All right, it's time, good morning. Welcome to Cornerstone Baptist Church and our Sunday school class on a theology of public life. I pray you guys are doing well, missed you guys this week. It's always good to be back in here on a Sunday. There's too many days between Sundays. So I look forward to the Lord's Day and getting together. We are, have undertaken this theology, cultivating or developing a theology of public life, lessons for lot in the city of Sodom. I don't know why I wanna continue to say the city of Solomon. I don't know, there's something about that L in there. I just wanna throw in the city of Sodom. And we've begun with part one, we're calling Leviathan Rising, talking about the relationship between church and state. And each time we get together for these lessons on Sunday morning, I wanna give you a brief review. So we just can sort of reorient our minds on what we're talking about because you get into a lengthy study like this when there's a week between each of these 45, 50 minute lessons. Sometimes it's difficult to see our place in the big forest, for all the trees. And so we'll give a brief review. And what we're essentially doing in this first part in particular is developing or cultivating a theology of public life. Christianity is not going to be, isn't to be, relegated to the private sphere alone. We're not to metastasize ourselves, sequester ourselves within the four walls of our home as the government would have us do or as unbelievers would have us do. It is a faith that is to be proclaimed from the rooftops. And so this issue or of a theology of public life is really important for us to consider as time goes by because we're gonna need to think through as maybe as we think about the walls as it were closing in on the church from the outside in terms of the state or in terms of an encroaching secular humanism. As the walls begin to encroach or cave in on us, we need to respond biblically and take a stand for what other Lord would have us do in our generation. So public theology will help us to do that. And as we develop or cultivate a theology of public life, we're also gonna be looking at in response what we would call a theology of Christian resistance, to tyranny, resistance to government encroachment. And we'll talk about that more as we work through the fundamentals. Right now what we're doing in this process is just laying a basic foundation. And I hope what has been helpful so far is just to get us to begin to think about these things that there is in the Bible instruction for us, good biblical instruction for how we are to relate to the state, how we're to relate to governments and that can help us answer questions that we face even in our day with these issues that appear to be complex, really ancient and old and already sort of been there, done that, got the t-shirt in centuries past that now we in our day are having to face. So the Bible has answers to our questions with respect to this and we wanna take our time, lay a good foundation and then as we understand these things more fully and I think fully also would include a good historical perspective on how this theology is developed, then we can begin to formulate a response to that which is I think it's gonna be really foundational for our church, really important for our church. What is the Christian to do? What are we as a church to do? And we have all kinds of hopes and aspirations for how we're going to honor the Lord, how we're gonna pursue the spread of the gospel in this age, we're just getting started and I'm excited about that. So, okay, tentacles of tyranny. Today we're gonna be discussing sphere sovereignty and I wanna give you a brief introduction, brief review of where we've been. We've been discussing the biblical concept of jurisdiction which again is a biblical concept. Jurisdiction is the authority to speak the law and that authority, whatever jurisdiction you find yourself is bounded by or governed by God's word. For example, an individual has jurisdiction over an individual's sphere, you could say. Authority over his own conscience. The government cannot compel conscience. The church cannot compel conscience. The Christian, the believer, the person has liberty of conscience. The family has a jurisdiction. Husband over his wife, parents over their children. The state has jurisdiction. God's minister for good over the people to restrain evil and then the church has a jurisdiction. We're gonna look at those more in depth today. The church may not usurp the authority or encroach upon the jurisdiction of a father, for example, in the household. The state may not usurp the authority or encroach upon the jurisdiction of the church and they're increasingly doing that. Neither of those spheres may compel the conscience of the individual. In other words, each one has been given a bounded authority, a delegated authority, a derived authority that is bounded by God's word. It's a jurisdiction. In that, we wanna remind ourselves that one in particular has been given all authority. His authority is unbounded and he has the sole sovereign right to dictate, including the conscience, the heart, the mind of the individual, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ, the one from whom all authority is derived. Matthew 28, verse 18, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth, go therefore make disciples of all the nations. We then, after discussing jurisdiction, discussed a corruption of that biblical concept and abuse of that biblical concept that has leached into the form of government that our founders had conceived of and has polluted jurisdictional boundaries in our country, and that is the separation of church and state as it's understood by the state in our day. And we talked about that some last week. Never meant to separate God from civil institutions. And I think as we continue to move through discussions of that, you're gonna have the confidence to say from the Bible that that is the case. The separation doctrine employed by government's courts today civil institutions, social institutions has been used effectively to eradicate any Christian influence on the state. And it's simply not the way that God has intended and is in itself an indication of tyranny.  We'll talk about that this morning. And in effect, it's been, we've reaped what we've sowed with respect to that in terms of unchecked encroachment by the civil government with no resistance as it were, effective resistance from the church. Sam Waldron in his modern exposition of the 1689, which includes our 1689 includes chapter 24 on the civil magistrate. It's interesting isn't it that our confession of faith has a chapter with a three articles in it dealing with the civil magistrate. And that tells you that our, those very wise, very godly men who wrote our confession understood these things to be necessary and good. And so included a chapter in our confession with respect to the civil magistrate, Sam Waldron explaining that chapter says this, does it surprise you that the confession contains a chapter on the subject of the civil magistrate? Are you inclined to ask what does politics have to do with Christ? If that is something of your response, may I suggest that you are a victim of a religious background which has retreated from its social responsibilities under a wrong view of the separation of church and state. Such an attitude has virtually denied the sovereignty of God over all areas of life to restrict Christianity to the spiritual realm is ultimately to destroy it. It's an interesting statement by Waldron. And I think there's a couple of points in there that are worth thinking about meditating on. That retreat effectively undermines the sovereignty of God over all areas of life including the government. And so the church has to say, and I think Bible believing Christians in good sound biblical churches, I need to put their foot down. As my mom would say, put your foot down. Put your foot down, draw a line in the sand as it were and take a stand for God's sovereignty over civil institutions and to be a voice with respect to that. Now, as we go forward in time, there's going to be less and less tolerance on the part of the state, less and less tolerance on the part of Roman first and his secular humanist buddies to listen to any of that, right? They're not gonna listen to that, but we have a responsibility nonetheless to proclaim it on behalf of the king. That's our responsibility with the gospel and our responsibility to the state. And we need to be loud about that and not shirk from our responsibility because people don't like it. Last time I heard, last time I understood, God wasn't really asking men's opinions about what he said or what he commanded. He just simply commands it and we're to be the voice of that command in our generation. So we're not to retreat from our social responsibilities under a wrong view of the separation of church and state that attitude has denied the sovereignty of God. Christianity is not to be restricted to some private spiritual realm. Christianity is God's rule over God's people in God's place and that includes every square centimeter of this planet or if you're in the US, every square inch, right? So we're to assert that as biblical truth and not shirk back or shrink back from doing that. And we'll look at what the implications of that are and what that looks like as we go through the study. Okay, sphere sovereignty. Since the reformed confessions of the 16th and 17th century, there's been many of them in those centuries in particular, there has been in each of those confessions a consideration of the role of government and the relationship of the church and the individual Christian to the state. In those confessions, you often find chapters dealing with the