Do you think factory farms would be considered kosher? Yes.  Listen. God thinks eating animals is evil. You don't speak for God nor do I. God thinks it's evil. He doesn't. Look at the camera. No, he doesn't. You're arguing with God, basically. No, I'm not. Do not say that. You had animals. You can laugh to the camera or you won't. I don't know why you're struggling with it. No, I'm not struggling. You're struggling here to understand. You're struggling to understand why you know the answer. Because I know you know the answer. You know there is a difference between somebody slaughtering a cow in an abattoir. What is it? And somebody slaughtering somebody on the street is different. What is it? No, I want you to tell me if you know there's a difference between the two. If you're unable to do that, you're being disingenuous. I don't eat either. You're not straw manning it. No, I'm not straw manning it. I'm making an analogy. I'm not saying you're saying that. You're making a lie to the camera, making a straw manning. No, I'm not. This is an analogy. You're not following. You're not following. You're not following. You're not following. Don't tell me what I think. Don't close over what I think. The way I see them is their lifestyle. They're akin to a product that is farmed. I feel that if the people of South Korea vote to say that it's fine to farm dogs for food, that's their prerogative. And if they vote to say it's fine to farm humans for food, you're okay with that? The cameras heard you say this a few times. Why do you not eat meat? Which people have been doing so? Because it's raw. I don't find it raw. Because they're cows. If I personally like a cat more than a dog, can I stab the dog with that? Possibly breed them, take their babies away, put them in factory farms and essentially put them in a slaughterhouse when there's vegan alternatives available. Yes. That's fine? Yes. Morally permissible? Yes. Okay, you don't see an issue with that at all? Moral issue? All right, we're back out here, London, Leicester Square. We've got a table here. It says why aren't you vegan? Pretty simple discussion table. See if we can just have some discussions. We want to talk to the general public and ask why they personally aren't vegan and see where it goes. Maybe lions might be brought up. Gideon, nice to meet you. Gideon, sit down, mate. I'm not that long, but I'll give you as much as I can. Are you not vegan? No, I'm not vegan. Okay, and why aren't you vegan? Because I enjoy meat as part of my diet. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay, are you still as well? So why do you think someone might be vegan? Because they have moral kind of dilemma about the life of an animal and they don't believe that sacrificing life now was worth the assessments when you can find alternative food sources. Yeah, I mean that's a pretty good description. I'd bring in like animal rights violation, like the violation of their rights. Okay. Like their right to not be enslaved and murdered against their will and things like this. Sure, I think we'll have to have a debate about definition then. Because murder isn't specifically towards animals, that's towards people. Slavery, again, is something which is a word framed for people enslaving other people. Do you want to do definitions there? I think so, yeah. I understand your meaning by it, but with me, there's a clear definition with those words. Well, you might have a definition, but do you want to talk about definitions that apply to animals? Because I can pull a few up if you want. If you'd like to just look at the Collins dictionary on that now, so you're going to look at what the definition of murder is. To murder someone means to commit the crime of killing them deliberately. To murder a person, yeah. To murder someone. To serve. So what does that mean, someone? Do you think animals are things? I think they are livestock sometimes. I'm not going to ask if they're things. What do you mean by a thing? So a thing is another word, which I'm not sure about. Animals have... Do you think they're having their own subjective experience? They have their own experience, yeah. Do you think there's a subject experiencing the reality? A subject experiencing reality. You know, like how an individual having that experience, like... Or having a conscience. So being conscious of the experience of feeling pain. Yeah, like, yeah. So if I cage an animal and burn them alive, is someone experiencing that pain? Yes, no, I think that's certainly right. So they're not things, are they? So here we go. This is Collins Dictionary Murderer. To kill brutally?  Okay. Someone. Where does it say person, then? Well, it is. Does it say person? Generally, yeah. Does that say person, then? To kill brutally. Again... Where does it say person? It doesn't say person. Okay, so that's one that applies to animals. I've got more. I wouldn't say it applies to animals. I still think the general usage of murder is towards people. So for example, murder... Who's one? To kill intimately or barbarously? Again, warfare, yes. Who goes to warfare with animals? No, it says as in warfare. As in warfare. Yeah, but... But not necessarily. So again, it's a legal definition. Here's another one. If I take... I understand what you're trying to say here. But we're at a disagreement. And it's not wrong to be disagreeing with somebody. You're disagreeing on a dictionary, but I'm just reading the dictionary. No, I'm telling you, there's a legal definition. There's a legal definition. The legal definition. Yeah, exactly, which applies to humans.  It doesn't say someone. To kill as in warfare. To kill as in warfare. No, no, no. That was the second definition. The first thing I showed you said to kill brutally. Do you think it'll be more progressive to probably discuss why that's wrong to kill an animal rather than discuss the word... No, but you're bringing up a complaint with the word that I use. It's not a complaint. Yeah, you are. You're saying it only applies to humans. And I can pull up about... There's about five definitions. Well, I think... More that applies to animals as well. There's a definition that I'm using is the word murder plus the legal kind of definition of it, which will replace the people. Yeah, but that's the one you're using. Yeah. But you're saying the one I'm using is wrong. But I'm pulling out dictionary definitions and you're saying they're wrong. So who's wrong? The dictionary... I disagree with that. It said to murder somebody such as in warfare does not apply to insects.  To kill brutally, as in people. That's all subjective under the term. It never said people. So the reason why they draw the definition... We'll put up the definition here. It doesn't say people. Okay, you can put up the definition. It doesn't say people. No, I'm pulling it up for the people. But they can look it up. There's plenty of definitions that applies. Absolutely. There's also to slay wantonly. To slay wantonly? Okay, I understand. And does it say to slay human beings wantonly? No, but the point being is... The point being is... I'm using the legal term here. So you wouldn't go say somebody's murdered a fly. That might be your definition. Yeah. And it might... There's a legal definition. And the implied definition by that definition. There are also dictionary definitions. Yeah, and the implied definition. And are you saying those dictionary definitions are wrong? It implies that it's a person. It doesn't imply anything. It says to kill brutally. To kill brutally, as in warfare, so on and so forth. Yeah, that's another one. So...  Didn't mention humans or animals. So it can apply to both. No, but we... And it says to slay wantonly. No, but we... We can stay on semantics if you like. No, I'm trying to get over this, because you seem to be hung up on that one. I'm trying to say, I do believe it is wrong to torture animals, of course. Can the word torture apply to animals? Torture can apply to anything, yes. Okay, and why can't murder? Because murder is implied for people. Based on what? Based on the legalese of it being illegal for you to murder something. No, no, that's a legal definition. One second. Are there other definitions of the word murder that aren't used in a legal context? The ones that you're using, which takes that word and applies it to animals, I can see what you're doing. I'll say it applies to both humans and animals. I would say it... No, for me it doesn't. Okay, so you're denying dictionary definitions now? I'm denying the definition that applies to animals, applies to people, murder. Because murder is used in different connotations. I don't care how it's used. I'm saying that it can be used in both contexts.  No, I said I don't care how it's used. It can be used in both contexts. You're saying it only applies to humans. I'm saying there's different dictionary definitions that also apply to animals, and you're denying reality. Of course, that does not deny reality. I just wrote them out to you. How much more evidence... Someone will be rude to you and say to somebody, there's no evidence. It says it implies people. So warfare.  What animals have been killed? Who's gone to war with an animal?  It doesn't say warfare. I'll put my point of view across credit. If you can disagree with the all you want, that's absolutely fine. I'm saying you can definitely murder an animal. The reason for this is that it does... People, when you say murder, it also crosses over into the legalese where that is a tribal offence, which is a criminal offence. So that... And that is strictly tied to people. That's a legal definition. I'm not disputing that. That exists. I'm also saying there's other definitions that exist, but you're disputing them. No, it overlaps. And I'm telling the context of this. So when you ask me... Can you dispute definitions that exist in the dictionary? The words that I use. So when I use the word murder, I imply it in the dictionary which is murdering the person. That's what you use it for. I just told you what I use it for. Yeah, exactly. I'm just denying it. I've got no disagreement with that. I understand why you use that. We've been disagreeing... We've been disagreeing for the last 10 minutes. I understand why you disagree with that decision. I think you're trying to make me out like a little bit like I don't know what I'm talking about or something with the word murder. Like it applies in both contexts, depending on your definition. I would say someone an abattoir slaughtering. The slaughter can apply to humans as well. It can apply to humans but slaughtering an abattoir is not murder. That's what I would say. And why? Because the murder is a legal term which is an illegal activity taken against a murder. That's a legal definition and based on my definitions, is it murder? To kill brutally? To kill brutally an animal. Now, brutally, it depends if it's going to be humane.  Well, after they're dead, cutting their head off and using the meat as actual meat itself is I don't have an issue with that. I'll ask you if it was brutal. I didn't ask if you had an issue with it. No, I wouldn't say it was brutal. So that's not brutal. If I did it to a human being, would it be brutal? I'd say it's a different standard to play. No, I'd ask you if it would be brutal.  Yes, it would be. And why isn't it brutal for animals? Because livestock is a part of humans natural food. So why doesn't that make it brutal? I just want to know why you think it's brutal to cut a human's head off but not brutal to cut an animal's head off? Because it's different levels. So let's say an animal. So let's say I slap a fly or a mosquito in my room. A mosquito has trivial sentience compared to a cow. So it depends on the level of sentience. So where does it start? We can't even get to mosquitoes if you haven't even agreed cutting a cow's head off as brutal. I don't think it's brutal though.  