Hey guys, this is Bow, better known as Monter Rock. Welcome to our second podcast. What's up everyone? My name's Alex, I'm 26 years old, been trading for about six years now. And today's gonna be a really special episode. Today's episode is gonna be about how Bow and myself got started trading and how we kind of met each other and kind of where we are today. But before I continue, I kind of want to mention that if you're brand new to trading, if you don't know anything about stocks or the market, Bow and I create a free two-hour mentorship course for the brand new trader. There's no strings attached, there's no funny business. All you have to do is reserve your spot at myinvesteclub.co. So let's get started, Bow. Do you want to kind of talk about your job? This is gonna be a special edition because I've always wanted to tell my story as in how I started and what it takes and the reality behind what it takes. Because a lot of people think that trading, you have to be from the Ivy League, you have to go to Harvard, you have to be this, you have to be that, you have to have a lot of money and that's further from the truth, man. The best traders I know, they didn't grow up rich, they didn't go to college, they didn't go to Ivy Leagues.  And so that's what we want to talk about today because Alice and I are very different in terms of our backgrounds, in terms of who we are, our age difference, things like that. But we have something very in common. We are very passionate about what we do, we're very hardworking and we care, we truly care about ourselves, our families, all that stuff. And so all that has translated to our success and my success, I'm not talking about financially, I'm talking about just being the person that we are, that we want to be, come. So with that in mind, let me start by telling everyone how I started, okay, Alex? I've been trading for a long time, man. Like over two decades, people didn't realize that stocks used to trade in fractions, man. Right now you see a stock trading, let's say, at $2.52. It didn't happen back then. Back then it was actually, it's weird. I just don't want to say like, when you think about the logic, it should be in decimals like it is now, right? It wasn't, for some strange reason, in fractions, man. IBM was trading at $104 and three eighths.  So we usually have these calculators. I used to have a calculator sitting by my desk, Alex, and I would actually have to start trading that. What is three sixteenths?  So you have a bit like 100 and three sixteenths by 100 and five sixteenths. I would just like, what's the spread? So we came very good at math. So Batman was kind of funny, right? I mean, if you think about logic right now, it's like, what the heck? Computers were doing that stuff back then, you know what I'm saying? So it seems kind of counterintuitive. But the reason they did that, in my opinion before, is because when you're doing it in fractions, the spread is so big, dude. Because with decimals, you can get down to one penny, right, Alex? And what is a penny in fractions? It's 100th. You don't see that. The most I've seen is like a 64 or 32, but if you're doing $100 stocks, you're doing it one fourth, one eighth. And you imagine, you know, like right now, if a stock is trading at, let's say 25 cents spread, you're like, holy cow, that's a big spread, right? Imagine you're trading in fractions. You're trading by 25 cents. You're trading one fourth is 25 cents. And so the market makers were making the spread, these companies, these brokers making the spread. And so they were big bucks back then. And so when it started to become decimalized, people were scared, because everyone's scared of changes, right? So I remember back then when they started talking about decimalization, when I was like, holy cow, how can you trade? How can you trade? I was not an expert trader back then. I was just gambling at that point. I just started trading, I was just gambling, but they thought that the world would end decimalization as like Y2K, things like that. So it's kind of funny where the market has shifted when logically it should have been in decimals as we get with it. Who the heck is trading in three eighths, right? Things like that. So that's the world that I came from. But even before then, man, I wanna talk about, we don't wanna do this podcast to try to inspire you as to, you know, you don't need to start, you don't need to have like an Ivy League education. You don't need to have like super rich parents in order to day trade. And day trading is not gambling. So the moment I became successful at day trading is the moment I realized that it is not gambling. If you do it correctly, it is not gambling. So when you started trading, Alex, it was already decimals, right? Yeah, so when I started trading, it was right when the marijuana stocks were collapsing. So everyone made a shitload of money on the marijuana stocks. I wasn't really involved.  And I was like, what the hell is going on here? Because I didn't know that I, as a small-time trader could trade NASDAQ stocks. I thought that I could only trade penny stocks, OTC stocks, because I wasn't a professional, you know? Yeah, man. It's like, dude, the marijuana was crazy, man. I made many millions on that craze. It was crazy. But anyways, even before that, man, let's talk about our upbringing, how we grew up. And so people can understand like where we came from, right? I'm actually an immigrant, man. I came, you probably heard this story many times, but I'm going to tell it again from my point of view. I came to America when I was five years old. Didn't speak the language. I was actually a Vietnamese boat person. That was the name, technically, after the war. So after the Vietnam War, dude, it was very bad. And so people were trying to escape Vietnam. And so my family, my mom got into a boat. It was a tiny-ass boat. I posted pictures of this on Twitter. People couldn't believe me. But we escaped, man. It was three days in the ocean. No food, no water. My best recollection of my favorite meal was when we were finally rescued on the boat and the sailor guy, I forgot who rescued us, but it was on our way to Thailand. They gave him me crackers, dude.  Oh man, you found that. Yeah, so for those that don't know, we do the podcast on audio and we also do it on video on YouTube. And the video version, I'm pulling up the picture of Bao from Vietnam. So if you wanna check out the podcast on YouTube, it's youtube.com slash myinvestedclub. Yeah, thanks for finding that, man. I mean, for the longest time, dude, I was very ashamed of this photo growing up because I was like, who wants to be an immigrant, dude? So this photo is actually in Thailand, dude. And this was like taking, not too long ago, but that we actually arrived in Thailand. So we got saved as the whole thing was to flee Vietnam, to go to Thailand, because Thailand, now we are refugees so that we, so my dad was in the war, he was in America already, so he sponsors over from Thailand. But that picture is very significant, man.  I wanna be a regular American. I wanna be thought of as like some dark-skinned kid who's from Vietnam. And back then, man, it wasn't like this today. This was 1980s. I arrived in like 1980 or something like that. And I lived in Portland, Oregon, man. Portland, Oregon. I was the only Asian in the whole entire class. It was me and one African American named Ray Ray, dude. I still remember it through this day. I got bullied every day.  And Bow Wow wasn't cool back then. Before the rapper Bow Wow, Little Bow Wow became cool.  They kept barking at me. It was horrible, man. And so this is what the adversity that I grew up with at his beginning was. We were poor. We were on welfare.  People would not believe it the way that I am today. People still don't believe it. But when I look back, I still don't believe it. I cannot believe I was even alive. A lot of the people that escaped Vietnam never made it, dude. It was like, so this is a very similar story to your dad. Alex, can you tell me? Yeah, so my dad lived in Turkey. So he lived in a village in Turkey.  I think it was like made out of stone or something, something old school. He had three brothers and four sisters living under one roof. His father was a blacksmith.  And basically, they were bullied and hazed all their life because they were religious, right? So my family's Christian. And in Turkey, a lot of people are not, they're not into that stuff. So every single day after school, there used to be kids that threw rocks at my dad and his siblings.    He said it's the land of opportunity. It's where everyone is going. His goal was to go there to make enough money to bring his family to America. So he came here in his early 20s. I think he was maybe 21 or 22. Didn't speak the language, only spoke Turkish. Didn't have really a dollar. The way that he came here is he went to Canada. And then from Canada, he came to New York. So he actually, it's kind of crazy because I think about it to myself, man.  Yet my dad found a way to do it and it kind of blows my mind.  It's like, I can't do that stuff today. So I have a very deep level of respect and admiration for anyone that kind of does that stuff these days. But that's the thing. I feel sometimes like, I am like your dad, Alex.  Cause you know, I went through the adversity that your dad did.  So it's the same exact bullying, the same thing. Cause people don't understand us, man. They look at you, Alex and they go, oh, that's a rich kid. But they don't understand that the struggle is that your dad went through. You know what I'm saying? They just take it for granted. They look at me now, it's the same exact thing. They look at me and they go, this is the guy that drives my car. He doesn't relate.  He's an ego maniac.  Everybody can do this.   I came to this realization that society is kind of fucked up in the sense of, they only want to help people if it benefits themselves. So like the, I don't want to get into politics, but the politicians always do stuff because they want to get votes. Friends want to be friends with someone because they got money or fame or something they want from them, right? And so it was a very sad feeling growing up to be very lonely, to be able to, I mean, to be like basically a shoved aside like trash, because that's what we were, man. I was an immigrant. My family was an immigrant.  It's like, how do we help society? How did we help America?  I was not happy. I did everything for the wrong reason that it just so happens that I made it. That's because I had to, dude. I had to take it.  There was no safety net. There was, if I fell, I'm dead. You know what I'm saying? So that was the whole thing.  It was the most horrible feeling.  I'm not really American. So it's kind of like half.  There's so many people like us just wanting to have our own piece of the American dream, right? So I'll tell you how I did it, guys.    That's the difference. I channeled it to do what I want to do.    You know what I'm saying?  So I'll tell you one good story that kind of changed my life as well. So I was maybe in eighth grade or ninth grade, I forget was one of those. I used to get beat up every day in PE.   And so the guy next to me was this big, big guy.   I was, what can I do?  But I hated going to PE, dude.  And then one day I got sick and then I went back and I go, where's that bully? Where's the, and then someone next to me go, dude, you didn't hear yesterday when you were gone sick? He got stabbed.  This Asian kid next to him. So I wasn't around for him to bully. So he tried to bully the neighbor, but the neighbor was a thug. He took a pencil and stabbed him. And so they both got expelled. They both got expelled.  So everything happens for a reason. You know, it's just very unfortunate. So that's when I realized there's two ways to act in life.    What, what good is it for me and my family if I got expelled, right? And I've been jailed doing a haul where the hell it is this time, right?   