civil magistrate and how we are to relate to the civil magistrate. And in years past, those things had to be thought of, right, they were living under tyranny. Throughout human history, most human beings have lived under some form, some degree of governmental tyranny. And so Christians in ages past have had to contend with those things and deal with those things. And so over time, there has been developed, there's been cultivated a robust theology of public life that teaches us how we are to interact with the state. We've not had to concern ourselves as much with those things because we've enjoyed a lengthy period of peace in our country as far as we're concerned, our entire lives, where that hasn't been much of an issue. That's becoming an issue now. It has been an issue and we're think timely in dealing with this now. Over that time though, that theology has developed. If you've read any Augustine, Augustine had the city of God, if you remember, I've heard of that book or read that book, maybe some of you homeschool kids have glanced at it. Maybe not read the whole thing, it's huge. But two cities, city of God, city of man, that sort of developed later under Martin Luther and two kingdom theology. And we're gonna look at the city of God, we're gonna look at two kingdom theology. But that thought was developed further under Luther, developed further under some of the reformers. As that theology of public life began to be worked out, we arrive at Abraham Kuiper, who is a Dutch reformer in the 20th century, early, late 19th century, early 20th century, who wrote on this in particular and has developed this thought even further, to the point where we've got a good foundation today, a good reformed basis on which we, a good reformed biblical basis, on which we can consider the subject for ourselves. So I wanna give an explanation of Kuiper's public theology, this summary, if you will, of his public theology, and this in particular subject called Sphere Sovereignty. And we'll refer back to, in particular we'll refer back to Luther and to Abraham Kuiper in particular, when we talk about our own application of these things in weeks to come. This will be sort of a foundational, very basic, very 30,000 foot overview of the subject, but I think helpful as we're moving forward. One of the more recent of those developments in a theology of public life and very influential on some, some for the good, some for the bad, governments tend to hate it, kings hated it, monarchies hated it, governments tend to repudiate it, our government would certainly repudiate it, but that was the political theology of Abraham Kuiper and his work summarized in Sphere Sovereignty, Sphere Sovereignty. Sphere Sovereignty includes a basic application of biblical principles as we work through the spheres. I'll give you those biblical principles and we'll look at some passages where those are formed. And all of that within a historical context, Abraham Kuiper, as well as the reformers who were working on this understood that these things were in progress of thought, as it were, and have developed over time. All right, Abraham Kuiper was an elder with the Dutch Reformed Church in the Netherlands, heavily involved in Dutch politics. He was an elder in the church, but also served as prime minister for a period of time. From 1901 to 1905, Abraham Kuiper was the prime minister of the Netherlands. Leader of the first modern political party in the Netherlands, he led that party. It was the anti-revolutionary party, if I'm not mistaken. He founded a newspaper, very, very involved in public life, social life in the Netherlands, founded what was called the Free University, and that's where we see, if you've read any of Abraham Kuiper, he gave a speech at the inauguration of that university, in which he spoke clearly about sphere sovereignty, it's really helpful, really good. Part of what drove Abraham Kuiper in his sphere sovereignty, his public theology, was to cultivate a theology of public life by which Christians would engage the culture biblically for the sake of the gospel. It was to cultivate or foster Christian engagement in the culture, which is really important and grotesquely lacking for a long time now. If you guys, some of you are old enough to remember the moral majority decades past, when Ronald Reagan was elected, there was much talk about the moral majority. Better called the moralistic majority or the moral light majority. Wasn't a lot moral about that majority. They had a few political statements they would make, but there was a prominent voice given to that group at that time. Since then, they've been silenced almost all together. We hear a little else of that kind of thing at all. There was a reference this week to the Day of Prayer, and a point was made that Joe Biden was able to get through the entire Day of Prayer without mentioning the name of God one time the entire day. And then they made the comparison that Trump mentioned 11 times and Obama mentioned in five times, those kinds of things. But Christians have been largely silenced in the public sphere. It's not right that that's the case, and we need to resist that and proclaim the gospel where we are able to and to look for opportunities to do that. But that's the state of our day today. Kuiper wanted to get Christians engaged and get Christians engaged in the culture. And so he led by example in those ways. He saw a Christian worldview as defining three fundamental relationships. The Christian's relationship to God, the Christian's relationship to man, and the Christian's relationship to the world. And so he wanted to develop in all three of those areas, not one or two of them, an exclusion of a third. For Kuiper, Calvinism was the only biblical system that made sense of these relationships. And the reason that Kuiper relied upon a thorough Calvinistic theology in developing a theology of public life is because he saw Calvinism as the only system that asserted the sovereignty of God over every aspect of life, every detail of life. And in that, we're reminded of the beginning of this when we talked about Luther's doctrine of Corum Deo, right? Every second of a person's life, believe it or not, every second of his life is lived under the gaze of an omniscient God who searches the heart and will judge the hearts of an intense of men, judge the secrets of men, as Paul would say. God is sovereign over everything. And so Kuiper believed that to be critical in our understanding of our relationship, certainly to him, our relationship to our fellow man and our relationship to the world as a whole. Kuiper said, instead of a monastic flight from the world, the duty of the Christian is now emphasized in serving God in the world in every position of life. And it sounds like Luther's Corum Deo, doesn't it? So whether you're on the job, whether you're in school, you're interacting with state officials or the government in some form, you go to Target, you go to the nail salon, wherever you find yourself, you're living for the Lord, Corum Deo, right? And a robust Calvinism says that when you walk into the nail salon, God is sovereign, right? Even over what you do with those things. A Calvinistic theology of public life recognizes the triune God as sovereign over the whole cosmos to use Kuiper's words. From this Kuiper's thought, we can derive three spheres of derived sovereignty, all right? Derived authority or derived sovereignty, three spheres, the state, the society and the church. A biblical Calvinistic theology of public life was basically an application of this principle of sphere sovereignty in public life over those three spheres, the state, the society and the church, right? Reformed Baptist guys with the Crato Covenant blog, if you're familiar with that, put together sort of a helpful summary of Kuiper's thoughts on this subject and it starts with the sphere of the state, the sphere of the state, referring to the civil government. And with respect to the sphere of the state, Kuiper made three assertions, right? Three theses, right? One, God only and never any creature is possessed of sovereign rights in the destiny of the nations because God alone created them, maintains them by his almighty power and rules them by his ordinances, right? So you hear Kuiper's Calvinism rich in that statement, and that is biblical truth, right? I'm reminded of Daniel chapter four with respect to that. If you remember the story of Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible, is this not great Babylon, which I have built with my own hands, right? Nebuchadnezzar says, and the Bible says that while those words were still in his mouth, God ripped the kingdom from him, right? Made him like a beast, an ox to eat grass in the field. He says, the Bible says that seven times shall pass over you, Nebuchadnezzar, until you know that the most high rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever he chooses. Now listen to this from Daniel chapter four, beginning in verse 34, listen to this. And at the end of time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven. My understanding returned to me. I came to my senses. After that, I was brought to my senses, as it were. And I blessed the most high and praised and honor him who lives forever, because his dominion is an everlasting dominion. His kingdom is from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing he does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain his hand or say to him, what have you done?  