Because you said animals. Well, I'm talking about in the slaughterhouse context honestly. I don't think that's brutal though. Okay. But it is brutal for humans. I think it's brutal for humans. And why is it... What is the characteristic that separates humans and animals? That makes it brutal in one context and not brutal in the other context. Let me set back one second.  So now it is brutal. It's depending on the context. Yes.  It will be illegal. It will be murder. No, no, no, no. I don't ask if it's legal. Take legal of the animal. I've made my position very... Okay, one second. I don't know why you're struggling. I'm not struggling. You're struggling here to understand. You're struggling. So basically, in the context of food in the context of food it's not brutal to kill livestock. No, it's not.  But outside that context it is brutal, right? For people, yes. No, no. Five seconds ago you just said outside the context of food it's brutal to cut the head off a cow, yeah? Yes. Okay. So inside the context of food is it brutal to cut a head off a human? People don't eat people. No, it's a hypothetical. I'm just trying to test your ethical view because I want to see if there's a contradiction then we can go from there. Okay, absolutely. So in the context of food let's just say there's a human being here we're killing for food and I cut their head off. That is no longer brutal now. Yeah, it's no longer brutal because I just send back into the legal definition of murder.  I just said don't worry about definition. We're having a moral discussion. We're having a moral discussion, dude. No, no, because there is a special thing over there. Okay. We're murdering another human being. And if it was illegal to do this to animals it would then be brutal. No. It's not about the context. It's not about what the law says. What I'm trying to say is is a certain thing when it comes to a person murdering another person which is in itself one thing. That is a thing which is elevated. Do you know the difference between morality and legality? Yes, I do. Okay. It's not a legal discussion and not a legal discussion because obviously animals don't have rights. It's like being in the context of slavery back in America. Those beings didn't have rights and it's going well, it's illegal to enslave white people. It's a very basic conversation which you're now straw-manning. No, I'm not straw-manning. I'm making an analogy. Did I say that slavery was okay because it was legal? You're not following. You're not following. You're not following. You're not following. You're saying it's only wrong for humans because it's illegal. I'm saying let's just say I was having this discussion back in times of slavery and it's completely legal and fine to enslave black people. One second, I'm just... It's not perfectly fine to enslave black people. I'm making an analogy. I'm not saying you're saying that. You're making an analogy for the camera, making a straw-man. No, I'm not. This is an analogy. I'm making an analogy... I'm having this discussion not to listen to you monologue. I'm making an analogy about legality versus morality. So, if it's illegally to enslave white people... It's not to monologue by yourself there. You can. It's like walk away. You can monologue what you want. Well, I'm trying to make a point about legality versus morality for you and the difference. I understand that. I know the difference between the legality. It doesn't matter if it's illegal or... The issue that I've got with you right now, I'll tell you the issue that I've got with you right now is I've tried from the very beginning to try to make clear, besides definitions or anything like that, I believe very clearly there is a difference... You denied the definition of murder straight to my face so we couldn't move forward. There's a special thing when a person kills another person. You don't want to... You can say murder... It's... It's legal. I'm talking about morality. No, it's not about legalies. I believe on a spiritual, everything sort of level that a person killing a person is very much different from a person killing an animal. Okay, so what is that difference? The difference? Steal it out for me. The moral difference between a human and an animal. One is wrong. One is not wrong. So I'll ask you the question. You think that somebody... No, you're asking the question. I'll ask you a question. No, but you know the answer because I know you know the answer. What is this specific trait? You know there is a difference between somebody slaughtering a cow in an abattoir... What is it? And somebody slaughtering somebody on the street is different. What is it? Is there no difference to your mind? Is there no difference to your mind? I want you to spell out the difference.  If you're unable to do that, you're being disingenuous. I don't eat either. You've invited me to sit down and have a conversation. I asked you an answer. So I'm asking a simple question is do you think there's a difference between slaughtering a person on the street or animal and abattoir? Well obviously I don't eat either. So obviously I think there's a consistency here that I follow because that's why I'm eating. But eating or not? But eating or not? But listen, mate. You're the one who's not vegan here. But I'm interested to know. You pay for the decapitation of animals and not humans. But I'm interested to know. So you have the contradiction. You're putting me under fire. I don't pay for the decapitation of cows or humans. You do it in one context and not the other. I understand that. And I can see why you think there's a contradiction. But I would like to know from your point of view because I've never been a vegan and you are. So I'd like to know from you is there a difference in your mind of slaughtering a person or slaughtering a cow? He has a contradiction here. I'm asking a question if you're not able to do that. Okay. I'll answer your question because I don't think you can answer it because I think it's going to expose the contradiction. That's why you're dodging. Do you think there's a difference between slaughtering a person or slaughtering a cow? Which is what I asked you. Do you value each life equally? He's asking my question back to me. Do you value each life equally? No. I don't value each life equally. Okay. Do you think there should be a definition attached to the difference? What do you mean? You say there's a difference between murdering an animal in an abattoir and murdering a person on the street. Well, there are differences between the beings. There's a difference between a human being and a cow. But there's no less important in that event. There's no less serious. No, a human being is more important for a myriad of reasons. Right. And it might be their depths of experience, people that care about them that also have a big depth of experience. I'm saying it's not justifiable to capitate the cow for a sandwich. Yeah. Right? That's what I'm saying. Okay, I understand. And I'm asking you, you're saying it is justified. You're saying it's not justified for humans.  I was asking you to just tell me what that characteristic is. Because we're special for some reason. Do we are more intelligent? No, because when it comes to livestock, though they are sentient, the way I see them is their livestock and they're akin to a product that is farmed. It might sound quite cold and dead. And that's the difference? That to me would be a massive difference.  Well, you say you don't need to without supplements. Modern times know we don't need to. You're absolutely right. We could just apply that rationale to dogs, to chimpanzees, to gorillas. And we can say because we dictate that their product and their food, we can now decapitate them, put them in factory farms, decapitate them. You're right. It's definitely a contradiction because, I mean, for example, they do farm dogs in South Korea, for example. And I don't find that okay. And that's a very interesting thing because that is massively a contradiction. I admit I've got a contradiction in that. So that must not be the difference. No, you're right. It's a contradiction. That is So what is it about the cows that make it okay to kill and eat dogs? Because it's an established cultural food form which can be farmed. It's established in, you mentioned Newland. Oh, cultural historically and things like that. It makes it easy.  Well, it depends. Now this is, I would say if there's a general consensus in South Korea would be Just asking you, this is your morality, not theirs. I'm asking you, is it okay if it's established culturally, is it wrong? I'm stopping you doing it. What do I do? Is that the question? No. I'm asking you, do you think it's wrong? You're saying it's right because in the cow context, it's established culturally and we dictate that their food and we farm them and their products. In the context of farming dogs, it's established culturally. They've dictated their food and products. Is it wrong in this context and still right in this context? In my mind, I wouldn't do it. But if the general of South Korea votes to say that it's fine to farm dogs for food, that's their prerogative. Okay. And if they vote to say it's fine to farm humans for food, you're okay with that? But that's different because we've already established with this conversation that you find it different. I want to know. You said for a reason. Plethora of reasons people are elevated above animals. You said that to me. I said it doesn't justify stabbing cows to death. You're saying it does. I'm saying it doesn't. I'm acknowledging that there's a difference between us. I'm saying that difference doesn't justify stabbing cows. I put it back on you. You're saying that difference and now I put it in the dog context and you're not comfortable with that. Which is a contradiction. Yeah, it's a contradiction. I agree with that contradiction. And then you said if they all vote that it's okay to kill the dogs, therefore it's okay. So Mike's makes right. If we all vote that it's okay to... Well, no. I was telling you going back to this. We said this twice. If the camera's heard you say this a few times. If there's a minority in this country and we all vote if the majority vote to kill that minority, does that make it okay? It does. Also okay is subjective based on needs do needs must. So at the moment it's okay to kill the dogs because you can perfectly bounce your diet out. You can take supplements if you need them and you can live a healthy life without injuring any animals whatsoever. If this situation was different where you'd actually require me as a part of a diet for you to live and your family to live that you might have a different answer there. So who cares? So who cares at what? Who cares about a situation that doesn't exist? Situations do exist around the world where it's part of a healthy diet. I'm talking about me. You sitting here right now. No, but I'm just saying that so it's not... So you right now it's not a hundred percent anything because that you needed to what you would be different, wouldn't you? So would you. Or maybe I'd be not in civilisation or something. No, but so would you. If these do needs must then you would take. I'm asking you in this situation right now sitting here in civilisation in the UK. What is your justification to do this to cows when you have a double standard for other animals and human beings? Because it's part of my food source. It's part of culturally accepted and I don't know you say if we vote for this sort of thing. We already went over this so you're repeating arguments we've already discussed. No, but it's also culture to choose to be a vegan as well. People have been doing so. Because it's wrong. I don't find it wrong. Because they're cows and if I replace the cows with dogs all of a sudden you've got a problem. Well I wouldn't want to eat a dog because I've got an affinity with a certain animal. Yeah and do you think that's a morally relevant trait that justifies stabbing one animal?  