible flumper fanatic like No one like this in politics is really uh doing this much like what do I do? And he's very confused, but his friend william witt was actually very supportive of him And he thought uh wilber force thought man. I can't be in politics. This is so corrupt.  I need to be in ministry. God's calling me to ministry So he was really wondering like you know, I've been so touched by the lord I guess the automatic answer is I have to go to ministry to kind of prove my devotion So he ends up meeting a guy named john newton This is the man who wrote the beautiful christian him amazing grace He was a former slave trade captain So he was shipping slaves on the boat until he got converted And it became an anglican priest in a huge staunch abolitionist So he goes and meets john newton and john newton says You know gives him the advice that you don't need to leave politics God's placed you there. God has a purpose for you there. God has desires there God has desires to free the slaves there to to to change this nation to reform culture The morality of our very nation you don't need to just join the ministry to somehow be more spiritual And when we look at the bible Not every single person was a levite priest in the ministry of the spiritual things. They were political leaders They were they were in the industry.  That's not the case God wants to do something through your life where he has you And that could be in any area we preach the gospel in all the world In every area in every industry and politics is a huge means by which god can accomplish his will And now today America followed suit the slaves are freed. There is still slavery in this world today But it's the very principles and values of the kingdom of heaven That were that were translated here on earth by the obedient servants of god that brought this unrighteousness To to death and brought justice justice in this world the last misconception Is that christians must obey every form of government now the main scripture behind this is romans 13 And it says this let everyone be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except that which god has established The authorities that exist have been established by god Consequently whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what god has instituted and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves For rulers hold no terror for those who do right but for those who do wrong Do you want to be free from fear from the one an authority then do what is right and you will be commended For the one an authority is god's servant for your good But if you do wrong be afraid for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason They are god's servants agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer So some people interpret this scripture and many christians get get confused by this scripture because they're like what Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities. There's no authority except that which god has established There's no authority. So even you know stalling pull pot hitler like meant to submit to them Well, clearly not and when we actually read the second half of that passage It says the one an authority is god's servant for good So if the definition of that word authority there is later clarified that that authority is the god's servant for good Can't be god's servant and and genociding people He can't be god's servant and going against the very morals and the virtues of god God's servant is aligned with god's will And that is clearly clarified in the second half of this passage But a lot of people preach this out of context including the third rike in nazi germany The third rike loved to preach this verse as somehow submission to the third rike nazi regime was a divine command from god And the church got deceived like you would not believe But there were people fighting it One of these men was detrick bonhoeffer detrick bonhoeffer Grew up in berlin ended up wanting to become a theologian none of his family was in the ministry But he felt called and his family's like are you sure?  He's like, yes. I'm feeling called and he ends up teaching at berlin university I think he gets his phd like two of them. Maybe at age of 21 Ends up teaching at berlin university And he actually taught something that was revolutionary at that time Because the theology that was taught was very lutheran german, you know, martin luther was a german lutherism was very very Strong there, but his idea was that when you're reading the scriptures, you're not just studying information You're actually communing and conversing with god You're having an active Conversation with the lord when you read his word and his students that testify of how he taught said this was this was mind blowing at The time it wasn't taught in the seminary that he taught in And he ended up started to ruffle some feathers with the nazis in the 30s He started making preaching sermons. He saw from the very beginning detrick bonhoeffer saw that the nazis They were bad a lot of people got deceived in the beginning. They thought hey, you know hitler could revolutionize our economy We've been you know our nation has been just kind of destroyed since world war one And and the treaty of Versailles and all these things But detrick bonhoeffer knew that there was a sinister force behind the nazi