And so Kuiper's statement, again, is a thoroughly biblical statement. God only, never any creature is possessed of sovereign rights in the destiny of nations because God alone created them, maintains them by his almighty power and rules them by his ordinances. Now is that true of our country today? Of course it is. Absolutely it is. We'll talk about why it's deteriorated to the point where it has, but God is sovereign. God alone creates nations. He raises them up and he brings them down all by his almighty power. And God rules over them by his ordinances, by his commands. So when a nation, a government, trails from, walks away from, abandons God's commandments, God's ordinances, that nation is rebellious. Now an enemy of God by wicked works, you could say. That nation has gone rogue and faces the judgment of God. Exactly what our nation has done today. Second thesis, sin has in the realm of politics broken down the direct government of God. That's an important statement. We're gonna consider that in a moment. Sin has in the realm of politics broken down the direct government of God. And therefore the exercise of authority for the purpose of government has subsequently been invested in men as a mechanical remedy. He means mechanical as opposed to quote unquote natural, as God intended, natural, mechanical. Okay, let's think about that statement. Kuiper understood that if the fall had not taken place, what would government have looked like? And when I use the word government, I don't mean it in terms of the state that we know it as today. What would, let's say, what would God's administration of rule, what would God's administration of rule look like today if the fall had never happened? What would be the basis for his, we got the mic over here, I'll come back to Lee. So, Ryan. I'm just thinking of Adam and Eve, how he made them upright, where he declared his creation to be very good. So they were holy, having the law of God on their hearts and given this commission to fill the earth for his glory. Very good. So I would think of a spreading of humanity over the earth and government in the fear of God. So in everything that man is doing, God is the chief end of the governance of the people. Very good. So they're, and Kuiper sort of references that does to me with the idea of a direct, the direct governance of God. Adam, all men at that time were under the direct governance of God. What would have been the main, the main institution of administering that government on the planet? Initially, who did God put in charge? Adam, right, Adam, his vice-region over creation, given Adam the cultural mandate, that Ryan just referenced. Adam had offspring. What would have happened when Adam died? Who would have taken over? One of his sons, Tom. That's true, good point. I'm not thinking, that's good. Adam would have continued to rule. Adam would have continued to be king, very good. Yes. Maybe his vice, he would have had vice presidents, as we might have conceived of them. Yeah, very good, Tom. Yeah, his sons, like his sons would have held influence, would have held responsibility. We see that modeled in the Old Testament, even with the nation of Israel, prior to the monarchy, you had a family units, right? It was Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, the 12 sons of Jacob, the 12 leaders of the 12 tribes. There was this family, this patriarchal society, family government where you had the, the father was the head of the household, so to speak. And as long as that father was alive, you had a sort of a patriarchal leader to the tribe. And that's the way that the government sort of subsisted albeit sinful, fallen world. That's the way that the government, the governance or the administration of God's rule existed at that time. Kuiper understood that if the fall had not taken place, sorry, I didn't come back to you, brother. Did you have something to add? Go ahead. No, it was, you just said everything I was gonna say. I was just saying theocracy because it would have been Adam and then his descendants and like you said, all the way down to Abraham, Isaac, all the way down. And what popped in my head was like when Jesus was born and the wise men came through and told Herod, Herod said, hey, let me know, so I can come and worship. Herod knew he wasn't the rightful king. And here the rightful king was coming. The rightful governing body was coming. That's what it Herod wanted to do. Everyone wanted to kill him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Yeah, Kuiper understood, we understand that if fall hadn't taken place, then there would have been no reason, no reason for the structures of civil government. And I think it's an important point and something for us to think about. If the fall had not taken place, if sin had not entered the world, if Adam hadn't died or because Adam died, there would be no reason for the structures of civil government. We know how God would have administered his rule and reign on the earth, had not Adam fallen in the garden. We would have had a patriarchal society, if you will, family, centric, submitted to God the direct rule of God, politics in the state then, politics in the state are unnatural, unnatural, or mechanical additions as it were, developments in human history, instituted by God with a purpose. Kuiper says a mechanical structure, a mechanical as opposed to a natural, a mechanical structure imposed upon the natural organic relationships that bind men together. What are those natural organic relationships? Family bonds, marital bonds, familial bonds, work bonds, social bonds, right? All those things that naturally, organically bind men together. Government, civil government is a mechanical structure imposed upon those things that God has instituted because of sin, because of sin. God instituted the civil magistrate because or by reason of sin. Turn with me to 1 Samuel chapter eight. Let's look briefly at where that got started. 1 Samuel chapter eight. In 1 Samuel chapter eight, you have the rule, the direct rule of God and that direct rule of God administered through the priesthood and the high priest in particular. And here you have God's direct rule administered through one who is essentially prophet priest at the time, which is Samuel.  There is become obviously evident even to the people that Samuel's sons cannot take over and administer that rule. Effectively, the people are convinced they need a king anyway. And so they ask then Samuel for a king. Look at verse four. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Rama and said to him, look, Samuel, you're old. Your sons, that's nice. Your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. Right, make us a king. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us. So Samuel prayed to the Lord and the Lord said to Samuel, heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you for they have not rejected you but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them. Bringing to an end as it were in their own perception or according to them what they were intending to do was to bring to an end the direct rule of God over the people. Now God didn't only directly rule over the nation of Israel as Samuel is here. God rules in all the nations of men. All those pagan nations around Israel, God ruled over them too. Israel in particular in covenant with God is rejecting, even in covenant with God, rejecting the direct rule of God asking for a king. Verse eight, according to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them out of Egypt even to this day, which they have forsaken me and served other gods so they are doing to you also Samuel, now therefore heed their voice. However you shall solemnly forewarn them and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them, right? God is about to institute the monarchy and the rule of men as it were instituting civil government over the people giving them what they ask for so to speak and God forewarns them when you have men to rule over you in this way. Here's what you can expect, right? Samuel told all the words of the Lord in verse 10 to the people who asked him for a king and he said, this will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them for his own, for his own chariots and to be his horsemen. Some will run before his chariots. He will appoint captains over his thousands, captains over his fifties. He will set some to plow his ground, reap his harvest, some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks and bakers and he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his servants. He will take a 10th of your grain, your vineyards and give it to his officers and servants.  He will take a 10th of your sheep and you will be his servants. You will cry out on that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves and the Lord will not hear you in that day. Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. They said, no, but we will have a king to rule over us that we also may be like all the nations that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. Samuel heard all the words of the people and repeated them in the hearing of the Lord. So the Lord said to Samuel, he their voice, make them a king. We've reaped the consequence of that, haven't we? We can be grateful to God for the institution of civil government. When civil government acts in accord with the intentions of God in it because the civil government is used to restrain the very sin that gives rise to these kinds of things, right? The civil government wields the sword, wields a delegated authority meant to restrain evil. And in that sense, God protects and has provided for us and that's good. Where men have corrupted civil government, that's the problem we're gonna be talking about, okay? Second, sin has in the realm of politics broken down the direct government of God. That now has been invested in the hands of men as a mechanical, not a natural remedy. Third, third thesis. We're still talking about the sphere of the state. In whatever form this authority may reveal itself. In other words, whether it's a monarchy, republic, democracy, whatever form this authority may reveal itself, civil government, man never possesses power over his fellow man in any way than by an authority which descends upon him from the majesty of God. Another very important consideration. Whatever form government takes in whatever form it takes, right? In whatever form that government that civil magistrate may reveal itself, man never possesses power over his fellow man in any way other than by the authority which descends upon him is delegated to him from on high, from God. So any power, any authority wielded over man that hasn't been expressly given him, delegated to him by God is of definition a tyrannical authority, okay? Government does not have the right. I don't care what kind of government it is. It doesn't have the right to exercise an authority outside the boundaries of what God himself has determined and does not have the authority to exercise its will over the people other than in ways that God has determined for their good, okay? Now there are many, many implications of that statement. That's a biblical statement and it's a strong statement and it applies today in our understanding of what is tyrannical and what isn't. I think over the years maybe have just not thinking of these things as I should and maybe as I am now. Would have defined tyranny much more loosely. The more that I understand, for example, that statement or what the Bible teaches about these things, the more tightly and clearly defined the definition of tyranny becomes and the more tyrannical you see our quote unquote democracy or our republic. There has been a grotesque, deplorable, continued persistent overreach of our government into individual rights, into other spheres that can only be defined as tyrannical and outside the boundaries of what God has determined for the civil government and it's something that Christians should resist, should preach against, should stand against, should be culturally engaged with for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of God's rule in the earth. The more that civil governments spread beyond their delegated or given boundaries, the more that we see what happens in our culture today and increasing wickedness and increasing humanism and increasing, we're gonna cast his cords from us. We don't want this man to rule over us at all. There's more and more of a pushing and a shoving of God and of Christians who preach the gospel out of the public sphere and the longer that Christians, the longer that the church allows that to continue unchecked the more and more that it happens to the point where you've got in many places in history Christian, Christians huddled in woods and huddled underground, huddled in basements for fear of their lives, Christians, pastors by the hundreds, thousands being killed, murdered, why an encroaching authoritative tyranny on the part of the state. And so it wherever the state encroaches the preaching of the gospel becomes hindered. We're already seeing that, right? Free speech laws, rights quote unquote that we have being infringed upon. Laws being changed, a public becoming increasingly intolerant. I saw the video last week of that pastor on a street corner in London being manhandled, arrested because of preaching from the Bible against homosexuality and they arrested him on the street happening more and more in Canada. Whatever happens in Canada and the UK just give it a few years, it happens here. And this is the fruit of certainly wickedness and men are responsible for their own sin. But rather than this, we have a responsibility to attempt to stand, don't we? To do something like instead of just continuing our retreat, I think sometimes Christians just sort of imagine they're just gonna continue retreating all the way to heaven. I'm gonna die, I'm gonna go to heaven or I'm just gonna keep retreating at some point Jesus is gonna come back and fix this whole mess but I can retreat long enough until he does. Now we're not to retreat, we're not to retreat. So I think there's responsibility that is given to us in our generation to take a stand and we've gotta determine what that stand looks like what it is. Okay, sphere of the state. Second sphere, the sphere of society or the social sphere, the sphere of society or the social sphere. The social sphere has a number of diverse parts within it made up of components, if you will. Inside the social sphere, you have the family. You have business, industry. A family may have had control over lands. Abraham had control over great flocks, great area of land. Another social sphere is that Kuiper talks about. We can think of several in this sort of category but Kuiper mentioned science in particular. Science should be able to operate and Kuiper's mind should be able to operate without the encroachment of other spheres for science to be the impartial objective arbiter that it is. Can you see how today, how we don't have any real ability to trust anything that comes out of the quote unquote scientific community? Why? It's because it's been so absurdly politicized, right? Everybody's got an agenda. It's ridiculously liberal. And so people will just spread abject lies in the name of quote unquote science in order to fulfill their political agenda. It's ridiculous, right? And that's because of this encroachment we're talking about. Kuiper, I think wisely viewed science as one of the social spheres that has a sovereignty that is exclusive to itself, a delegated sovereignty, right? Arts was another education, very important one. So he saw several components to this social sphere. You may think of others or think of fewer, but there they are. Four main groups, four main groups. This may help you categorize them. First, the sphere of social relationships where individuals meet and interact with each other. The Elk Lodge. No, that's not a sphere. No, it's, but where do people at bingo night, you know, where do people meet and gather together a social relationships, okay? Secondly, the corporate sphere, which includes all groupings of men in a corporate sense, such as, let me give you some examples, universities, right? Trade union, trade union, trade union, trade unions, employers, organizations, companies, right, we can think of those, the corporate sphere. There is the social sphere. There is the corporate sphere. Third, the domestic sphere deals with the family, marriage. That deals with education. Why would the domestic sphere deal with education? Why would that be the case? Pardon me? Yeah, homeschooling, but why is education considered a domestic sphere? Anya? It involves one's children. Yes, we're getting warmer. Yeah, Mike? Because that's where a child's education first starts. That's right, that's right. So we put all those points together. Who's responsible for the education of our children? We are. It is a domestic responsibility. In other words, it's not the first and foremost responsibility of the state to educate children, to give our children the state. Now, there are, and I'm gonna make two statements. First is, there are circumstances in which that's a necessary thing, right? We find ourselves in circumstances where we don't have an opportunity. And we rely upon the resources that are available to us to help us do what is necessary. But ultimately, we may, for example, they may get a math education, education in math from a school teacher, but who's responsible for the education of that child? Mom and dad, right? Mom and dad. They may, because I are not a math person.  You can get help and assistance with educating our children, but the one who's responsible are the parents. The parents are responsible for the education of their children. I'm gonna make another statement then, ancillary to that, is that I think that we, as the church, not just Cornerstone Baptist Church, but particularly Cornerstone Baptist Church, need to be thinking about rendering any other option, any other resource to educate our children an irrelevant consideration, because we ourselves, as the church, have provided for our families, provided for people to educate their children the way that God has intended. And I think that's a good reason why we, as a church, we'll talk about this later, we should consider, as quickly as we are able to do so, Cornerstone Academy, whereby all of our children would be able to be educated, well educated without having to rely upon the state to do it, okay? So I'm hoping that we'll come, we'll talk about that later. Okay, the domestic sphere. Lastly, fourth, the communal sphere. The communal sphere, which includes all groupings of men and communal relationships, such as streets, villages, towns and cities, okay? So Kuiper saw in the Bible those developing communal spheres, cities, for example, all right. Each part of these spheres, Kuiper argues, has sovereignty in the individual social spheres and these different developments of social life have nothing above themselves but God. That's an interesting statement, isn't it? Think about your family, the family sphere, has nothing above it but God, right? The state cannot intrude here, Kuiper says. In society, the chief aim of all human effort remains what it was by virtue of our creation and before the fall, namely, dominion over nature. Now the argument that Kuiper's gonna give in sphere sovereignty here is that man has been given the cultural mandate. It's not the authority or the responsibility of the state to accomplish the cultural mandate for or on behalf of man, man has been given the cultural mandate before God and man has the liberty and should maintain the liberty to pursue obedience to the cultural mandate and what that looks like under God with no one dictating to him other than God. The state does not have the right to encroach on the sovereign rights