It's a personal choice though isn't it?  It's a personal choice to go out and gun down people too. I don't think it's so personal when other people are arguing that it's as bad as somebody who's just got full range.  Well I'm trying to yeah of course I do. You can't even get off cows so why are we talking about other people? Because I'm trying to work out where the buck stops and stops at you. You're asking me for consistency but you will you have clear contradictions here. The fact that I won't eat a dog because it's not well number one if I understand that. You're asking me because you see how you're trying to find inconsistencies in my world. There's a reason why I won't eat dogs as well. There's a clear contradiction in yours. But certain animals I won't eat. I won't eat worms not because I don't find... Do you think certain animals you feel like it's wrong to eat? Well if you ask me on a spiritual level yes because I'm a religious kind of guy and I'll follow the teachings of my religion to do so. What's your religion? I'm Jewish. Okay. So I wouldn't eat dogs it's not kosher but also I've not brought that up because that's not the beyond end or also I... Is that why you think humans are special? I think people are special yeah. Why is it because God is special to us? What you believe is up to you completely. Because I want to know why you would destined a cow to a slaughterhouse. What about... It doesn't mention anything about gorillas in your religion. Do you think it's morally okay or permissible for me to get gorillas forcibly breed them take their babies away put them in factory farms and essentially put them in a slaughterhouse the same slaughterhouse that cows go to for example so I can just eat their flesh when there's vegan alternatives available. That's fine? Is that a moral issue? I'm going to see a moral issue with farming with dogs either they do farm dogs in South Korea for example and I don't find that okay and that's a very interesting thing because that is massively it's a contradiction I have a bit and I've got a contradiction in that So now you don't have a moral issue with farming dogs? No I don't I wouldn't eat them myself because I like dogs So like in Eulen they take the dogs they boil them alive is that fine? Causing unnecessary pain is a different thing That's not unnecessary for them to get pleasure out of it Which is horrific Why is it horrific? Because you don't care about animals We're better than animals Who said I don't care about animals?  No I don't They put them in small cages They're called like a farrowing crate They might put them in a cage They separate their babies They often mutilate them They're kept in prison in confinement and they make them grow really fast and they often get like a certain you know floor and get decapitated Do you think all that's fine for gorillas? First of all I would know about factory farming how it works I don't believe causing unnecessary suffering to any creature is right So why do you think I know it's difficult because ultimately I would want to put the boxes on What do you mean by unnecessary?  Yes of course Where do you think they come from? They come from batteries a lot of them do Is that unnecessary suffering? That I don't know I don't know what you mean by the word necessary Do you mean like needed? I mean for example boarding something alive that you can simply slaughter an animal without having to do that But they're doing it for pleasure I mean why else do we eat meat because you like the taste Because you like the taste and it's a part of my balance Yeah So they're doing it because they're just generating more pleasure out of eating the dog Who are you to say what's necessary and unnecessary Exactly and who are you to say you fit in this You're saying it's wrong to boil dogs alive it's okay to factory farm gorillas It's wrong to put cows in No, don't tell me what I think Don't close over what I think Flashback Do you think it's morally okay for me to get gorillas forcibly breed them take their babies away put them in factory farms and essentially put them in a slaughterhouse That's fine Morally permissible You don't see an issue without at all Moral issue End of flashback We're recording it Yeah of course you are The actual sequence of what they do to factory farm a gorilla in that way I'd think that's unnecessary suffering and I would disagree with that Of course I would do So why do you eat chickens if you believe factory farming is unnecessary suffering Well it depends the way you said that they put them in cages they torch them They put the pigs in farrowing crates with their pigs But chickens are kept in big large sheds between 20 and 50,000 in a shed and they're growing so fast they can't support their own body weight and a lot of them die on their faces in the farms and get sent to a slaughterhouse to be gasped I would be a proponent of any way possible which is feasible to make sure animals do not suffer in that sort of way I don't want animals to suffer to be on my plate I understand that I don't mind them being slaughtered I've got no problem taking out a shotgun shooting an animal peeling it taking the organs out and cooking up I've got no issues with that I wish because it's part of my food It's part of diet It's not a needed part of your diet It is because I don't want to take supplements I don't have many studies which I don't actually know because I'm not actually I don't want to pull out the science mate because unless we're going to go through data here it's probably not Are you aware of any problems with kinds of Alzheimer's and things like that people on vegan diets for long periods of time I've had saturated fat I think the small vessels in your brain and that vegan diets have lower saturated fat cholesterol So one you don't want to support suffering No, I'm not needed suffering because obviously killing something is going to make it suffer like eggs fish chicken You haven't got any of that Yeah, well we have because they all entail egregious suffering for all these animals Do you live here in the UK? I do live here Okay, so the industries here in the UK they all have egregious elements of suffering that are needless So I mean rather than saying stop it right now which is what you want to do because you want to be able to be vegan because you care I'm just saying how do you justify personally not being vegan when you don't want there to be how would you make the system better so there wasn't so much on the necessary system? Just boycott it destroy it in order to meet the demand you have to mass breed these animals and put them in these conditions in order to so every single person here now 8 billion people on earth want meat, cheese, milk, eggs and they're living in a fairytale land thinking they just live on the grass and then they get a nice painless death and then they end up in the supermarket Yeah, and the actual reality of it is a very painful if you can agree that's horrific at least then you at least have to agree that if you could come from there I'd say that meat is a part of the human food source and it's also I know it's a choice that you can now nowadays supplement things like with a very healthy life So what do you think I'm supplementing each day? B12 maybe Sorry? Yeah I mean B12 let's talk about B12 because that's one of the ones we should supplement Can I just stop for one second this has been rather heated which is actually I've enjoyed the conversation I've learnt a lot because I don't actually think about these things how it ends up in my play and I can thank you for that I also do much respect you and your position I do respect vegans as well who who stick by their moral compass and say that this is absolutely wrong What I'd like you to understand from my perspective is yes if you put down a picture of a cow being it's a horrific thing but I accept it as part of the culture and part of my food source and part of the farming process and people have been doing this for I don't care how long someone's done something for No but that's why I respect that It doesn't make it okay after time I think it's just a part of the human experience and also part of being an omnivore It doesn't sound like a moral justifier I think it's omnivorous omnivorous I want to eat humans who cares I mean the fact that I'm a natural omnivore opportunistic eater in nature justify killing people and eating them Well it doesn't but you've already had this conversation where you think there's there's two different things based on that experience Listen I clearly said even though I think some human life is more valuable than animal life I don't think all human life is more valuable I think some humans are scum and they deserve to rot Well that's not for you to say but I would agree in part Well yeah well you know there's a lot of evil people but I'm just saying if you talk like a normal human being they're just like an average human that's not going to be causing a bunch of needless killing over their life you took a normal human normal cow all things hold equal yes the human is more important because of their depth of experience and I care about sentience right now I didn't say just because one's more important therefore a cow is less important than my taste buds or being stabbed in the throat in a slaughterhouse and killed it just might mean that they have different needs so therefore they both deserve a right to be murdered but a human might have a little bit more over the cow just because of their experience right and then you have a mosquito which is down here which will bite you and give you malaria which I don't care give a shit about because they're just like trivial sentience they have barely enough to know where they are but a cow we're talking about cows on par with a human child okay well I wouldn't think that but I can understand well like a three year old no when you don't have to think of it they're just as intelligent I raise people about livestock and animals I do I work in the spiritual side of things because there's no point discussing that we can talk about why you think humans deserve to stab animals to death for a sandwich while we're so like important there's a lot of things to be said about that I mean animals across the world obviously being slaughtered on mass for food is that there's other animals which are obviously kept as pets we are in care of them do you have dominion in this horror? dominion over animals God gave us dominion over animals that's the S do you think dominion means to selectively breed them mass enslave them and then capitate them all for a sandwich I think that's what dominion means so we're talking about Taurus we were talking about 2000 years ago we're not talking about when they had supplements and things like that you're not talking about when they had this amount of people on earth where they need to meet the demand with factories I think there's I've consciously recently tried to eat a lot less meats but only because for health reasons and things like that I've chosen not to you seem unsure about the healthy nature of a plant based diet no I think that you can't be eating steak for every single meal and be healthy but why I thought if God made it animals to be eaten infinite amounts of it well there's a lot of things they were omnivorous there's lots of things you can have you can't drink too much water that's poisonous yeah I get that so if we're allowed to drink water why can't we just drink 50 litres a second yeah that's a good point because you're dying that's a good point it's balanced it's part of a balanced diet unless you choose not to and you have that with supplements then you can choose not to yeah I