Welcome everybody to our weekly Firefly community call. I'm excited to welcome Jim Zhang this week to talk about plans for integrating fabric into Firefly and how that will work together. And there's a little bit of code that's been written on that. And so, yeah, happy for Jim to share for the first part of today's community call. And then like we've been doing in the past, we'll open it up in the second half for questions, comments, discussion, either on fabric or on any other topic related to Firefly that people would like to discuss. So welcome. Thank you for being here and I will hand it over to Jim. Thanks, Nico. All right. Hi everybody. This is Jim. So today's topic is how to make a connector so that fabric-based blockchains can work with Firefly. As you know, Firefly historically started with the support for Ethereum. And of course, we always had fabric in the on the horizon. And this is when we're kicking off that effort. So in the past few weeks, on and off, I've been thinking about what it takes to build a quality connector that will serve the purpose of Firefly. And this is really built on top of the framework that one of my co-founder for Colorado, Peter Broadhurst, has created for Ethereum side. Even Ethereum fabric are very different kind of chains. The majority of the work that Peter did for Ethereum, and he was getting help from one of our protocol engineering leads, Vinod Damali. So both of them have created this awesome piece of work that's inside the Firefly-EathConnect repository. And a lot of this can be borrowed over to support fabric. So today's session is sort of half reviewing the framework that was done there, and then half how to plug in the fabric support. So let's get started. So we have three diagrams here. The first one is sort of high-level overview of the key components. And sort of just introduced the idea of a connector. What is a connector? Why do we need one? And what does it do? So if you had written any programs against fabric, you probably have come across one of the SDKs. So there's no GS-based SDK. There's Go SDK, and there's even the Java SDK. They're awesome. So they allow you to package up application data into transactions, send them to peers, and then send them to orderers so they can get mined into a block. That's great, but it's also a very programming-heavy kind of experience for a developer that just want to talk to a fabric network so their business data can get into a block. It's kind of a very large threshold of learning that you have to go through to even know what you're doing, beyond spending a lot of time understanding the fabric design itself. More often than not, when an enterprise developer approaches an enterprise application, in this case, a blockchain-based enterprise application, when they think of back-end, they think of APIs, right? But now we're saying, well, you have to learn this SDK. You have to learn all these calls that you need to make to different pieces of a fabric network to do your stuff. So what if we give them, instead, a RESTful API with clear endpoints and JSON payloads? So they can do all that much more easily. So that's what this is for, is first and foremost, a REST API that stands in front of a fabric network.  So your applications can talk to fabric through REST. But it's much more than just a REST server, because with Enterprise comes a lot of additional requirements in terms of key management, delivery of messages, and fault tolerance when some of the components may go offline, especially in the modern cloud-based deployment. So we need some guarantee of messages not getting lost. If, say, your node is going offline, you don't want your application to have to compensate for that and then re-send it. Instead, we want all the messages to be caught into a queue. So they will stay in the queue, and then they will be drip-fed into the node on the other side. So even if the node, for whatever reason, goes away before it comes back, all the transactions can continue to be submitted into the system, and they will just stay on the queue and waiting to be submitted to the blockchain. So, and then you also want to, since this is now sort of a async experience, you want to provide a storage of receipts, basically saving the transaction result so that they can be queried asynchronously. So that's what this diagram is trying to show. On the left-hand side, we have sort of high-level API capabilities. We've got to be able to manage identities, so users can call a post on the identities to create signing identities so that under the cover, we generate the client MSP crypto materials, get those to be registered and enrolled with Fabric CA so that they can be used later on to submit transactions. So that's the first piece. And second is we want at least two kinds of transaction submission. The obvious ones is I just want request response. My application doesn't really have a lot of transactions going through every day, so I'm okay just sending one at a time, wait for the whole thing to be completed, and then I get on the response the execution results. So that's just request and wait for response. So that's sort of the synchronous API that we've got to provide. But if your application is going to have many more transactions on a single second to be submitted and you want to submit those and then wait for the result, you don't want to be held, you don't want the thread to be held open, so you want a asynchronous experience. So we want to just acknowledge the submission and then track the completion of the transaction asynchronously and then store the result in some sort of database so that they can be queried. So the application will send and get the acknowledging the response that is being successfully sent and taken by this connector. And then it will sort of just keep holding on the result for that particular transaction by some sort of ID that we generate for them. So now we will have both sync synchronous and asynchronous kind of transaction submissions for different kinds of use case scenarios. And finally, we have to provide some sort of event streaming. This is very useful in several use cases. I know Fabric supports CouchDB based state store, which provides excellent query capability. But querying on the state database itself directly can be less efficient because the state has absolutely everything that the node catches. So query performance may be hindered if all you need is one piece of information, but you have to sort through thousands of other pieces that are happening in channels not related to you. And also, given the design of the schema that's catering to the Fabric internals, querying against this kind of database directly may not be as sufficient. So what you want to do is you want to build an offline transaction, excuse me, offline transaction cache that has just the transactions that your application are interested in. Based on the events that the Fabric node sends out when the transactions are mining to block. So you want a stream of events coming out of the pipe leading from the Fabric node, going into a sync and then you can take that and store it in your own database. That's dedicated to your application and you can query, you can set up a schema according to the application's needs and that will be the most favorable way to cache transaction results. So it'll be very useful for this connector to provide event streaming and not just catching the latest blocks, but you can tell this event streaming management, I want to start from block 0 or I want to start from block 1,000 or 10,000, whatever. And then going from that block on, give me all the events that are related to, by a regular expression kind of pattern, by name, whatever, right? So that's the kind of event streaming capabilities that we're looking for here. And then finally, in terms of delivering that to the client, we want both a WebSocket-based streaming channels, but maybe for certain scenarios, a WebHulk-based delivery of events might be useful. Maybe the client is deploying the zone that because of the networking conditions, WebSocket kind of long-living connections may not be optimal. A WebHulk-based endpoints, delivery events might be necessary there. So we want to kind of provide both. So I've covered sort of the high-level things. Now Kafka is going to be the queue that's going to be used to implement this queue so that for the async kind of submissions, we want all the messages to be sent to a Kafka queue. We want to use one, at least one topic. It turns out that we should have at least two topics that we'll cover in one of the next diagrams. But a Kafka topic on the per node basis, should be created. And then based on how many channels you may have, we can have different partitions dedicated to different channels. Because Kafka only guarantees a sequence or ordering on the partition basis. So we should use a partition to be paired with a channel. So all the transaction submissions, when they get submitted to the nodes, they don't go out of order. So that's sort of the high-level overview of the current thinking. Are there any questions from the audience at this point? I actually have a quick question, Jim. Sure. So you start off saying you're sharing a lot of similarities and at least thinking and design from Firefly Youth Connect with Firefly Youth Connect, it is possible to run with or without Kafka? Yes. In this design, does Firefly Connect, is it a requirement or is there another mode you can run in without Kafka as well? Yeah, that's a great question. So that's sort of a segue into our next diagram. Cool. So there are, unless there are other questions on the previous diagram or just continue here. Sounds like no. Okay. So there are three ways for a transaction to go through the system and each sort of life cycle requires its own components. So to directly answer your question, no, Kafka is not absolutely required. You can configure the system to only do synchronous, only do asynchronous or do both synchronous and asynchronous. And on the asynchronous side, we have also two kinds of asynchronous tracking of a transaction life cycle. We call it direct handler or Kafka based handler. We'll talk about the details, you know, why they're different. Why do we need both? But let's go through the synchronous life cycle and see what are the pieces we need to build to support that. So as a reminder, synchronous life cycle is as an application, I'm sending a transaction, you know, with a JSON payload to this endpoint, specifying