of these spheres in their pursuit of dominion. The state is impeding, as it were, our obedience to the cultural mandate. In other words, the state is not to take dominion for us. Man is to take dominion. The state is not to take dominion. Where does it come from? It comes from Genesis chapter one. Somebody give me a definition, like a quick summary definition. What is the cultural mandate? Where do we get that? I don't know what I want. Yes, Michael, don't be bashful. I know I'm talking too much. I need to get you guys more engaged with some questions. Yeah, brother. What God says, we'll let them be blessed and have dominion over the fishes, see over the fowls of the air. We'll let them subdue, replenish and take dominion. Very good. That's right. That's right. Be fruitful and multiply. All those, what that entails in taking dominion. Yeah, thank you, brother. Very good. All right, that's from Genesis chapter one. Genesis chapter one, verse 26. If you wanna look at that, the cultural mandate. I think there is a new covenant context, new covenant context of the cultural mandate and we can't be impeded there either. God is looking for godly offspring, godly worshipers to worship him in spirit and in truth. He says in John chapter four. So God desires godly offspring. How do godly offspring come today? Well, they certainly come in fulfillment of the cultural mandate to have children and raise those children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And I can say with a clear conscience before God and with great joy that we are amply doing our part with respect to that on a regular basis and continue to do so. So very happy about that. Thank you, brother. But it also comes through the preaching of the gospel. Right the way that godly offspring worshipers of God in spirit and truth, the way they're produced today is through the preaching of the gospel. So we need to continue to preach the gospel and we don't need to be impeded in doing that. In contrast to this natural order, government is a mechanical device. The natural order is the way that God intended. Government is a mechanical device. It's essential power, the sword, which is power over life and death to restrain evil ought to be exercised only in the administration of justice. Kuiper, because government has been imposed upon those organic spheres, friction then occurs. Why does friction occurs? Friction occurs because men are sinful and fallen and fallible. So friction occurs between the spheres, so to speak, because that mechanical device has been imposed upon sinful, wicked men. And so this friction occurs. Kuiper says the government is always inclined with its mechanical authority to invade social life, to subject it and to mechanically arrange it. I think that deserves a lesson in and of itself explaining that statement. Government is always inclined with its mechanical authority to invade social life, to subject it and to mechanically arrange it. At the same time that Kuiper argues that the various social spheres will endeavor to throw off all restraints of government, thus men will be continually faced with the twin dangers of statism or anarchy, right? Between those two ditches as it were. But Calvinism, Kuiper maintains, avoids those extremes by insisting on the sovereignty of God. Where statism or tyranny is avoided and anarchy or chaos is avoided is when we are subject to the authority of God as sovereign. When we shove off that authority, we loose our binds, so to speak, then we're given over to either anarchy or statism, chaos or tyranny. And that's what we're seeing. There are three ways, and I'll finish this up next week, there are three ways the state could support the social sphere to draw a boundary between the state should support the social spheres in these ways. They should draw boundaries and maintain boundaries around the spheres in order to avoid social conflict. The state doesn't draw or maintain those boundaries, the state is too busy trying to do away with them and overreach into them, right? So it does a terrible and awful job of drawing and maintaining those boundaries. Our founders did that with our constitution. Their intent in devising of our Declaration of Independence, our constitution, the Bill of Rights was to clearly define the jurisdictional boundaries of those spheres to prohibit or restrain encroachment by particularly the government. Particularly the government, but by any sphere into another. A worker should never be misused or abused by his employer. The government can help draw boundary around that sphere. Right, and we can think of numerous ways in which we could think of examples. Secondly, the state could support the social sphere in defending individuals in weak elements within each sphere. In other words, the state should protect the sovereignty of the church, so to speak, over its own affairs and not allow persecution of the church or restriction of church rights. The state could support that. Now the state continues to encroach upon that rather than protect it. Thirdly, to coerce all the separate spheres of society to support the state and uphold its legitimate functions, right, to call for support in order to do their job, to wield their sword, to render to Caesar what is Caesar and to God what is God's, right? There's a legitimate function to civil institutions and that is to wield the power of the sword to restrain evil and to protect those spheres. Thus, each sphere has an obligation to render whatever do is necessary for the maintenance of the overall unity of society as protected by the state. We looked at the sphere of society. We looked at the sphere of the state. Next week, we'll look at the sphere of the church and the sphere of the individual as one and we'll look at some of the applications of Abraham Kuyper's sphere sovereignty. We don't have time for questions this morning. Please forgive me. We'll allow more time for questions next week. Bear with me. Let's pray and let's prepare for worship. Father in heaven, thank you Lord for the astounding and helpful sufficiency of your word. So grateful Lord for how wise, infinitely wise, you obviously and evidently are as revealed to us in your word in helping us consider subjects like this. Thank you Lord. Thank you for not leaving us without a witness in that you've done such good to us. Help us Lord to serve you faithfully within the sphere with the delegated authority that you've given us to do our part and our generation to obey you in the great commission and all that you've given us to do we're grateful for instruction there. Help us to be faithful in it as we face encroaching tyranny and encroaching humanism and encroaching darkness that hates you. Help us to stand for you with the gospel in faithfulness to your word, your will, our king, the Lord Jesus Christ. Pray all these things in his name, amen.


All right, here's a shot with sound. Let's play this in full All right now with this I did some tweaks she gave me your Maya scene so There was no sounds, but I just did some tweaks it to the sets some of the colors a little blur Some rough animation changes just to do a few things there So the main thing that I did was I had a bit of a camera move just to kind of frame with her and Then stop on her. I Moved her I just took that the overall controller It has moved her closer backing him up a little bit and then when she goes back even through this have her a little bit More lean this way. This was in years already And I think Potentially leaning her camera. Let me look at That last one She is pretty far, but you can see the difference here Between the two and the reason being I'm not a massive fan of Photographs with CG models just because it's such a style break and it feels like Had it's two different worlds and it was a bit it was a bit Wide but just high in terms of framing I put this back to a full 1080p Maybe that was that was the way you play last at it, but And he to me was a bit too profile because you get to see the eyes So it's almost a little bit of I want to see back and forth So I want to check on what he's doing and the reason why I find him like this because that we don't see the eyes whatsoever It's just he's just there for framing And there's there to kind of balance the frame a bit more as she talks It was also a bit dark with all the lights in there We have thought you know a lot of backlighting and everything and then it just felt all a bit a bit muddy So I just put in a couple lights. It's nothing crazy But just giving just giving the focus a bit more on her And just I this is whatever colors. I just like yellow at the moment Let's put a yellow on her and a different pants there just so that you know, she stands out She's already not shy to just have a bit too much to drink and you know bold colors and just getting away from some of the Default colors as well, and then I just added a set which I would highly recommend That is from here bring this lower here Rafael he has a bunch of cool rigs, but also a living room pack a kitchen pack a bedroom pack Siphon interior. I'll put that in the email It's super cool. I like this a lot And then within this you can see that's just a set up here, and then I moved I just put the you know, it's the set and it's cool But the set has a bunch of controllers so you can move things around however you want it Just a bunch of lights Just to give this a bit of a different feel so it's not you know, it would totally work like this But I don't there's something just giving a little bit in there and you don't need depth of field You know, I mean, it's really it's really so subtle But I like when the front is just you know with the entire listening just a bit crisper Then everything being in focus. So just there's a little bit of a difference in terms of how