mean you keep saying supplements I don't supplement much dude like it I mean you keep saying I have to have all these supplements it's like vitamin D3 in a cloudy country and B12 people choose to get that from me as a part of a balanced diet and I've got no issues do you supplement vitamin D3 in England no so if you care about supplementing you should be getting vitamin D people keep screaming supplements as soon as I ask them to stop cutting animals heads off so it seems like they're not really that focused on their health and to us between the two of us between one place and there's very solidified arguments I'm coming towards you based on what you've said what you've said also especially the scalability of it now if there are more people on this planet and to scale up production would increase suffering would increase make conditions even worse than they are now which you can call me I know aware of that I would start coming around to your side a lot more I think as being scaled up now it's pretty bad it's 80 billion land animals slaughtered every year and then we've got between one and three trilling marine animals you're making very good points and very well I don't know what it says in the Torah about causing animal suffering but I know they have kosher guidelines I can't support animal suffering you can't shoot animal that wouldn't be kosher for example you have to gash their product in a certain way I've seen it I've seen it and it causes about a minute worth of suffering to death have you seen kosher slaughter yes you watch it what do you think I think it's it's a lot of life it produces food I don't think there's any problem with it if you are religious I don't know how religious you are because it seems to me like someone who's pretty devout Jewish person would have brought these to the forefront of the discussion not at the end I mean I want to engage you with logic and good arguments spiritual thing is for me it's how I believe and I can't put that on anybody else but that's fine I just want to know why you believe what you believe and how you think those beliefs justify the conventional animal agriculture to start because you wouldn't be eating out of the like I said chickens eggs dairy you wouldn't be eating out of those places if you cared about causing animal suffering yeah so it obviously as I said it's kidding kidding an animal a minute suffering in fact any your religion the Torah was written 2,000 years ago before they had factory farms more than 2,000 years about 5,000 years now the guidelines about what is kosher to eat when they were written around the same time they'll be yeah the Torah it says very clearly what you can eat what you can't eat now imagine these guidelines been written today do you think factory farms would be considered kosher? yes what does it specifically say about suffering? okay so it's very complicated there are many books written in the town about what makes slaughtering kosher or not I'm not worse than that and we are talking I'm just talking about how you ought treat animals yeah before slaughter I don't know about how to treat animals before slaughter there will be something about how I mean I don't know that's the simple answer it's very complicated there's a little bit of history but then we have something in there about causing there'll be conversations there'll be conversations about suffering I don't know that I can't give that to you now okay there will be something there and it's something that I'd very happily read up yeah I mean it's your religion well I've studied that if it's your religion and you're eating animals wouldn't you want to know like what is in alignment with God's wish? yeah I would have asked these questions myself it's been done and that's how they slaughter in a kosher way it's prohibited to cause pain to animals yeah outside the it doesn't say that well listen you can't understand the full-town word on how to slaughter animals how to have kosher meat based on a two-second conversation I'm not going to get into that with you do you think it's permissible to cause pain to animals inside a factory farm for food? inside a factory farm causing pain you'd have to kind of clear that up unpack that a little bit so going in kicking the first what does your intuition say about about well suffering again it depends because they're going to be ultimately slaughtered for food so that's suffering involved there they're going to be kept in pens pre-slaughtering which will be obviously causing a form of suffering there so would that be kosher? yes factory farms are kosher then? no no the kosher slaughtering I'm not talking about slaughtering I'm just talking about what happens to them in the farm I don't know you jump into slaughter these are great questions these are kosher slaughtering these are something for a rubber this is very this is your religion and this is how you're basing your morality a lot of it yes okay so don't you want to know I want to know look it up in the teller fishing industry mass industrial fishing industry exists today right my argument is that these guidelines were written 5,000 years ago there was no factory farms back then now we have this abomination called factory farming where most of your food is coming from statistically it's a very good point and you didn't have the dairy industry back then they might have had one goat that they're taking some milk from now we have the industry they're impregnating cows taking their calves killing the calves causing the cow suffering selectively bred animals that can't support their own body weight and they're producing all this milk like this here is nothing close to how God created these animals these are human selectively bred animals bred to supper yeah all for human greed because it's not need okay because we have given plants as well yep do you have the garden of Eden in the garden of Eden okay the garden of Eden is completely vegan right yep if you have a plant it may be yours for food yep and do you have the same Isaiah 116 is it the same Christianity is that the lion will lie down with the lamb yes the lion will be straw like the ox it's translated differently and they're the same sort of life okay so God even wants animals to be vegan okay so understand where you're coming from does God want animals to be vegan who's got no the wolf will dwell with the lamb the leper will lie down with the kid the calf and the lion and the ox together and a small child will lead them that's in Olam Haba this is all the animals living in peace and basically harming each other yeah okay that's a big so even God wants that no I'm telling you even God wants what happens if you're talking about a religious context you need a messiah I mean even God wants that's not right when a messiah comes if you're talking about the religious context why not now if you're talking about God we're talking about scripture and that's what it says so that's the end of that conversation but I'm reaching God wants that though I'm reaching to a human why would God want the wolf to lay down with the lamb and you were using nature as an argument before to end it's natural to eat animals animals eat animals but God doesn't even want this it does until a messiah then it's along my brotherness then that's what happens God wants sin to God thinks eating animals is even evil I wouldn't agree with that if I could see then why would that be perfect paradise why would the perfect paradise be easy the lamb will lie down with the lion so lions are no longer coniferous you can start feeding it at lions all you want coniferous animals any coniferous just vegetables even God has a vision like this that's not painless that is going to be painful for that animal it's God's vision so this I'm explaining to you you've asked me a question allow me to answer it the question is you said is that going to be painless no it's not as it is now without a messiah without a lamb her bar we'll return it to Ghani and all those thought processes right now to give a coniferous animal anything but me will be painful to them I'm not saying that dude I'm not saying that dude I'm just saying principally philosophically even God the one you worship wants what I want the perfect paradise is when coniferous animals don't eat me and they do and you're arguing with with God basically do not say that again in Ghani Eden you had animals you can laugh to the camera or you won't you had animals who are coniferous now who did not eat me at the time are you coniferous? I'm coniferous so you have a choice right listen I've got a choice do you have a choice a lion doesn't have a choice right a lion doesn't have a choice but no you sorry don't move the goal post just saying you're saying God wants this because in Ghani Eden or everyone no one was meaty to everyone's vegetarian it's pretty clear that's your perspective God doesn't want you to a coniferous creature to eat vegetables that's not what they're made for when Mashiach comes God literally does I've read this in Isaiah 11.6 he does literally wants the wolf to lay down with the lamb when Mashiach comes back to Ghani and things are different so God does want that when Mashiach comes it'll land my bar why not you now because it'll land me all I'm saying is all I'm saying is what is this word you keep saying what does this mean Mashiach when the Messiah comes yeah Mashiach and what would be different about when the Messiah comes would this be a perfect paradise this will be when evil leaves the earth when evil leaves the earth when evil leaves the earth so you're admitting that God thinks eating animals is evil no but I've explained to you in the context of that I've explained to you you can't I've explained to you in the same way again it's not evil that a lion eats meat God thinks it's evil I'm saying well he doesn't and you don't speak for God in order to God thinks it's evil then what is this when the Messiah comes this is when it so another bulk so the idea is that we turn to paradise such as Gandhi uses it so will we paradise when the lions don't eat meat so it's not paradise now well no okay so it's bad now eat God's eyes no it's not bad so what is it he called it evil it's called evil in the Bible it's not evil I don't know what the Torah says but it's called evil in the Bible you know in the Torah it does say animals have dominion over animals and they use the food and it tells you exactly how to prepare them also if you look in the Torah it tells you what you need to do it's not evil slaughtering in the temple when you sin and you have to bring certain else the fact that farming doesn't matter to that man this is exploitation of God's creation no I understand but I'm not going to speak it for you mass suffering this is mass suffering I know you believe it's mass suffering and I don't believe it is it's objectively true well I don't think it's objectively true so you don't think factory farming is mass suffering I think the slaughter of animals for food is factory farming mass suffering the factory farming in certain conditions I know you are and you have a lot to tell me about that and you've told me very interesting things but I'm thinking the slaughtering of animals to eating of them that is not really absolutely fun God literally thinks it's evil for animals for each other you're not telling me what God thinks I'm telling you that's where we that's where we log ahead so we're going around on servers I'm really I'm just telling you what it says in Isaiah 11 6 I appreciate your time but anyway I wanted to have a religious discussion because I think it's incredibly interesting how can animals have it if the start and the end I don't care what other do Don't care about its other animals rape each other would you follow that what the other animals did no I'm saying I would follow that do other animals rape each other in nature do other animals rape each other in nature in behind do lions rape each other in nature do they each other's young yes do you follow what the lines do Then we some would you God admits that it's not good. Listen, I'm not being seen wrong. I'm telling you quite clearly that animals have those traits naturally within the world that we live in.   