third rike And he started preaching sermons that were that were emphasizing one time on the radio He preached that jesus christ's savior no one else and it was a clear attest Attestation coming against with the furor complex that he believed people were having that hitler was now like the savior Was now like taking the place of jesus christ. He's preaching this message and the radio broadcast gets cut off halfway through And we don't fully know why but very odd odd circumstance Then he ends up getting prohibited from preaching sermons prohibited from publishing books And the nazis are really on him. So he starts an illegal seminary That gets shut down He's trying to raise disciples of christ who are who are truly aligned with the word Then he he's a part of the movement where the church of germany actually splits And and his movement which was the minority was the confessing church. The other was the german national church basically and the german national church Was basically under the the the the nazi power, you know romans 13 all this stuff just kind of obey And they ended up instituting This very historic moment There was something called the arian paragraph that every church needed to put in their their basically by-laws And what it was is that no one from jewish ancestry can hold a position of power in your church And this was a huge dividing line and a lot of pastors. Hey, just just go go through with it It's fine, you know, like uh, you know, it'll be okay just for this moment Like we don't want to you know upset, you know, it's this slow progression That the enemy has like he did in communism in the soviet union and in the third rite It's this slow progression of these slow ways where the church satan just puts the noose around the church's neck And pastors just start. Oh, bang. They don't want to get sent to prison They don't want to lose their their, you know, because if you you could actually be disbanded from your from your role by the SS and you would you would lose your provision you lose your provision for your home You're very, you know finances like there was a lot at stake to speak out But detrick did And ends up ward war two comes along 1940 and he's about to be enlisted into the war But a friend of his in the us who has all these connections at a seminary in new york one of the most famous He pulls all these strings so he can teach at the seminary and be away from germany during the war So he wouldn't be sent and and captured and arrested So he goes to the us in one month in his journals. He's saying lord. What do you want me to do? I don't feel this is right. What do you want me to do? He knows he has to go back He goes back to germany at the start of the war after being banned after being a political enemy He goes back and says my people need me.  He gets thrown in a prison interrogated He thinks he's gonna get out.  It's about this is not about operation valkyrie But then they're trying to kill hitler and and in this in this moment There's a bomb that's literally feet away from hitler And there's this table with one of those big legs It's this big conference table where they're having a military meeting And there's this huge leg and the bomb is set right there So this big piece of wood is here and hitler is right here And in this moment the bomb is set the man leaves the bomb explodes People in there die hitler has a few bumps and scratches survives the assassination In the following days and weeks six thousand people are rounded up detrick bonhoeffers rounded up the berserked Hitler tries to just execute this this from his leadership because literally high up military general is trying to assassinate him And and detrick gets sent to a concentration camp in just a few days before the liberation of that camp. He was executed And he doesn't live on But he's one of the greatest theologians and one of his books called the cost of discipleship Is actually renowned taught in seminaries worldwide about true Discipleship what it means to be a disciple of jesus christ To actually submit to deny yourself to die to yourself and to live for jesus He is a living testament of what it means to truly Serve god in the area he has you in because sometimes it can be dark and dirty like that living in the third rike Two of his quotes are this silence in the faith of the face of evil is evil itself God will not hold us guiltless not to speak is to speak not to act is to act We're not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice We're to drive a spoke into the wheel itself In proverbs 31 It says speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves For the rights of all who are destitute speak up and judge fairly defend the rights of the poor and needy The reality is christians are meant to obey godly Governments and not submit to demonic wicked ones ones that are in alignment with his word and his righteousness That is the true interpretation of the word of god and that scripture We see this all throughout the bible Peter and the apostles they were literally imprisoned and they said to the people imprisoning them We ought to obey god not man When they said you can't be preaching in the name of jesus they'd be we're gonna obey god not man And and peter was actually literally freed from prison from an angel of the lord So if the you know his edict was be sent to prison the