sharp the whole thing is So yeah, that was just kind of Small little things here and there just to kind of make this one world so that you have you know You have there's simple textures on on those rigs and it kind of gets reflected also in the set This feels to me like one world versus that kind of style those kind of textures with lots of details and photo real stuff on a photo That makes sense. I know like that's my my personal preference and you ask Since you gave me the file, I thought I'll go in there and do something quickly Now when it comes to your shots, and I'm gonna turn off the sound is supposed to me It's mostly technical. I Would be careful. I mean I turned the camera around so in my case It was there were some eye line issues where to shoot looking to the camera But even here feels like with this it's a bit more at us. Well, this is really far away. So I'd be careful in Some of the like here you can see how this feels like it's looking at its chest And it's looking way over to his right. So you have to adjust some of these here She feels really wallied Then even here it's a bit at him, but then that's really far away So just watch out in terms of that feels a little bit better, but then I feel a bit too low where this feels a bit better I line wise so that's one thing the bigger technical thing to me are IK arms You can see this especially on here There are a lot of straight lines in the moments like this when the body just through there starts to move While the arms look goes over there And then it has like some drifty moments through there just timing wise And then through all of this the angle is mostly the same of the wrist You can see this through there as she goes back like this stuff like that where it's a straight line The rotation is the same in the wrist. It just gets very IK is looking Sometimes it's nicely hidden and then sometimes it gets again movements where it just stands out when you have bigger elbow movements Some up and downs while this kind of stays put you can see this here. This goes off This kind of has its own path played us in real time It has kind of like a wobble. This is almost like a steady cam Kind of a gimbal type of thing where there's a lot of movement there But that part just kind of stays fairly steady. So for me it would be Switching this I might be tricky doing the drinking But for the rest you might get away with FK arms just to get away from that feeling You know stuff like that where it's a little bit of an arc, but then it goes really straight back into a straight line That's the bigger thing then on something like this watch out We get into a doubly pose and it's kind of mirrored. I know this is higher I know this is lower and and but I would still I would still tweak things where there's a lot of liquid I mean if you know if you're moving this around this water would splash out I would maybe keep this bit more contained despite her being slightly drunk or tipsy and maybe gesture more With the shoes here and then if you play this here's the sound again here So as she comes in watch out There's a couple elements where she comes in and then bam that Putting the glass right there, which again with all that liquid is this would just fall out So you have to be careful. You got to lower that geometry there and just have this, you know, this would be around here So when she did when she puts the wine back the wine might be like this low So just be careful like this would be all over her But when she puts this like right when that glass hits the head, that's when she looks over This is a bit into the camera almost So for me, it would be Just offsetting this a little bit where she might She might even start here the shock instead of this low. So you have a bit more time for the drink and Then You know give me 10 15 frames and then she looks over there's something to me where it's almost like the hitting of the glass makes her turn over And I know she is she had to wash her drink and then you know movements gets very spliny on purpose The thing about When you're drunk, is that you don't know you're drunk You try not to be so it's less Moving around and it's like you want to pretend that you're not drunk So it's like you're trying to keep the head of city as you can while the bottom part can be a bit more So Bigger moves like this a from a technical point of view also look a bit stiff because the whole thing is moving over But you could do something where she would be either here and then move forward Just like I had it in my in my tweak where you know, you also as you're having slightly too much a drink You might forget personal space and that's why she gets so close So I will play with that a little bit with the closeness between the two characters and then Keeping herself from from moving too much where it's again, it's almost like you're trying to keep this still while the rest Is kind of moving around it's kind of like the pivot is almost through there just from a from a mechanics acting One of you So right now We have this as the big moment Which again, it's to me is a bit too twin that I think we can make this potentially a bit more interesting Like this could be something where Again, these are very destructive notes But I always like to throw out some crazy ideas just so that you know, you can throw them away Incorporate some things but if she is like this That might be in your set something where now she puts the glass down And now it's less acting with this But it's when she talks she might lean forward like the way I had it And she gets so tired that after this She maybe plops her head on him Right hair falls down Like that arms down and she continues that dialogue resting on him After had a lot of fun Had a lot of fun So after she says that you know, she's already going She might be again, this will be in a different composition where again, he's a bit more He's bigger in frame taking up a bit more and then she could fall and rest her head on him Like to me, it's like she has too much to drink. What could you do now with this situation? To push some of the acting choices and make things just a bit more interesting a bit more original Which I know it's a super lazy critique in terms of making more original, but That's that's my thought in here where it feels just a bit They're walking or she's walking And then has a big twin gesture and then that's it and I'm wondering Like what is the what is a special moment that you could put in potentially Where the pose could be maybe something like this You know, she's kind of leaning and you can do the rest of this and and again that pose and maybe that's when When he has kind of like that. Oh, what's what's going on here? Maybe, you know, it's more about what we hear and that's pushed face Well, he has that kind of like what is going on here? And then you can show off some neat interaction You know between them like with the shoulder and the plop and all that stuff and that to me that sounds a bit more Potentially interesting. I know it's a bit of a pain to add all that stuff But I think it will it will get her out of that kind of box where you can really push this with With a different kind of pose that you can almost hold on to it or again Like the face just squished against his face. I know that's just me, but um, that's what I have Take it or whatever you want to want to use from from that as always totally up to you And let me know what you think we can always chat and emails in terms of how you want to move forward. All right. Thanks All right, there's an email you can sign up you can start whenever you want You can submit whatever you want you get 16 submissions either way a like and subscribe would be awesome. All right. Thank you


Nine internet tools to acquire more e-commerce customers in 2021. Now this is part one of two. Look, if your websites only as good as you make it, why not make it the best? Now you could go ahead and search on Google and try to find random internet tools. But in this video, I'm gonna show you the nine best ones so that you can acquire a whole lot more business and do it real fast. If you haven't subscribed already, please do so. Hit that subscribe button below. Don't forget to ring the bell. Turn on all bell notifications so you're notified each and every time I go live. Now in this video, by the time we're done with this video, you're gonna have the nine best tools to help you in e-commerce and get more customers and more sales. Okay, let's just get started and let's hit number one. But don't forget at the end of this video, I have a $97 course that's absolutely free and I'll tell you how to get it. Number one is Assess-a-B. Assess-a-B, let's check this out right now and see what it does. In 1999, the World Wide Web Consortium published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The goal, establish the framework to make the internet broadly accessible, especially for people with disabilities. Today, a paltry 2% of websites meet this requirement. That's according to Assess-a-B 2020 report that scanned tens of millions of pages. Given that about one in four Americans experienced some form of disability, it's clear these numbers are way off kilter. Any website that doesn't meet the WCAG guidelines is potentially losing 25% of their audience. Now, why Assess-a-B? Assess-a-B helps create web access for people with various disabilities. For example, epilepsy patients can prevent videos from playing automatically and turn off flashing graphics. People with color blindness or impaired vision can adjust contrast and saturation for better visibility and, more generally, screen reader and keyboard navigation capability. In short, Assess-a-B creates a full solution so that you can achieve WCAG ADA compliance with your website. They meet that goal in a few ways. The first thing they do is an ongoing audit and remediation perform every 24 hours. This is especially important for online stores with constant updates and new content. Updating compliance requirements on the platform so you automatically comply with the latest laws and regulations. Now, Assess-a-B uses AI-driven technologies to analyze your sites and find out where the holes are for accessibility. On their site, they even offer a free tool so you can analyze your site and find out where the problems are.  