Who gives a s*** about what? The animals. I'm saying they rape each other, so who gives a s*** in terms of how we should dictate our morality, how we should act? We shouldn't look to nature to dictate our morality in civilization. I believe it's a choice. Now God, I was just bringing up God because Isaiah 116, right? That's why I was bringing it up because you're religious. I don't believe in religions. I might believe in God, I might believe as a creator. I don't believe in Christianity and Judaism or the Abrahamic religions personally because I think there's something going on there that I don't agree with, right? No, I understand that. That's a personal choice.  No, not never. God is the creator of morality. My argument always started away from that sort of thing. It was based on a cultural and physiological need for me which is now morphed into something which you've now described as a kind of industrial, torturous, awful kind of animal which you want to avoid. We don't have a physiological need for it. No. We have a physiological need for nutrients and I think now that God's earth is being destroyed by factory farming and the amount of suffering and killing it's causing, it's the morally right thing to do to avoid these systems. Now if we see the earth going down the s*** with animals dying in infinite suffering in factory farms we start trying to justify our consumption which has got nothing to do with anything but taste and maybe, I don't know, a misinterpretation of what you need. I'd be trying everything to get these supplements to stop supporting it because that doesn't look like anything God created. I really, really must go and listen. First of all, I appreciate your time. Secondly, you have definitely made me think and the reason was I've always thought there's a wall here between what people do and our food where animals come from and when you make me look at that very closely, yes, there is a glint of, oh, I'm a bit shaky and there's definitely a moral quandary there and it's very thought-provoking. I'm not going to be converted within a day but I really understand what you're coming for. I think we got off the wrong foot because I didn't know whether you were serious or not because I got a lot of people who are not serious and you seem serious but then when we stuck on definitions and I'm showing them and they're going, no, that's not right and yes, that's not, I think the semantics thing got me off on the wrong foot too. I think you're very eloquent in the way that you put your argument across and I think you've made very, very good points. I'm also somebody who, I don't think we've had as much practice as you but I'm decent with the conversation and I try to push back when I'm pushed out. I think we've been both guilty of that. I think maybe it's just a, maybe we both, you're not as aware of what's going on as me. No, I'm not. So I have that in the back of my mind when you're saying things and you don't have it. If you would have them all over and you've been watching videos of animals being tortured and murdered, or it's part boiled alive, you would have a lot of anger and justified anger for that and I'm kind of, I'm not very aware of that or it's at the back of my mind, I've never looked into it. So that's where, maybe I should do it. Maybe you should look into it. I think it's a fair point and I think when my food comes in it's very important. I've always been aware that it's more than that red thing that you see on the shelf and it's something that I will look into. Slaughterhouses are in closed doors, right? Now I believe that these guidelines were for people who had maybe some animals out there in their village at the back and these weren't for slaughterhouses operating in mass production in closed doors and religious individuals like to look back to the old way and think that this is happening now. I'm not actually, what I think is a good idea and I think it's a great idea is that even though people might be living in denial about how their food ends up on their plate I think this needs to be, if you put it across, the way you put it across to me to most people here right now that the food that you're eating, right now, the chicken you're having for dinner tonight this is the situation that they're going through this is the pain that they're going through look at this, see this a lot of people, not all, would probably come to your side and would actually stop eating meat. You'd be very surprised actually I've been doing this for nearly 10 years I suppose, been vegan nearly 10 years been on the street for eight some people just don't give a s*** that's not me now, I think you do care because otherwise we couldn't have a productive conversation people that don't care, I can't even get them to I mean, I think that when you said I don't care about this, I don't care about that you did say that about dogs and about gorillas I don't think you knew the gravity of what you were saying before you said it I mean, when I was saying that I was talking about, as I said I wouldn't eat a dog myself do other people have the right to eat a dog? at the time I was thinking yet they might do and that's your conversation with them my argument is the dogs should have rights for them not to do that I don't understand so, I think you do care enough for us to have a productive conversation and for us to lead through some logic and you have some... you have a moral system that I don't think you've quite thought through when it comes to animals so you need some time to jumble things around and get it consistent but that's all part of the process but I'll always be inspired by a good argument and good points you made a lot of this and there's no reason for me to say you're entirely wrong, I'm entirely right I'm in between and I know this is hypocrisy I mean, oh yes, they live lovely in a field hopping and skipping and then to my plate it's absolutely fine there's a lot of horror in between and how to spare that with a choice to eat meat I see that argument completely and it's something I will look into more when I become a vegan I think probably not to be honest with you but it's something that I will try I've tried to reduce my meat intake and things like that not for a moral basis but also because I don't like to eat so much meat anymore but you've given me the opportunity to look into it and I appreciate that and I thank you very much when you're not vegan you're supporting unjustifiable suffering on a mass scale something that's inconsistent with the values of your own religion and values of being a decent person until you are vegan you're not really doing your best in civilised society to avoid riots, violations suffering of the innocent beings mass killing something that's an abomination to not only nature but God themselves I respect that point I will just get a few points I'm just making my finishing point this is what I truly believe through what I know and no one can force you to do anything and if you do arts to God one day because you know I think when you have the privilege to know you have the duty to act and maybe it's just your conscience and you die and it's nothing forever or maybe it's your conscience in the back of your mind you think oh maybe that is wrong I'm going to tuck it away and then you face judgement I don't know that's not for me to say but we've had the conversation and I think it was productive in the end even though we got stuck at the start I appreciate you sitting down because it takes confidence to do that again even though I've been pushing back a lot because I tend to when I get pushed at vegans who are there who've got the moral compass not to want to eat animals it's something that I respect I don't disrespect it and people trying to get the message out there also it's something that I respect but I also respect people have the choice and I don't think necessarily eating meat is a wrong choice but we agree to screen that what's your name my name's Joey Joey Gideon it's been a pleasure to meet you yeah nice to meet you Gideon thanks for sitting down because it takes confidence to do that mate all the best take care it's incredibly wrong it's one of the most evil choices we make on a day to day basis it has the worst outcomes for animals you could possibly imagine all of the most horrible things I've ever seen in my life happen in animal agriculture it's an abomination on every level and we went around there with that conversation but I think it was interesting so


Take your Bibles please and turn to the book of Psalms, Psalm 135. And stand with me and we're going to read verses 1-6. You know in the Scripture, whenever God's Word is read, the people stand out of reverence and respect. And I think that's a good habit for all of us to be in. Praise the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Praise Him, O you servants of the Lord. You who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God, praise the Lord for the Lord is good. Sing praises to His name for it is pleasant. For the Lord has chosen Jacob for Himself, Israel for His special treasure. For I know that the Lord is great and our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, He does. In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep places. This is the Word of God. You may be seated. Tonight we're looking at the sovereignty of God, that God is sovereign. And this sixth verse was really the text that I want to open. The Psalm is a psalm of praise. We are commanded from the beginning of the psalm to praise the Lord, to praise Him, to praise His name. And verse 3 gives us the first reason for this praise, which is what we saw two weeks ago. Praise Him. Why? Because He's good. Verse 4 tells us to praise Him for His electing love. Verse 5 tells us to praise Him for His preeminence. And verse 6 expresses His sovereignty. And in just two verses, two phrases in verse 6, we have the sovereignty of God laid out for us as simply and as fully as we need to have done. Because we see, first of all, the delight of God with regard to His sovereignty. And second, the domain of God with regard to His sovereignty. I want us to look, first of all, at the delight of God, or the good pleasure of God. That's a phrase out of the old King James Version from Ephesians. This is mere good pleasure. Here's what the psalmist said, whatever the Lord pleases, He does. Now that tells you two things. One, it tells you that God is not married. He does whatever He pleases. It also tells you He is autonomous. The Hebrew word that's translated in English pleases means delight. Literally, God does what delights Him to do. This idea is a repeat of Psalm 115 verse 3, but our God is in the heavens. He does whatever He pleases. I have to tell you this story just to back up a few minutes. I was doing a class, I was preaching in Birmingham, Alabama. And the man who had invited me said, before we go to that church for you to preach, what would you think about teaching a Sunday school class? And I said, well, sure. He says, but not at that church, at the First United Methodist Church. Oh, really? Seriously? He goes, oh, yeah. And, okay. So I went over and just off the top of my head, I did a thing on the subject of free will. Which, of course, everybody in that church would affirm. And I said, there's no such thing. I said, there is, how did I say it? You freely will, but the will is not free. I said, now there is free willy, but that's a movie about a whale. And so I explained what I understood free will to be that there were no restraints on the will of any kind, that there were no pressures on the will to make a certain choice, that in order for the will to be free it had to be absolutely neutral and didn't have any inclination one way or the other. And right in the middle of this, a woman stood up and says, I think you're dead wrong. I think that man is absolutely free to do whatever he wants whenever he wants. I said, okay. I said, may I ask what you do for a living? I'm just curious. She goes, I'm a lawyer. Strikes one, two, and three. And I saw a man sitting next to her just going like this. So I took a wild guess. I said, are you married? She said, yes. I said, is that gentleman your husband? She said, yes. I said, may I ask him a question? That was my dig. She says, of course. I said, sir, are you a married man? He said, yes.  