Same thing with you, man. I mean, like Starbucks, people don't believe like, how did you end up in Starbucks? You told me this, but I don't know you want to share with people like... Yeah, I mean, sure. So let me actually pull up the photo. So this is me when I was working at Starbucks if you could see the screen here. It's Photoshop, bro. Yeah, me Photoshop, right? Nice and skinny. So what ended up happening is, so my dad came to this country in the 80s. He opened up his own business and he was thriving for a very long time until I think it was early 2007, early 2008. His business went bankrupt.  So, you know, I had a choice. I could either just sit there and do nothing or I could try to get a job and try to help my family out. So that's kind of how the whole Starbucks thing started. There was a Starbucks maybe five minutes away from my house. I applied to get the job there. I learned everything about the whole business and the drinks and everything. And the crazy part was back then, you know, I was making, I think it was like $100 or $120 a week after taxes. How old were you in this picture, man? This picture has got to be when I was like 18 or 19 at least. So yeah, I think I was still, I think I was end of high school, first year of college or something like that. Very, very early. So I started just working there because I said, you know, that's probably gonna be, I just wanted a job, man. I just wanted a job to make some money. I had a girlfriend at the time. So basically the way that I split up my money was, you know, gas was really, really expensive back then. So to fill up my tank, it was like $60. So I filled up my tank for $60. You know, I took my girlfriend out to the movies for 40 bucks, maybe had some food for like 30 bucks and that was it. I had no more money left for the entire week.   So this was kind of like my first real girlfriend at the time. And I really liked her and I was head over heels. This, this being young, I guess, She broke up with you for the manager? No, no, no. She broke up with me. I think she found, she found someone better, I guess. I don't know. Someone more good looking, but. But that's awesome, man. You see, you see the commonalities now. So working as Starbucks, it take, I mean, dude, I don't know if I can work as Starbucks now because people are screaming at you, right? They're ordering around. Oh my God, you have no idea. You have no idea.   Yeah, cause the people that drink coffee in the morning, man, they give me my damn coffee, man. I can't start my day and stuff. So, and then I see it, man. It's like, it takes a certain personality to like be able to take it. Cause I'm, yeah, I work retail. My first job actually was at a great, it was, it's called Great America was six flags in the amusement park.  Wow. That's how old I am. My minimum wage back then was $3.50. I remember working for, dude, basically almost a month and got like $3 paycheck. My first paycheck, I remember exactly what I did with it. I bought a CD player, a CD player for almost like $253, that's expensive right back then. And two CDs. Wow.  And CDs was brand new back then. So I still remember the first CD I bought. It was Erasure.  I don't even know who that is, bro.  That's where I got my name. So people always ask me, where you got Monorock? Monorock is a genre of music. It's like new wave music. It's European kind of pop dance, kind of like the precursor to trance, I can say. I don't know. It's basically synthesized music. It's synthesizer and stuff. So that's where my name comes from, Monorock.  I don't know why it's just kind of carried on for like, geez, as I was a kid, man.  Before that was Insomniac. Insomniac might have been better name. That's funny. But yeah, I mean, so I was at Starbucks. My girlfriend broke my heart and I said, you know, I have a choice. I could either get upset and just deal with it and become a hermit and just whatever.  So I thought the way to deal with it was just get rich. So I said, I'm gonna get rich now. I'm gonna make her regret her decision. I'm gonna show her why she lost. And if she ever comes back, when I say no, it's gonna be the best moment of my life. So why? Did you see how it happens, man? Some bad thing happens in your life and you can take it two ways.  Or you can challenge the way Alex did. He goes, you know what, man?  But when he says prove to her, I think it's more, you're gonna prove to yourself, Alex. That's what it is.   Because nowadays, man, this is a big, it hurts me, man, but when I see these immigration wars and stuff, it's like, people don't understand.  For me, it's like, man, Americans do not understand how great they have it.    And when I visited Vietnam, the first time I went back to Vietnam, dude, they didn't even have, dude, they were taking, it was an outdoor toilet, dude.  So I, this was a while back, I went to Vietnam and this was like Saigon, which is the city too, man. And I remember going to a cell phone store to visit someone and I asked for the bathroom and she's like, I don't think you want to go to the bathroom. I don't do it, I don't go to the bathroom. And so she takes me out to the back and this is a cell phone store, dude, right? And this is not like someone's house or anything.   I'm cool, I'm just gonna pee and leave.  So a story like, so I had, man, I was bullied all through school and stuff. I was a very weird kid. I was, I kept to myself, I was an introvert. I think I'm still an introvert. I just happened to socialize because I have to for work, but meet down inside, I kind of like to keep to myself.   Look at me, look at me.  I was super successful then.    Trying to prove to a bunch of people I do not like. So this is exactly what you helped me with today, Alex, because I'm a very sensitive guy. This is why Alex and I are great friends.  We have so much feelings and emotions. And so, and we wear it on our sleeves, man. It's like, we get hurt. I'm a guy, but we're emotional. And so, Alex likes to remind me, Bao, why are you always trying to please the people that don't matter, right? Focus on the people that you care about. And so same thing with the high school reunion, when that time came and I was like, fuck, I came to the realization. This is when I was, so this is, there's many steps in life that you remember as in your maturity growth. And that high school reunion was one of them.   But when that time came, it was not worth it. I didn't go.  It's just like, those people don't mean anything to me. And now that they finally talk to me, because they see that I'm successful, or what the hell it is, they want to be my friend.  They call me all sorts of name, man. It's fucking, you know, it's very different.   And so, it's tough. I was all decidable these days too, bro. You have all decidable and like, having friends comment on your posts and say like very hurtful and mean things, having all these internet trolls come after you. Like it's just, it's tough, man. It's a tough world to live in these days, man, that's why I decided to do the podcast today. Cause I'm like, so you helped me a lot, Alex.  They don't know you, who cares? And so, and so it's very hard for me as a caring individual to like overlook that. But I have to, I mean, I'm an old man now and I'm still worried about what people think about me. You know what I'm saying? But I think that's the good and the bad thing.   I'm genuinely helping people.  It's like, yeah, that can give me $4,000. Can you fund this?  And so, you know, I was like, so I did the reverse of what I normally do. I actually kind of listened to him. So I first, I kind of scolded him, but by being positive, like constructive, I was like, you know what, man, instead of asking for money, you know, this is your, you don't have an opportunity to ask me any question you want. When I was growing up, I had no mentors to ask.  If I wanted to help on my job information or whatever the hell, right? So nowadays, social media, people are using it to show off, to troll other people. But dude, it's a great way to meet people like myself and Alex, who's been there, who can help you. And so this guy is able to interact with me.  And so I started telling him that, that he started to apologize to me. He finally came out as that, you know, he's from Africa. He only makes $200 a month. And so I did one thing to him. You know what I mean?   If I can save one person a day, my goal is like just be a positive influence on one person a day. You imagine that one person goes out and helps another person and vice versa, right? And so this is the thing I've been trying to do every day. Every day I'm trying to do one positive act. It's very hard man, I'm telling you. It's very hard to do things without selfish reasons. And so I've been trying to get my head around that, right?  So is there such a thing as a selfless act? I mean, just because that's the thing that I feel bad about just talking about. So by talking about it doesn't mean that I'm actually selfish, that I'm bragging that I did this. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, but the reason I speak up upon it is I want other people to look at life like that. You know what I'm saying? Like Alex, they helped me a lot.   And so I appreciate that, Alex. And so- I love you, bro. I love my guys. Cause like, dude, it's, what I've known or what I've learned about you is you're a very caring person. You really actually care about trying to make the world a better place. Like, you know, one of the first times I've met you when we were partying together, what I remember is, you know, rather than tipping the hosts at the club or tipping the bouncers, you went to the bathroom and tipped the bathroom guy $100. And you had no reason to do that. You don't get anything out of that, but that just goes to show that you are even trying to help and look out for the little guys that are overlooked. And that's why I think this stuff matters so much to you is cause like you said, you're trying to do one good deed a day to make it so that another person does a good deed and then domino effects to make the world a better place.  And the problem is that, you know, we have to be focusing our energy on trying to help the people that want to be helped rather than wasting our time trying to help people that are clearly very brainwashed in their thought process. So, I mean, dude, like I say it all the time and you say it all the time that we're both very emotional people. I don't, I mean, maybe it's a good thing. Maybe it's a bad thing that we're like this, but I mean, it's caused us and led us to where we are today. And again, it's not easy trying to give constructive criticism to someone. It's not easy trying to help someone because at the end of the day, no matter what advice you give someone, no matter what you tell them, unless they want to change, unless they want to improve, they will never do it themselves. It's the same thing with the Starbucks story. I had a choice. I could either sit there and do nothing or I could try to improve and make my life better so that, again, maybe for my own selfish reasons, I could feel better about myself, you know? But yeah, man, that's the thing. It's like, so let's talk about training now. We're supposed to talk about our stories, but, you know, this is a big component of who we are. And in my opinion that a big key ingredient to success, regardless of what you do is being humble, being able to drop your ego and say, you know what, man, I am vulnerable. I am sensitive. I am emotional. I am not a perfect person. I'm willing to learn. I'm willing to become better. I'm not here to fight you. I admit I have these flaws. And so that was my thinking all along when I started learning to trade. And so I'm open to hearing and helping, to hearing other people helping me. It could be a guy that just started trading. He'd give me one great advice. He's like, Alex, help me a lot. You know what I'm saying? And that's how we bounce back to one another. And so I've always had great trading buddies. I had a few, but they have in common was, they're exactly the personality I do. They are not jealous. They're happy for your happiness or success. That's a key thing. That's very hard to find in another human being, man, because people in our industry are very competitive.  