my chain code, my parameters and my channel. And then I'm just going to wait so that when the response finally comes back, I expect to see the transaction results. After the transaction has been mined into a block. So to support this kind of life cycle, we want to build a synchronous dispatcher. So correspondingly, there should be a asynchronous dispatcher. So synchronous dispatcher will, you know, directly call this sort of the heart of the connector. We call it transaction processor. So it's able to translate a JSON payload and then understand what you're trying to do. What's the channel, what's the chain code method and what are the parameters and then package that into a payload that fabric nodes will understand. And then go through the SDK to submit that into the network. By the way, I haven't mentioned that we plan to use GoLan as a programming language to implement this. And because of that, we're going to build on top of the work that, you know, wrong, yeah, I think it's wrong. So this transaction processor will take the message and then change it into a transaction object and then submit that into the client and call execute method on the client. So that will submit the transaction into the client and then send that into the client. So that will submit the transaction into a fabric network, you know, first contacting the peers and then collecting all the endorsement and send it to the orderer, eventually getting the event to signal that the transaction has been mined into a block. So this transaction tracking will package the reply and then send it back to the dispatcher and then the response handler will give the response back to the client. So that's sort of the simplest way to have a request-response-based transaction lifecycle. So now let's talk about the async lifecycle now. So on submission, we want to immediately acknowledge, okay, we've got your message. You intend to invoke some transaction. We can do that for you and acknowledge back. Here's the ID you can use to keep track of this transaction to see where it's at on this journey to the blockchain and back. So a unique ID will be generated to the client in the response acknowledgement. So that this will represent this unique message throughout the journey. And next, we want something that will be responsible for keeping track of the whole lifecycle of this transaction. So first we'll talk about a direct handler. What we call a direct handler is basically an in-memory queue of transactions that are basically in-flight. So we'll use code routines each dedicated to a message or a transaction to track it all the way through. So we will maintain a in-memory in-flight transaction list. And you can tune, based on some tuning parameters, how many you'd like to be in-flight, based on your expected transaction load, you can dial it up or down. And based on how big your peer node is, what's the likely submission rate onto the node you can support. You can configure the number of transactions that should be in-flight. And then this will then, again, go through the transaction processor and then send it to the chain and listen for events. So all that is still the same. And finally, when a transaction is tracked to be confirmed and event is now fired, it'll go back to the transaction handler and say, okay, I've got the result and let's save it in the receipt store. So it'll be available for query. So that's all in-memory. Obviously, it's got no fault tolerance if the connector node goes away. In the cloud era, we always need to design off software to be as much fault tolerant as possible. So we want to also have a Kafka-based option. Obviously, this will be more expensive to configure, to deploy, and to operate, but it has to be there for the enterprise kind of usages. So what this is, is it's going to be a queue that'll cache all the transactions. And then on the other hand, the consumers will take them off of the queue, submit it to the transaction processor, again go through that lifecycle tracking. And eventually when it comes back, the event will also be threw back onto the queue into a different topic. So this is sort of the two topics per node thing we're talking about earlier. And then it'll be again picked off of that queue by a consumer and then process it and save it into the receipt store for query later. And the Kafka-based handler has a bit more details here. So we want two topics, one topic, one Kafka topic responsible for handling all the requests. So that's on the way in. This is all the requests that are taken from the submission. And then the consumer of this topic will then submit those to the transaction processors, which summits to the peer. And when eventually the event is emitted by the peer, we want to put the event onto a different topic. We call it receipts. And the consumer of that receipt will then process it and then saves it in the receipt store, which makes it available for query. So that's sort of the other details for the transaction lifecycle tracking. The last topic is event stream before we dive into that, like to pause here and see if there's any questions. Yeah. Jan Rock had a great question. What is the reason to prefer REST instead of GRPC part above streaming API security speed all solved already with GRPC? The streaming of GRPC? Sorry, I am. So I think the question is, why did we go with REST as the front door instead of GRPC? Yeah. I understand GRPC is more efficient, given its binary payload and is faster and also has full duplex kind of connections. But I think REST is just sort of the expected norm for application development. It's very likely when you talk to an enterprise solution developer, application developer, they would expect to REST more than GRPC. It's just much easier to use REST plus JSON rather than REST plus GRPC. But on the other hand, with certain systems, maybe GRPC, only GRPC can give you the kind of performance you expect. So we definitely welcome the community to contribute additional support for GRPC. I think that totally makes sense. So there is other input from... Just conscious, there was a second part of that was this idea that GRPC already handles the streaming. I think it's worth noting that Kafka in this architecture isn't being used for streaming as such. It's being used as a reliable, fault tolerant, persistent buffer. So the application can sort of say set and be done. And it will reliably become set. It's not just put it into a GRPC buffer and if it falls over, it has to recover, it has to use its own state to work out where it's gone. It's got it as far as Kafka, at least once delivery, means it's going to get into the GRCC buffer of fabric. So the intention here is taking away all of the significant complexity that having a GRPC buffer on the other end of something places on an application developer. It's not taking that complexity away. It's not about saying it's not valuable. It's valuable. It's just this kind of app. Basically, everyone has to build this. You want to do reliable streaming of transactions in the fabric. You need one of these. We know projects that are built here on fabric, Jim, don't we? So it's just, again, it's about just saying you don't need to build this, take it away from the application and develop a habit of worrying about this. And they just say, here's a JSON input of my transaction inputs. Get the signatures you need. Make it so. Yeah. Thanks for that additional input, Peter. So that's Peter Broders himself there. And I guess, just spending another minute on the possible relay question to Kafka. Why do we even need Kafka if fabric itself is a fault tolerant kind of design already? Well, this is mainly accounting for ingestion rate. So fabric is super fast, right? It can get up to a thousand per second, but you can totally have a system that can still overrun fabric even in that scenario. And I think Kafka is great for that, you know, can easily catch a million transactions per second. Plus it's also a enterprise friendly kind of components. A lot of enterprises have like direct hooks into Kafka to do that. And the other aspect with this is at least as of now, 2.3, you would have to contact, you know, a whole bunch of fabric nodes first, collect the information, and then submit the result to the fabric order. So there are many steps involved for the transaction to finally get into fabric. So all that is now taking care of behind the Kafka consumer. So the applications don't have to manage that. So I understand 2.4 is expected to have the submitting peer. So that's complexity sort of is taken care of, but still because of the fault tolerant and, you know, the rate of submission requirements, Kafka is going to be very valuable for a lot of scenarios. Thank you, Jim, Peter, just be mindful of time. We're about 30 minutes into the call. So and thank you to Jam for the great question and for volunteering to get involved to integrate GRPC. So I guess we didn't get to talk about event stream. We can, you know, do a few minutes in the next call, or, you know, we can engage through rocket chat. If you've gotten just a few more minutes, I think we can finish the topic here. We've kind of, we've led into the Q&A there. Sure. Thanks, Nicole. Okay. So the last bit of the architecture here is the event stream. This is very different than just listening, subscribing to events after you submitted a transaction. This is about maybe the chain has already gone through a million blocks and I'm a late joiner into the network. And I'd like to be replayed of all the events that has happened up to now. So, you know, I can build my application logic. And so I don't miss any of the significant historical events. So that's one scenario. You know, I'd like to be given all the other events that has happened in past plus listening to ongoing events. So that's one scenario. The other is again, what I mentioned, I like to hook sort of a pipe leading out of the fabric node into my own database so I can build my own query schema to serve my application's needs. So what we need to do here is first of all, we need a subscription manager. We need to ask the client what kind of events are you interested in. Is it all events, block events, transaction events or transaction events named in certain patterns. So I can create a subscription so that whenever any events that's matching this pattern come through, I'd like to be notified and I want to see the details of the event. And in terms of getting delivered the event details, I want to have the option of