He says, no, I'm married. And I said, my argument is done. Any married man knows there's no such thing as free will. God does whatever he pleases and whatever God does pleases him. Now, we mentioned this last week. People ask us the question, can God do anything? And we want to get God's back and we want to stand up for His. God can do anything, and that's false. The Westminster Catechism says, God can do all His holy will. But God cannot lie. God cannot die. God cannot sin. God cannot deny Himself. He cannot do anything inconsistent with His own holiness. God limits Himself. God can do anything consistent with His character and with His purposes. I remember over almost 35 years ago, I was working as a football coach at a small Methodist College in Central Missouri. And I was talking with one of the cheerleaders one night. Her name was Cheryl. And she says, God's called me to be a minister to preach. And I said, you can't. She goes, why not? I says, because that's not an office open to you, to your gender. Of course, in the Methodist Church, you can. But I said, biblically, you can't. And she said, I don't even want to, but God told me I have to. I says, well, there's two qualifications that you immediately don't meet. One is, it says, if any man desires the office, you're not that. And secondly, it says, if any man desires the office, and you don't want it. So on the first two counts, you're out. She says, well, I know what God told me. And I says, OK, so after thousands of years of saying no, God said yes to you. God can't go contrary to His own word or purposes. But God's being unable to do wrong is not a weakness in God. It's rather a strength. It's an affirmation of His purity. Don't you wish that it was impossible for you to sin? I have people say, what do you think will be the best part of heaven? And people want to say, oh, I get to see grandma again. I don't know how to tell this to you. When you get to heaven, grandma's going to be too busy to spend time with you. I mean, it's like all the folks among us remember W.C. Fields, in a way, kid, you bother me. You go to heaven, you find grandma. Grandma, it's me. I'm busy, kid. We've got millions of years to get to you. I'm busy praising God. The best part about heaven ain't going to see grandma. And for me, the best part of heaven is not going to walk streets of gold. When I think about heaven, I think about this. No more sin. No more repenting. No more saying I'm sorry. No more guilt. No more shame. No more hoping nobody sees me do this. None of that kind of stuff. We don't have to worry about that anymore. That's heaven. Oh yeah, and then there's Jesus. God can do whatever He finds consistent with Himself and His own purposes. God does whatever He pleases and no one stops Him from doing that and no one interferes with His accomplishing whatever He desires to do. He is God. I mean, that's surely the message of Isaiah 55-11. My word will not return to me void without accomplishing the purpose for which I sent it. That's a very strong affirmation by God of His own sovereignty. There was a musical some years ago with Yul Brynner and Deborah Carr called the King and I. And Yul Brynner played the King of Siam, which I think is now Iran, isn't it? What is that called today? Anybody know? Iran? Thailand, I'm sorry, yes, Thailand. And he would give a law and he would say, so let it be written, so let it be done. Why can't God do that? He is God, He's not the King of Siam, you know. My word will not return to me void without accomplishing the purpose for which I sent it. One thing that should be very comforting for a church like yours that is so strong about evangelism. You're not successful when somebody makes a quote decision. You're successful as soon as you have spoken the truth of God's word. What He does with it after that is up to Him. It's not up to you. I'll never forget over 30 years ago, I was in Jacksonville, Florida, getting ready to graduate from seminary with my master's degree. And there was a kind man who let about 10 of us, single guys come and stay in his house, just sleeping bags on the floor and it was like that. And I remember we were going around in a circle, just like, who are you, what do you do? And I said to this guy, what do you do? He said, I save souls. Well, really you mean that? He goes, yeah, I save souls. So I thought that was God's job. He said, He helps. I said, how many souls have you saved in the last 10 years? He said about 12,000. Wow. Did you ever do any follow-up? Actually we did recently, it was kind of interesting. I said, out of 12,000, how many are active in a local church? He said, three. I said, so 11,999 Christians don't go to church, but three out of that number do, and you think they're all saved. And he, hmm, never thought of that. When you have spoken the truth of God's word, you've been successful because you've been faithful. And you know, at the end of this life, we will never hear God say, well done, now good and successful servant. Well done, now good and faithful servant. It's our job to be faithful. It is God's job to be successful. And it is God's job to determine what success looks like. I mean, I've had people say, well I went out witnessing and nobody responded at all. Well they all responded. I said, every single one of them said no. Not interested, that's a response. You know, we're that way with our prayers. I've been praying for this for 30 years and God has not answered my prayer. Yeah, for 30 years he said no. We just think if we don't get what we pray for, it doesn't count. Well let me give you a working definition of the sovereignty of God. The sovereignty of God means that God is in complete control of every situation and will accomplish his purposes as the divine initiator. I'll read it again. God is in complete control of every situation and will accomplish his purposes as the divine initiator. You don't have to go far into scripture to see that this is true. The book of Genesis says, God said, let there be light. And what was the result? Well the light particles got together, formed a committee, took a vote to see if they felt like cooperating and the majority ruled so there was light. Ah no. God said, let there be light and guess what? Where was light? Turn with me to the book of Isaiah and the 46th chapter. Isaiah 46 beginning in verse nine. Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no one like me. There's no other, I am God and there is no one like me. Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done. Saying my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. Calling a bird of prey from the east. The man who executes my counsel from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it, I will bring it to pass. So let it be written, so let it be done. I have purposed it, I will also do it. Does it sound like God is just hoping it works out right? Well I sure hope this works. No. So how does God show himself to be unique? He says there's none like me. In this I declare the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that haven't been done. What's he saying here? I can tell you the end of history from the first day of history. I can tell you things that haven't even been done yet. Why? Just because he knows more? Is he like Superman? He can see into the future with his X-ray vision? No. The basis for his knowledge is his sovereign decree. My purpose will be established and I will accomplish most of the things I want to do. All my good pleasure. Verse 11, truly I have spoken, truly I will bring it to pass, I've planned it, I will do it. I don't know how even God could be planer than that. In Daniel 4.35 he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth and no one can ward off his hand. In other words, nobody keeps God from doing exactly what he wants to do which is anything he pleases. When the Westminster Divines met in the chapel of Henry VIII and the Jerusalem Chapel of the Westminster Abbey to formulate and compile the Confession of Faith, the 1643 one. You knew kids on the block came along 46 years later and but at least you had the good sense to copy most of it. Chapter three of God's eternal decrees. Now, confessions and catechisms are not inspired. They are subordinate standards to the Bible. Only the Bible is inspired but these things help us understand them sometimes. God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will freely and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass. Yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin nor is violence offered to the will of creatures nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away but rather established. God ordains everything that comes to pass yet he is not the author of sin. Now there are well-meaning people who because they can't understand this try to help God out of his dilemma. I know people who call themselves reformed. They are really deformed who are willing to make God the author of sin because they can't figure out any other way. There's only one problem with that. God's not the author of sin. So whatever you came up with in your pea brain to somehow make God the author of sin must be wrong and violence is not offered to the will of the creature nor is our second causes taken away. People take this and they turn into fatalists. Well, God's gonna do whatever he's gonna do. I don't need to do anything. No. God has established the means and God has established the end that comes through those means. For example, God wants people saved, right? Yes.  Oh, what's that? Leave them alone and they'll come home wagging their tails behind them. We don't need to evangelize. Well, except for this, God said, faith comes by hearing. Nobody ever got to say, well, I can think of two in the Bible, but other than John the Baptist and Jeremiah, nobody ever got saved who didn't hear the gospel somehow. Either God speaking to them or you speaking to them. And you can be concerned about that poor innocent naive in Africa who's never heard the gospel, then go tell him. If you're really concerned about him, go find him. I don't know which one's the innocent one, but nobody's gonna get saved apart from the gospel. So don't tell me I'm concerned about it. I says, well, then go. Question 12 of the Catechism, what are the decrees of God? God's decrees are the wise, free and holy acts of the counsel of his will, whereby from all eternity he has for his own glory unchangeably foreordained whatever comes to pass in time. Now, the term sovereign connotes a situation in which a person from innate dignity exercises supreme power with no areas of his province outside his jurisdiction.  