I can do better. I'm better looking than you. I can make more money. And so they're not happy, but they don't understand that. You know what, man? It's like, if the other person is a C, it does not mean that it makes you any less. It should motivate you. If you think you are truly smarter than the other person, that other person having success should motivate you to say, you know what, man, if this guy can do it, I can do it 10 times better. And so that's a sort of attitude in my opinion that you should have in life. Don't be hating.  And that's always been what I was trying to tell the world. If you take a look at how I am versus the rest of the traders out in the world, we are very different, man.  I'm like, I'm a normal guy. I drink.  I tell people how I am. I'm a flawed human being.     If I can do it, guys, if I can do it, if Alex can do it, you guys can do it, too.   They don't accept me. I didn't go to the right school when I applied for jobs. So let me tell you another inspirational story. So I went to UC Davis. I studied engineering. And so for most people, UC Davis is a very good school.  I turned down Berkeley, actually.  I turned it down. That's because I grew up in the ghetto. We didn't have counseling. We didn't have guidance counselors.  No, what happened? You took the prep courses, right?    I still did very well. I scored a very good score. I got into Berkeley. But that's the thing, man. It's like being privileged, man. It's a great start, but being not privileged doesn't mean it's an ending to your life. And I'm gonna tell you something, man. If I was counseled to go to Berkeley, I would not be here with you.  So when I got out of school, I applied for jobs and they always asked this, what other school did you apply to? And I told them Berkeley and then I got, I didn't want to go. No one believed me.  When I graduated college, I was already trolled.  Paper college guy, right? But so I never got those jobs I really wanted. You know, I consider myself highly intelligent, highly skilled for that job.  And so I only got hired by one company and it was, and that's what led me to look and reinvent myself. I'll tell you the secret of life. It's called finding your niche, guys.  I would be very comfortable making my comfortable, nice salary as an engineer. I would never look to do and maximize my other talents. So I call it finding your niche. You know what my niche was? I was a good engineer, but I wasn't the best engineer. I liked to party. I liked to go out. I didn't like to study.  You know what I'm saying? They're living and breathing that. That's why they're successful. I could do all that. And so I had to find my niche. You know what? I looked at myself. I go, what are you good at, though? So I found, so I'll give you a example. So what I did was this. I said, you know what man? I'm very good at articulating complex things to a normal human being. And so I went into sales engineering. And so now instead of coding and making the product, I was selling the product. And I make twice as much, three times as much doing that as I did as an engineer.   Well, be personable to talk to executives who have buying decisions. It's not the engineers who are nerdy and stuff. And so I was competing with the wrong, in the wrong things. So when in life, if you do not like the test questions, this is what I like to tell people, right?   I went out and I forged my niche to find exactly what I wanted to do. So I was huge. So I was very surprised. I was like, dude, I worked like a third of the time as much as I did as an engineer.  And so you just have to find what your niche is. You know what I'm saying? And so I was not very successful as an engineer.  I was very good. I did the bare minimum. And so that's the thing. So if I had gone to Berkeley, I would have never found my niche because I would be too comfortable. And then when I found my niche, I realized that there was a glass ceiling in corporate world. I can only do so much. I was passed over for a lot of promotion. So one thing that registered to me, Alex, this is crazy, man. They, in sales, it's all about talking and how you look and presentation, right? My boss, before he did not promote me, he basically told me, why don't you change your name?   You know what I told him?  People better learn to pronounce my name correctly.    And so I felt I reached a glass ceiling because of racism. People don't believe it, man.  When I'm on the phone with a customer, they think I'm a white guy.  Right, I don't sound like an Asian. What's an Asian supposed to sound like? They're supposed to sound like me either way.  And so that's when I moved to New York. I was living in New York and working as a sales engineer. And everyone was doing day training. I just happened to love it, dude. In the beginning, I was gambling. I thought it was gambling.   So I was gambling on earnings.  So that very first trade, my very first trade, I made 33% in Silicon Graphics.  I was like, fuck, this is easy, dude.       You always lose all your money. But that's when I realized that, you know what, man? I love this trading thing. And I became very good at it because I was very passionate about it. So I always tell people, make passion your paycheck. I never knew I was gonna be like, how I am today in trading.  I just wanted to do it because I loved it. I did not like my job. But you know what, man? There's a leveling up in the life.  You know what I'm saying? That's what I want to do when I'm seventh grade, man.   It's crazy, man. Cause I had kind of like a similar experience with my first trade. So I was actually, when I started trading after Starbucks, I lost a bunch of money going long because what I was taught was that you have to just buy the breakout. Anytime the stock breaks out is when you gotta buy it and that's the trade. And every time that I did that, the stock did the reverse. It went straight down every single time. So it wasn't until I discovered what shorting was which was you make money when the stock goes down that my trading kind of changed. So the first short trade that I ever took was on a stock called VGGL. I shorted 2,000 shares at $4. And it was like 30 seconds later, the stock tanked 50 cents. I made $1,000 and I was like, that's it. I'm gonna be rich. I found it. I found the secret.  You have no idea what you're doing.  So it was only until, again, like you mentioned that we have to refine our process and understand that we should only be trading with an edge. And that's kind of what changes our trading around, you know? Hey, Alex, do you have that spreadsheet, the calendar that I made back in the day, 2009? Yeah, let me try to find it. Give me one second. In the meantime, you wanna talk about it? So yeah, so flash forward to trading. All right, man, people make a lot of money. People lose a lot of money.  It's how much you can consistently make it over time. And a good example is this. So one of my old friends, this he took me to the next level of trading. He didn't realize this, right? So I was just making my $300 a day, bro.  It's $300, $300, $300.   He'd be springing up at now 25,000, 10,000. And it's like, holy fuck, this guy. But he'll be losing that the next day.  But then, so remember when I said, you can either look at someone and hate them or admire them to motivate you. So that guy motivated me. I didn't hate him. I was like, fuck, if this guy can do it, I can do it too. That was a whip, dude. I was trading tiny size. So I started increasing my size. And then she knew I was making consistently thousands of dollars a day. But then he always looked down upon me.  And so he never took me seriously. And then later on, he blew up. Obviously he blows up. He's now driving an Uber taxi. So remember when I talked to you, Alice, you were swinging up and down like him. I saw all that. I was like, dude, I don't want you to be like that. It's like, you want to scale over time. You don't jump in making 20,000, 30,000 a day.    So I don't want to get too much of that story because Alice knows that story too. And one of his partners, my friends and stuff, but... So here's, I think I found the screenshot, pal. This is 2009. Let me see. 2009. Let me see if I can zoom in a little bit. I've never shown anybody this. Count the number of red days, Alex. So this is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. So nine red days in all of 2019. 2009? Oh, 2009, sorry, yeah. No, no, there's some more over here. Let me see. Let's count them over here. I got one. Can't see, one, two, three. How many are there? Let me see. One in January, two in February, three in March, nothing in April, nothing in May, nothing in June. July was one, August was three, September nothing, October nothing, November nothing, December nothing.  But take a look at the lost days. How big were the lost days? Yeah, so... 100,000s. So January, losing day was $2,000, but you still made $27,000 on the week. February, that month you made $103,000. February, you lost $5,000, but you made $27,000 in that week. March... That scratch, I don't count the scratch, that's the scratch. Yeah, that's nothing, I don't even look at that. But look, if you look at it consistently, January, $103,000, February, $52,000, March, $72,000, April, $54,000, May, $67,000, June, $576,000, July, $232,000, and it just goes on and on and on, you know? So this was not my biggest financial year by far, but it was my most consistent year. And so that's what I was the most proud of. And so there is a level of size that you can go up and anymore and you're not comfortable, you're gonna get dinged.  There'll be days where I just make $1,000, $500, and then there's other days I'm making like hundreds of thousands of dollars in the day.   That year was around 2.1 million, it looks like. All right, so let me see, let's take a look at 2010. So 2010.  So 2009, you know what happened? 2009, I did not even size up, man. To be honest, I didn't really size it up.   I'm like, why am I pussy?  And so 2010, I kind of pushed it and look how many red days I got.  I'm still up, but the losses are just like, like staggering more, I mean, it's still okay, but it's nowhere where I should have been. So this was an example of overpushing it. If I was saying one year I was very consistent, no stress, Alex, but when we were talking about no stress, this year was more stressful. I made money because I kept on pressuring myself. And so sizing up and pressuring yourself may not always lead to a bigger payout. Yup, it's true. It's true. And that's kind of what I was struggling with. I became a consistently profitable trader. I started making, I started with $50 a day and it went to $100 a day and it went to $200 and $500 and $1,000.  And what ended up happening is, you know, I'll be making 30,000 on Monday, losing 50,000 on Tuesday, making 80,000 on Wednesday. And it was just so, so, so stressful that I kind of found myself losing touch with reality. I found myself getting more and more upset and more and more depressed. And it was only until I slowed down my trading that I kind of started to find a little bit more happiness in my life and found actually more money trading less size.  I was doing this for a long time. People knew me because of the Fannie Mae, but the Fannie Mae trade didn't come until like 2013. That was all the way back to 2009. So you see the leveling up process, people go, oh my God, you did so well.  I always call it like this. Luck is when opportunity meets preparation, right?  Now, I've never shown anybody this.  And people didn't see the five years before 2009 that I was building myself for making $300,000 a year trading to 500,000 to a million. You see what I'm saying? It's a slow consecutive process that leads up to all this thing. So it leads up to that one. So let me go back to that, the P&L, Alex. What I like the most about this is not the money, which I like the money too, obviously, but so I was trading many accounts. So this has happened to be four accounts.  It's funny cause something's never changed. So I like to point this out cause, you know, this is what it is, man. It's kind of like, this is my mentality. I was never in it to make the money, to be honest, man.  So we always say, trade the process, right? And so keep to your process.   