creating a long lived WebSocket connection or I can host a secure WebHook endpoint. So you can just send those to the WebHook by posting to this endpoint. So we have an event stream manager that'll allow the client to create these event streams that will be tied to one or more event subscriptions. And each event stream, when it kicked off, will pull from the blockchain, either from the latest blog or from the block zero or from certain block that you specify and replay all the events since then. Whenever each event is delivered, it'll look through the manager and see which client are interested in this event based on the subscription, find a configured way to deliver the event to that particular client and then send it there. So that's basically what the event stream capability does here. So I think that's all I had prepared in terms of the architecture. So now let's see if the audience has any questions. Cool, thank you, Kim. Yeah, we opened it up for discussion and questions, either on fabric or anything. Anything far fly up today. Okay, I'm going to take the screen share off for now. So I can see if people are raising their hands. Not everybody all at once here. Oh, sorry, a correction. I just remember it was alluding me, it was Troy, Troy Ronda from Secure Key. He's the creator of the SDK. Sorry, Troy, for some reason, I just couldn't remember the first name. BJ says, Jim, thanks for the insights. Is it possible to walk through an exception scenario? Ah, great question. Great question. Let me go back to the screen. All right. Okay, so I guess there are two kinds of except, well, at least two, maybe there are more. One is on submission for whatever reason, maybe the, this particular connector is being overrun or is having that working issue. You know, submission failed, right? So straightforward. The response says, sorry, I didn't take your transaction. Try again. More tricky is when something went wrong along the journey after it's been submitted. Let's say the, the fabric node itself is, is beyond reach at the moment. So that this, this execute call failed, right? So the transaction processor will have, you know, the goal routine that's fired off to, to keep track of that particular transaction will have retry logic. So that if it's a either four, four, five or three, that shows that the endpoint is not available at the point, at the moment, it'll just retry. So there's going to be some exponential backup kind of logic to, to make sure everybody don't retry all at once. And then it can also fail because the transaction itself is, is invalid. But that's, that doesn't really change the, the flow at all. So the transaction will still come through. And there's a event of the transaction fading and it'll be recorded in the receipt store as a failed transaction. So the application will query for that. So instead of seeing a successful transaction, we'll see a failed transaction and fabric is great in telling exactly how it failed. I think it's got like 30 or 40 different status code that tells you why the transaction failed and the application can, can take care of that by inspecting the error code. So I think that may well be all the exception scenarios. I don't know if VJ you had something more in mind. Sounds like that was, that was okay there. So I guess again, all questions really to far flies is very game here doesn't have to be fabric specific. Okay. Young has another question. When a task backlog will be created and where? How can I? Oh, ah. Okay. Good question. If you want to contribute. We're still in the early days of coding things up. I'm hoping the first code drop will happen in the next couple of days. So what I'm doing right now is just sort of setting up the basic skeleton of these components. So you can have a overview of all the pieces that are involved and how they relate to each other. And then over time we're filling the implementation. So that's where I am. I'm hoping to be able to drop the first commit soon and then I'll start creating a backlog of, you know, this piece needs to be implemented. That piece needs to be implemented. Hopefully soon. And. Yeah. I'm hoping to be able to do that. I'm hoping to be able to do that. I'm hoping to be able to do that. I'm hoping that GitHub issues will be the place to find all of those. We're trying to use GitHub as much as we can. Some of the projects that have been up there for a little bit longer have. A healthy backlog going out. But obviously this one is brand new. So it will take a little bit of time to fill that out. But that's, that's where they will be. And that's our goal to. Kind of document the. Both of the things we know we need to do or. We need to do that. And then we'll get into. The projects going as well. Yeah. And if you are really. Looking forward to starting this, I think the identity. The submitting identity. The sunny identity. Sorry. Peace might be a independent enough. Peace in all of this. So basically what we want is. component that can generate, can generate certificates, generate the client, a common connection profile, so that we can bootstrap a client MSP instance that then can be used to submit transactions. So the kind of APIs we need for that is post to identities, giving it a username, and then it'll call register and enroll with Fabric CA, and then it'll generate a wallet basically on the file system that can be later on used to load in the signing keys. I feel like that's a pretty independent piece of work that can be started right away. So if you're interested, we can discuss more in Rocket Chat. Yeah, we're definitely super excited to have more people get involved in this. So if you're interested, let's keep up the conversation and happy to meet more offline to talk about specifics on some of these things. Yeah, I hope to hear your voice in a future call. Definitely very excited to have you interested and want to contribute here. Hope we can talk soon over Rocket. All right, so I guess if there are no other questions, we can get back 60 minutes. Yeah, David's back. Last call for questions, I haven't seen any more pop up. Should we consider adding a process for dead letter Q on the copper side or leave it to the developers to implement that? That's a question for the DJ. Peter, did you have any input to that? So I guess we're going to refer to the Ethereum side and that's probably done it and had many, many, many millions of transactions gone through through this infrastructure and production over the last three years, because that, and the approach there is that if there's a problem processing a transaction and submitting it, but this infrastructure doesn't stop the world. It says, look, I'm going to developer, you're going to say, please send this transaction and I'm going to give you an identifier, right? I'm going to give you a placeholder for submission of that. I'm going to give you that straight away and I promise eventually to either give you a yes I've sent that transaction event or I promise to give you a yes for that event. But I don't promise that if you've done something wrong, which is where you need the execute, right? Which is if you've done something wrong, I'm going to try to like stop the world to not process anything after that. So if you as a submitter of transactions to Fabric, if you have a requirement that this transaction must be mined before this transaction, otherwise, like I've broken my on-chain state if I try to submit transaction number two before transaction number one is submitted, then you need to wait for it to go all the way through and come back as an application developer. The system will attempt and to sort of do that a few processing that would not be done in messaging. It tries to appear in time, it tries the lots of error handling, et cetera. Still have all done for various and still on the plate for Fabric around. Well, okay, I need to, I don't know, I need to get, I've looked at the policy for this channel and I need five signatures to get, I need five signatures because there's 10 parties and I need 50%. So I'm going to try and find five parties and I'm going to try and get signatures. There should be in the configuration and probably lots of configuration, policies on like how long am I going to try for? What if nobody's available? What if I can only get to four? How long do I wait for the fifth? And it should be, but the policy isn't, I'm just going to wait there, right? Because maybe this channel is just broken at the moment. It can't, there's actually only full notes up. There's not five notes up. The system should reliably try to appear in time. It crashes, it will restart, it will come back to a sensible point. It'll deal with making sure it sort of guides it through. But if it really can't do it after, I don't know, some really long time, like two minutes trying and it's just like, there's no way I can get the signatures needed. The approach so far has been to say, why you'll get a failure. And then in the far flight core side, the transaction objects then gets updated as a failure. And there's also associated with the transaction objects, associated with like if you were trying to send a message or you're doing a token transfer or whatever, there's a concept of an operation, which is like this bit went wrong. I couldn't submit the on-chain transaction as part of the token transfer, but maybe I sent the data offline. That operation then would go into a failed state. And the idea is then as an operator, you'd see that it's in a failed state. And the UI has operations like this is TBD, but on the UI side, you'd see operations in a broken state and you'd be able to resubmit them there. So, sorry, that was a bit of a long, long description, but like the model is not stopped the world, which we need to have to use. The model is, I'm going to do my best. I'm going to do like not, but you could have written the thousand lines of reliably trying to get transactions into fabric code yourself, but here's a community that's written the best job that they can do for you with reliability, crash fault tolerance, all the like. If it can't do it still, there are other cases where you might still have to get others back in your application. Yep, thanks for being definitely the expert on enterprise queues and messaging here. So yeah, if you guys have any other questions or fantastic questions so far, we're always available on the rocket chat. I just pasted the link there. The channel is called fly dash lap. So I'll always welcome any questions from that. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for your questions. All right, nine minutes left. Any other questions? Good discussion today. This is a really exciting piece of work. And this component, just one last thing, this component, like once we've got two legs of the stool, like we caught us a little bit further behind, but I'm going to have a look at the quarter connect. There's a load of code there. There's my potential challenges to solve, but like we've got a theory and fabric at this layer. The intention then is that we can prove the layer on top and far fly, but isn't just like simple transactions and token transactions. It's any transaction by make just, you know, you can have custom transactions on top of the layer in the far fly cork and exists. And then there's been lots of questions since far fly. We started talking about it. TSE calls and the like of what about, what about my custom on chain logic? And we didn't want to declare success on that at the core layer just because we've got it at the theory layer because until you've proven something with two blockchain technologies, Jim's been making the point to me a lot. You can't prove an orchestration layer to work with Cosmodal protocols unless you've got two protocols. So I think this is really exciting. I'm really pleased to see the collaboration and the leadership here to just kind of get the fabric, the fabric leg of a stool on board. Yeah, absolutely. All right, you guys. Thanks so much for showing up today and hope to continue to engage with you guys on this piece of work through rocket chat, through email, whatever. And then on subsequent community calls, if you have questions, we'll be really happy to entertain. All right. Thank you, Jim. Thanks for the work you're doing on this. And thank you for presenting today. Really appreciate it. Thank you everybody for joining for this community call. I'm going to go ahead and stop the recording now and we'll wrap up. Thanks.


My name is Mimi Shippers. I am Professor of Sociology and Gender and Sexuality Studies and the Chair of the Department of Sociology at Tulane University. Today I'm here to talk about my book, Polly Emory, Monogamy and American Dreams, the stories we tell about Polly lives and the cultural production of inequality published by Raoul Lynch. My research focuses on gender, sexuality, race and culture. Throughout my career, I've always been interested in the ways in which people do things in their interactions or subcultural practices that offer alternatives to the status quo. I'm particularly interested in how social inequality is challenged, not just through collective social action or social movements, but also through our everyday practices, the way we form relationships and the way we build culture together. Most recently, I've researched and theorized Polly Emory as a relationship form that could potentially challenge gender and race hierarchies, class inequality, and how we experience sexual orientation. Polly Emory, for those of you who aren't familiar, refers to emotionally and sometimes sexually intimate relationships that include more than two people and all involved are aware of the situation, the relationships, relationship, and all consent to the arrangements. In the book that I'll call American Dreams because the title is so unwieldy, in the book American Dreams, I offer an invitation to readers to adopt a sociological lens to read media texts with something I call the Polly gaze. The Polly gaze is a way of looking closely at what media representations are implicitly or explicitly saying about intimate relationships and family life. Why do representations of intimate relationships and families matter? Sociologists are concerned with identifying how societies operate and how social processes shape our lives. From a sociological perspective, the stories we tell in news media, academic research, and popular culture reflect and often maintain collective beliefs about gender, race, class, sexuality, and citizenship. Queer and feminist theorists and researchers, for instance, are particularly interested in how stories we tell about families and intimate relationships are often moral narratives about what it means to be a good citizen and how to live a good and happy life. This research consistently shows that the majority of media narratives about families situate heterosexual monogamous coupling as the key to happy, moral, and fulfilling lives. Embedded in these narratives about the heteronormative monogamous couple are implicit or explicit messages about gender, race, class, sexuality, and citizenship. In American Dreams, I suggest that adopting a Polly gaze can help us better understand how the stories we tell about monogamy and monogamous coupling in particular are deeply embedded within American narratives about happiness, living a good life, and the rights of citizenship. So what is the Polly gaze? As I outline in the book, adopting the Polly gaze means first, looking closely at how intimate and familial relationships are represented in media and paying specific attention to what the text or imagery is saying about monogamy, non-monogamy, and their role in living a happy and moral life. Secondly, the second step is to parse what the narrative or imagery about monogamy or non-monogamy is saying about who deserves to be happy, who deserves to be respected and admired, and who deserves the rights of citizenship. What I've found in my research on media representations of monogamy and non-monogamy is that many of the different kinds of texts, many different kinds of texts, including film and television, journalistic accounts of polygamy, historical biographies, and even social science research on campus hookup culture, implicitly or explicitly assume and therefore perpetuate the idea that monogamous coupling is the very definition. And it's the only path for living a good and moral life. And importantly, often these narratives are also very much about appropriate gender relations, which races, ethnicities and religious groups are deserving of American citizenship and what constitutes a legitimate family. In other words, stories about monogamy and polyamory are often stories about social inequalities, with some narratives fully reinforcing already existing inequalities and others challenging them. Let me give you a quick example from my book. In one chapter I analyze historical biographies and in that chapter I take a good look with the polygaze at Jill Lapour's quite brilliant and impeccably researched book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman, which is a biography of William Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman. As described by Lapour, William Marston's family included himself, Olive Byrne, Elizabeth Holloway, and their children, the children they had together as three. Elizabeth Holloway was the main economic provider, Byrne cared for the children, and Marston worked on his own research. In other words, with a polygaze, this is a historical biography of not just William Marston, but also a poly family. So in reading that biography, I adopted the polygaze. Lapour goes in a great detail about the relationship between Byrne, Holloway, and Marston. It's a really fascinating and engaging read. However, reading this historical biography through the lens of the polygaze, it becomes quite clear that Lapour characterizes the polyarrangement as a spectacle of sorts, as something so beyond the world of normalcy that it is in need of some kind of explanation. And just as a side note, when you read historical biographies of figures or subjects who are in long-term monogamous marital relationships, the biographers usually don't try to explain why, what could explain this person staying in a long-term monogamous marital relationship, which reflects the need for the polygaze with Marston, Byrne, and Holloway. Lapour's explanation for this quite unusual family situation turns out to be my interpretation with the polygaze is that Marston charmed and coerced Byrne and Holloway into accepting the situation, and he did so because of his own psychological deficiencies and perversions. Moreover, as Lapour paints a portrait of Marston's pathologies and perversions, she also tells an implicit tale about gender. Marston must have dominated Byrne and Holloway because no woman would willingly accept another woman in the household is the tone of Lapour's characterization. Interestingly, though, however, reading this through a polygaze, it's important to note that Byrne and Holloway, as reported by Lapour, continued to live together as partners for decades after Marston's death. From my perspective, this is an indication that Byrne and Holloway were not coerced. They weren't dominated. That they were willingly participating in a family dynamic that worked for everybody. There are also ways in which Lapour tells a narrative about appropriate gender relations while pathologizing the poly household when talking about the division of labor. For instance, Lapour suggests that the division of labor where Holloway supported the family economically was a result of Marston's own selfishness and that he coerced both Holloway to be the economic provider and Byrne took care for the children so that he could pursue his own selfish interests. Holloway, as reported by Lapour, always wanted to pursue a career in law and was far more interested in her career than she was in the household and the children. And importantly, Byrne's willingness to care for the children in the household allowed Holloway to do that. The poly arrangement, in other words, allowed an alternative gender arrangement in the family. In other words, the historical biography as told by Lapour makes the poly kinship between Marston, Holloway, and Byrne seem unseemly perverse and exploitive despite all evidence provided by Lapour herself that the arrangements worked well for all involved including the children. Most important perhaps is that all three Byrne, Holloway, and Marston were committed to what they called equality of the sexes. They were feminists and their family arrangement from where I'm sitting makes sense given their political commitments. Instead of seeing the poly arrangement as consistent with and perhaps part of their political commitments, Lapour instead argues that it went against their political commitments and his evidence of duplicity and hypocrisy on the part of Marston. In other words, their household was anti feminist according to Lapour while their