That limits it to God alone. Applied to God, it indicates his complete power over all creation so he exercises his will absolutely without any necessary conditioning by a finite will or wills. For example, you'll hear people say this phrase, prayer changes things. Which things does it change? Does it change God's mind? Oh yes, really? Seriously? God from all eternity passed determined what he was going to do, but you gave him information he didn't have before. Why didn't I think of that? What prayer changes most is the prayerur to get in accordance with God's will. The term itself is often used by Christians, but I'd be willing to bet that very few professing Christians believe that God is sovereign if it were pressed upon them in practical terms. The English theologian G.K. Chesterton once said, most people who profess to be Christians don't know what Christianity is. And if they ever find out, they won't like it.  You heard that a lot after 9-11. There was a interfaith service, which really means a no faith at all service. And a Protestant minister said, God had nothing to do with this. What? So then the terrorists are in charge of the world. Well, it may look like that sometimes, but we have God standing idly by while we make a mess of our lives. And then he cleans up the mess, which makes God reactive rather than proactive in the affairs of this world. That's really what a deist is, you know. A deist believes there is a God, but he set the world in motion, and then he took his hand off it and said, good luck. In scripture, God is always the divine initiator, not the responder. He brings his will to pass through his decrees and through the means which he has ordained. God has not only ordained the end, but the means by which that end comes to pass. If God wants that guy in Africa saved, you're going to go tell him. But the sovereignty of God is really a natural conclusion drawn from his other attributes. I mean, if he's eternal, then he's the source of everything that is. If he's the source of everything that he is, then he's omnipotent. If he's omnipotent, he's obviously sovereign. If he's not sovereign, he can't be omnipotent. If he's not omnipotent, he can't be God because he'd have an equal or a credible rival. The old theologians used to use this phrase with reverence to God, he's Lex Rex. Means he's a law unto himself. And he absolutely and sovereignly rules his creation, ordaining everything that comes to pass. In Lamentations 3.36, God asks that in the form of a rhetorical question. What is there that comes to pass that I didn't ordain? Well, now he's not waiting for an answer. Well, I can think of something and back in 1974, somebody ran over my cat, I ordained that. How could you do such a horrible thing? What kind of a God are you? I'm the God of the Bible. All other authority in this world is derived authority. God's authority is intrinsic. You remember the dialogue between Jesus and Pilate? Pilate really thought he was all that. And he thought he was threatening Jesus with his authority. He says, don't you know that I have the power to take your life or to let you go? And Jesus said, you wouldn't have any authority at all if it weren't given you from above. Neither would anyone else. We have elections coming up in a few months. Everybody's really concerned. Well, what if this happens? What if that happens? What if another one of these guys gets in there? What if we don't get a conservative in there? You know who will be the next president? Exactly who God wants. It may not be who you want, but it will be exactly who God wants. What if God were saying, I'll give you what you deserve? Oh, please don't do that again. So God freely ordains all things that come to pass and nothing happens that God is not ordained to come to pass. God displays and asserts his sovereignty in various ways. You can just write down these scriptures and look them up later. In Psalm 75, six and seven, God exalts some and he puts down others. I mean, you see that people ask all the time, well, why would God save him and not him? Because God's offer. In Psalm 104, verses 27 to 30, God feeds some at times and not others. God opens his hand and satisfies some people. God hides his face and dismayes some people. God takes the very breath right out of some people. In Psalm 107, God creates storms and he stops storms. In Isaiah 45, God forms light and creates darkness. God causes well-being and God creates calamity. Here's one. In 1 Chronicles 13, God kills Uzzah for touching the ark. Remember that story? God had said, I want you to transport the ark and here's how I want you to do it. I want you to put ringlets on the four corners of the ark, slide poles through there, carry the ark on four sets of men's shoulders. Whatever you do, don't touch the ark, but they knew better than God. How much trouble in this world has been caused because of people who thought that? Yeah, I know better than that. How about Abraham and Sarah and Hagar?  We're too old for that. Abraham, go sleep with Hagar. And you realize what came of that union? Israel's been at war ever since. They helped God out of his dilemma. I say this often, we think that God knows everything except what he's doing. Well, the same thing happened here. God said, whatever you do, don't touch the ark. Carry it on your shoulders. Ah, that's too much work. So they put it on a cart pulled by oxen. And as they were going along, the oxen stumbled and the ark started to slide off, headed towards the mud, the dirt.  And he reached up and he steadied the ark and God said, whew, thank you, Uzzah.  I said, don't touch the ark. What part of that didn't you understand, Uzzah? And yet in 1 Samuel 4, God lets the Philistines take the ark and steal it. Wait a minute, what are you doing? There isn't anything that God won't do to glorify himself. He's not restricted in any way by factors, circumstances, or limitations of any kind. Everything he does pleases him and he always does what he pleases. Now, isn't the interesting question now, how come I'm not pleased with what pleases God?  Because if he did it, it pleases him. You can't have God at odds with God. Well, I didn't, but I'm not happy about it. Why is it I'm not pleased with everything that God does? See, the problem is me, not God. If God isn't sovereign, he's not God. If God isn't sovereign, there's no explanation for anything that happens. I remember years ago, there was a cartoon in Christianity Today. And for a long time, the cartoons have been the best thing about Christianity Day. There were two fish swimming in a fishbowl and one of them said to the other, there's no God, who's changing the water? I mean, this is a no-brainer, folks. If there's a cause, if there's an effect, there must have to be a cause. When somebody dies, how come he died? Oh, it just happened. Nothing just happens. That's why we do autopsies. That's why there's the show CSI. So you have an explanation for what happened and how it happened. But we have to remember that Scripture does not teach fatalism. We're not allowed to blame God's sovereignty for our sin or our failings. I was a football coach at Wheaton College many, many years ago. And we were having a scrimmage and the quarterback was running into the end zone and he fumbled the ball. And the head coach goes, Dave, what are you doing fumbling going to the end zone? And the quarterback says, I don't know, it must be God's will.  The sovereignty and providence of God should be a comfort to us, not a stumbling block. We might rebel against God's complete control, but we'd rebel more if he weren't completely in control. Who wants a God like that? Hey, I'll do what I can, folks. Really? So we've seen the delight of God with regard to his psalm. God does whatever he pleases. God does what delights God. And that goes back to last week that everything God does is for God's sake. His reason for everything he does is to please himself. But I want to look for a moment to the domain of God's sovereignty. We're back in Psalm 135. Verse six, whatever the Lord pleases he does, that's his delight. Here's his domain in heaven, in earth, in the seas, and in all deep places. Those are the only places that he's sovereign. God is sovereign over everything that happens in heaven, on earth, in the seas, and in all the deeps. He's in complete control over everything that happens in heaven. He's in complete control over everything that happens on earth. He's in complete control over everything that happens in the seas. Everywhere else, you're on your own. As I said, we have those elections coming up, and no matter who wins, God is still on the throne. After the attacks on September 11th, 2001, people were asking this question, where was God on 9-11? And the answer is, he was in the same place he was on 9-10, and the same place he'll be on 9-12. He's on the throne in complete control. Jonathan Edwards once asked it this way, if it happened, it was God's will. So he said, well, how do you know that? Could he have prevented it? Yes. Did he? No. Then he must have wanted it to happen. I find it so interesting that we are people who have to have control.  I don't know anybody like that. They're so in control, they're freakish about it. I've never heard anybody called a self-control freak, just controlling somebody else. We want to control our surroundings. We just don't like it when God does it. You know, in the Scripture, that's really the essence of sin. We will not have this man to rule over us. If I can put it in the vernacular, nobody's gonna tell me what to do. Not God, not the government, not the police, not my husband, not my parents, not the teacher. I'm the captain of my ship, the master of my own fate.  Psalm 103, verse 19 tells us the Lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules over all. The very word Lord speaks to his sovereignty. And that's why it's so essential that people come to Christ as Lord and Savior, not just Savior, and not Savior and Lord. Because that's an option the Bible never gives. The two terms Lord and Savior are used 631 times in the Bible, always in that order. 631 times it's Lord and Savior. God is actually called Savior more times than Christ is. The term Savior and Lord is used none, 631 to zero. You say, wow, that's a coincidence.  The greatest football blowout in history took place in 1925. Big Georgia Tech played little Cumberland College of Kentucky and beat them 222 to nothing. It was 56 to nothing after the first quarter. 222 to nothing. Wow, how about 631 to nothing? That's three times that score. And people blow right by that. I remember going to church camp in the summers and the last night before we all went home we'd have the fireside service where we'd throw our stick on the fire. And how many times people said, I accepted Jesus as my Savior when I was nine and tonight I've come to make him Lord of my life. That's not something you can do. First of all, you can't make him anything.  God already made him that. He is not yours to tell him, okay, you can be this and I'll follow you this much for these years and then later on, I'll get serious. If Christ isn't Lord, he's not Savior. Period. Now, that doesn't mean that a person understands all the implications of that the moment they get saved. They will submit to his Lordship the more they know about him.  People think they can make Christianity like a smorgasbord. I don't think you use that term here, like a buffet, like the golden corral.  