So the point of this is like, dude, I kept with my process.  Who knows anything? Who knew you were gonna make this? But I kept my process. Look at the other stocks I was trading. $79 on N-O-R-X, $290 on that.  It's because it's my process. You shouldn't say, I'm just doing the robotic process. And so if you deviate from your process when you screw up, and so this is part of my process. If I just didn't do my process, I don't think I would have been this successful. Even $500 to me is a lot of money, guys.  So I've got to maintain form throughout the whole thing. So that was always been my thing, man. It's a process. So I wanted to show everybody this in the past, and I never saw anybody this man.  But people don't understand, this is, I showed you 2009, this is 2013. You didn't see five years before that, you didn't see after, you didn't see any of that stuff.  And when you make it, I always have this quote, you only need to get rich once, guys.  Market conditions change. I was a young kid, I had no fear because I was young.  And I'm older now, I have family support, I have responsibility.  And so this is why I wanted to teach people. And so I didn't, we didn't launch MIC until a year ago. And you know it's only back 2009, I couldn't start a service. Do 10 years ago, I couldn't start a service. I was, you know, I was, but I didn't want to because I didn't think that I wasn't ready. I had the technical skills, but I didn't have the life skills. I didn't know how to teach. I didn't know how to do this. So throughout the 10 years, I finally learned how to teach.   He was my biggest competitor that day.  That's how, that's how in sync we were. The same thing with me, you, Alex.  So everything happens for a reason. It's kind of like a full circle type of thing.   It's like life comes in full circle.  Seriously, I believe in fate, man.  Yeah, man, it's crazy.  We've known each other for so long now that it's just like, but we're like family now. It's more than just friends, you know?   I didn't start this thing 10 years ago. Why would I ever start this now? And so we always tell people, man, which is the truth is like, you have, if anything in life, it's timing. You have trading is about timing. A relationship is about timing. The relationship I had with Alex to FormMIC is all timing. We have to be in the right place. I have to be in the right mental capacity to wanna help people.      So it's all timing, you know what I'm saying, man? Now I wanna pass my wisdom to the world.  I'm not gonna be, I don't wanna be remembered for any, I wouldn't be remembered for helping people to changing people's lives.  But there's gonna be generations that can be benefited from our help. And they may not become the best traders in the world.  The hard work, the discipline, being able to be surrounded by positive people with like-minded goals. And that's the whole thing.  Check out after hours, man. Pull up the after hours, Alex, let me see. Give me a sec. All right, here's a picture of you and Philly. See, people just hanging out and chilling. It's like, dude, we work hard, and we build lasting relationships, and that's the whole thing we wanted. We wanted people, this guy flew in Pima. He flew in all the way from Australia, man. He brought us a boomerang. I believe in karma. Boomerang is like, what goes around comes around. What you give, you get back, right? And so this is, to me, in my opinion, man, this is my kind of legacy with you to help change lives. And we have changed a lot of lives.  This is a remarkable story to you. I want people to see this. This is so remarkable. So you want to talk about how you met Tom first? I want to pull this up. Yep, so Tom, he joined MIC right when it kind of entered, and he basically was a Vietnamese guy living in Europe.  And so we worked together to solve that.  He worked another job, he drove an Uber while working another job. Read some of this, man. Read some of this out loud. Alex, what do you want to say? So Tom, start with the guys on top, guys. So Tom said, guys, I just wanted to share the good news. I'll be moving to a new home at the end of this month. Sorry I haven't been around to help much, but you know how stressful this can all be. I just wanted to say that without MIC, it would have never been possible for me to reach this goal. It's crazy how things have turned around in just one year. I'm glad to be part of this family. MIC changed my life, and I'm sure it will do the same for many people in here. Love you guys as well. And Tom was saying that he was driving Uber at night so that he would be able to... Read this out loud. Right here, man, you guys. Yeah, so he said, man, to think back and made me cry, I don't even know how I did it. I was driving Uber at night because that time no one would drive and it gives you better rates. I was driving from midnight till 4 a.m. that slept in the morning to train in the afternoon. You know, it's...  It makes me feel like so humbled that Tom is exactly the type of guy that deserves to have all of his success because he actually put in the work for it. Dude, I remember, man, he was down to his last $700, dude. And he wanted to quit. He goes, man, I can't do it anymore. My family, I can't support my family and all that. So don't tell anybody this. So what I did was I gave him a free membership, Jim, I see. And I was like, dude, man, don't worry about it. Don't tell me. Now don't ask me for free memberships, okay? You know, that's the type of guy I am, meaning like, man, I have faith in someone because everybody just needs someone to say I believe in you.  How many people would drive an Uber at night to trade? You know what I'm saying? That is the work ethic. And he's honest, man.  He was down to his last $700, dude. And then he started making $25 a trade over and over, $50, and started slowly building his bankroll.   That's his own thing. But I guess he's like, he went from $700 to over a year.  He was saying that the average salary where he's from is $1,500 a month. So he's making almost 10 times that. So I mean, the point is this, man, the point is not the dollar amount is the fact that this guy is able to do this and you can too. The only difference is he actually executes and he acts upon what he wants. A lot of us just sit around and talk, I want this, I wish this, but we don't make it happen. So just like me, man, the reason, I am guilty, Alex. I'm like, fuck, today I didn't work. I had some stuff that I had to handle.  Like, oh, I'm gonna do this podcast tomorrow.   Why put it off until tomorrow when you can do today? So I'm starting, Alex is the hardest working guy, man. I was like, I cannot believe how hard you work, Alex. You work so hard and you inspire me, man.  Answer emails, PM, do the podcast, wherever it is. I was like you, Alex.  And over time it's tiring, man. To be honest, I was very tired. I'm very glad I met you. And it's like, I hope you don't break down at my age. But as you can see now, it takes a toll, man, right? It takes an army, it takes a lot of friends and support system to do all this.   It's like, fuck, we never worked as much as we did now.  And I thank all the moderators now that are helping us. These guys are wonderful people, man. I mean, a lot of these people, I have no idea before MIC, but they were just wonderful people.  That's not my intention. My intention is to pick the right people with good attitude to inspire people to help people. They are now learning, it doesn't matter.  I think they're better traders than I am now. And I'm glad, I'm fine with that. I want the moderators and you guys to trade better than I do. You know what I'm saying?  We can do this for the masses. That's my whole point. My whole point is to help other people.  And that's why I think it hurts me a lot when I hear these negative things.   So when you're right, man, we have to just kind of like forget it. This is one thing I'm learning that that's my negative side. I get into these depression modes. That's how I was being as a kid, right? So some people have their positive side and negative side. When I work, I'm on, man. It's just getting to the point where I'm actually focused on work.    And so I have to find the passion and the reason to do this.  And it's like, damn, dude, there are people out there that are just wishing for the opportunity to learn to do this.  This is all, this is all him, man.  We give him straight up. And he is now helping other members to do this. And that's what I love. That was basically our conversation to Tom. My conversation to Tom with that guy was like, you know, I pay for it, pay for it. I don't, what do I want from Tom? You know, he has $700. He has free membership.    That's all every immigrant wants in the world, guys, is an opportunity. And like you said, all it takes is one guy to say that I believe in you. And that was what you did for him. And that changed his life. And you changed my life, Alex. You know, you're like, Val, I believe in you. Let's start something different. And that's how I am. I see what started, man. So I thank you, man. You believed in me.   I didn't need to work.    Alex knows this. It's like, dude, everybody needs a purpose. It's not financial, man.  I was very well off. I was talking about world.  And then I woke up the next day.   That actually hurt me when people found out because now my friends never started.    I never got birthday gifts.  What can you get back?  I said, everybody, Christmas gifts. All those pigs I sent, all those lucky charms you see I sent, you know what I'm saying?    Like you think about them, right?  I have it right here, bro. Yeah. It's on my desk, always on my desk for good luck. The funny thing is I had the pig I threw them all out because I thought the pigs gave me bad luck. I threw my pigs out. So I guess the pig I gave was good, but I shouldn't keep it for myself. I mean, it's crazy because I was like, like we started at the beginning of the podcast, we kind of talked about how we got started, like our adversity, what we did to kind of that one moment in our life. We had a fork in the road, right? That's the one thing that all of us have in common. We had a choice. We could either continue to be depressed or we could do something about it. Tom had the same choice. He could either spend that last 700 he had or he could try to be proactive and change his life. So whenever you're at that crossroads in your life, because it's gonna happen eventually, know that the easy way of just giving up is the wrong way. If you put in the work and you actually want to improve your life, there are so many resources out there that could help you improve your life. Yep. How long is this podcast already? That's it, bro. It's been an hour and 10 minutes. So let's wrap it up. Yeah, we'll save the rest for the next time. Yep. I hope everybody enjoyed that story. It was not really a blueprint on how you should live your life, but I guess now you understand Alex and I a little more. And so hopefully you didn't get bored in trying to figure out who we are, but that's our story. There's more interviews online. You can find of me and Alex. Chat with Traders has it. I don't wanna repeat all the stuff that's in Chat with Traders, but check it out, man. Chat with Traders episode 100 is mine. I'm 104, I think. So perfect. You guys wanna know more? Well, the bottom line is this. I wanna leave you guys with one thing. You can do it. Don't think that you cannot. We all came from huge adversity. I was not even supposed to be alive. I was on a boat. We were raided by pirates. I thought I was gonna die as a kid, but here I am, man. We went through adversity. So success is what doesn't have this quote. I hate these quotes, but it's true, man. It's like, life is not a linear line. You have your ups and downs. It's how you bounce back from your failures, man. It's not a failure. It's a temporary bump on the road, right? To your destination.  And always think positive.  I was always very blessed, man. Even when I had nothing, I was very blessed because I'm alive. A lot of kids over in Vietnam are not alive. So my advice to you guys is, you know what, man?   I love it. Thanks, guys. We'll see you next time. All right, thanks, guys.