government said be sent to prison The lord sent an angel and broke him out of the prison that the government wanted him to be in Rahab illegally hid the two spies misled the king Grodd granted her mercy and reward for that act moses led a whole uprising against the nation of egypt Came against defying the pharaoh's orders and then built an entire new government and political system straight from god Elijah confronted contested king ahab queen jezebel at the risk of his own life Shadrach Meshach and Abednego refused to obey the king and bow to an idol. They were thrown into a fiery furnace They survived the lord divinely protected them the wise men actually that that that came to jesus They disobeyed herod when he said come back to me after you found him. Let let me know They were divinely instructed in a dream to not go back to herod Constantly throughout history people disobeying authority that is demonic That is evil that is unrighteous that is unjust that is not in alignment with god's word But there are things that we always got to remember as well Because people do get distracted people do get divisive people do idolize politics And they need to have their rock which is on christ their firm foundation in the word One of the things we need to remember is that our identity in christ supersedes our national identity Our heavenly citizenship is more important than our earthly one Abiding in the word is more important than abiding in the news Our spiritual family is more important than our political party We're children of god. We're brothers and sisters although some might be pretty deceived You might think a little bit cuckoo for believing certain things They're children of god. They're in our family or meant to love them Ephesians chapter chapter 2 it says for through him we both have access by one spirit to the father Now therefore you're no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of god We are his family. We are in his household Whatever political party you might you might be we the believer in christ too It has the holy spirit is a son and daughter of god our father John 13 jesus said a new commandment i give to you that you love one another as i have loved you That you love one another by this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another Not hatred and division and and attacking one another but but have love for unity In first john And it's actually a way in which people will know that that that we are his disciples that god is real that what is this supernatural love Usually this would divide people but somehow there's a connection there. What is that?  No one comes to the father, but by me Jesus is the one no leader. No president. No administration's gonna save us the only thing the only person that will is jesus christ and he's alive today He still moves today as you saw in the testimony here in the countless testimonies throughout Our church of god moving. We want to show god is actually alive. He's not just as as Words on a page this bible written 2000 years ago. He is alive. He is active And he is the way i want us to all rise to our feet If you're in this place And you don't know jesus You don't know who the one is that fueled the people who ended the slave trade You don't know who the one is that resisted the nazi regime You don't know who the one is that that allowed the disciples of him to conquer the greatest empire to ever exist Which is rom the one who who actually brings true peace True life and true security into one's soul if you don't know him i want to give you the opportunity today To be made right with god And even if you once knew him But you fell away you backslid you began to do certain things the snowball effect Encouraged and now you find yourself far from god.  I want to know you deeply. I want to live with you I want to be constantly in communion with you. I want to know what it's like What these people are saying like about who you are If you want to know jesus today if you want to place your faith in him I want to give you that opportunity, but it's important to know You might think that you know, i'm not some nazi.   Well, here's the thing the blood of jesus christ cleanses us from all sin You cannot enter a place which is heaven that is free from sin if you have any sin at all attached to you Whatever sin it might be there is none good. No not one righteous We are all sinners to varying degrees, but inherently we are sinners and the only thing that can grant you access into heaven Is if you are truly cleansed and forgiven of your sin that your robes become white as snow That you can enter into the glory of heaven where there is no pain no suffering no sin No evil, but pure righteousness and love and truth with jesus christ So no matter the sins you've committed no matter small no great you can be forgiven and cleansed And if that's you and you want to give your life to the lord today Or if you want to come back to him and you want to be made right with him I want you on the count of three to just raise your hand One two three Thank you If that's you and you feel the lord tugging on your heart To truly be united with him Just go ahead and raise your hand Thank you Now if you raise your hand I want you to do something bold Just come forward and for us to pray with you Just come forward and and up to the front here so we can pray with you and we can we can truly Stand alongside you in this declaration. This is the greatest decision you'll ever make in your entire life Church, let's pray along just repeat after me say lord jesus I confess you as my lord and savior. I believe that you rose from the dead You died for my sins But you conquered death From this day forward I pledge to serve you To change my ways To be more righteous To be more holy To bring glory to you Cleanse me of my sin Make me new