Verify it first. Consider everything that goes into making web forms accessible. For example, do your current forms use plain language? Clearly label form fields. Include descriptive text alternatives for images. Avoid flashy, difficult-to-read fonts. If you say no to any of these, a person with a disability may have trouble buying from you. And some statistics suggest that traditional tools only discover about 30% of WCAG issues. Assess-a-B identifies areas of weakness and you don't have to. With content reading, image recognition, and other tools, it finds areas to improve accessibility. This helps e-commerce sites, especially those with specific niches and customers who need universal web access. Now, here's something else you may not realize. If you are not compliant, it opens you up to lawsuits. If you're not compliant with what is required, you could be sued. So why not get your site in order and prevent lawsuits? And I know you may think that your website's fine, but it's been proven that 98% of the sites on the internet have some violations. Number two is shoelace. Shoelace is awesome. It helps you navigate ads and helps you with those ads. Let's check it out right now. Okay, we're here at shoelace. Think of shoelace as a way to implement customer journey marketing through automation. You'll integrate shoelace with your e-commerce store. Shoelace will build a custom model for your customer journey, and you'll do the final approval. So what does that exactly mean? Well, shoelace attracts and trains top media buying talent. Their goal is creating compelling ads and delivering them at the precise moment your customers are most likely to buy from you. So what they're gonna do is plot a new customer journey. For the merchant, that means a complicated idea like customer journey isn't a headache. It's one less thing to worry about. Here are some key features of shoelace. Shoelace works with 400 plus merchants using thousands of data points across multiple industries. They have a user-friendly app that can integrate with existing Shopify apps. They offer custom and transparent reporting on pricing with shoelace, never taking a percentage of ad spend. They have user-friendly features and clear reporting available on a dashboard in the app. The next one I wanna tell you about is review.app. Now this is a really cool one. Let's run over there and check it out. Okay, so here we are. Review is an automated platform that finds, collects, and provides user-generated reviews for e-commerce stores. The things it offers is one click, install on Shopify. Once installed, review automatically sorts through the product review videos on YouTube. Review places video widgets at the point of a shopping decision increasing shopper engagement. It includes automated video sharing via Facebook and improved social media. It includes automated video sharing via Facebook to improve social traffic. Once installed, you'll have access to real-time reports and A-B testing. Now there's no doubt it's handy, but you can essentially outsource an entire video review campaign to reviews automated features. Now why videos? Well, review takes advantage of that critical crossroads in every customer's journey. The point of purchase, by delivering visual and social proof of concept, it increases the potential for conversion. Consider that 73% more visitors who watch product videos will purchase according to HubSpot. By automating the collection and distribution of those videos from genuine users, review enhances your product's credibility. Shoppers that are shopping e-commerce store admit to using videos 55% of the time. And of that, half of them say they purchase because of the videos they watch. Number four is Boosted by LightRx. Let's check it out. Let's go over there right now. Okay, we established that videos are important. We've already talked about that, but what happens when you need to create your own? Boosted by LightRx is a tool that simplifies the process down to its bare essence by using video templates for branded videos. You can hit the right tone for your shop, even with minimal video editing experience. The web app is extremely intuitive to use for creating short promotional clips quickly as are the versions for iOS and Android. Boosted is also ideal for sharing. Features like automatic resizing, help you hit the requirements of different digital platforms. You can also access the video library of stock footage, which makes it easy to craft videos with a shoestring budget. Now, like I said earlier, review app is great if you don't have any of your own videos to share at the point of purchase, but there's also value in producing your own. Video marketing isn't only effective. It's a great fit for today's e-commerce buyer. It's so effective that 66% of customers prefer watching a video to reading about a product. The next thing I wanna talk to you about is opt-in monster. Let's go over and check out opt-in monster. Now, here's opt-in monster right here. It's a sign-up form builder. It's simple and easy to use. It includes templates and drag-and-drop building to minimize development work. Any e-commerce store that's gone beyond the testing phase knows how important it is to build quality forms. These forms are especially important if you use them to capture emails and build a customer list. The science of gathering emails. Why focus on your forms? Simply put, you need emails if you want conversion. High-quality web forms are the fastest way for you to get there. Newsletters create some of the highest engagement rates in any type of digital marketing, including generating 40 times more customers than social media. And you thought social media was the thing. And according to campaign monitor, you're six times more likely to get a click-through rate from an email campaign than you are a tweet. Now, here's the thing, guys. I know when you're starting off and you're on a budget and you're thinking, gee, I just can't spend any more money on any more software or any more programs or whatever. What I've done in this video is I've broken down all of these components for you to help you make more money. Now, I couldn't fit all of them into this first video, but I will tell you, a lot of times, when you think you're saving money, you're like, I don't wanna spend another $100, $200 a month on stuff because if I do, I can't make any money. But if you don't, you won't make any money. That's the problem. A lot of people will start a site, they'll start a business, e-commerce store, and they just don't really invest in it. And if you don't invest in it, if you don't get some of these softwares, you don't get some of these automations, not only will it speed up your business, but if you don't get it, it's gonna leave you behind because there's other companies out there that are already using these things. They're gonna jump so far ahead of you, you're never gonna be able to get anywhere. So here's what I would suggest. As I go through all nine of these and video two, I'm gonna go through the rest of them. But as I go through all these, think of one or two that you would like to implement. Once you implement one or two of these and you get your sales up, go back to this video again, find another one of the tools that you'd like to implement and then add that one. You can do this in a gradual process. I think a lot of times people watch this and go, oh my gosh, I've gotta do all nine of those right now. And you don't, it's not like that. But you do have to do something, okay? That's the whole key, you gotta do something. If you're not constantly improving your site and adding things to your site, I know I'm working on my site now and it's taken months, I hate to admit. But there's improvements I need to do on there and I've gotta make time for it. And you've gotta make time for it too.  So I encourage you to go through this list again, okay? And pick one or two that's gonna work for you. I also encourage you to subscribe to my channel. Get that subscribe button down there. Don't forget to ring the bell, turn on all bell notifications so you're notified each and every time I do one of these videos. Also, I do have that course I told you about. If you look down in the description, you'll see a link to a $97 course. You can get absolutely free. So I would suggest you checking that out. Now, what you wanna do at this point, give me a thumbs up if you would, if you enjoyed this video. If you have any comments about this, maybe you've tried some tools that have worked for you and you'd like to share it with the rest of us. Maybe you've tried some tools that didn't work and you'd like to share that with us. Put that in the comments below. If you have any questions whatsoever about starting running and growing an online business, put that in the comments section. Now, here's what you wanna do. Look in the description for the link to video two in the series, click on that link and continue through to the next part. Hope you enjoy this video and I'll see you in the next one. Hey, thanks for watching my video. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and click that little bell right here and you can be notified every time I do a new video. Also, click on one of those videos there. Keep watching on my channel.