Follow along the steps in this tutorial to set up your Google site. First, go to Google Drive. Then, in the upper left-hand corner, click on New. Once you click New, you should see an option to click on More. Under that menu, you should be able to click on Google Sites to open up your new Google website. Once you get here, we want to start in the top left corner by naming our site.  Make it yours by naming it your portfolio. Once you've named your site, feel free to give your first page a title. You could name it something like your name and your portfolio to show ownership. Once you've given your title page a name, from here you can edit your site with the criteria that we're going to go over now. Before we move on, let's make sure in the upper right-hand corner, we click on Publish. Name your URL. It should already be named since we gave our site a name over here in the top left. You can see that it has a similar name in our published website address. Make the settings the same as you see here. To make sure our settings are correct, click on Manage, and it should be set up just as you see on this screen. In Draft Mode, only specific people like yourself can edit unless you give someone else permission. And in this setting, it should say Publish so that anyone at Ori County Schools can find and view your site. Once you have the settings set up like you see here, click Done. After checking that Manage screen to make sure our Publish settings are set up correctly, we can click Publish here in the bottom right-hand corner. Once we've managed our sharing settings, you're now able to share your published site with any teachers who ask for access. To share your site, you're going to look for this icon towards the upper right-hand of your screen. It looks like a chain link. Click on that link, and it will give you your published site link. When you're ready to share, just click on Copy the link, and now you can paste this link to an email for your teacher, or to a spreadsheet, a Google Doc, or anywhere your teacher has asked you to share your site link. When customizing your page, you can look at these text box options to add a text, you can add images, you can explore embed codes, you can add items from your drive by clicking here, you can search for items that you know you're looking for specifically, or you can search through folders and items here in this page. You can also, similar to setting up a Google Slide or PowerPoint presentation, you can select Layouts from this menu over here on the right. You can add a table of contents, a set of images, a button that you can add hyperlinks out to other documents or sites, a divider to dress it up a bit, a YouTube video, your Google Calendar, maps, or any of these other Google Apps options. Next, we'll look at generating content to put on your website. Now let's take a look at generating the content for your site. Your digital portfolio will usually consist of the following pages and sections. However, your organization may depend on your personal style and which format you choose. On your homepage, remember to keep it clean, simple, and easy to read. Include a photo of you, make it a headshot, and make sure it's professional. Not anything silly or weird. For the rest of your site, consider including an about me section. Include your favorite subjects in school, a goal you have for the year, or something you wish you were recognized for. Think about what does success look like for you.  You can bullet things you've done in a club or any titles you have in your club underneath the club title. Include a what I'm reading section. List or link any books you're reading or a favorite book that you have. Find an image of the book title and make sure you cite the image. You could include a short description underneath the image of the book, of your favorite parts, characters, or anything to note. Include any accolades. Those are like celebrations. For example, maybe you gained five points on a test that you took last time. But don't put your actual test scores, that's just for you. Maybe you have perfect attendance that you're proud of, or you're on the honor roll. Or again, think back to any successes that you feel you've accomplished thus far. Include content pages for each one of your classes. Your teacher for each class will instruct you when you'll add content to these pages. You'll add content as you complete projects in your class. Just a tip, make sure that any Google document, slide, sheet, and etc. has the sharing permissions changed so that anyone with the link can view it. Include your passion project. Create a page for something you're passionate about. Do you have a YouTube channel, makeup tutorials, video game tutorials? Do you create things outside of school? Do you volunteer somewhere?  Do you write? Do you aspire to be a lifestyle blogger? Feel free to create pages that showcase who you are as a person. Make sure they showcase who you are as a professional. So if there's anything profane, inappropriate, or for an audience that would not be a future employer, then you shouldn't publish that content here.


Hello, and welcome to this screencast on section 11.4, Applications of Double Integrals. In this screencast, we are going to quickly recap some applications of double integrals that are discussed in your textbook. First, we'll see that double integrals can be used to compute the mass of certain objects. If we have a function delta that describes the density of a lamina, which is just a flat, thin object, defined by a planar region D, then the mass is given by the following double integral. We can also use double integrals to calculate area. If we have a closed bounded region D in the plane, the area of D is given by the following double integral. Note that this is actually related to the mass formula from the previous slide. If we assume that such an object has density equal to 1 everywhere, as we have in this integrand, then the object's mass will be equal to the area. Just as we could calculate the mass of a lamina, we can also calculate the coordinates of the center of mass. The coordinates of the center of mass of a lamina D with density function delta are given by the following formulas, which are in terms of double integrals. We can also use double integrals in applications such as probability. Simply put, a joint probability density function is a function that gives us the probability that some random variables take on a specific value. We assume that we have a joint probability density function f, a function of two independent variables x and y, defined on a domain D that satisfies the following conditions. First, f is non-negative for on D. We need this condition because probabilities are always non-negative. Next, the probability that x is between some values a and b and y is between some values c and d is given by the following double integral. Lastly, the probability that a point x, y is in D is equal to 1. This last condition just ensures that all outcomes are possible since the sum of the probabilities of all possible events must equal 1. Such a function as we have here can be used as the joint probability density function for various situations as you will see in our work in section 11.4.