public politics were feminist. With the poly gaze, however, one could interpret their family as fully consistent with their political commitments. It's the same for Candace Fox biography of Emma Goldman and Susan Cheever's biography of E. E. Cummings. Both Goldman and Cummings were politically committed to what they called free love or non monogamy throughout their entire lives. In both biographies, however, the authors reduced their subjects efforts to live a non monogamous life with quite gendered psychological difficulties or pathologies. Thereby erasing the ways in which non monogamy or living a poly life can be and has been throughout US history an important political decision made by some. As I outline in the chapter, it's not inevitable that biographers adopt a monogamous gaze to understand them non monogamous subjects. For instance, Alex DeVos biography of Audre Lord and Nancy Milford's biography of Edna St. Vincent Malay. Both biographies interpret a commitment to non monogamy as fully embedded within and part of their subjects larger political commitments. And I argue in the book that this is important because as long as we keep considering non monogamy in historical figures lives as an aberration rather than embedded within their lives more fully, we perpetuate the idea that polyamory is something new and different. And moreover, that there's nothing political about the ways in which we form our households and our familial relationships. So this is just one example of how I adopt a poly gaze to analyze texts. In the other chapters which focus on social science research on campus hookup cultures, film and television narratives and journalistic accounts of religious forms of polygamy. I asked the same two questions. What is the text saying about monogamous, non monogamous and poly relationships. And what is the text saying about gender race, ethnicity, citizenship and living a good and moral life by telling a narrative about monogamy, non monogamy and poly lives. The stories we tell matter sociologically. And my hope is that after having read my analysis of these different texts, my readers will be willing and able to adopt a poly gaze to better understand the stories we tell about living happily ever after. Thank you.


We're in Luke chapter 10 and I'm going to be looking today at verses 1 through 20 as we continue our study here in the Gospel of Luke. And so I'll begin reading in chapter 10 at verse 1. I'll read verses 1 through 12 and we'll get into our study. Luke chapter 10, beginning at verse 1, reading to verse 12, Luke writes, After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. And then He said to them, The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. Go your way. Behold, I send you as lambs among wolves, carrying neither money bag, knapsack, nor sandals, and greet no one along the road. But whatever house you enter, first say peace to this house. And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on it. If not, it will return to you. And remain in the same house, eating and drinking such things as they give, for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not go from house to house. Whatever city you enter and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. Heal the sick there and say to them, The kingdom of God has come near to you. But whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, The very dust of your city, which clings to us, we wipe off against you. Nevertheless, know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you. But I say to you that it will be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city. Now Jesus just had challenged three would-be disciples by giving to them the demands of discipleship. And as we looked at that last time we were together here in the Gospel of Luke, we saw that Jesus was in essence saying to each and every one of them that to be a follower of Jesus Christ exacts a cost. And he shared with them that they would live a life of hardship and poverty, that they would learn to put God's business first, and they could even possibly lose their family as they were gaining heaven. And so what he was actually giving to them was a challenge. And he was demanding an unrivaled love and was encouraging an unceasing bearing of the cross. And so we see these three would-be disciples challenged with the cost of discipleship, but we don't see their response. So as we begin chapter 10, it's refreshing for us to see that there are 70 men that he's about to use who are sold out to him. They offer no excuses when they are called. And without reservation we see that they answer the call and we see that God will move tremendously as they serve him. And I couldn't help but think as I was preparing this study, what a blessing it is seeing people who actually are on fire to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. How refreshing that is for me. You see I came out of the Jesus movement, you know, that revival that took place that is continuing to take place in a variety of ways even into this day. And I do remember that when the Holy Spirit was moving in a very special way amongst the youth, I happened to be one of those who at that time was one of those youth. And I've seen what God can do. I've seen what God can do in a person's life when that person is sold out to Jesus Christ. And you have too. Because if you look around and you begin to consider as a Calvary Chapel movement will say, and you begin to think of some of the fellows that perhaps you're familiar with, men like Mike McIntosh and Greg Laurie and Raul Reese and Jeff Johnson and Steve Mays and others, all of them including myself are part of that movement that was called the Jesus Revolution. And everything was about Jesus Christ. And many of us were very young when we committed our hearts to Christ.  And Greg Laurie was 17 years old. And many of us were young individuals, young men. We heard the gospel, we heard the message, we heard the challenge and instead of shrinking from that, instead of saying, that's just too heavy for me or I've got other things to do, I want to pursue some other thing in my life, we said there's nothing else except serving the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all that matters. That's all that matters ultimately. Not just for pastors, that's all that matters, period. And so as the Lord is here ministry, and I want you to see this in chapter 10, even after he has spoken to three would-be disciples who basically we do not see any evidence that they were willing to take him up on his challenge. We are refreshed though as we enter into chapter 10 to see that some are. As a matter of fact, he speaks of these 70. And these are the ones who are abandoned. They've abandoned themselves to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, not temporarily. They are abandoned to serve him forever. And so Jesus has made a determination. We already know that he is determined that he's going to go into the city of Jerusalem. And so he's appointed 70 to go before him. It's interesting to me when you note this, in note verse 10 how it begins here by speaking of 70 others. When you look at the ministry of Jesus Christ, he has multitudes who heard him, multitudes of those who were listening to him. From those multitudes, he drew many disciples. From the group of many disciples, he drew 12 apostles. From those 12 apostles, he developed an inner circle. Sometimes that inner circle is of four people because you have Andrew, Peter, James, and John. And then at other times you see even the four is reduced to the three. And so what you have here is you have a group of people who are selected by Jesus Christ. You're going to go out and do the works of ministry.  Now he's done something like this already. We saw it in chapter 9 verses 1 through 6 where he had commissioned the 12 to go out and do this kind of thing. But now he is sending 70. And the reason he sends 70 is because the amount of work that is to be done is very large. And the work that is great, it requires a large number of laborers. And so he begins to send them out and every place that he himself, according to verse 1, is about to go. So verse 2, it says there, he said to them, the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Jesus is longing to see people saved. His desire is that people will come to know him as their Lord and their Savior. And he longs for that. But not only does the Lord Jesus Christ long for people to have relationship with him, but he also wants those who follow him, speaking of us, those who follow him, to have the same longing in your hearts. To see the lost come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. And he wants these people, this is a great, great number of people to come to a knowledge of him. And so he's training his disciples that they too might see that the world needs to be saved. There are great numbers of people who are yet unsaved. In John 4.35, Jesus said it this way, he said, do you not say there are still four months and then comes the harvest?  And so he wants them to have a heart that is sympathetic with his own. His own is to reach out to all of the lost that he might at least give them opportunity to be saved. And I want you to see how he does this. He does this by appointing these 70 to go out and prepare the way for him. I believe very strongly that there are a variety of ways for the church to effectively take the word of God out and to reach people. I believe that crusades have tremendous impact in many ways. And some of the crusades that we've been involved with have a large, they make a large impact in many lives. The crusades that Pastor Greg has been faithfully serving in for so long. And crusades like that.  