She's there with four or five friends from work or from the Bible study group or something like that. Yes, I think I'll take one pea and one carrot. Oh, look at there, there's broccoli. I'll take two broccoli's and the man could just feed it up. I wanna get to the mashed potatoes. Theology's not a smorgasbord. It's not a pick and choose. You take all of God or you get none of God. We have no right to offer Christ to people in a way the Bible never does. You can't go and say, would you accept Jesus as your personal savior and where do you find that in the Bible? But to return to the Psalm passage in Psalm 103, it says that God has established His Word. That literally means prepared. God's authority is infinite as God Himself is. Whatever God does, He did it by Himself. Doesn't need any help. I was looking for cards for a friend one time and I saw one that I thought was perfect. There was an old style telephone on there that says this is God. You open it up and it says, I'll do it all today. I won't need any help. Thank you. God doesn't need our help. We need to consider this when we think of God being sovereign. I mean, all the attributes come into play here. However long this series goes, I want you to see that these things all mesh together as a unit and you take one away and you don't have God anymore. He's all of these things. He's not some of these things. We say that God is sovereign but just saying that doesn't give us the full connotation of the truth of it. God's attributes include His power and His goodness, His unchanging nature, His wisdom, His omniscience just to name a few. And if we add those adjectives to His sovereignty, we have to realize that God is powerfully sovereign. He is mercifully sovereign. He is immutably sovereign. He is sovereign according to wisdom. He is infinitely sovereign. All of those are absolutely necessary. The old Puritans used to say it this way, it must needs be so. God is powerfully sovereign. The sovereign has to have the power to do what he wants to do. And God is often referred to as the Lord of hosts. All the powers of heaven are at His command and at His disposal and they do His bidding. I like to think of biblical stories and imagine what it must be like, must have been like. I think of Jesus in the garden when the soldiers came to take Him. And Peter pulls out his little pocket knife. I'll defend you. Jesus says, put that thing away. Don't you know that I have 12 legions of angels at my bidding? All I have to do is give them the sign. A legion was 12,000 soldiers. Each angel, at least one angel in the Old Testament, killed 185,000 people all by himself. That was one angel. He not only had 12,000 of them, he had 12 times, he had 144,000 angels waiting. And can you imagine, you men know this, if you've ever played sports, how the things start to build up. Testosterone goes rampant. They're ready to fight. And the angels in heaven are watching the Lord Jesus in the garden. He said, here come the soldiers. Get ready. And 144,000 angels put on battle gear. And they have their spears in hand and they're tapping the ends on the streets of gold. 144,000. Just give us the word, Christ. Give us the word, Lord. The word never came. Because Christ was already in complete control of that situation. I was at a church a few weeks ago where they sang a song and in the song, there was a phrase that Christ was a victim of the cross. And when I got up, you always make sure you're the last person at the mic if you're gonna do this. But I said, this is why the people sing acapella psalms. When you sing God's word, you don't say things like that. Christ was not a victim of the cross. He was in charge the entire time. We say, there where the blood of the lamb was spilt. You spill things by accident. He said, no man takes my life from me. You're not killing me.  And he didn't spill his blood, he shed it. Because he was in charge the entire time. God is mercifully sovereign. He always has his glory and our good in everything that he decrees. Remember the psalmist said God is good and he does good. He can't do otherwise. So a good God cannot decree anything that's not good. We may not like it, but that's completely irrelevant. I've had people listen to me and they say, well, I don't agree with you. So, what does that prove? Well, I think you're wrong. Okay, that's irrelevant. Rejection is not the same as refutation. I mean, give me a biblical argument. Where in the Bible do you find that I'm wrong? Well, I don't know anything about the Bible. I just, I don't like it. Thanks for sharing. What's relevant is this, God liked it. And if he didn't, he wouldn't have done it. And it is much more important that God likes it, right? You know, the Bible makes it a possibility that God may be the only one who likes it and it's still right.  God may say something is true and they take a vote and everybody on earth says, no, it's not true. It's still true. Because God doesn't do things by popular vote. He doesn't take polls. God has unchangeably suffered. He was in control before he created anything. He's in control now. He'll always be in total control. Nothing happens outside his authority. He's infinitely sovereign. There's no limits to his control. There's no limits to his authority. There's nothing that he does not have control over. And there's nothing he doesn't have final say over. That's what the psalmist means when he says he's kingdom rules over all. What else could that possibly mean but that his kingdom rules over all? I love it when people come up to me, I'll say something like, his kingdom rules over all. Well, that's just your interpretation. Can you think of another one for that phrase? Now again, the Bible does not teach fatalism. What we do does matter. If God has ordained a decree that something comes to pass, he's ordained how it will come to pass and he's ordained by what means it will come to pass. For example, you're here tonight because in God's wise counsel, God decreed that it would be best for you to be here tonight.  Now I know there's some young person, yeah, this is how I'd spend my Sunday nights all right.  Yeah, that was my choice. And one of you was drugged through that door.  I remember, here's one of those stories. When I was young, one of my high school friends said, what do you guys do on Sunday? Oh, we always go to church. Why? Cause dad says we go to church.  No, I told him I didn't want to go. And what they say, okay, does he mean that works? What I found out is it works with his dad. He says, try it, what's the worst they can do? I didn't want to think about that. So Sunday morning comes and my dad says, you're not dressed for church, get ready. I says, I don't want to go. So, I'm not going or you are going. I'm not going. He started towards me. I says, what difference does it make if you beat me to a pulp? I'm not going. Why not? I don't want to. Huh? You don't want to. Okay, you don't have to go. You mean it worked? He says, while we're gone, I want you to do all the dishes, have lunch on the table by the time we get home, wash all the sheets on all the beds, iron everything that's in the ironing bed. I want the lawn mowed. I want the dog and the cat fed. He says, I want the oil and the car changed. I said, give me five minutes. I'll be ready. God didn't, he did not coerce my will. He didn't make me do anything. He gave me more options. Some of us older folks remember Jack Benny. There was a famous skid he did where he was in Central Park and a robber comes up to me and puts a gun to his head and says, your money or your life? And Benny just stands there and they go, I said, your money or your life? He goes, I'm thinking. I'm thinking about it. You can't force the will. The will cannot be forced. It's your will. But the will can be changed. But the fact that you're here means there was no chance at all that you wouldn't be here. But that doesn't bring a shrug of the shoulders on our part. You're participating in God's sovereignty. You're not a passive entity. If God has ordained that someone will be saved then he's ordained that someone will preach. And that's why you go door to door. You don't know who the elect are. Spurgeon once said, if all the elect in London had big yellow E's on their backs, I'd run up and down the streets of London pulling up shirt tails so I'd know who to preach to. But he said, but he didn't do that. So I preached to everybody and I let God sort it out. There used to be a big mammoth college and pro football player named Bubba Smith. He played for Michigan State and then he played for the then Baltimore Colts. He was all pro every year. He was huge. Always all pro. And one time at a news conference somebody had, Bubba, how do you know who's got the ball all the time? He said, I don't. But you always tackle the guy with the ball. He says, no, I tackle the whole backfield and I just throw guys away until I find the guy with the ball. We preach indiscriminately. We witness indiscriminately. Sir, if you died today, do you know what would happen? If God is ordained that someone will be saved, he's decreed that someone will preach repentance and faith to that person. Someone will speak to them about their soul. You. You. You. Ultimately, the fact that God is in control should be a great comfort to us. The all wise, all knowing, all merciful, all powerful God is the one who's in control of everything. As the songwriter wrote, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? I don't know if you've heard this story before, but it was told about a man on a submarine in World War II. And the announcement came over the loudspeaker, tomorrow morning at 0600, we're going into battle against the German war machine. And of course, you watch these movies and you realize the wars have been won by kids.  This one particular young man was a professing Christian. So he got up in his bunk and he went to sleep. And that was more than his shipmates could handle. They woke him up and they said, aren't you scared? Yeah. What are you doing sleeping? Well, the Bible tells me that the God of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps, and I don't see any reason both of us should be up all night. That's true of us, you know. No reason for us both to be up all night.  He does whatever he pleases. He does what pleases him and he will always do what is best. So it's our job to get on board with that. Shall we pray? Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time in your word as we reason together with what the Scripture says. May we be doers of the word and not hearers only and may our trust in you be evident and as you most surely will put us to the test to see if we do believe it. Blessed as we go from this place, may our lives reflect our gratitude. Christ's sake, amen.


Beginning this week, about 85% of Department of Defense civilian employees have been furloughed one day a week through the end of the fiscal year. Petty Officer Joshua Shepard has more on how these cuts will affect you. Thanks, MC2. I'm standing outside of the commissary here at Fort Meade, Maryland, talking to patrons as they go in and out of the commissary about how the furlough closures are going to affect them. I'm joined by retired Army First Sergeant Gloria Carroll. So, Gloria, how are these closures going to affect you and how you do business? Well, I live quite a ways from Fort Meade in Roundestown, Maryland, which is about 20 miles. So for me to have to rearrange my schedule and not have that flexibility to come when I need to come, it's not going to be good. And I think that it would do a disservice to all the retired Navy Army Air Force and Marine Corps, since this is a tri-state area, for them to have to readjust their time to come down here and that this would really put a hardship on those soldiers and airmen and Marines to have to lose one day. Every day that we can get to come here is a better day. So I think it really would do a disservice, not only here, but at all the other furloughs that they're doing here on Fort Meade. Furlough days are expected to continue until the end of the fiscal year. Now, each organization and each base is going to deal with their furlough days in a different way. It's important that you check your installation's guidance on how these furlough days are going to affect you. Back to you, MC2. Furloughs are the result of sequestration, a set of across-the-board defense spending cuts that took effect March 1st of this year. Furloughs are expected to last only through September when normal working and service hours are slated to resume. From the Defense Media Activity, I'm Petty Officer Andrew Johnson.