Beginning with verse six, John writes, then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue and people, saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him. For the hour of his judgment has come and worship him who made heaven and earth the sea and springs of water. And another angel followed, saying, Babylon has fallen, is fallen that great city because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever. And they have no rest day or night who worship the beast and his image and whoever receives the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, right, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the spirit that they may rest from their labors and their works, follow them. And so as is my normal way of teaching in all, let me give to you an introduction, a reminder of some of the things that we've gone over recently and then we'll pick up at verse six and go through the passage before us. As we began chapter 14, I mentioned to you that this is a chapter that outlines for us what would be called the ultimate victory of Jesus Christ. I mentioned to you that it gives a panoramic view of the tribulation, but it does so from the standpoint of Jesus' victory. So as such, chapter 14 has been called, as I mentioned last week, a preview of coming attractions. Now the chapter contains a prophetic view of Jesus' ultimate triumph as well as his return to earth. And it reveals the start of what is called his millennial reign. The word millennial speaks of a thousand, his thousand year reign at the end of the tribulation and it speaks of his second coming. Now again, this material is not placed in chronological order. It is what is called a prophetic overview. So as we began chapter 14, well that chapter began with Jesus standing on Mount Zion with followers after his second coming. And as we'll see, the chapter ends with a series of announcements of judgments. We looked at verse one. Verse one reveals Jesus standing on Mount Zion with 144,000 and that would be a picture of Jesus standing victoriously after his return. And with him were the Jewish believers who were protected in the tribulation. These were mentioned to us in chapter seven as well as chapter nine. And John says to us that he heard the joyful praise coming from heaven because Jesus reigns. He said that he heard the 144,000 singing what was called a new song. The song they sang is a song that only the 144,000 can sing and they sing it because they were preserved during the most difficult time in human history. They went through the greatest persecution and greatest cataclysms and they were preserved. Now of course in one sense all redeemed sing a song of praise to God because we have been redeemed. We've been bought back at the expense of Jesus and his blood. But in their case they sing a song of redemption from a wellspring of different experiences. They had gone through and survived the tribulation. They were kept by God in a miraculous way. They like Noah had been kept from God's wrath on the earth by the grace of God. They saw others suffer, they saw others even die. But they had been protected from pain and death. These are the ones who remained pure undefiled throughout the tribulation. These are the ones who followed the Lord wherever he went. And in their mouth John said was found no deceit. John said that they were found to be without fault before the throne of God. Now when it says they were found without fault that doesn't mean that they were sinless but that they lived godly lives. And that's something that God did for them and that's something by the way that God will do for every believer, especially those who seek him and desire to be blameless. In 1 Peter chapter one, verses 15 and 16, the apostle wrote, as he who called you as holy, you also be holy in all your conduct because it is written be holy for I am holy. And so God desires us to live a life pursuing him living in a blameless fashion. When you read the book of Jude, the writer Jude reminded believers that God is the one who works within them and it's God who keeps them, it's God who guards them. And that's something that he gave praise to God for. As a matter of fact, he closes his book in that way in Jude verses 24 and 25. It says to him who was able to keep you from stumbling and to present you fallless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy to God our savior who alone is wise be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and forever, amen. God is able to present you fallless.  And he's able to keep you. When it says to him who is able to keep, that word keep is a Greek word that speaks not simply of holding, but it speaks of guarding.   So we're gonna be presented fallless because we've been washed by the blood of Jesus Christ and we have been washed and sanctified. We're called fallless because he has established us. He's declared us to be fallless. And that has resulted to our holding fast to and believing in his word. So that brings us to verse six here. And in verse six, we begin our study and we need to remember that chronologically this occurs near the end of the tribulation. So in verse six, John said, again, I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth to every nation, tribe, tongue and people. I saw another angel. We have a lot of angels in this church. We also have a lot of guys named Chewie but these are real angels that he's speaking of. I'm sorry, that just comes to mind and it comes out. I don't, it's not in my notes, but it's there anyway. We've been seeing angels in the book of Revelation from chapter four all the way to chapter 12. Chapter five spoke of multitudes of angels. Chapter 11 spoke of the seventh angel. Chapter 12 spoke of Michael and his angels. Well, this angels in addition to the angels that we already mentioned, the another angels that were mentioned in chapter eight and chapter 10. And this angel is unnamed, but notice the angel is flying in the midst of heaven. When it speaks of the midst of heaven, the midst of heaven is referring to what we would refer to as high noon. It's where the sun reaches its highest point. It's where the angel can be seen most clearly by people. Now, at this time, the world has gone through great devastation. The people of the earth have been hit hard by judgments, the seal judgment, the trumpet judgments. And these judgments have rocked the world and the inhabitants have been traumatized. And so during these judgments, we need to remember the gospel has continued being proclaimed. We spoke of the 144,000 and they were Jewish evangelists. But we also saw what are called the two witnesses. There are those who were saved under their ministry and they've all been preaching and sharing about Christ. We know that the two witnesses preached a message. They performed miracles before the people. We know that the gospel has gone out powerfully and relentlessly and people are listening to it. They're hearing it, but in spite of this, the world continues to reject the message of the gospel. In Revelation nine, 2021, it says, the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot either see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their immorality or their thefts. So the world has been hearing a message that begins with the word repent, turn away from. When you repent, what you're doing is you're actually changing your mind. Repentance speaks of a change of mind, a change of mind that ultimately is going to result in a change of direction. It is what is called the first word of the gospel, repentance, change your mind, metanoia in Greek. Change your mind about these things. Change your mind about your righteousness. Change your mind about your good deeds. Change your mind about how to get to heaven. Change your mind about who Jesus Christ is. Change your mind and agree with God. And what has happened is the people are not repenting. They're hearing and they're even seeing, but they're still rejecting. It's interesting how it speaks of the fact that they did repent of their murders and sorceries or immoralities, they're thefts. These are sins that are very clearly outlined in the commandments of God. When he speaks of sorcery, well sorcery violates the spirit of the first commandment which says thou shalt have no false gods. Idolatry violates the second commandment. You are to have no graven image. Murder violates the sixth commandment. Thou shalt not murder. Immorality violates the seventh commandment.  Thefts violate the eighth commandment. Thou shalt not steal. So these are people who are rejecting what God has said. They're rejecting his word. We see that the Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians chapter two, verse eight is called the lawless one. And his followers are also lawless. The Antichrist sets himself above the law of God and his followers do the same. They reject God's laws as they pursue him. And so this is taking place here as we look at this chapter. Well, what's going on again in verse six says, he says, I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth to every nation, tribe, tongue and people saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water. So this angel is preaching what is being called the everlasting gospel. When you read your Bible, you read the word gospel and it's described or spoken of in various ways. The word gospel, when I first got saved, they said, you need to believe the gospel but I didn't even know what the word gospel means. The word gospel in the original language means good news. Great news, believe the good news. And that's called the gospel. The gospel is the good news and in various ways the word gospel is spoken of in the Bible. It's spoken of, for example, as the gospel of the kingdom. It's spoken of the gospel of God. The gospel of peace is called the gospel of grace. It's called the gospel of salvation. So the word gospel is attached to various aspects of what God will do. But here it's called the everlasting gospel. And it's called the everlasting gospel because we are offered everlasting life through the gospel. How does one live forever in the presence of God by receiving the everlasting gospel, the gospel that gives to us everlasting life? In John 5.24, Jesus said, most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me as everlasting life shall not come into judgment but has passed from death into life. I say to you, hear my word and believe his word and believe is what is called responding to the gospel. This is the everlasting gospel that presents to us everlasting life. And it's a message that doesn't change. It's the only message that God gave to mankind that we might believe in eternal life. It's the ageless, it's the unchanged message indicating the righteousness of God. And that's why this gospel is to be communicated clearly without alteration. There are people who take elements of the gospel and they preach it, but they're changing it. They make it different. They're making it acceptable to people. The gospel is not to be made acceptable to people. The gospel actually makes people acceptable to God. And when it's preached properly and it's believed, it's received, the effects are eternal. You go to heaven because of it. You receive it, you believe it and your life is transformed because of it. And it's to be communicated in a way that it's not altered. There are those who alter the words but God's word says, no, don't be altering. Don't be changing my word. In Deuteronomy 1232, whatever I commend you be careful to observe it. You shall not add to it nor take away from it. You don't add to the word of God and you don't take away from it. That's because the word of God is pure. In Proverbs 30 verses five and six, it says this, every word of God is pure. He's a shield to those who put their trust in Him.  God's word is pure. The word pure speaks of being free of falsehood, free of error. It speaks of the truth that comes from the God of truth. And the gospel message is so important that those who twist it fall under great judgment. To take His word and to twist it to make it acceptable to others to hear, to remove elements of it because people get offended is not proper, it's not the right thing to do. God tells us to give it as it is because it's the truth that sets you free. Now, when Paul was writing to a church, the churches of Galatia, there were people who were creeping in, they were coming into the church and they were adding elements of law, elements of the Mosaic law to the gospel of Jesus and they were making it a hybrid message. They were saying that you really couldn't understand the gospel until you've been under the law of Moses. And so in order for you to be under the law of Moses and these are Gentiles, those who were filtering into the church were saying to the males who are Gentiles, you need to be circumcised and you need to come under the law. And in coming under the law, you're gonna understand the depth of grace. And Paul was greatly upset by that. And he actually wrote to the churches of Galatia. And in Galatians chapter one, verses six through nine, this is what he said. Paul said, I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you, let him be eternally condemned, as we have already said.  