All right, we're getting a little bit behind in our timeline. So let me go ahead and introduce David Fredricks. Dr. Fredricks is faculty member here at Fred Hutch, and also the University of Washington, a member of the Hutch School Professor of the University, and a member of the, let's call it the IBD, Vaccine Infectious Disease Division here at the Hutch, Infectious Disease Division at the University, and a long-term expert in studying the human microbiome, and as we touched on earlier, that's becoming a really hot area in terms of research, and the possible implications in overlap with immunotherapy drugs being applied to cancer. So I'm very excited to hear what Dr. Fredricks has to say for us this morning. Great. Thanks, Scott. It's a pleasure to talk about our fellow travelers and the human microbiome today with you. So first of all, what exactly is the microbiome?  Humans are really super organisms. They are a conglomeration of human and microbial genes. There are about as many microbial cells in your body as there are human cells. So you may think you're sitting alone in that chair, but you're actually sitting with 39 trillion microbes. There are about 19,000 genes in the human body. There are more than 3 million microbial genes in the human body. And those genes code for properties that we don't need to code for. For instance, in your gut, there are numerous enzymes that your bacteria make that help you to digest your food. Without those, we would lose many of those nutrients. Many of the microbes that exist in the human body remain uncultivated and are new to science. The other key point is that there's a different human-associated microbial community at every body site. So the gut microbiota is different than the microbiota that you find in the mouth, which is different than the microbiota that you find in the skin, which is different from the microbiota that you find in the genital tract. One of the areas that I study is the human vagina. And the vagina is unique in that it's one of the most acidic places in the human body outside of the stomach. It has a pH of around 3.5 to 4. And that leads to a different microbial community in the vagina, for instance, than what you have in the gut, where it's dominated by lactobacillus species, which in part produce acid that helps to drive down the pH and make it inhospitable for the other microorganisms to exist in that niche. So human beings have different microbial communities in each body site, but even within a given body site, different human beings are different. So this is data from the American Gut Project where people sent in stool samples and had the microbial community profiles characterized using broad-range 16S ribosomal RNA gene PCR with high throughput sequencing as a way of looking at the barcodes of the bacteria that are present, for instance, in stool. And what we find is that there are some subjects where we see that there's high abundance of this formicides phylum, which are a class of bacteria present in the gut. There's others that have low abundance in their formicides in red. Others with high abundance of the bacteroidities and others with low abundance of the bacteroidities. So different people have different abundances of these different bacteria in the same body site. And this is the same when you look at multiple body sites across humans. This has led to the notion that each individual may have their own personalized microbiome, which is a fascinating concept, because that also means these differences in mycobic communities may affect your health or your propensity to develop disease. This is just some data from eight subjects here at the Fredhouse Cancer Research Center where we looked at their stool samples and characterized their gut mycobic communities. Again, these are the different phyla bacteria that are present in these eight subjects. And again, what you can see across individuals is that each bar here represents a different species of bacteria that's present in their stool sample. Each bar represents a different bacterium that's present in the stool sample of that subject. And so for instance, this subject, for instance, you have these blue bars, a characteristic of lactosporaceae, whereas in this subject here it's missing that class of bacteria. So again, different subjects have different types of mycobic communities present. What are these microbes doing in the gut? Well, these microbes are taking things like fiber that's present in our diet and converting it to short chain fatty acids such as butyrate. And that butyrate is absorbed into the portal circulation, goes to the liver where it's converted into fats and sugars, which we use for energy. So in part, these microbes are releasing enzymes that help to break down fiber and other dietary elements into things that we can absorb and metabolize. This is a schematic showing what