God uses him in wonderful ways. Not to mention the most obvious, Billy Graham crusades and Franklin Graham crusades and Luis Palaus crusades and so many others like that. Crusades have tremendous impact, but that's not the only way that the Lord intends to reach people. They're good. They're good at using us. And conferences are exceptional also. Every year we speak at, I speak at the Anaheim men's conference, a conference that has seven to 10,000 men in attendance every year have been doing it for 15 years. And we've seen many people over the years get saved in these conferences. We've seen the same with women's conferences. And we see the same with breakfasts and brunches and issues of life ministries and a variety of other things. I really believe that God does wonderful things through all of that, but the key is going out and doing the work of ministry, not just remaining in the four walls, not remaining simply here in this church and having one person proclaim a message that you're all familiar with, but taking that message out and communicating it, and that's what Jesus intends for them to do. I find it interesting that when you look at the book of Acts, and especially there on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit comes upon the 120 who were there awaiting the promise from the Father, and as the Holy Spirit fell upon them and they were baptized in the Spirit, and they pour out of that upper room and God begins to move as they are speaking these unlearned languages, glorifying and magnifying God, and people begin to mock them as they see them because they think that they're drunk with wine, and the Apostle Peter begins to speak and gives this wonderful message, the Pentecost message, and 3,000 people come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and now you've got 3,000 brand new converts to the Christian faith, and you begin to wonder what are we going to do, and what is interesting to me is the Bible makes it very clear what they do because in Acts chapter 2 verse 42 it says they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread and in prayers, and in verse 47 of the same chapter it says the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. What would happen is they were equipped for works of service and they would go out and proclaim the message of the Gospel. You see the message is intended to be taken out of these four walls into the world, and that's what Jesus is intending his disciples to see. It's not enough that we do invite people to church. It's important that we invite people to the Savior, to Jesus Christ, that they might come to know Him, and that's what's taking place here. There's a great need. The world is in need of a Savior. What are they to do? Well, notice with me how he says in verse 2, he says the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. What are you to do? Well, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Pray that God sends out laborers into his harvest. So that reveals something to us, two basic things. It reveals God's work and it reveals man's work in ministry, because notice God sends and God equips the laborers, but man goes forth and does the work, and they actually are laboring in the work of ministry. In 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 9 Paul said, we are God's fellow workers, and that's how it works.  And we'll see this in a minute. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I will say it this way. I know one thing about working for the Lord, and it is this. He does the work. He simply uses you alongside of Him. Never forget that. Today I was with my grandson Josiah, who's four years old, and he owns the place. I mean, that's just the way it is. He walks around like he just is his house, and you know, he has me in tow.  He's a little guy. He walks straight up to those double doors. He puts his little hands on them, and he starts to push, as if he's able to really open those doors. They're very heavy for a four-year-old, and the angle for him to be trying to open the door is very difficult. So he's pushing the door, but I'm standing behind him. And as I'm standing behind him, I'm pushing the door open, giving him the impression that he's the one doing all the work. And so he'll just push the door open and like, ha, you know, and he goes through it. Then he goes to the double glass doors, which are even harder to open and even heavier. And once again, he's starting to push the door, but I'm the one pushing the bar that opens up the door so the little boy can get outside. He has the impression that he's doing the work, but he's working alongside of his grandfather. I give to him an ability to do a certain amount, but he can't do it all. And in ministry, you have certain gifts and abilities that God has actually given to you. You're not doing the work. You're working alongside of him. And if you get that in your heart, you can be used mildly by the Lord. And you'll see this in just a moment. I got ahead of myself a bit. But God wants us to work alongside of him, and that's what he's doing. So he's sending them out to do the work. And now he speaks to them and says, this is what they're to do. Verse three, go your way. Behold, he says, I send you out as lambs among wolves. You're about to go out into hostile conditions. You will encounter danger. It will be hazardous, sometimes even dangerous. Be prepared. Your message will be ridiculed. You may even suffer physical persecution, but be aware that all who shall live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Remember this, I'm the one who sent you out. I will be with you. You will learn to trust and depend on me. I send you out. I send you out as lambs among wolves. It will be difficult. So verse four, carry neither money bag, knapsack, nor sandals. Greet no one along the road. So what you're going to learn to do is trust completely in the Lord that God will provide for you. God's business is urgent. Don't waste your time greeting people. Just serve him. And remember this, that the time is short. In 2 Corinthians chapter six, verse two, Paul said it this way. In an acceptable time, I have heard you in the day of salvation. I've helped you. And then he goes on to say, behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. It's not next week. It's not next month. It's not next year. It's not when you get your act together. It is now. And as we go forth, there's a certain urgency that we encourage people to get right with God and to do so immediately. Don't put it up. I've never met anybody who has ever said, I wish I would have waited longer before I got saved. I just haven't met anyone. I had a little more sinning to do. I have never met anybody who has ever said that. The people I have spoken to who sincerely love the Lord have simply said this to me. And I've heard this many times. I simply wish I had gotten saved sooner.  I wish I had gotten saved. Today is the day of salvation. Not next week and not next month. He says in verse five, whatever house you enter first, say peace to this house. And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on it. If not, it will return to you. In other words, you by your presence in this message are bringing a peace to the house when someone living in that house desires that peace. But those who refuse the peace that comes from God will be left with their own anxiety. He goes on in verse seven, remain in the same house, eating and drinking such things as they give for the laborers worthy of his wages. Do not go from house to house. The home that has welcomed you will be your temporary headquarters as you minister. He's going, he's saying you're going to go from place to place. When they welcome you and you bring your peace and they receive that peace, that will be your temporary headquarters as you minister there. So don't be going into the house and then begin to look around the city to find a better place to stay. Don't have that attitude like, yeah, this is nice overnight.  I'd like to stay there.  Don't be looking for better lodging and all of that because the people who have invited you in are going to also minister to you as you minister to them. I find it interesting how he says in verse seven, the laborer is worthy of his wages. You have brought to them a message of eternal life. You are serving God and so as you are serving the Lord, he will provide and he provides very often through those who are being served. This is something that Paul refers to in 1 Timothy chapter five. You might remember it. It's found in verses 17 and 18 when Paul said, let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine.  So as you go and minister, you will receive the compensation that is due an individual who is serving the Lord. You'll learn to rely on the Lord to provide for you.  That can be difficult on the foreign mission field, I have to tell you. I have eaten things on the mission field that flies, say no thanks, not for me, I'm not hungry. I could go into stories, but I won't. I don't do it anymore, but I did, you know, and but the point he's making here very simply is this, and you need to know this as these are going out. They're not always entering into kosher homes. These are Jewish men going out and in some of the places that they're going to minister, they're going to be entering into homes that are not kosher or perhaps are Gentile, meaning they don't keep Jewish dietary law. So rather than going in and selecting the place that you stay and what you eat, Jesus is basically saying this. He's saying to them, just eat the food that is set before you. And even if the food is not kosher, just receive it with thanksgiving and don't make an issue over it. This is something that Paul would refer to later on in his writings for in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 27, he said, if any of those who do not believe invite you to dinner and you desire to go, eat whatever is set before you, asking no question for conscience's sake. So it's the same principle, the food isn't going to bring it to God and it doesn't keep you from God, so therefore eat it and just move on. They're providing for you and just simply with gratitude, receive it. Now he says in verse 9, heal the sick there and say to them, the kingdom of God has come near to you. So this healing of the sick is a foretaste of future glory because God's kingdom in its completeness has no illness. And so he's saying as you go and do this work, people will recognize that the kingdom of God has come near. Paul in 1 Corinthians, rather in Romans, in Romans chapter 14 verse 17 said, the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And so you go there, you do works of ministry and you proclaim, this is what the kingdom of God ultimately is all about, where there is no such thing as illness. Verse 10, whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, the very dust of your city which clings to us, we wipe off against you. Nevertheless, know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you. Some will refuse the Lord even when great things are being done in his name in their very presence. And that amazes me, but it's true. We see that to this day where God will do a remarkable work, perhaps in you and those whom you know best, friends and family members, perhaps neighbors who have known you for a long time, can be eyewitnesses and can say, yeah, that person is absolutely changed. They used to be this way and I have seen a radical transformation, but they don't always receive the message of what made you different. Oftentimes they may say, well yeah, you're different because you grew up or yeah, you're different because you know you had to change or you just decided to change and I've had friends who have said that they've said, well David, you know you tell me what you used to do and I know that because I was with you when we did those things together, but don't you think you just grew up and my answer has always been the same?  