مرحباً في هذا الزيارة of Arbaid أحمد مقدس أردبيلي who is buried in the shrine of Amir al-Mu'mineen قال that I took my students We visit Karbala every Thursday Every other Thursday But I took my students on the day of Arbaid To visit Sayyid al-Shraida and Abu al-Fadir al-Abbas and the other martyrs And I realized that there are people here today in the shrine that have never seen Sayyid al-Shraida's shrine before Or there are people that have come from very far distances We came just from Najaf There were so many people there He says I took my, there were about 10, 50, 20 of us The students I took my people and I said we won't go into the shrine Because there are people here that have, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity So why should we trouble them and make it more busy We'll stand outside We'll do a visit and we'll go back And we come here every Thursday There was a person as they were traveling from Najaf to Karbala One of the students of Sheikh Ahmed al-Muqaddas That would recite the tragedies of Ahl al-Bait A.S. on each step So each night they would stop And this person would recite a small Majlis When it came to reciting The visit of Arbaid of Imam Hussein A.S. Sheikh Muqaddas says where is that person So he can recite this visit for us He looked around and he said we don't know Maybe he's entered into the Darihan He's doing the visit and he's gone somewhere Sheikh Muqaddas says I looked up Just about to see what can we do When a young Sayyid comes towards me And he says you want me to recite the visit I said if you can say it So just say it He says we will turn towards the Sayyid Towards the shrine of Imam Hussein A.S. And the Sayyid recites the visit of Arbaid All of us cried and I saw there was tears In the eyes of the Sayyid as well As I was wiping my tears All of the students were there during the visit And we looked up and the Sayyid had gone Sheikh Ahmed Muqaddas is that person Who so many different times in his life Was able to meet Sahib al-Assli Was zaman and he recognized that That was the Imam Some people they met They couldn't recognize Some were able to recognize While they were meeting One of those was Sheikh Muqaddas of the be After he finishes that visit And that Sayyid goes He looks around and he says Did you just see He said what Even Sahib al-Assar wishes to recite The visit of Arbaid And he recited the tragedy The Masa'ib And the Masa'ib of Hussein and Calbana On the day of the 40th This is a practice That is upheld By Imam Al-Assar God bless you اتزاين لي يا حسين All the looks won't affect me给我 حسين If you took one look at me Many they came to ask For what people ask And I asking you for nothing I came to give my hand And to kiss Your sand and to tell You thank you my king لفاكة يا هنزين up to you we came بين الحرنين calling out your name لفاكة يا هنزين up to you we came بين الحرنين calling out your name يا هنزين


When I first got into the course many years ago, I was going through a process of just trusting if student loans to pay off. It was like, Jesus guided me to a particular job as a job coach. And I have a number of different clients that were about 17, 18 years old. And I remember one client, I was teaching him, I was like doing a job coach job, working with the course at night and before I go to work and then doing my lesson. And I remember going in progressively to work with this 18 year old young man and I would work with him and I was training him to bus tables and carry the trays, you know, in the silverware and take it back and empty the garbage and so on and so forth. And he kind of got, it seemed in my perception at one point it started to get kind of like a Jack Nicholson movie. I was kind of like the shining or something. I was like, holy Jesus, what is going on here? But of course when you're working with the course you've got to be ready to expect that your unconscious guilt can come up in many ways. And even though I was raised Christian, I wasn't going around telling people cast out demons and so on and so forth. It just wasn't in my vernacular, my language. And so I remember working with him on a series of events and then finally one evening I was working with him and it happened to coincidentally be Friday the 13th. And I was like, okay, I don't really believe in this stuff. I mean I don't go to like the movies and put a lot of all this stuff. But I was there with him and I remember that night when I was getting ready to start with him I was just kind of sitting there prayerfully before we started and he came up to me and he had this kind of weird thing going in his eyes, like some of the special effects in the movies. A real weird thing. And I was having a sitting across from him and looking at this 18 year old young man and he was like, just kind of had a kind of funny little smirky smile on this and this. And then as we went on and continued on that night his voice dropped like three octaves or something. Deep voice. And it was a little spooky and with the eye thing going there too. And then I had to help him on a number of tasks and one of them was I was carrying the trays, busing. And at one point he was coming the other direction and I felt this foot come out to like trick me. And I thought, hmm, it's going to be interesting night Friday the 13th here.  It was probably weighed a couple hundred, two hundred, three hundred pounds. This all was big green garbage. We had to go down these very narrow steps to the garbage dump and it was very slippery and slick and it was very narrow.  And I was like facing some fear. Yes, fear was starting to come up. Even though I had to pray before the night to give over the thoughts and everything. So anyway, I got through the night and at one point at the end it kind of got really interesting where I just kept praying and looking at him and just asking Jesus to be very helpful through me and how I could extend love and everything. And he came to me and he looked at me and he had kind of an eroding kind of voice that seemed to come through and he said, just who do you think you are? The voice said. And I said, I'm David Hofmeister and the voice said and proud of it. And I was like, okay, I got some good dismantling going on here about the personality concept and eventually they actually got the paramedics to come and take it away because the people that worked there were so spooked that they just called the paramedics and I did see them later on in a school of context and we had a beautiful, holy encounter with the beautiful. But when I got home that night I actually opened the course up and I read some things from the course on trust and fear, facing fear and so forth. And I did ask the Holy Spirit. And Jesus I said, I said, what exactly was going on tonight? Can you give me a little bit more insight under this encounter with what seemed to be a demonic possession, I guess for lack of better word? And Jesus said, yes. He said, I'm showing you the map of your own heart which I would take to mean what we're talking about, unconscious guilt. This is still some guilt that you're holding on to and this was just acted out. He was saying it's not like it's really an external demon out there that has to be cast out or dealt with. It's just that as long as you hold on to this unconscious guilt that you really have to go through a purification, a mind training program and that's exactly why you're taking the course. And it was pretty early on in my use of the course and it actually really, to really say, okay, I really have to be sincere about this because I have no idea what's coming in my lifetime. And it kind of threw me for a loop. But it's actually just a purification of that guilt. By the way you mentioned Jack Nicholson. I'll tell you my favorite Jack Nicholson line from Terms of Endearment. He had to do, maybe going out with Shirley McElanne again in the movie and he said, I'd rather stick needles in my eyes. Very graphic. Thank you. I was training for the Charloyan Center so you have a different method of looking at things and of course nothing's really there but it's a totally different concept for me to look at it in that way because we see it in a different way because what we see is not really there. Thank you. I just want to add that there's a section in the teacher's manner of the course. The question is our psychic power is desirable. And the course talks about how maybe it's not true but at the same time as you undo the ego sometimes these kinds of abilities including being in the prayer of wanting to just develop naturally because you're becoming more natural as the course puts it. The reason that psychic powers are possible is because every mind is joined because there's really just one mind. There's really just one of us. So even in the illusion each mind is linked to the other. You can never really lose that communication at the level of the mind. So you have an erratic experience or something. People go to the other side and see all these relatives who have passed away before that. That's because that's never broken. The minds are always joined. And some people have an ability to just connect with these seemingly separate minds. Not that we can ever really be separate but it looks that way in the sun shape. And that's why whether it's the idea of being a psychic or the idea of being a medium usually a medium is communicating with people who have passed on. In either case the reason it's possible is because of the fact that each mind is joined because there's really just one of us. And you can become your own psychic too. Because I do these hay house conferences, right? And the longest line that you see at these conferences are people lined up to talk to a psychic or to get their cards read or something like that. And that's fine. The only problem is two months later you have another question and you have to go see a psychic again. It would be possible for you to have the Holy Spirit speak to you so clearly in the form of ideas that can enter your mind that all you have to do is listen to the Holy Spirit and you would have an endless supply. You'd have like an endless and bottomless well that you could go to and always have the answer as to what you should do and where you should go. So that's why the focus of the work is really on getting more and more in touch with the Holy Spirit so that you can get the answers from the Holy Spirit directly.