some of these bacteria are doing. And for instance, one bacterium, fecalibacterium prusnitsii, is a bacterium that digests the fiber in our diet and converts it to butyrate. Butyrate is a short chain fatty acid that's used by the intestinal epithelial cells as a primary energy source. And it's essential for the function of those epithelial cells and helps to repair epithelial cells when they're injured, for instance, after colitis. That butyrate not only helps to support the function of these intestinal epithelial cells, but it diffuses into the deep mucosa of the intestine where it interacts with immune cells such as T regulatory cells. And this butyrate helps to promote an anti-inflammatory environment by promoting the replication and function of T regulatory cells. So these bacteria are producing a compound which is affecting the immune system of the host and inflammation. If you're not consuming a high-fiber diet and you're missing some of these bacteria such as fecalibacterium prusnitsii, what happens is the bacteria begin to eat the mucous layer that surrounds the intestine. They then degrade that layer and then begin invading into the intestinal mucosa where they stimulate toluic receptors and other immune receptors that cause inflammation. And the absence of this short chain fatty acid butyrate leads to a loss of the down-regulating immune response from the T regulatory cells, again promoting an inflammatory response.  Now what happens when instead of eating your high-fiber diet you eat a diet that's high in meat and milk products? Well, it turns out that the microbes in your gut can also produce compounds that are noxious for your health. And for instance, some microbes that exist in your colon will take the carnitine in red meat or the choline in milk and cheese and convert it into a compound called trimethylamine. The trimethylamine is absorbed into your bloodstream. It goes to the liver where it's converted into another chemical called trimethylamine oxide. It turns out that trimethylamine oxide inhibits reverse cholesterol transport, causes aggregation of platelets, and leads to an increase in cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks, stroke, atherosclerosis. Interestingly, trimethylamine also has effects on the kidney where it can lead to fibrosis and injury to the kidney. And when people have chronic kidney disease with renal insufficiency, that in turn leads to higher levels of trimethylamine oxide, which then further aggravate this risk towards cardiovascular disease. So again, showing microbes not only help promote health, but also can contribute to diseases such as cardiovascular disease and atherosclerosis. And in fact, there's a lot of interest in trying to inhibit some of these enzymes in microbes that produce trimethylamine oxide as a way of reducing risk of cardiovascular disease. So why study the microbiome? There are many compelling reasons. The first is to identify microbes that are associated with health. For instance, how do microbes contribute to normal human physiology, immunity, and develop? Second, to identify microbes associated with disease. For instance, how do changes in the human microbiota contribute either directly or indirectly to disease or increase risk for disease, such as cancer? We normally think about pathogens as being a specific microbe like mycobacterium tuberculosis that's associated with TB. But we need to move beyond that simplistic concept and consider the possibility that disease may be produced by microbial communities, not just by individual microbes, working in concert, for instance, to produce a pathological state. And this leads to the notion of a dysbiosis or an alteration in microbial communities associated with disease. The other reason to study the human microbiota is that it's changeable. And we can change the microbiota by giving probiotics, which are live microbes administered to humans in order to change the colonization state, prebiotics, which are nutrients used to promote the growth of specific microbes within the human body, symbiotics, which are a combination of prebiotics and probiotics, where the probiotic uses the prebiotic in order to grow. We can use antibiotics to manipulate the microbiota and eliminate pathogens, and then we can even use fecal microbiota transplants, where we take stool from a healthy person and give it to somebody who's unhealthy to try and restore the normal microbiota diversity that's present in the colon. So how does the gut microbiota impact our health? We depend on our gut microbes to produce vitamin K. This is an essential nutrient that's essential for normal blood clotting. We don't make it. Our gut microbes do. The microbiota is essential for the normal development of both innate and adaptive immunity in the human body. Mice that are raised under germ-free conditions have completely abnormal immune systems. The microbiota plays a critical role in the function of gut epithelial cells, such as by producing butyrate. And even the microbiota plays a role in the metabolism of drugs that we take into our body. It is possible to raise mice under germ-free conditions, where they're born by cesarean section, then raised in isolator cages where all of the food and water that goes into those cages is radiated and free of microbes. And when mice are raised under those conditions, what