The first time that you ever stole something, the first day if perhaps I'm speaking to somebody here who might have stolen something, I'm sure none of you ever really stole anything, it's just an illustration.  I got caught, I still remember what I stole, I've shared this with you before, perhaps some of you remember this, I remember what I stole, I stole bird seed and no reason I didn't have any bird at home or anything, but it had, it was a cool can and it had this yellow parakeet on it and I think it was yellow, it was really an outstanding can and I really liked it and I put it in my pocket and I went home with it, I stole it out of Lucky's Market there in Norwalk and my mom doing the wash finds this can of bird seed in my pocket and asks me how to get there and that's probably how to get there and it flew there, it's got a bird on it, but I said I put it in my pocket, I really wanted it and she marched me back to the supermarket and I had to speak to the manager and apologize for stealing, it was four years old and but you know I got pretty good at stealing later on because if you practice something long enough you can refine it, you can become pretty good, you don't outgrow sin, you repent from sin, you know the first time you lie you probably said some outlandish thing, I was playing baseball for the first time, I was about six years old, this is the first lie I remember saying and and I was just learning to play baseball, we were on a field and we lived in an area where the five free way backed up or actually went past the school that I was I used to attend and my brother and I and some kids were playing baseball and the first time I ever hit a ball I still remember that, it rolled maybe 12 feet and they said now you gotta run and I went running to first base and all but I came home and told my mom I said we played baseball and my mom says really did you did you get a hit? I said yes, I said they threw me the ball and I hit it and it hit the ground and it was rolling and my mom's eyes got big and she seemed to really think that was good so I said and then it went into the air and then it went over the man with a boy was and then it went over the freeway you know about a 600 foot drive for a little boy you know I mean I just kept embellishing and embellishing she seemed to appreciate the story you know but after a while I learned to lie pretty good because if you if you keep practicing something you get pretty good at it if you polish it you can become a smooth deceitful liar you can become a smooth thief you do not grow out of those things you forsake those things you repent from those things and and God transforms you as a result of that and and and God wants to do that work in all of us and and he wants us to see the work that he wants to do in us as he transforms us by this kingdom that works within us today and he wants us to do that work but some people may see that you have changed and they want nothing to do with it well as Jesus is saying you'll enter into a city if they have no desire for me just wipe the dust off see even the dust that's clinging to us is not worthy and and move on don't waste your time there continue to move and continue to minister now in verse 12 he says but I say to you that it will be more tolerable in that day speaking of the day of judgment tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city for Sodom Sodom is a proverbially wicked city even in our secular society when somebody wants to illustrate some great evil they'll say it's Sodom and and they don't even have to be a believer in God they don't even need to know the story of Sodom they simply say it's like Sodom and and that says enough because it was wicked it was a famously wicked city a city that deserved judgment and a city that was judged by God now we normally associate the the sin of of homosexuality with the city and rightly so because that's what took place and that's part of the reason that God judged Sodom you might find it interesting though in Ezekiel chapter 16 verses 49 and 50 Ezekiel writing says this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom she and her daughter had pride fullness of food abundance of idleness neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy they were haughty and committed abomination before me therefore I took them away as I saw fit it was not a single sin but many sins that led to the destruction of this city that was very famous very powerful very rich but filled with uncaring people who also had given themselves over to sexual sin and so they're going to receive greater judgment because Sodom never had the Messiah come to the city and these people are rejecting Messiah now he goes on in verse 13 and he says what do you court scene what do you bet said for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented long ago sitting in sackcloth and ashes it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you and you Capernaum who are exalted to heaven you'll be brought down to Hades he who hears you hears me he who rejects you rejects me and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me he names three cities these three cities that are mentioned received great attention from the Lord and because they did they stood in greater jeopardy these three cities were in the north court scene Bethsaida and Capernaum we actually when we're in northern Israel on tour have on occasion gone into the ruins or the general area that these cities at one time stood we know where Capernaum is because it continues to exist today as a tourist site but we have been to the other two sites that have some homes and all but these were the areas in the north where Jesus did many of his works they had special privileges and that's the point that he's making here you had special privileges but when you have special privileges you also have greater responsibility because the more you know the more you give an answer for somebody who's never heard the gospel is going to be judged by the Lord in a different way it'll always be fair but in a different way than a person who has grown up in church and rejected the message because the more you know the more you owe in Luke chapter 12 verses 47 and 48 Jesus said the servant who knew his master's will and did not prepare himself or do according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes but he who did not know yet committed things deserving stripes shall be beaten with few for everyone to whom much is given from him much will be required to whom much has been committed of him they will ask the more you know it's a dangerous thing to come to church as many do and to hear a bible study that is rightly divided and to walk away unchanged and unfazed to walk away not embracing that message to walk away just apathetic nonchalant not even caring because ultimately as that person stands before the Lord they have an explanation to you of concerning why they rejected what God was saying the more you hear the more you're responsible for that's why James says let not many of you be teachers he says because you will receive a stricter judgment because as those who handle the word of God you have greater judgment because you know more of it and so we have as believers the responsibility of acting on what God gives to us and so when Jesus is speaking here concerning these three cities these are three cities that he ministered extensively in and because they rejected him he's saying these other cities that were judged by God in the past actually will stand up and condemn you in the judgment because you had Messiah come to you and you rejected him and they never had that opportunity and now notice verse 16 he who hears you hears me he who rejects you rejects me he who rejects me rejects him who sent me when people receive your words when you bring them the gospel they're not simply receiving you they're receiving Jesus and as they're receiving Jesus Jesus is bringing them to his father now when they reject they're not just rejecting you they're rejecting Jesus and in rejecting Jesus they are rejecting his father and so the one who hears him receives him now the 70 returned with joy saying Lord even the demons are subject to us in your name and he said to them i saw satan fall like lightning from heaven behold i give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions serpents and scorpions are a picture of demon spirits to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy nothing shall by any means hurt you nevertheless do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven they were so excited they were absolutely thrilled we went out we cast out demon even demons we cast them out even demons couldn't stand before the mighty name of Jesus Christ in and and the authority that you gave to us well it just gives us holy ghost bumps we have chills running up and down our spine the work that you've done through us brings such joy and such wonder and we're amazed in and and that's the attitude they have and i want you to see this even the demons are subject to us in your name they're thrilled to be used by god now that's something exciting to me too but i want you to see what jesus says and i want to develop this with you for a moment and share some things that the lord has given to me he said i saw satan fall like lightning from heaven what is it do you guys remember i know you do this is a rhetorical question what was the sin of satan it was pride when you look at ezekiel 28 and isaia 14 it gives to us the historic account of the fall of satan isaia 14 contains what has been called the theologians the five i wills of satan and in essence he was saying and concludes by saying i will be like god and so the warning you find by paul to young timothy concerning laying hands on a young man is that he may fall