When people say, well, at least we believe in God, no, you may believe in a God. But remember, James said that the demons also believe in fear and tremble. Just because there's a belief involved in the reality of the other, of God, doesn't mean you're saved. And when people come in and they begin to alter the message of salvation, Paul said, may that person be anathema, may that person be eternally condemned. Why?  And in changing it, you're gonna end up stealing from people the joy of salvation. And so the message was delivered. And it hasn't been delivered many times after that. The message has been one time for all time, delivered. God doesn't have any new revelation that he's bringing. He didn't begin other religious faiths. In the book of Jude, verse three, it says, dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all and trusted to the saints. When Jude says, contend for the faith that was once for all, one time for all time. And he says to the church, contend for it. The word contend in the Greek language is where we get the word agonized from. It's speaking about striving to agonize and over this faith. The faith that he's speaking about isn't that faith that, oh, I believe it's deeper than that. The faith that he's speaking about is the gospel. It's the message of God, because the scriptures often are called the faith that has been delivered because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And so we're to strive, agonize to preserve this, to guard it, to keep it, and not to alter it, to believe it and to do it. And this is the gospel. But the antichrist and his false prophet are deceiving the world. The false prophet as we've been looking at him has performed signs and deceived the world through them. His false message, his false gospel has been for the world to worship the beast. In spite of all the sin and all the evil of the world, God is still giving people a chance to repent. And this chance, by the way, is not given to one nation, Israel. But this chance to repent and know him is for all people. It's a message designed to save any who receive it. Once again, notice in verse six, how it says, I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth to every nation, every tribe, every tongue, and every people. It's a message for any who would believe and receive. In the Old Testament, humanity is divided into Jew and Gentile. In the New Testament, you have Jew, you have Gentile, and you have the church. The church is made up of Jew and Gentile. We all come to faith in God through Jesus Christ, and it doesn't matter what continent your ancestors are originally from. It doesn't matter, does it? I say this every time. I'll say it again because I really believe that there's been so much said recently, so much pitting of people groups against people groups, so much of it, so much of it. The only color that matters to God is red, the blood of Jesus Christ. Never forget that. Never forget that. It doesn't matter, I have no problem. I'm not gonna preach long about this, but this is one of the things that really moves my heart, really moves my heart. I'm trying to find the right words. I always struggle. Do you mind if I'm gonna be real with you for a minute, maybe more real than some of you? Maybe you'll never come back again. I'll give you a reason not to right now. And those who are watching will see you turning off. I don't know how to say this. It bothers me so much. I don't know how to say it without coming off like I'm angry at somebody. And I'm not, I'm more angry at the spirit of this age. If you understand that in its context, you'll understand what I'm trying to say. I really, I was reading something recently and all of us probably have heard this at the Coca-Cola Company and the comment, be less white, I'm a Mexican-American, okay? So is my wife, my kids. I was offended on behalf of white people. Forgive me, I don't know how to say this, but it bothered me. Why are we dividing this nation in this way? Why are we keeping this anger stoking it and provoking it and causing people to feel bad about being who they are?   That's a fact. That's a fact. We love each other. Isn't that what a Christian is supposed to? Didn't Jesus say by this, all men shall know you are my disciples? If you have love for one another, he didn't say, if you're white, you're out here, you stop being white, he didn't say that and it makes me sick, I'm angry about it. I really am. We need to be one in Christ, we need to be. That made me angry. It made me angry. I'm used to the world stinking, the world stinks. Let's face it, the mindset of the world stinks. They're lost. I don't hate them, but it sure bothers me. And when they make people feel bad for being who they are, that is wrong. And I pray to God, not one of us in this church or watching online ever treats somebody different because they're not of your ethnicity or your race. May we love one another the way Jesus love does. That's how it works. And the gospel goes out to the whole world. Every people, every nation, every tongue, all of them, white because we're all sinners. We've been created in the image of God. We have fallen by sin, we have sin natures. We shall be redeemed through the blood of Christ and we will go to heaven.  It's not gonna be that way. I don't know, it's so simple. It is so simple. I don't get it. I really don't. I don't get it. Let's love one another. Let's take the gospel to the world. Let people hear that Jesus loves them and let's not fall for this garbage of Satan where he's trying to divide us over colors and languages. Let's love one another because that's the mark of a Christian. That's what we are. And it really bothers me. It's one of those things I told Maria. I said, this bothers me. Be less white.   That is, anyway, I got it out and we'll keep going now. That is one of my pet peeps. It's one of the things that I think is so wrong to just keep saying racism, racism, racism. And minorities can't be racist, only whites. That's just wrong. People have their prejudices. We all think this is better than that. You don't think so. I was talking to a young man who's Puerto Rican and Mexican. And we're talking and I said, you know, Puerto Rican, Mexican. I said, what do you identify? We're a conversation, just a conversation. What do you identify with? He says, it doesn't matter to me. He said, it doesn't matter to me. I said, great, I said, okay, let me see if it matters to you. I said, there's a boxing match, a Puerto Rican's fighting with a Mexican. Who do you want to win? He says, a Puerto Rican. I said, you're Puerto Rican, you just don't know it. That's a fact, right? That's a fact. That's what we do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, well, in life, may we get to the point God would have us to be and understand all his sin and fall short of the glory of God, that the blood of Jesus Christ has sent cleanses us from all sin that were born again, brought into a family, a family that is an everlasting family, one that we didn't choose, but that he made possible. And so that person next to you right now, if they're from a different ethnicity, if they're from a different language, whatever it may be, if they're saved and you're saved, you are related. You did not select them anymore that I selected my brother and sisters. My dad didn't walk up to me and say, son, you know, I've got your brother and I got you. May I have permission to have two daughters? Nope. No, you may not and get rid of my brother. He's ugly. I didn't, they didn't ask permission. Jay just threw them into my family and I was happy without them, but he brought them anyway. You know, that's what they do. Families, you didn't choose. You didn't choose who you're related to. You just are. So what do you do? Fight with them or get along with them. They're your family. They belong to you. They belong to you.  We belong together. Kind of like that little purple dinosaur said, we're all one family. That's a fact. That's not in the gospel, but it's true. So anyway, let's get back to the last question. Let's get back to the Bible, shall we? God gives people a chance to repent. It's not given to one people group. It's given to all. And it's a message designed to save any who would receive it. That's what the apostle Peter said on the day of Pentecost as he was preaching in Acts chapter two, verses 38 and 39, it said, Peter said to them, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off as many as the Lord our God will call every nation, every tribe, every tongue, every people are given a clear call to come to God. And the message of salvation is for any and all who believe from every nation. Jesus gave the church the mission of sharing the gospel. He gave the message, he called the messengers and he empowered them to take the message to the world. In Mark 16, 15, he said to them, go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature. And Acts one eight, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth to the end of the earth. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. I think quite a number of believers have failed to say to the Lord God, may your power overwhelm me. May your Holy Spirit come upon me and strengthen me. I believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I believe that God wants to not save me alone but he also wants to fill me with his power. The scripture makes it clear I received power after that the Spirit has come upon me. And I remember when I got saved I was in a Bible study in Lehabra at a friend of mine's house and we were all praying and we were all saying, God fill us with your spirit. Fill us with your spirit. Baptize me in your power. I want everything you have for me. And I remember when I received what is called the baptism of the Holy Spirit and God emboldened my heart and he strengthened me and he gave me a courageous spirit to speak the truth in love. And I believe quite a number of people in the church are attempting to live spiritual lives while quenching the Holy Spirit at the same time. So we wake up and we say, God in Jesus' name today, fill me and use me for your glory. I want to be used by you. And God I want to take this message and share it because it's God's desire to save any who would believe in 1st Timothy 2 verse 4. God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. And that's the task the church has been assigned. In Romans 10, 14 and 15, how then can they call on the one they have not believed in? How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news? So we take this message and the power of the spirit and Jesus had said that before the end comes, the world is to hear the gospel. In Matthew 24 verse 14, he said, this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, then the end will come. Well, at this time, the gospel has been preached on every continent and within each nation, there remains those who have yet to hear the gospel. So the preaching of the angel reaches those who have not responded to the gospel yet and his message is clear and uncompromising. He's crying to the people of the world. Notice what he says again, verse seven, fear God, give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come and worship him who made heaven and earth the sea and the springs of water. The message is cried out to the people on earth, bringing unbelievers worldwide to Christ. Notice he says in the message, fear God, give him glory and worship him. Fear God, change your allegiance from the beast, give it to God. The fear God is to live in the conscious awareness of his holiness and his power. It's to be aware of his righteous anger towards sin. It's to live avoiding the habit of sin. You see, the unbeliever has no fear of God within them. Romans 3 18 says of unbelievers that there's no fear of God before their eyes and because they have no fear of God, they yield themselves to all manner of sin. They don't see any reason to fear God. They see no reason to follow him and you see this attitude in the world, you see it all the time. There's no fear of God in them. In Job 21 14 and 15, it says the wicked say to God, depart from us, for we do not desire the knowledge of your ways. Who is the Almighty that we should serve him and what profit do we have if we pray to him? We don't want anything to do with you. We don't want to know your ways. That's what the wicked. There's no fear of God in them. But when you have the fear of the Lord, it leads us to honor and to respect, to love and to worship him. The fear of the Lord is what produces a life of holiness and wisdom as well as security. In 2 Corinthians 7 verse one, Paul said, therefore having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. In Proverbs 1 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. So fear the Lord, give him glory. Give him glory instead of giving glory and following the antichrist. To give glory is knowing the greatness of the majesty of God and responding properly. To give glory is the act of assigning dignity, honor, and praise to God. Like it says in Psalm 86 12, I will praise you, oh Lord my God, with all my heart, I will glorify your name forevermore. To worship the Lord is because we know that worshiping God comes because he alone is worthy of honor and praise. And the refusal to give glory to God is the heart of pride and rebellion. In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon wrote 12 chapters. And in the book, he was speaking, all of us have read Ecclesiastes. He speaks of the vanity of life. He talks about things being vain, whether it was having a lot of money, whether it was having a lot of women drinking or whatever. He said, it's all vanity working hard and all of that. It's all at the end, he said vanity. So he goes through 11 solid chapters of telling us how vain life is. And then he concludes in chapter 12 verse 13 by saying, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. And this is it, fear God, keep his commandments. This is man's all. And all the things that I've done and all the things that I know, and this is a man when you read the Bible, you see that he had an ivory throne that was overlaid with gold. That gold during his day was like dust. That he had so much riches and he was known for all of his intelligence and wisdom. He was known for all of these things. But at the very end of his life, he says this is the conclusion of everything. Fear God, keep his commandments. That's all there is to it. Took him 12 chapters to conclude that. Well, why fear God? Because the hour of judgment has come. The opportunity of turning to God will soon no longer be possible. The bold judgments are about to fall upon the earth and after the bold judgments, the return of Christ. So he says, worship him. Worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water. Worship God, who created all things. Worship God, he deserves all glory. Psalm 19 verses one through three says it like this. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his hand to work. Day unto day utter speech, night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Isaiah 40 verses 25 and 26. God says, to whom then will you liken me or to whom shall I be equal? Says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high. See who created these things, who brings out their hosts by number. He calls them all by name, by the greatness of his might and the strength of his power, not one is missing. So worship the judge and creator of all things, not the creation itself. Under such tribulation, people are not repenting, but they are concerned with daily needs. They're pursuing their food, their water, clean air, that they don't see God's hand as he brings judgment. And so now we have another angel, verse eight. Another angel followed saying Babylon is fallen, is fallen that great city because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. Now this angel is in preaching good news. This angel is bringing judgment. So that reveals that the first angel's message was ignored by the people. We're gonna see this verse here about Babylon. We'll see more about that when we enter into chapter 18. But as you look at this, people have a question about Babylon because some say that it represents Jerusalem. Others say, no, it's speaking of a literal city, Babylon. And there are others who say, no, Rome is being spoken of here. Well, Babylon most definitely speaks of anti-Christ political, economic, and religious empire. When you read your Bible, you read of Babylon. The first Babylon is mentioned in Genesis and was guilty of rebellion against God. This place was founded by Nimrod, and Nimrod established what is called an organized system of idolatry. When you read in Genesis chapter 10 verses eight through 10, it reads, kush begot Nimrod. The name Nimrod speaks of rebellion. Nimrod means rebellion. He began to be a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore, it is said like Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. The word before can also be in some commentators, would say is the proper translation could be translated against the mighty hunter who is really against the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Eric, Akkad, and Colne in the land of China. And so when you read that, you read of Nimrod who established Babel. And you read Genesis chapter 11, and it speaks concerning a tower. And we all know the tower, the tower of Babel. The people built Babel and they built the tower to keep from being scattered over the whole earth. God had said, be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth. But a rebellion against that, they said, we need to do this, lest we be scattered. They rejected what God had said there in Babel. So they built a tower. And people when I was younger, especially, I remember hearing people say, how backwards the people were at that time. They thought that they could build a tower that would go all the way to heaven, the throne of God. That's not what this tower was. The tower that's being spoken of isn't a tower that they thought that they could climb stairs to get to heaven. It was a tower that is also translated a ziggurat. And the word ziggurat is speaking of what is called an astrological tower. What they were doing is they were using this astrological tower to chart the stars. And what they began to do is practice astrology. They began to worship the creation rather than the creator. And they rebelled against God. And that's what they did. And so you know the story, what did God do? God judged the people. He confounded their languages and scattered them. But the seeds of idolatry had already germinated in Babylon. And the seeds of idolatry, the fruit of idolatry spread around the world. That's why in Revelation 17, verse five, as we'll see when we get there, that's why Babylon is referred to as mystery. Babylon, mother of harlots. Babylon is called mother of harlots because from Babylon sprang all false religions. You see, in the beginning, man united to reject and rebel against God, but they do it also at the end. And the world will be intoxicated with the Babylonian false religion of antichrist. Revelation 17, two says, the kings of the earth committed fornication and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So verse eight, the angel says, Babylon is fallen, is fallen. You see, instead of the wine of the spirit, they drink deeply of her false wine and they're judged. Verse nine, the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast and his image, receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which has poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever and they have no rest day or night who worship the beast and his image and whoever receives the mark of his name. Everyone, as we've already seen, will be required to receive a mark in order to buy or sell. Worshiping the beast and his image demonstrates loyalty and allegiance to the antichrist. So the scripture says those who drank the wine of the harlot will drink of the wrath of God. And the full fury of the wrath of God is expressed in full strength undiluted. They're gonna experience a full fury of God's wrath and it is poured out on them full strength. There'll be no mercy. There'll be no restraint given to those who rejected him. Psalm 75, seven and eight, it is God who judges. He brings one down, he exalts another. In the hand of the Lord is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours it out and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs. Notice what happens in verse 10. He shall be tormented with fire and primstone in the presence of the holy angels. They're gonna experience continual and permanent torment in the lake of fire. Matthew 25, 41 says, he will say to those on his left, depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Revelation 20 verse 15, if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. They will be banished from God's presence. They will have no fellowship with him. They will have nothing in terms of relationship because they rejected him. I don't know of this particular church. I don't know churches in general. All I know is when I got saved, I was told to share the gospel with people. I was told that the only hope that the world has is Jesus Christ. I haven't changed for 50 years. I still believe that, of course it's true. There's only one hope and that's Jesus Christ. There's only one way to God, that's Jesus Christ. If there's heaven awaiting us, Jesus went to prepare a place for us. And he said, I'll come again, receive you unto myself, that where I am there, you may be also. So I have a hope and I have my rewards. Everything is reserved in heaven. And one of these days, I will see him face to face. That's what I was taught at the beginning. And for 50 years, it's only become more and more certain. And I still remember that was what provoked me to share with my friends. That's why I told people about Jesus Christ. Because there's only two options, either eternal life or eternal judgment. There's only two options. There's not a multitude of options. No, there's no second chances. I've had people say, well, you know, if there's such a thing as reincarnation. Well, the Bible says it's appointed and demanded die once and after this, the judgment. There are no second chances. Well, I'll go into purgatory and then after a while. No, the Bible doesn't speak of any place called purgatory. That doesn't happen. You're not cleansed by fire.  And so that is not a true place.  There's only Jesus or judgment. And see, I came to faith in Christ. And so I have been set free. That's what the gospel gave to me. Freedom in Christ and the power to live for him. And that's why I share the gospel the way I do.  No, I don't know that that's opinionated. I simply believe what God said. God said it, I believe it, that settles it. The word of God is what it is. It's the truth. He doesn't lie.  That's what he says. And the judgment that is awaiting is not pleasant. In Daniel 12, verse two, it says, many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life, but some to shame and everlasting contempt. In Mark nine, verses 43 through 48, Jesus speaks of a hand, a foot, an eye that causes you to sin.  In second Thessalonians one, eight and nine, Paul said, in flaming fire, take in vengeance on those who don't know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. And that's why I told my dad, you're a good man.  Because I believed what God said and that provoked me to have the nerve to tell my father something like that. Why? Because it's true. If you don't have Jesus Christ, you're gonna be judged. Either you have Jesus who pays your price or you pay it yourself, but it will be paid. And this angel and the others are spoken of here. They're speaking concerning what is gonna take place. That everlasting gospel can be believed and Christ can be received. But when they reject him and receive the mark of the antichrist, they are doomed forever. And finally, he says in verses 12 and 13, here is the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God in the faith of Jesus. I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, right, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works follow them. Those who have trusted Christ will hold fast to him. They live in obedience to him. The tribulation saints die with an assurance. They hold on to the promises of God. They believed the promise of eternal life and they're blessed. And in verse 13, it says their works follow them. The record of their service to God is honored with reward. Hebrews six, verse 10 says for God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward his name in that you have ministered to the saints and do minister. God doesn't forget the good that you've done and he rewards you accordingly. So heaven is not a reward to us for being good. It is a gift to us for believing in Christ. Rewards come because we have faithfully served him. And ultimately God says, I don't forget what you've done for me and I'll reward you accordingly. So those who don't believe end up being tormented eternally. We don't understand what the word eternity means. If we had a better understanding of it, maybe it would provoke us more. It's like if you went out and started counting all the grains of sand in the world, every beach, every desert, every grain of sand one at a time until you've finished the task of counting every grain of sand that we have on the face of the earth. And then you start again and then you start again. And then you start again, eternity never ends. You can go to heaven. The eternal gospel that gives to you eternal life at God's right hand, our pleasure is forevermore. And you worship him and you praise him and you glorify him. But your other option is to awaken into everlasting contempt. It's a decision you make.   Yes, Lord, I will follow you. Yes, Lord, I do believe you.  That's what we've done as believers, right? We have said yes to God. But even in the midst of all that's going on, there will be people at the end and to the end continue to reject. And we say, how can they do that? Well, they're doing it right now. Some of you are watching right now online and you're doing it right now. You need to get right with God today. And there are some in this room or perhaps in the overflow that aren't right with God. You need to get right with God today because today is the day of salvation.