we find is that they require 30% more nutrients in order to maintain a normal body weight compared to mice raised under normal conditions. And what this shows is that the gut microbiota is actually essential for extracting nutrients from our body. The microbiota plays a critical role in organ size development in intestine. These mice raised under germ-free conditions have massive hypertrophy of the intestines and is quite abnormal. Again, showing that the microbes are playing a key role in maintaining a healthy environment. And even mice that are raised under germ-free conditions have abnormal behavior, where they engage in more searching and locomotor activity when raised germ-free. So this is a slide that shows the microbiota of one subject over time. And on the x-axis is days after hematopoietic cell transplantation. And on the y-axis we see the relative abundance of different bacterial species shown here in this legend on the right. And what this graph is meant to display is how dynamic the gut microbiota can be in response to antibiotics. So this is a patient who came to transplant with a very abnormal microbiota because he had clostridium difficile colitis and had a microbiota dominated by streptococcal species and then was put on levofloxin, which is an antibiotic that we give to some of our cancer patients who are neutropenic in order to prevent them from developing infections. And under the pressure of this antibiotic we see a bloom in enterococcal species in this subject under that antibiotic pressure. And then look what happens at this time point right here when the levofloxin was stopped. We see this bloom, this explosion of these bacteria in yellow here. And again an explosion, a radiation of these bacteria in blue of the lactose paraceae showing that when you remove that antibiotic selection pressure you get an expansion of all these different classes of bacteria present in the gut. And then also interestingly an increase in some gram negative rods that were present in the subject. And then he was put back on levofloxin where we see a collapse and a disappearance of these gram negative rods. He was later put on urnipenem where another antibiotic where again we see a collapse and loss of numerous bacterial species. So it just goes to show you the impact that antibiotics can have on our gut microbiota which is important when we talk about that in just a moment. So what's the connection between microbes and cancer? Well some microbes may protect against cancer such as by metabolizing genotoxic agents which may cause DNA damage. Some microbes play a direct role in inducing cancer. Microbes such as helicobacter pylori, an organism that lives in the stomach of certain individuals and is associated with gastric cancer in those individuals.  Some microbes may facilitate the treatment of cancer by enhancing the host immune response and we'll talk a little bit about those in a moment. Now this is a study just from this week which I pulled from July 5th looking at combination immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma. And what's interesting about this study and some of the studies that Scott has mentioned previously is that these immune checkpoint inhibitors show a distinct role in the treatment of renal cell carcinoma. But in the study about 40% of people responded to the immune checkpoint inhibitors and a larger percentage of people didn't respond to these immune checkpoint inhibitors which begs the question why? What is different about those individuals for instance that aren't responding to the immune checkpoint inhibitors? Well, this is another kind of cartoon slide to augment what Scott showed you and essentially these T cells have this PD1 receptor and when bound to the PD1 receptor it acts as a break to reduce its inflammatory potential. And so even though the T cell may bind to an antigen on a tumor cell that would allow it to kill that tumor cell, the breaks are on and it can't actually kill that tumor cell unless you block this PD1 which then releases this break and some of these immune checkpoint inhibitors really work in this way by releasing this break and allowing the T cell to then kill off the tumor cell. Now, why should you care about the microbiota in somebody who has kidney cancer? Well, there were some fascinating studies that recently were published in the journal Science that linked the microbiota to response to immune checkpoint inhibitors and what they showed in several animal models is that if you take mice and you give them melanoma and then give them an immune checkpoint inhibitor, it works fine as long as you've got an intact microbiota but if they have a disturbed microbiota, the immune checkpoint inhibitors no longer work and in fact, if you take these mice and you raise them under germ-free conditions the immune checkpoint inhibitors don't work but if you give back specific bacteria to these mice you now reactivate the ability of these immune checkpoint inhibitors to have an antitumor response against the melanoma and for instance in this study published here what they showed was that bifodobacterium species a bacterium that's present in the gut of humans and very common in the gut of children is associated with having an active immune response when given the immune checkpoint inhibitors and in this study, another study, again here looking