into the sin of satan which was pride one of the things guys and and this is a real important point i want to share with you you guys he's saying are thrilled because of the works that you were able to perform through the authority i gave to you and you ought to be thrilled by that because to be used by god is thrilling there's nothing else more exciting than being used by the lord to do works that that cause people wonder and delivers them absolutely but one of the things you have to be aware of is that it is god who gives you the authority to build the kingdom and it is his kingdom not yours because your temptation can be to start a ministry and name it after yourself david rozales miracle ministries come and get your healing get your prayer class get your holy water you know and all of those things that's what happens that is a temptation that that every minister who's been used or is being used by the lord has to deal with because when god begins to use you you can get to the point of thinking well of course he uses me what a price he got when he saved me look at all the talents i have well why wouldn't he use me and that's what happens and so as they're rejoicing jesus isn't throwing a you know water on the fire he's he's redirecting their gaze so that they might know what really matters you see what really matters is what is eternal you ought to rejoice you want to rejoice rejoice that your names are written in heaven if you want to rejoice rejoice in the eternal not the momentary don't get caught up with what's taking place right now always look forward to where you're going to be ultimately and move in that direction constantly don't plant your flag in one place and remain there thinking that that's the highest you'll ever go but see that god has a way of moving from glory to glory so rather than building three tabernacles for jesus and and moses and elisha like peter had wanted to do at the mount transfiguration realize that when god doesn't work through you it's only to show you that he has more to do until you ultimately are with him in heaven and so continue serving him until you see his face you see i give you he says in verse 19 the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions you don't have this power or authority on your own you need to remain dependent on me and do not rejoice that spirits are subject to you because there's something greater your work on earth will cease when you die and you go to heaven so keep your eyes on the price all the works that you do ultimately are works for the kingdom and that's where you receive your reward lord has been teaching me that in advance i apologize for the emotion so i'm on a plane flying from los angeles to miami and as i'm flying and i'm reading a book and i'm underlining things because that's how i read i'll underline points so i can come back later on and review i'm noticing that and i'm not i'm not connecting with what i'm reading no i'm not telling my wife anything you see today there you go wake up david and that's Marie shooting me for not telling her i'm not telling her anything but i know that i'm going to lose my memory i know it you see i've lost my memory more than once my first time i lost my my memory was in the year 2000 this is an ongoing thing it's it's gone on and off over the last seven years and so as i'm on the plane i'm beginning to sense and they call it an aura i begin to sense i'm going to lose my memory i knew it as i was flying to miami and i began to pray and i'm not telling my wife i'm not telling Marie and i do remember praying god don't let me lose it while i'm teaching because i know i'm going to lose it no i don't tell Marie anything i do not remember arriving at the airport clearly don't remember the hotel we went to i do remember some things it's like if you were watching a movie and you just have stills not the whole movie just stills photographs just snapshots i do remember going to a hotel i do remember getting ready to go teach going into an office i don't remember the church that i spoke at in terms of looking at the congregation Marie brought me to cuban coffees anybody here knows what cuban coffee is it's pretty strong made my mustache stand straight out it's very good i like cuban coffee and but i i had two cups of cuban coffee before i went out and i do not remember going out i do not remember giving a bible study i do know that at a certain point in the study i went over my notes as i do here and i went back up to when i'd already read Marie knowing me and knowing what has happened in the past immediately knew i lost my memory immediately so i i knew what was happening so i started just to read my notes because i've been doing this for a long time and i just said lord just let me go into autopilot gave an invitation people got saved i went down i'm told this i don't remember this i do remember stepping off the platform and ministering to people and reaching out and taking Marie by the arm and drawing her to myself and she's looking at me and i said i don't know where i am i've lost my memory and she knows she takes me into a room they have emergency medical technicians there they took my blood pressure it was 200 over 115 they said he's going to suffer a stroke i didn't hear that Marie told me that they put me in a an ambulance i was told that the lights were on and the siren was going that would have been cool but i don't remember that don't remember going to the hospital they threw an ivy on me took bloods put me in a bedroom doctor and nurse came in don't remember talking to them though i do kind of vaguely and the next thing i remember is waking up and looking to my left and there's a little cot that they brought in and there's my wife laying next to me i started to cry started to cry memories began to come but only the hurtful ones no good ones just painful ones disappointments and hurts and i started to weep and i began to say god i i don't know don't remember much i was in the hospital three days they gave me a MRI and they put me inside of the the little tube that they put you in they threw some earphones on me and they said what music do you want to hear i'm in miami so i'm a little concerned that they might put some goofy music if i say spiritual they might throw something on me from somebody i don't care for and have a heart attack so i said throw some oldies on so they put on 60s music the first song they came on was my song to marie our song and i lost it just lost it and i prayed and i said god i'm in hell i'm in hell i really was so overwhelmed that they had to pull me out of the tube they said mr rozales your your vitals your you're really reacting and i said yeah do you want us to remove you for a moment i said would you please caught my breath they threw me back in and kept me there for two or three days three days it was very difficult it's difficult in many ways and you begin to say lord is is is this it is this it i um i'm speaking to you as my church family and perhaps maybe this is something you didn't come for forgive me others perhaps want to know what was happening and therefore i share with you i can tell you this it was very very difficult in the midst of it i started asking god all right what is it that you want me to know what is it that you want to do what is most important what is most important is my name is written in the lambs book of life what is most important is the work that i do for the lord as much as i love it isn't my reason for existence my reason for existence is to love and serve jesus christ and uh if the lord sees fit to remove me from my ministry it's his ministry he can do what he wants with me i am now having to go have tests i have to have something called a pet scan and eegs and a variety of things i go on friday and then i have to go in two weeks and marie you have to pray for her because i'm not a good patient i'm not one of these who goes to the doctor not because i don't believe in them god knows that i'm thankful for them it's just this kind of thing that i have is they don't know what it is and i'm not one wants to waste my time so i will go because if i don't marie will kill me she's pretty upset my girl and so because of her i have to start going to the doctor i was driving to the office as i was praying just on tuesday listening to a song where mercy me sings a song called bring the rain some of you know this song i can count a million times people asking me how i can praise you with all that i've gone through the question just amazes me can circumstances possibly change who i forever am in you maybe since my life was changed long before these rainy days it's never it's never really ever crossed my mind to turn my back on you oh lord my only shelter from the storm but instead i draw closer through these times so i pray bring me joy bring me peace bring the chance to be free bring me anything that brings you glory and i know there will be days when this life brings me pain but if that's what it takes to praise you jesus bring the rain i'm yours regardless of the dark clouds that me loom above because you are much greater than my pain you who made away for me by suffering your destiny so tell me what's a little rain so i pray holy holy holy is the lord god almighty that's my prayer what's a little rain what's a little rain i'm uh i'm in peace with the lord i don't know what's going on with my memory i'm not going to burden you with anything you certainly won't know because i'm not going to tell you anything you don't need to know but i will tell you that it is serious in some ways i'm willing to do whatever the lord has me to do and uh do not expect that i'm going to be out of this pulpit i plan on staying here until he takes me home and i'm not going anywhere i'm not i'm not discouraged i'm not afraid like i told marie what's the worst thing that can happen i go to heaven that's not a bad thing that's what my life is built on the desire to be with him and so they don't know what's wrong with me guys i'm going to a good neurologist i'm going to need to start taking some time to rest i'm looking to have to reduce the amount of time i'm in the pulpit which means on sunday nights i'm going to need to bring people in for a while so i can rest they don't know why i'm so tired but i am and i'm going to do what i need to do to remain with my wife to remain with my babies to remain with my josiah and to remain with my granddaughter who's coming on november 27th and uh to remain with you if you'll have me as your pastor