at the PD1 inhibitor this is a different immune checkpoint inhibitor, the CTLA4 molecule which works in a similar way to the PD1 connection of proteins that again, having this bacterium bacteroides fragilis in the gut of these mice protects them and allows them to have an antitumor response Is that at all relevant to renal cell carcinoma? Well, there was an abstract that was recently presented at a genetic urinary cancer meeting highlighting that those patients with renal cell carcinoma who had had previous antibiotic therapy had a reduction in progression free survival compared to those who hadn't received antibiotics suggesting that the gut microbiota may be impacting the response to these immune checkpoint inhibitors and here in this particular study, the survival and those that had received antibiotics was 2.3 months where it was 8 months and those that hadn't received antibiotics What this study didn't show was whether there were specific bacteria that were associated with this response to immune checkpoint inhibitors Question in the back That hasn't been determined and furthermore, there's also a potential for confounding here which is as possible that those patients that got antibiotics were sicker than those patients that hadn't received antibiotics but we need to do more studies looking at whether there are specific antibiotics whether there are specific changes in the microbiota that predict your response to immune checkpoint inhibitors There are other examples where microbes can play a role in cancer therapy and one example is with bladder cancer and for decades, we've used essentially a bacterial immunotherapy for the treatment of bladder cancer and here, what physicians do is they instill a mycobacterium, basill comet garong which is a relative of tuberculosis into the bladder of people with resected bladder cancer and what happens is that those tumor cells take up the mycobacteria in green into those cells and in fact, the same mutations that allow the cell to turn into a cancer cell also promote the uptake of these mycobacteria within the cell these mycobacteria cause direct damage to the cell, killing them but also help to recruit in immune cells that participate in controlling the bladder cancer that's present in the wall of that bladder so this is an early example of immune therapy using microbes to enhance the immune response so how can we manipulate the microbiota of humans? Well, we can give probiotics, things like lactobacillus and even bifidobacteria the problem with a lot of these probiotic formulations is that they were formulated because the bacteria grow well in milk and they're not necessarily the bacteria that are healthy for your intestine on the other hand, bifidobacteria are common members of probiotic formulations and given its connection with enhanced immune checkpoint response in mice it's possible that, for instance, bifidobacteria probiotics could play a role in enhancing immune checkpoint inhibitor response in humans those studies haven't been done yet there's bacteria therapy or also known as fecal mycobacter transplantation we are doing this to patients with clostridium difficile colitis here at the center and at the University of Washington in many places across the United States people with clostridium difficile colitis have an absence of healthy bacteria in their gut and this is one way of reconstituting a healthy microbiota where we have a healthy donor, we collect stool from that donor make sure they don't have any infections like HIV, hepatitis, etc and after screening that donor and their stool we then take that stool and inject it via colonoscope into the colon of that patient and it's actually more effective than antibiotic therapy for the treatment of clostridium difficile and helps to restore bacterial diversity it's possible in the future that if we know that there's a certain microbial community profile associated with response to your anti-tumor therapy we could manipulate the microbiota in this way using fecal mycobacter transplantation another more appealing way of altering the microbiota is to use engineered microbial communities and there are numerous companies that are creating freeze dried capsules containing microbes from the human gut which they've grown up to high concentration created spores for these bacteria you ingest the capsule, the capsule dissolves it goes into your colon and releases those spores where those bacteria can replicate that's another appealing way of altering the microbiota of humans in order to enhance health of subjects so my take home message is that humans are colonized with trillions of microbial cells that help to aid digestion, stimulate immune responses and shape our chemical environment some cancers are caused by microbes such as helicobacter pylori and stomach cancer there have been very few studies that have examined this in patients with renal cell carcinoma although there's at least one epidemiological study that's demonstrated that patients with a history of urinary tract infection have about a two fold increased risk of renal cell carcinoma there are differences in microbial communities across humans risk of disease and response to treatment such as with renal cell carcinoma and micro induced inflammation has been harnessed to treat bladder cancer and there may be opportunities to harness this in the future for treating other cancers I'll end there and open it up to any questions you have yes you mentioned that process yes is there a norm like there is for blood tests or is it that we treat them as long as the body is in good shape the body finds its own normal yeah and that's what's so interesting is that there are different states of normal you know there isn't one size fits all what we do know is that normal is associated with diversity which is that we find lots of different bacterial species and typically you have about 100 or 200 different bacterial species present in the gut it's abnormal just to have one okay but what happens you may ask well how do you acquire your microbiota and the fact of the matter is that you acquire that in infancy and the first two years of life are incredibly dynamic with bacterial species moving in and then leaving and then other species moving in and leaving but after about two to three years of life it begins to stabilize towards a more adult like microbiota with lots of diversity and stability of the microbiota so we know that normal means that there's different people with different types of microbiota communities we still need to understand though whether some of what we call normal is associated with health and whether there are certain things that are more healthy than other types of what we now call normal question so it's pretty new and a lot of this has been driven in the last 20 years by advances in sequencing technology many of these microbes that exist for instance in the human colon haven't been propagated in the laboratory they're difficult to grow and so if you can't grow them how do you study them there's a way of studying them without growing them which is to look at their DNA and so what we do is instead of trying to grow them in a petri dish in the laboratory what we do is we take that stool sample we break open all of the cells and we sequence through the DNA that's there as a way of identifying all the microbes that are present in that community and that high throughput sequencing technology has only been available for the last about 10 years which has allowed us to really characterize the full diversity of microbes that are present and that's led to an explosion in the field and this interest in microbiome science and so we're really still beginning to understand who's there but more importantly how they're interacting with each other the other microbes and with the human host to either promote health or lead to disease question white yeah and so first of all there's no evidence that that stuff harms you okay unlike some other things that we could give you and so it's fine to take activity or kombucha or kefir or sauerkraut or other things that contain microbes and in fact we did a study here at the cancer research center where we looked at patients who develop bacteremia with some of the bacteria that we typically think of as probiotic type of bacteria like lactobacillus and what we find is even in our cancer patients who are immunocompromised they develop bacteremia with these organisms they never die of it which is just goes to the point that these are non-pathogenic low pathogenicity organisms and so I would say to take some of these probiotics now the bigger question though is does it provide a benefit and that's harder to prove that it's providing some distinct health benefit and the other point that's interesting is that in studies where we've given probiotics to people where they get billions and billions of cells of some microbe every day it doesn't actually displace your normal microbiota yeah it's disappointing you would think that by giving two trillion cells of a specific microbe every day like lactobacillus ramnosus which is a probiotic you would completely change the microbiota it doesn't it does change what those microbes are doing it changes their gene expression profile when you take those and it may change how the human host is interacting with those microbes but it's not like you're completely re-engineering your microbiota by taking a probiotic which is also why I think that it's relatively safe to take and for some there is some evidence that probiotics can help so for instance in patients who are receiving antibiotics it tends to prevent them from developing C. diff it doesn't really help that much well if they've already developed C. diff but for patients who don't have C. diff and are at risk for C. diff there's some benefit to taking probiotics for instance it produces colitis so it's an antibiotic associated diarrhea where you get an overgrowth of one bacterium that's in your gastrointestinal tract and it produces a toxin that causes damage to the gut and diarrhea and we treat that with antibiotics but all of those antibiotics then lead to a collapse in diversity which then paradoxically increases your risk of recurrence of the C. diff which is why some of the new treatments are instead of giving more antibiotics you give bacteria therapy to restore the normal bacterial diversity and it turns out by restoring diversity those other microbes produce compounds that inhibit the growth of the C. diff so again suggesting this holistic approach to treatment so bottom line is I don't think the probiotics are going to hurt you we need to collect more evidence of how they're helping should we switch over